Bringing Up Bobbin

Her kingdom

I'm watching TV with Bobbin this evening before bed. We're staring at The Baby Channel - she still loves it. After 8pm it's filled with images of happy cutsy animals accompanied by soft lullaby music in the background.

As we sit bleary-eyed, two deer come bounding across the screen. Bobbin points and exclaims "Mommy, look at those deer! They're just like mine!"

A few minutes later an owl appears on screen and settles onto a tree branch. Bobbin's response: "Mommy, that's an owl. I have one of those. He lives in my fowest".

It's true. Deer and owls abound on our property with daily sightings (and feedings) of the first, and occasional encounters (close and far) of the second.

Tim and I are merely dwarves to her Snow White.

Spring is in the air

I woke up this morning and looked out the window and saw two ducks - a male and a female - wandering the edge of our wetlands. The female duck was leading the way, and the male duck was clearly acting as lookout, straining his neck and watching every which way for signs of danger.

The female duck finally ducked into the tall grass of the wetlands and hasn't come out. The male duck is standing guard just outside the place she went in, standing at attention, still and alert.

I'm willing to bet that before spring is over, we hear the little chirps of baby ducklings in our wetlands :-)

Man I love living here!

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See... we do other stuff too...

While our world DOES absolutely revolve around Baby Girl, we do manage to get out and do stuff :-) Tim broke out his chain saw yesterday (the one I got him for Christmas last year!) and got rid of the vine maple that was crowding the base of the cedar tree. He had a good time ;-)

Baby Girl and I watched from a distance. For the most part we did ok. Only once did my heart leap into my throat. ;-)

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Welcome Home

Just a couple of photos to share at this point. We still have a lot of work to do. The only artwork we've hung is our Italian painting from our honeymoon trip - over the fireplace mantle just as we had planned :-). Afterall, they say "home is where you hang your Italian landscape of Rome..." Ok, maybe they don't say that. But it's symbolic for us :-)

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Yeah... this works... I could live here...

We took Tommy with us on our visit to the new house today, now that all the construction is done and the grass is all in. He seemed to have a good time and made himself right at home :-)

Over the last two days the house has been a beehive of activity:
- all cabinet door and drawer pulls are installed in all rooms
- fireplace trim is complete and fireplace fully functional
- all lighting fixtures are installed and so are their switches so we can actually turn them on! Including Baby Girl's lights, the dining room chandelier (the one from my old house) and the chandelier in the stair way.
- Almost all the base shoe is complete
- mirrors are all hung and trimmed in both bathrooms
- bathroom accessories (towel bars, toilet paper holders, etc) are all installed
- closet rods and shelves are installed in the entry closet and Baby Girl's room
- all the interior doors are hung and hardware installed

Not a whole lot left to do - they're touching up some of the paint spots we identified, and finishing the base shoe; cleaning crew comes in next week, as do final inspection people.

So it seems we're moving in on the 12th, 13th and 14th. 12th will consist of moving all the stuff from the basement to their appropriate rooms; 13th and 14th we've reserved a truck to haul the rest of our stuff from our current house to the new place...

Kinda hard to believe it's really happening!

More photos here.

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Finished floors

The last couple of weeks have been spent finishing the floors - sanding, coating, etc. We went with a clear, water-based finish (not the kind that leaves the glossy look) on the brazilian cherry floors and they came out beautiful - deep tones of red, gold, and brown with some irridescent undertones in the afternoon sunlight. Absolutely stunning! The stairs look a little dark in the photo above because I actually took the picture from outside through the open french door. But they are beautiful too, especially with the fir bannister and the green walls!

There's still a lot of lighting to be completed. What I REALLY want to be able to do first and foremost is turn the lights on in Baby Girl's room so I can see what they look like! They've been installed for some time now, but the switches are not yet. Our bathroom lighting fixtures finally arrived last weekend but still need to be installed and there are many switches, recessed light trims, light bulbs, and our dining room and stairway chandeliers left to install. The lighting had to wait though until the floors were finished. So we are hoping to see those in soon!

Our punchlist walkthrough with our builder and architect is on Tuesday although Tim and I did a preliminary one today to help save time.

While we were out there today Tim also mowed the new grass for the first time. It was in dire need but we had some logistics to work out first. We were instructed by the hydroseed company to not mulch for the first mowing or two. Unfortunately we don't have a bagger for the riding mowers, so that meant Tim had to drag our regular gas mower out to the property and mow with it (emptying the bag frequently, obviously). He made a pretty good dent in it for the time we were out there. We'll be back out tomorrow :-)

That's it on the new home front. I'm assuming we're still on track for August 12th unless we hear otherwise - it certainly seems so with what's left to do.

I'm looking forward to being able to start getting the nursery set up ;-)

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Weekend Update

Busy weekend this weekend! Let's see... where to start... with the fun stuff, of course!

House Progress

Saturday morning we started the day by heading out to the property in the morning to check progress.

