Even Google is Watching

Have you ever Google Mapped your house and looked at the satellite view?  We did that recently and found that they have an updated picture of our property the day the forms were being set.  I looked back at the calendar and it looks like it was May 11th.  We thought that was pretty neat.

1073 Long Rd ~ May 11, 2012

Trim continues to progress.  Doors are hung.  Most of the cabinets installed.  The deck is done.  Porch posts are almost done.  Front steps are done.  The electrician has installed the exterior lights.  Closets are painted so I am cleared to install the wire shelving we took out of the old house.

Preston helped me put the finish on the stair treads this weekend and will bring them out for the installer tonight.  Preston finished up the cabinets for the living room and brought those out to the house.  The face frames are made from the oak floor joists from the old house.  The wood grain is unlike any oak I've ever seen.  Just beautiful!  He will make the doors from this as well.

oak floor joists after planed

We had one of the massive 12"x12" beams cut into 2" slabs by the flooring guys.  We are going to make them into counter tops for the kitchen island and pantry cabinets.  We cut the 17' slabs into manageable lengths last night and will make a make-shift dehumidifying tent for them to sit in for about 10 days before we start making them.

used to be a 12"x12" beam

will soon be a gorgeous counter top

I finally completed the purchase of the cabinet knobs/pulls, exterior door knobs and light fixtures.  I put it off until now thinking it would just take a couple weeks to receive the orders, but I'm surprised how many things I ordered are back ordered.  Frustrating, but hopefully they will be here before the house is supposed to be done! 

The guy from The Stone Studio came this week and made the template for the soapstone counters that go on the stove and sink walls.  He is guessing he'll be back to install them late next week.

What doesn't get wood or soapstone will be done in granite.  I found a place that has remnant pieces fabricated and installed for about $40 sf ... a great deal compared to $65 $70 I found every where else.

The schedule slipped another week.  The interior trim carpenter got a late start ... but he is doing a great job.  We are now looking at Nov 2nd as the completion date.

Sneak Peek

All kinds of fun stuff has been happening lately ... here's a peek ....

Colton and Valur playing on top of the mountain of dirt.

Colton and I brought all the doors out to the house and set them in the jambs.  This is about 1/2 of them.

Deck stairs were built yesterday, railings on ... back deck almost done

Trim started today in the garage... seemed weird to do all this fuss on the garage windows and doors.

Laundry room cabinets Preston built.  The red one will have the galvanized tub basin converted to a sink.  The middle one will hold laundry baskets.  The right one is Annie's bed.  It will have a cushion inside.

French doors between the entry and living room.  I built the jambs myself!  Preston stained and poly'ed the doors.

1/2 bath trimmed with door installed and vanity ... it was one we had in the old house.  I bought the dresser and Preston converted it to a sink vanity.  The trim will be painted.  It looks funny because it's short pieces of wood that have been finger jointed into boards.

Front door trimmed

Kitchen cabinets.  Preston built these.  The center one if for the oven/microwave.  The adjacent ones will have doors on the bottom and shelves on the top.

Here is more of the kitchen... the frig and stove are on this wall.  The black cabinet is the island.

View of the French doors from the living room.  The other door goes to the basement.

close up of the window trim

More cabinets Preston made.  These will go in the mudroom.  The are just like the blue ones in the kitchen.  One of the bases will be Valur's bed.

Here's a peek at the floor we put in the laundry, mudroom and 2nd floor bath.  It's luxury vinyl tile which is a hard, PVC-like material.  It's very easy to clean ... a great place for mudroom & dogs! 

Our bedroom door and bathroom door.

Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!

Sunday and Monday morning, we woke to frost on the ground and 32 degrees.  Yes, we are still showering in our outdoor bath house.  It really has been a pleasant part of the summer.  There's about a 12-15" view above the shower walls.  Depending on the time of day you shower, you might see the moon and stars or the sun rising or the sun setting.  A couple early mornings I heard an owl hooting. 

But 32 degrees is just too cold to find the joys in an outdoor shower.  At least on the weekend, I can wait for it to warm up.  But even when it's 60 degrees, if it's windy, that wind whips right up and over the shower wall and no amount of warm water keeps you warm.  So Sunday, I decided it was time to winterize the bath house.  I got some plastic and my "wack-a-mole" stapler (a hammer stapler) and we wrapped the top opening with plastic. 

Admittedly, Monday morning ... 32 degrees ... I still wasn't brave enough to try it out, so my late-day Sunday shower and a sponge bath in the inside laundry tub Monday morning had to do.  This morning was a LOT warmer ... 46!  So I decided to try a space heater.  That worked really well.  It was just enough to heat the little space up for the few minutes I was out there.

Meanwhile, Preston did email the builder and ask him if he could get the plumber to finish the upstairs shower. The enclosure and rough plumbing is installed and the water has been run to the house. So we just need the water softener, faucet/shower head and a shower curtain and we're all set. We are still looking at at least 5 weeks before we can move in. So this would be nice to have it hooked up early.

Preston traveled last week, was home for the weekend and gone again this week. So he scrambled Saturday to finish the cabinets he built and take them to the house for the installer. Colton and I took the doors out to the house. Sunday, Preston and I built the jambs for the 3 new doors we had to buy. Last night, Colton and I started to set the doors in the jambs. We'll finish that tonight.

