Flooring in progress

The siding and other exterior work was done last week. Here's a picture of the back of the house:

And the porch:

 We decided to cover the porch ceiling with some tongue and groove cedar boards. We'll stain them to match (as well as possible) the Nichiha shakes on the gables. The framers did cover the columns with cedar after this picture was taken. We'll stain those to match the gable shakes as well. Obviously, we still have to do the stone work, and the front door is just temporary

The work has now moved to the inside. My brother-in-law Bill and his friend Mike are doing the tile work. We're doing porcelain tile in the back hallway, laundry room, guest bath on the first floor and the main bath upstairs. In the master bath, we're doing travertine tiles. Bill and Mike got the Durock installed last week. This week they'll start laying tile and working on the shower pan in the master bath. After that, they'll start hanging interior doors.

I'm doing the wood floors. We chose Cumaru, a very hard wood from South America, also known as Brazilian Teak or Brazillian Chestnut. It really doesn't look like either teak or chestnut, but that's what they call it. It does look fantastic, but it moves a lot. We're okay with small gaps appearing between boards--we already experienced it n the last house, and other than installing a humidifier, there really isn't much we can do about it.

In the last week, I laid flooring in the kitchen, the front hall, and about a third of the family room. Hopefully this week, I'll finish the dining room, the entry, the rest of the family room, and the breakfast nook. After those are done, I'll finish milling the trim, and get started installing it.

I'll post some interior pictures when we get a bit further along. The progress, and the blog posts, will slow down now-- I'm spending more time doing what seems to be real work, so I'm too lazy to blog very frequently.

Painting is done

So here are some of the pictures I promised. We made progress on both the interior and exterior this week. I'll start with the exterior. The framers got further along on the siding and finishing up the front porch. So the front of the house looks like it's almost done 

The Tyvek house wrap you see will eventually be covered by stone. But that will be a while. The south side of the house looks good too:

If the good weather holds, they'll finish the exterior framing and siding tomorrow. I'll try to post some more pictures of the finished exterior over the weekend.

The painters finished the second coat of paint today (that coat only took them about two hours). Here's the view when you walk in the front door:

And a view front the other direction, taken from the family room. You can see the breakfast nook, kitchen, front door, staircase, and even some of the dining room from the family room:

Here's the family room:

That's it for tonight. More pictures over the weekend.

Drywall is done

A quick update with no pictures. They finished the drywall last week, and sprayed primer and texture on the walls today. They'll let it dry for a day, and come back to paint everything--walls and ceilings--one color.   Things are looking really good inside.  The insulators will come back tomorrow to insulate the workshop stairs. Then we'll actually be able to turn the heat on (now that it's been on for over a month in the workshop).

The exterior is almost done. Just the shakes in the gable ends and finish work on the front porch, and it will be all done. Hopefully, the weather will cooperate and let us get it done this week.  We've had quite a bit of cold, windy weather in the last few weeks that has slowed things down quite a bit. 

I started planing the trim. Burned out my Makita planer yesterday, and replaced it with a Dewalt. I got one side of each board finish planed, and about 600 board feet planed on both sides. Take my word for it: 2500 board feet is a lot of wood. Two and a half times as much as I've done for any project in the past (that includes the kitchen in Waukesha, the wood floors and fence in Lake Zurich). 

We ordered the tile, and the wood floorinig (Cumaru) is sitting at the warehouse. They'll deliver the wood flooring on Thursday (the day after the interior is painted); hopefully, we'll get the tile by the end of the week too.  The cabinetmaker was in last week to measure. It will take about a month to get the cabinets done. We'll be in good shape if we have the tile and wood floors laid and the interior doors installed by the time the cabinets are installed.

With me spending so much time at the site (every night and all weekend), Megan has to do double duty with Zeke. So I think she's working more than I am on this project...

I'll have pictures later this week. Hopefully by then the interior will be painted and the siding completed.