- thermostats are installed and so is the air exchange control
- all plumbing fixtures now complete and water filter hooked up functioning. We can get and drink water from our tap and our fridge now! Our fridge is even making ice cubes :-)
- garbage disposal is installed - we got a special one appropriate for septic systems
- stove and ovens are installed and working (we even turned on the gas on the stove - such a pretty sight ;-)
Much of the electrical trim is complete. Still need some switches and circuits hooked up and some fixtures installed, but that should be finished up very soon.
- grass is growing like... well... grass! Still some dry spots but it's looking really good!
- sanding and finishing the hardwood floors starts on monday
- punchlist walkthrough is tentatively scheduled for August 2nd (tentative, because we're all kinda waiting to see what Baby Girl decides to do!)

More photos here.

"Everything Must Go"
A friend of ours is moving out to the east coast at the end of summer to go back to grad school so after playing around at the new house we headed over to her place to help her with her moving sale, get her yard spruced up, get some oddball chores taken care of as she gets ready to leave, and eat yummy food :-). Me - I just supervised ;-). But Janel put Tim to work fixing lighting fixtures, playing with electricity, etc. :-)

Last Supper
After helping Juan with her moving sale/house readiness, Tim and I went out on what will probably be one of our last real "dates" before Baby Girl is born :-) One of my favourite italian restaurants - Italianissimo. We hadn't been there in a while! It was really wonderful to get out of the house and have a nice dinner in a nice restaurant. We've both been moving at about 1000 miles an hour lately between our work, childbirth classes, prepping for Baby Girl, packing up the house and prepping for our pre-emptive move, staying on top of the final details of our new house construction, me trying to get exercise whenever I can, and both of us trying to get in a decent night's sleep.

After dinner we went back out to the property to check it out in the evening light. No pictures from the evening to share, but it was pretty cool! The interior lighting looks fantastic; we can watch the sun set from our back decks, and the moon rise from our kitchen deck. The different light streaming in through the windows gives the inside and the paint colours a different look as well - a nice warm glow.

Pre-emptive move #1
Today (Sunday) was spent moving all non-essential furniture and objects from our current house to the basement of our new house. MANY thanks to all our friends who came out to help out! Our current house is quite a bit emptier now, so we can start the task of getting Baby Girl's stuff set up so she has a place to sleep, be changed, play etc. It was kinda squishy with all of our stuff in the current house.

It was a gorgeous day - probably a bit hot for moving, but the key was that it wasn't raining ;-). It eventually got up to about 85 degrees at the new place. Not a cloud in the sky. We don't have any air conditioning at the new house, and we have a TONNE of glass doors and windows that let sunlight in at all times during the day, so I wanted to see how hot it would get inside. We were quite happy to find the interior temperature at a comfy 68 when we arrived, and only 71 when we left late afternoon. The house was nice and cool the whole time we were there, and the basement even cooler. Very impressive :-)

Needless to say, we're both a little exhausted :-) And we'll be spending the next couple of weeks straighting up and organizing what's left in the current house. But at least the big part - the move "part 1" - is done with (at least for a little while ;-)). Part 2 will be moving stuff from the basement up to the main floor as the hardwood floors are finished, and then Part 3 of course will be the Main Event. Timing for both of these though are at the mercy of our builders and Baby Girl. We'll see what happens ;-)

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The grass is greener...

Grass seed has started germinating!

And that's not all - we found lots of other changes at the new house today when we were out there.

Much of the plumbing has been finished - Kitchen faucets, dishwasher, master bathtub, guest and master shower and vanity fixtures, guest and master toilets, dog shower. Still need to hook up the water filter as you can see from the photos but the water is running and the toilets are flushing!

Electrical trim has begun. Refrigerator is plugged in and cooling stuff. Many electrical outlets have been installed. Several surface mount light fixtures have been installed too - laundry room, Baby Girl's room, guest and master bathrooms, master closet.

Shower doors have been installed in the guest and master bathrooms and they look great!

Most of the smoke detectors have been installed too.

Also, all of the stuff that had been covered during the painting and touchups is now uncovered - eg hardwood floors, slate flooring, stair bannisters, fireplace and mantle! So basically it looks finished, if a little dusty, and with some of the electrical trim and lighting fixtures still to be installed.

Tim and Rich were out there today running cable so we could hook up a phone in the kitchen at the little desk. So we now also have a working phone out there now hooked up to a real phone jack! No internet connectivity yet though - Tim is still troubleshooting that one.

More photos here. You'll have to excuse the slight fuzziness - I think I need to clean my lens, and I was also snapping away rather quickly because my battery was dying ;-)

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House update

Finally got out to the property today. Tim had been out earlier in the week so I knew what to expect, but it was still pretty cool seeing it in person.

- Hydroseeding is complete! Tim and Chris are still out there right now setting up a temporary watering system to help ensure that the hydroseed gets enough water. I'm thinking Mother Nature will take care of the next few days, but we still want to get something in place to ensure the grass grows. We spent a small fortune in the hydroseeding and if it doesn't take, well... that'll be quite annoying!

- Interior painting is complete! The painters were there doing some minor touchups. All the plastic and paper that had been put up for protection is now down - the only paper still in place is protecting the floor but that should come up very soon. The paint looks magnificent! The colours are amazing! Both individually and when looked at as a whole scheme. I'm so pleased with the way everything turned out!

- door hardware is installed and some of the swinging doors are in place now too.

Took a bunch of photos today of every room and some of the outside as well.

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In Living Colour

Many many changes at the new house this week:

- All the topsoil is in and has been smoothed and raked and prepped for hydroseeding. Tim helped with a lot of the raking earlier in the week.

