Stressed

The past week was quite stressful from a build perspective which I think happens with every project. In this case more budget issues, sloppy exterior trim work, concerns about the felt paper and Tyvek that’s been exposed to the sun and weather for far longer than it is supposed to be and issues with interfacing the felt, Tyvek and other elements to insure no water leakage. Hopefully we’re getting to the end of stressful part and can begin to get excited about our new house instead of stressing over it.

South dining window ready for painting.

Mis-aligned trim that needs repair. 

The front wall is progressing. It’s quite amazing watching José and José create this wall.

After a number of issues with poor quality exterior trim it’s been good having Pedro on board doing work like this.

Foam insulation in the lower wall of the conservatory.

Painting trim on the dormers. No way I would go up there and do that.

Trying to find a stain for the French Oak to match the unstained White Oak. Spoiler: Perry nailed it.

Jim insulating the attached garage. 

Hydronic heat tube in the breezeway. This image makes it look a lot longer than it really is.

Lots of filler for the French Oak in the living room.

Pedro installing siding on the studio.  To his right is the laser (green line) that he uses to align each corse. 

The bosses: Krysta, Marita and my sweetie discussing materials and finishes in the Kipling House office. I can’t say how much I appreciate having people of such great talent insuring that things look great. These three women make one bodaciously awesome team.

Romero moving stuff around to clean up the site for better parking and truck access.

Satellite Sander/Buffer ready to finish the main level floors before staining and clear coat.

Mitch doing a final buffing before staining.

Stained and clear coated. We think it turned out great. 

Compass rose where the sort of north-south and east-west hallways intersect. Sort of because the house sits about 6° off due north. The compass points north.

Looking out on the east gardens from the upstairs hallway.

More of Bob’s notes. This for a hump in the sheetrock that requires removing the sheetrock, fixing the hump and re-sheetrocking.

Sam and Dan covered the new floors with fiber cloth, then red paper around the edges and then masonite (bottom) which will be sealed w/ red tape. This will protect the floors until the house is nearly complete.

Mud in the guest bath. If you look close you’ll notice a green laser line across the top of the screed. 

Patched Tyvek. And hopefully a good waterproof patch.

First batch of interior trim materials. Where you can see exposed wood floor is where cabinets will be installed.

Ben installing shingle siding. We’ve appreciated his craftsmanship and attention to detail.

Mud for the mudroom. The green laser line is above where the finished surface needs to be by exactly the height of the screed. He works it down until the laser runs just across the top. We had fun the other day talking about how many people working on this project remember construction before lasers. Only a tiny handful. Our first show to use lasers were actually early construction lasers. We stretched some saran wrap across a speaker, put a bit of mercury (no idea how dangerous it was then) in the middle (we bought a lot of thermometers), fed the kick drum to the speaker and then aimed the laser at the bouncing-to-the-beat mercury which reflected it up on to a screen or through haze. Nothing like today’s shows but we were pretty cool in the 70’s.

Cabinets in the south end of the upstairs hallway. Through the cabinets is the laundry. Having the cabinets themselves form the wall gave us a very valuable 5” of additional space in the very tight laundry.

José’s beginning work on the steps for the sunken patio.

Bill found this among the tiles and made sure it had a prominent place in the floor. Very cool to think about what caused this to form.

The nearly finished breezeway floor looks great.  It took a lot of planning by Marita, Bill, Bob and others to insure such a great result.