The decks have been under construction last week and this week. Here are some of the progress pictures.

Wood Floor Sweat Equity

One of my most desired features of our new home was to have reclaimed lumber floors.  About 4-5 years ago, Colton and I went to our local home show and we met a father / son, owners of Tuscarora Wood, who took down old barns and milled the wood into flooring.  I kept them in mind and Preston & I saw them again this winter at the show.  They have gotten so busy, they no longer take down the barns and just buy from those who do.  They sell mostly wholesale to companies out west.  Compared to buying hardwood floors from a local flooring store, I thought their prices were very reasonable and not much more.  There just isn't anything that compares to the richness and natural beauty. 

If you remember, we also pulled out some of the old oak floors from our old house.  They were a full 1" thick, but the tongue and grooves were in rough shape, so they were able to take the wood to their mill and mill all four sides with new T&G.  This was white oak and some ash, so we put that in the entry.  The rest we purchased from them was red oak which is in the living room and kitchen.

When they provided the quote for about 1100 square feet, they broke out the line item for material, installation, sanding & finishing.  Since we had sanded and finished the floors in our old house, this seemed like something we could do ourselves and save the $4100.

To save another $300 in pre-delivery charge (net $200 after fuel), Preston drove up to Covington about an hour away and picked up the pallet of wood.  We offered to bring the wood into the house ... 3 or 4 boards at a time and have it stacked for them.  2-1/2 hours later we had it all in there.  When I save money by doing something myself, I like to calculate the "hourly rate" for the labor.  Not counting the drive time, just stacking the wood came out to $40/hour.  Not too bad.

After they installed the floors, Rod mentioned that they would plug all the round holes (where pegs used to be when they were beams) with slices of old pegs and epoxy them in.  He also offered to epoxy the other "imperfections" ... I thought that would be a good use of money vs. time, so we had him do that.  What I underestimated was how "generous" they would be with the epoxy.  All of the epoxy would then need to be sanded down smooth with the surface of the floor.  If you've never sanded epoxy, let me tell you that a walk-behind drum sander with 60-grit paper will just ride over the surface of an epoxy "lump." 

So we rented the drum sander, a disk sander (also a walk-behind) and an edge sander ... which is a single disk sander, but must be handled on your knees (or bent over).  We started sanding Thursday night ... 4 hours later (8 between the 2 of us), it still looked like an epoxy war zone.  We hit the high spots, but there was still so much to be done. 

I took Friday off and started at 8am.  After a few minutes with a little hand sander, I thought the only thing that was going to get this was the edge sander.  This thing is super heavy and if you don't have a tight grip on it, it will take you for a ride.  But it was the only thing that would cut thru the epoxy in any reasonable amount of time.  So I spent the entire day wrestling with this monster across 1100 sq feet. 

Preston came home mid-day and helped a bit more in the afternoon.  By 8pm, I could barely move and we still weren't done... close, but not quite.  So we went to bed and got up early to sand a couple more hours.  We loaded the sanders up and returned them to the rental company.  I came home and had just a little touch up to do with our sander.  Then it was time to vacuum and clean the floors.  That took another 5 hours or so.  It's one of those really important steps that you don't want to rush thru.  I started by sweeping the dust off the walls, then vacuuming with the grain and then against it.  Then mop the floor with paint thinner to get up the last little bit.

Finally about 5pm on Saturday, I was ready to start the finish.  We used Waterlox which is a tung oil-based resin.  I love this stuff.  It soaks into the floors, but provides a waterproof surface at the same time.  Unlike polyeurethane, it doesn't just sit on top like a candy coating.  And if you have a spot that gets damaged, you can just sand it and brush on more in that one spot.  Plus it just looks rich and "old." 

Since we bought it in 2005 for the old house, the price at gone from about $55 / gallon to double that.  I learned later that the Ohio EPA had passed VOC regulations and required the product to meet low VOC standards to be sold in the state.  So, that doubled the estimate on the floor finishing!

I put a coat on Saturday, another Sunday around noon and got up at 4am on Monday and put on another coat before going to work.  It then needed to sit for 48 hours before we could cover with rosin paper for foot traffic. 

So let's see if our 60 hours of labor was worth it ...

Sander rental ....    $280
Waterlox ....          $860
Finishing supplies ... $40
Breakeven labor costs $50/hour ... not too bad!

But it still confirms why I went to college ... back to work Monday to REST!

So here are pictures ...

sanding with the drum sander

so imagine you've been sanding for hours and your dog comes into the house on the bare wood floors looking like this ...

finished sanding

start the finishing ... pretty easy ... just roll it on

even low VOC requires a mask

first coat looks pretty blotchy

2 coats done

a little glossy but that will tone down in the first couple months as it cures

3 coats done

that wire sticking up will be an electrical outlet. 

this is the entry ... white oak from our old house.

After the 2 days of drying, there were 2 moths that had landed on the Waterlox when it was wet.  What a mess the dust on those little creatures can make!  Their wing dust dried into the varnish, so I had to sand it down a bit to get it out.  Will finish with a final coat when the house is complete / before moving in.