- final gravel has been applied to the driveway and parking pad, and smoothed out. they've also put in gravel pathways to the front and side entries - these look great! Tim did a lot of the gravel raking too :-)

- They finished painting the supports under the dining room and master bedroom decks; also raked out some little gravel paths from the french doors under the decks to the cement stairs and landing.

- All the trim painting and ceiling painting is DONE! The ceiling colours are perfect - they're not stark white and they really add a hint of sunlight to the rooms even on a cloudy day. Really pretty. And the trim looks amazing, although you can't tell from any of our photos because it's all covered up again while they paint the walls.

- And, as you can see from the photos above, they've started painting the walls! The colours are gorgeous. When we were out there today the painters were still there working hard. The kitchen, living room, and family room look to be done and the laundry room is almost done. We didn't get pictures of the laundry room because I didn't want to disturb the painters still at work in there. But I"m so excited! It all looks amazing.

More photos here.

I can't wait until next weekend when I hope to see Baby Girl's room painted ;-)

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Weekend House Update - Interior Painting

Interior painting has begun! Everything inside has been primed and when we were there Saturday the painters were in the process of applying the first coat of paint on the trim.

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Let the painting begin!

Never got around to posting these last weekend. Went out to the house briefly last Saturday to check progress. Got there just as the painters were pulling out. They had spent the day prepping the house for interior painting which started this week! Every surface that wasn't to be painted was completely covered in plastic and paper ready and waiting. Tim's been out this week and sounds like the trim painting should be pretty much wrapped up by end of day tomorrow. Which means next week.... COLOUR starts! Maybe :-) I hope so! I can't wait to see how the colours we picked look on the walls.

They also had the mantle finished on the fireplace! It's perfect for stockings :-)

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This Week, on "This New House" :-)

The painters were able to take advantage of the lovely weather last week, and got at least one coat on the exterior siding and trim and it looks awesome! I really like the colours we ended up choosing. (yeah yeah... white and white... but they are subtly different - the siding is more of a warm white, and the trim is bright white to match the doors and windows - and it really "pops" ). It looks really wonderful. I can't wait to see it in the sunlight (today was a little cloudy).

Other progress this week:
- Kitchen tile backsplash is installed! Just waiting to set, and then they'll grout it. The tile we selected is gorgeous - really ties together the fir cabinets and black silestone countertops.
- Master bathroom grout is completely done except for the shower floor
- Master bathroom fir paneling is almost done
- Stair railings look like they're getting prepped to get installed next week.
- they've started working on the relocation of the septic tanks

Oh! And we also saw a deer out by our orchard while we were visiting! Watched it grazing through the french doors in the kitchen. Sigh. I can't wait until that's our regular scene every morning ;-)

Exterior and Interior photos from today are here.

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Oddsmakers favour "Baby Girl" over "New House"

By about 10 days.

We learned today that the new projected "final inspection" date for our house is August 12th. 10 days after Baby Girl is due.

Now - in the grand scheme of things, that is actually pretty darn good - given the number of hiccups and delays encountered recently due to circumstances beyond all of our control (delay in flooring due to moisture content of house; delay in painting due to weather; delay in custom tile shipment, etc. etc.). However it is a bit of a disappointment as we were hoping to be in our new house before Baby Girl made her first appearance in the outside world. Our current house is really really cramped, and not exactly the most comfortable place to live in the middle of summer.

But - now that we know, we can at least make plans. It was always a possibility anyway - the previous projected move-in date was July 29th, 5 days before Baby Girl is due. And if Baby Girl came early then we'd be in the same predicament. It's just more certain now :-)

Of course it is not entirely outside the realm of possibility that they get finished a few days sooner, and Baby Girl decides to be two weeks late. But we're not planning on it ;-)

So just a heads up to our close friends & family out there - we may be a little frazzled in July and August, and likely calling for various sorts of help between now and then(eg moving furniture early to make room for Baby Girl, hiding out at your house on move-in day so that Baby Girl and I are not caught up in the actual moving-in chaos; potentially help unpacking ;-)) We will of course reward you well with ample nourishment and beverage (likely take-out given the state we'll be in but we also promise to have you back for the first big feast cooked in our new kitchen ;-))

Of course we've still got "a ways to go" (hehe - I am the only one who gets to use that phrase, btw, so don't get any ideas. The rule still applies to everyone else. Just one of the benefits of being the pregnant lady ;-)) but the time's going to fly by pretty quickly given the amount of work we have to do to get this place ready to be inhabited by a new little tiny person... I'm getting a little tired just thinking about it ;-)

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Weekly House Update

Good progress was made this week on the fireplace

and stair bannisters are installed. The railing themselves have been shaped and looks like they might be ready to install those this week, perhaps.

Grout in the guest bathroom is all done - the finished product looks awesome.

And they've finished installing the clear-finish fir paneling in the master bathroom. I think the tile will get grouted this week, and then it too will have a wonderful finished look. I can't wait. But it already looks great!

:-)

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This week, it was all about tile

This week's visible changes were mostly related to tile. They finished setting the tile in the guest bath shower, guest bath vanity (although I think they may still have a little tiny bit left to do there), master bathroom shower, and the fireplace surround and hearth. They still have some tile left to set at the master bathroom vanity and master bathroom tub deck and the kitchen backsplash hasn't been started yet. Once the tile is in, then they'll do the grouting. It's all going to look great when it's all done - especially after the walls are painted and you'll see the whole colour scheme come together (hopefully... I think we knew what we were doing ;-))

Other noticeable difference this week is the laundry cabinet doors have been installed.

Oh - and our stair rails have arrived and they're in the process of shaping them and getting them ready to install!

Here are a few more photos from today.

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Floors and Countertops

It almost looks "move-in-able", doesn't it, now that the hardwood floors and countertops are all installed? There's still work to do on the floors - sanding, finishing, coating, etc. But ALL of the flooring is now installed including the stairs!

It was a gorgeous day out at the house today, and I was able to see how each room will be filled with warm light streaming through the windows on sunny days. Even on cloudy days the house is light and bright!

Prior to arriving at the house, we spent the morning visiting lighting showrooms to see our final lighting fixture selections in person. I love what we've picked out. Then we headed back to the house to measure and be sure everything would fit. I think it will! So we're pretty much done our surface lighting selection.

The heating guys were at the house as well when we arrived and by the time we left we had REAL HEAT flowing through our heating ducts! We also saw evidence that the hot water heater is functional too.

We're getting very very close! It looks awesome. I still have a hard time believing that in less than 3 months, we'll be calling this home. Amazing.

Here are more photos from today.

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More info on Marmoleum

Had a couple of inquiries about marmoleum after some recent posts, so thought i'd post some additional information sources.

We learned about Marmoleum from our architect, Rob Harrison, who specializes in what he calls "Lyrical Sustainable Design" - the building high-quality green architecture, applying the base principles of energy and resource conservation, the use of healthier materials and finishes, reduction of long-term costs, and "making poetic places". It's all certainly been true of the house he designed for us :-)

Rob's web site is http://www.harrisonarchitects.com and it has links to other resources and information about "building green", as well as suggestions for materials, finishes, fixtures, and energy efficiency and conservation. During the design phase, he had directed us to the Environmental Home Center (EHC) in Seattle to learn more about Marmoleum and other materials.

We fell in love with the texture and colours of Marmoleum immediately - they're so bright, fun, and colourful and they just inspire creativity :-). It is also affordable, and we also really liked the environmentally friendly properties, as well as its durability and flexibility, so we went with it for our counter top as well as our flooring in our laundry room after talking with the folks at the EHC and seeing examples of its use.

The Environmental Home Center web site is http://www.environmentalhomecenter.com and they have a great deal of information about Marmoleum. You can also see the variety of colours that it comes in there as well.

The manufacturer of the marmoleum they carry, Forbo Flooring, also has a web site which contains more information about the environmentally friendly aspects of Marmoleum, its maintenance and care, and also where you can buy their product.

"Whispering Blue"

No - it's not a band name :-). It's the colour of the marmoleum we selected for the laundry room floor and counter top. As you can see, it's been installed :-)

Other happenings: Hardwood floor installation has begun! The flooring has been installed in the bedrooms, bathrooms, closet, hallway and entrance way and also in the family room. Installation in dining room is in progress.

The silestone countertop and sink in the guest bath has been installed, as has the silestone for the tub deck in the master bath. We also found that some of the pocket doors had been hung, and so had the closet doors for the hall closet.

Here are a few more photos of the progress made this week.

Unhinged

No... I'm not talking about me. Or about Tim. Although Tim might beg to differ on both counts (it's been a stressful couple of weeks for us both!)

We went and checked the house out today after baby class (which admittedly maybe did leave us feeling a tad unhinged ;-)). Not a lot of changes since Tim's visit earlier this week, but there were a few. They've prepped the laundry room for laying down the marmoleum floor and countertop. They've also got almost all of the trim complete throughout the house. I noticed some hinges installed in preparation for doors, and Baby Girl's room even had closet doors already hung!

Here are More photos from today

First Light...

Our first electrical light in the house :-) Yes - we turned it off again before leaving ;-)

Tim, surveying this week's progress, and admiring the view from the back entrance stairway :-)

And then we discovered that not only do we have a working interior light but we also have RUNNING WATER!

At this point, the cabinets are all installed in the kitchen, master bathroom, and guest bathroom. Doors and handles still need to be applied to the cabinets but the basics are in and our fridge has been set in its place as well.

Slate tile is all done and grouted, as is the dog wash tile.

Doorways have been trimmed, and lots of progress made on the crown molding throughout the house.

The dehumidifiers and heaters are still running. Not sure what the moisture level is at or when they anticipate being able to start the hardwood floors. We should learn more next week at our next site meeting.

More photos here, of this week's progress!

Saturday House Update

Tim and I stopped by the house after our first baby class (!!!) to see the progress since earlier this week. We knew they'd be starting to install the cabinets that had been delivered, and continue working on the interior trim and tile installation so wanted to see where things were at.

Cabinet installation in the laundry room has started, and they also have about two thirds of the wall tile in the dog wash installed. They've started setting the cabinets in the guest and master bathrooms, have finished the wonderboard installation in the master shower, continued to make progress on the crown molding, and have installed almost all of the interior window sills.

Hardwood flooring installation is on hold while we continue to dry out the house. Apparently a moisture reading taken last week revealed the floor moisture content is at around 18% and it needs to be max 12% for the hardwood floor guys to be able to guarantee the install. So they've brought back in the big heater, dehumidifier, and fans, and are pumping hot air throughout the house to continue to dry it out. Hopefully it won't take too long. Guess this is one of the challenges when building in the Pacific Northwest. It could be worse, I suppose. We had a relatively dry winter this year.

Clean Slate

Hmm... all my entries these days are either about our house or our baby / pregnancy. You'd think we have nothing else going on in our lives. Oh... wait... we don't ;-) Hehe. However those two things alone is PLENTY :-)

Anyway, since we were in the neighbourhood running errands, we thought we'd stop by the house and check in on progress since tuesday. The guys were at lunch, but that was cool because it meant we could wander and take pictures without being in anyone's way. The main changes since tuesday? Well, as you can see, they've finished laying the slate tile in the front entry. They've also finished laying the slate tile in the guest bath, and have started the master bathroom. It's looking absolutely gorgeous! They've also started installing the crown molding in the living room and family room.

Apparently the hardwood floor guys will be getting started today, and the cabinets installation will begin tomorrow. By Saturday when we make our usual weekend check-in, it should look like a whole different house on the inside! Check out the rest of the photos from today.

House Update

Today was our weekly site meeting. It was also invoice day - those are the days I dread the most because it reminds me that we actually need to PAY for all this house construction stuff ;-) Heh. I still have a slight heart attack every month on invoice day, and every month I have a bit of a panic attack and the lyrics of one of my favourite Talking Heads songs plays non-stop over and over again in the back of my head all day - "My God, what have we done". You'll see that has pretty much been our theme song for the duration of this project if you read back through all of our house building blog entries. It's just automatic now. I wake up with it in my head. Very Ally McBealish :-). But - we'll survive. Tim told me so this morning while he consoled me after my latest bout of panic. "Everything's going to be ok". And it will I'm sure. Still. It scares me. More than having the baby, actually!

Anyway, on to the updates. According to our builder, our cabinets are getting installed this week - we actually saw them sitting there waiting to be installed at our site meeting today. They look great. As Tim said, "They better"! Yeah - we're at that point in the project now ;-). Hardwood flooring has also been delivered and will start getting installed end of this week/early next I think. The tile guys were there today too installing the wonderboard, and I believe they'll be laying the slate down shortly in the bathrooms and entry ways. Painting will be done close to last to minimize the chances of marring the paint job while the rest of the finish work continues in the house. Exterior painting should start soon though!

Yesterday, before heading off to the Mariner's Season Opener we had a successful trip to Ann Sacks Tile in downtown Seattle. What a fun place! If you ever have a need for tile, start there - even if it is just for inspiration and/or some friendly advice (while their stuff is absolutely incredibly totally gorgeous, a lot of it is also pricey! But their staff is extremely helpful, and as I mentioned it is a great place to get inspired!)

There we made our final tile selections for the Master Bathroom shower floor, and for the kitchen backsplash. The shower floor tile we picked fit neatly within our budget. We went a bit over for the kitchen backsplash though (and that was after going with our 3rd choice, since the first two, although absolutely to die for, were completely outside our price range. sigh!) but because the area is so small we figured out we could get away with spending a little extra.

I tried to take some photos of the combinations we picked out for a few of the spaces in the house and had varying degrees of success (that being a fairly subjective statement). A professional photographer I am not, and there really isn't any place in our house with adequate lighting for taking pictures of this kind of stuff, so this is what I ended up with.

Master Bathroom

The photo doesn't really show the richness and warmth of the browns in the tiles that we selected - it makes everything look more yellow and rust. But we're pretty excited about how this is going to look together.

Large Left Square - Crossville/Colour Blox 6"x6" Ceramic Tile in "Treehouse" A114 - for Shower walls, vanity backsplash, and tub backsplash

Small off-center Square - Sonoma/Tantrum 1"x1" Ceramic Tile in "Pewter" - for 2" high feature strip around Shower wall, vanity backsplash, and tub backsplash

circles - Ann Sacks Paris Pennies Ceramic Tile in "Barley" - for Shower Floor (will give more traction than the larger tiles).

Center Square - Silestone quartz surface in "Capri Limestone" with gloss finish for vanity top and bathtub deck.

Upper and Lower Right Squares - OTM 12"x12" slate tile in "Yellow Rustic" 634G (same as what we are using elsewhere in the house wherever we have slate floors).

Lower left rectangle - clear finish fir for vanity cabinetry.

Kitchen

We really loved the contrast between the pretty green of the tile with the copper flecks throughout, and the reds in the brazilian cherry floors and the clear finish fir cabinets and the paint colour we selected for the walls. Again you can't tell in the photo but the green is really rich, and the colour along with the flecks of copper vary from tile to tile - no two tiles are the same. I think it's going to look awesome.

Upper left square - Ann Sacks Nottingham 4"x4" ceramic tile in "Verdigris Copper" for kitchen backsplash

Center rectangle - clear finish fir for vanity cabinetry

lower left square - Silestone quartz surface in "Ebony Pearl" with gloss finish, for kitchen countertops. All of our appliances are in black as well.

Bottom center square - C2 paint colour in "Tiger Lily" C2-2309 A - for kitchen wall colour

Right rectangle - Brazilian Cherry for kitchen floor (actually, this will be the flooring used throughout the house except for the entry ways and bathrooms and laundry room)

Laundry Room

Left rectangle - C2 paint colour in "Shine" C2-3163 P for wall paint colour

Right square with cutout - Marmoleum in "Whispering Blue" for counter top and floor. The cabinetry will be white melamine and the tile in the dog shower will be white as well. Can you think of a happier combination of colours for a room in which you'll be doing a lot of laundry? The idea was to make it cheerful (to distract from the stinky diapers we'll be washing in here ;-)). Marmoleum comes in such fun colours it was tough settling on just one. I'm thinking when we finish the basement (some day in the very distant future ;-)) we're going to have to find an excuse to go with some fun marmoleum colours down there too ;-)

Dining Room

The dining room is my favourite. we chose the paint colour for the walls after selecting the fabric we'll be using to cover the dining room chairs. I think it's going to be pretty gorgeous.

left rectangle - our dining room chair fabric

upper right rectangle - C2 paint colour in "Amontillado" C2-3086 M for the wall colour.

Lower right rectangle - Honey finish maple - the colour of our dining room table, chairs and china cabinet

I think this will all look so beautiful with the brazilian cherry floors.

Entry and Stairway
The entry and stairway wall colours will be C2 "Outback" green - as suggested by Rob, our architect - it goes nicely with the colour we chose for the living room, and it also looks really nice with all of the outdoor scenery that you see immediately as you walk in, through our back french glass doors and windows.

Nursery and Guest Bath

The Nursery and Guest Bath will be done in C2 "Pod" green. The guest bath shower tile and backsplash will be a pretty cream coloured ceramic tile - Crossville/Color Blox "Sandbox", with a 2" high features strip in 1"x2" glass tile in "Lily Green". The same Capri Limestone as in the master bath will be used for the vanity top in the guest bath, the cabinets will be the same clear finish fir, and the floor will be the same slate tile.

All in all, we're pretty darned excited to see the end product of all of this! We had some great guidance from Rob our Architect on colour and tile selection but I'm proud to say that we also seemed to have our own good instincts and ideas and everything going into the house is very "us" - Rob just made sure we had "the right tools" as he puts it :-)

Primed

As you can see, Tim and I were out at the house today. This was the first time I had actually been there since they finished the decks, the bridge, the mud & tape, and the interior priming.

My goal today was to finalize our colour selection for the entry / stairway and for the living room - those were the only two colours left for us to choose. Tim's goal was to finish running conduit, with the help of his new drill [insert Tim the Tool Man Taylor 'Har-Har' laugh here] and our friend Rich (thanks Rich!).

Both goals were accomplished successfully. Conduit is run, and I am proud to tell you we will be going with "Outback" C2-3289 P in the entry and stairway, and "Radiate" C2-2386 P in the living room. Like you have any more idea now of what the finished product is going to look like than before I shared those colours with you :-) You'll see them taped up in the photos I took but they will still be useless to you, since they were taken with a digital camera and you are looking at them on a PC screen. But hey - that's the best we can do for now ;-)

Well hello! So good of you to stop by! Please, come on in...

through our FRONT DOOR!

Isn't it pretty?! As you can see, our front door has arrived and has been installed. Our interior doors are all here too but I think they'll wait to install those till a bit later.

Other house updates:

- Our kitchen appliances have been delivered to the site! It'll probably be a little while till they get installed. We don't have our cabinets in yet. So they are still in boxes.

- We've selected all of our exterior and interior paint colours except for 2 spaces (living room, and entry/stairway) - should have the missing ones selected by thursday

- We've picked out all of our tiles except for the master shower floor, and the kitchen backsplash. We'll be making those selections on Monday.

- We've purchased and received all of our cabinet hardware - kitchen, bathroom, laundry room

- we've bought our master bathroom accessories (towel bars, toilet paper holder, etc)

- The decks and bridges are built!

- The mud and taping is completely done and a coat of primer applied throughout the interior! It's looking pretty sweet :-)

Tim was out at the site earlier this week when they finished the decks and bridge, and today when they had finished the priming and took these photos.

"Another fine job done by Captin [sic] Super Dan and his little helper Buckwheat"

Apparently they got the drywall done on Sunday as planned :-)

Putting up walls

Progress this week: Exterior siding is almost complete and looking gorgeous; main deck is coming along very nicely; drywall is almost entirely installed inside (the drywall guy was out there working when I went out on Saturday and said he was aiming to be complete by Sunday). Cabinet order has been submitted (we ended up backing out the TV cabinet in the family room; we'll be temporarily living with a "hole" in the wall in which we'll place our existing IKEA furniture until such a time as we determine we have the budget and time to get a cabinet made for it. Such is life on a budget!) and things are looking pretty damn fine.

At this point we're only about 2 weeks behind schedule, which is AWESOME in my opinion. Not bad at all. Kudos to our awesome builders - Phoenix construction. Who have not only stayed on schedule but kept the rest of us on schedule too, and put up with my constant stream of "but what did the estimate say" and "we can't afford to do that" and "we need to be able to afford to live here when its done" comments and have done a very admirable job coming up with great compromises and cost savings solutions without impacting the quality or integrity or design of the house overall. And kudos to our architect for the design and all his hard work during the construction phase - it's GORGEOUS. Isn't it? It's our perfect dream house. There is not and has never been a single aspect of the house at any point in the project that we do not like. And he's also been great about helping us find ways to stay within our budget, working with the builder to find options that still allow us to apply many of the green principles that we were interested in originally, and has been a fountain of creative knowledge and input in our selections of the finish details. There was a lot of stuff we had to cut due to costs and overall project budget but in general we're looking good. I still have sticker shock, but I'll have to get over it somehow.

We have many more photos of the interior (with the completed drywall installation) and exterior along with descriptions of what you are looking at.

You can also check out the fun had by Tim, Davwill, Rich, and Michael (Tim's brother) running conduit and pulling low voltage wire last weekend before the drywall went up. It was a mad rush and tad stressful that weekend to get the low voltage done on time so the drywallers could stay on schedule :-)

Speaking of details - some fun little tools

Glidden has the Glidden Color @ Home Paint Visualizer which lets you select a room and a room style to decorate from a variety of options, and then you can drag and drop any Glidden paint color onto any surface (wall, furniture, shelving, etc) so you can see the colour combos together. It even fills in the shading, etc.

Silestone has a little Silestone Compare and Contrast tool that lets you select a wood finish and then a counter top colour, to see how your selected counter top will look with your cabinetry. Again

BobVila.com has a number of design tools. The one I had fun with most was the 3D Kitchen Designer. You can design your kitchen from scratch, or choose from one of the existing kitchen templates (there are a variety to choose from) to get started, and then you can change appliance colours and styles, cabinet colours and styles, paint colours, floor finishes, etc to see how it all goes together.

Of course, due to the way colour varies from monitor to monitor, and also looks different on computer screens and printers from how they appear in real life, you aren't really getting the real picture of the colours and textures involved in any of these tools - you still need to go and get the paint colour cards, tile/countertop samples, cabinet wood samples, flooring samples, etc and do your own in person compare and contrast. But they're still fun to play with for generating initial ideas and getting the creative juices flowing (if you're not the type of person who can count on having them constantly flowing whenever and where ever you need them at all times :-))

Devil's in the details

This week and all weekend Tim and I spent our non-working hours researching, pricing, and selecting:

- Exterior trim and paint colours
- Interior trim and paint colours (room by room)
- Marmoleum colours for the laundry room counter and floors
- Cabinet pulls and knobs for Kitchen, Laundry room, Master bath, and Guest Bath
- Interior door handle styles
- Exterior door lock and entry/handle sets
- Slate for the entry and bathroom floors

and we also paid off our appliances in full so they are free and clear for delivery.

Riddles of the week:

- Who knew that there were so many knob and handle pull styles out there to choose from (and just as many price ranges)?

- And who knew that you could pay (if you so desired - we didn't ;-)) up to $600-$800 for a single exterior door entry set?

- And who knew that there are no fewer than 62 tints of "off white" in the Rodda colour scheme and is there really anyone who can seriously tell the difference between "Soap Suds" and "Swan Wing"?

You're starting to get the picture.

After carpeting our floor with about 600 paint swatches, carefully researching colour combinations (complementary, Accent, and Related colours), standing in every room with my 62 samples of "off white" comparing them to the white window trim to find which one is most similar for use as an interior trim colour (I had to see the comparison in every light condition in the house of course), holding 2-inch paint samples up against 2-inch marmoleum samples to figure out which floor/counter colour would go best with the happy yellow paint colour I had selected for the laundry room ( a room, I might add, that Tim and I will be spending considerable amounts of time in washing diapers and baby clothes and baby bedding and burp cloths and... oh yeah, our own laundry, hence my desire to select the perfect colour combination that will make it calming yet cheerful), squinting while I placed paint samples against fabric colours and attempted to envision entire rooms swathed in my little 2-inch sample and how it would look with the furniture, and then trying to imagine staring down the hall through the various rooms and seeing the colours line up visually and determine whether or not they'd look ok together, we finally have our colour selection.

The cabinet pulls were a no less complicated affair. We actually found some styles we liked relatively easy. The problem was the price. At $8.50 a drawer pull, in a kitchen that has 44 of them total, the dollars add up pretty quick. So after seeing the styles in store that we liked, considerable research was performed on the internet to try and find knock-offs or sales that would get the price down to about $5.00 a pull. We haven't quite got it down that far yet. Still looking ;-)

The exterior door entry sets were a similar endeavour. we already had handle sets for the french doors (they came with) so we had a good starting point in terms of the style we were seeking. But again the price range varies drastically - one set that we looked at in store that we loved was about $700 including tax. We didn't love it that much, and were able to locate a similar style, different (but reputable) brand, for considerably less.

And this was "part 2" of the details selection process. Part 1 was finished before Christmas where we had selected bathroom and kitchen countertop materials and colours, all of our kitchen appliances, all of our kitchen and bathroom plumbing fixtures, and all of our bathroom accessories (towel bars, paper towel holders, etc).

And we're still not done. We still need to

- select a hardware flooring. We had our hearts set on Madrone originally, but there were concerns raised about the moisture content and the likelihood that it would end up warping in the future as well as the fact that it's increased by about 60 cents a square foot since the initial estimate. So we need to rethink our selection.

- select tile for the kitchen and bathroom backsplashes and the dog wash

- Select shower doors for the bathrooms

In one sense it's actually a lot of fun. This is why you choose to build a custom home. You get exactly what you want. In another, it's a lot of work, a lot of choices, a lot of responsibility, sometimes a lot of stress, and a lot of time spent researching and browsing and comparing, which is tough to find when we're both working so much during the week. It's made more challenging by the fact that all of the show rooms are closed on Sundays and only open limited hours on Saturdays.

At any rate, it feels good to have another batch of the details sorted out and passed on to our builders and architect.

My biggest fear at this point with respect to the detail selection is the interior paint colour. While we love the colours we've chosen, we really aren't gonna know how it all works together until it's done. I really wanted to have some fun with colour in the house - we're tired of living in a house with small rooms, white walls, and not a lot of colour options due to the size of the spaces. At the same time, we don't want it to end up looking like something Dr. Suess or Rainbow Brite decorated. We'll see how it all comes together.

My biggest fear with respect to the whole project is... drum roll... the budget. It's just been a scary ride, watching our savings dwindle down to nothing, and seeing the mounting debt accumulating in the form of the construction loan. Even though we did a lot of financial planning and prep work and calculating before beginning the project and establishing the budget, it's a lot of money. And, despite everyone's best efforts - ours, our builder's, and our architect's - there are some things that just ended up costing more. Either because cost of materials increased since the original estimate; or because it took longer to figure things out or get the work done; or because there were things that were completely unknown and unaccounted for when we started. Like having to move the septic system. And having to make some modifications to our well. It comes with the territory. Still - I'm a stickler for budget and a total control freak when it comes to our finances. So it's been quite a test of endurance for me to get through this whole thing without completely blowing a gasket or going off the deep end. Some might suggest I've already gone ;-) It's all relative I suppose!

Well - it's late, and Tim'll be home soon (he was working an auction downtown today. I got to have an early dinner with him, but we've hardly had a chance to see each other all week between our two work schedules). I had hoped to write an entry about the house progress itself - complete with new pictures taken today! But that'll have to wait until tomorrow now :-)

Feelin' the Heat

No no no... not pregnancy related :-) We were out at the new house yesterday! All the windows and doors except for a couple are now in. The ones missing have plastic sheeting over the openings to seal in the house. And a big air blower is blowing nice hot air throughout the upstairs and downstairs in an effort to start drying it out :-)

It was wonderfully warm inside :-). We rearranged one of the work tables in the dining room and set up a couple of collapsable lawn chairs, hung up our coats, snacked on some munchies we bought on the way, and stared out the newly installed windows at the beautiful view. Very enjoyable way to spend the afternoon!

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Doors and stairs and plumbing, oh my!

Went out today to see how the house was coming along. As you can see, it's looking GREAT! We're pretty darn excited.

All 3 sets of french doors on the main floor (Kitchen, dining room, master bedroom) are installed. They've also installed all the rails for the pocket doors that will be inside the house. I believe all doors and windows have been delivered at this point so we should continue to see the house fill out as they get them installed. These are in the dining room and will open up onto a deck:

A lot of the plumbing is also in at this point - laundry room, bathrooms, mechanical room. Pretty darn cool!

And we have a partial set of stairs to the basement.

I believe the roofing arrives next week as well, which will be a lot of fun to watch!

Check out the rest of the photos from today.

Roof Trusses

It's been a crazy couple of weeks - hence the absence of many interesting updates to the web site. But exciting stuff has been happening. Much exciting stuff... oooh baby!

Anyway, the stuff I'll share with you here and now are the roof trusses!

More photos of the progress available at crappymusic.com!

Meet "The House Gang"

Here's the crew working on our house:

Left to right: John, Josh (Smith), Josh Piano, George Piano, Nathan, Jesse Piano, James, Billy, Jeremy, and Ramon (kneeling in front)

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Appliance and fixture fun!

We're starting to get into the real fun now - Tim and I went down to Monarch Appliances (highly recommend them - excellent service and excellent prices) and put a down payment on our new kitchen appliances (I do so love appliance shopping! New toys! New toys!).

We've also selected our counter tops for the kitchen and bath, and also all of the plumbing fixtures.

Oh - and we picked out our fireplace!

I'll not bore you or consume your bandwidth by posting pictures of it all here. BUT I MUST show you our bathtub (photo from http://www.us.kohler.com).

It has BubbleMassage(tm) instead of the standard jets. Oooh baby :-)

Interior walls are going up!

This week they worked on framing for the interior walls. Check out our bedroom door! ;-)

Here are a few more photos of the interior thus far...

Welcome to our Family Room

Everyone - it is with great pleasure that I welcome you to our family room!

Lots of progress made since my last "dream house" entry, as you can see. More walls went up today. Tim and they guys he worked with were hard at work in the TV / Family room, while the others were working on the Office/Bedroom.

I decided to take the afternoon off and watch Tim and the crew at work on the framing.

It was a gorgeous day for it! Blue sky with not a cloud in it.

And really warm. You'd never have guessed that when they arrived there this morning the floor was covered in a thin sheet of ice.

Check out more photos of "Tim in Action" in the TV room and the evolution of the rest of the house!

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Walls are going up!

Tim was out there today, working on the wall framing with the construction crew. I was at work and couldn't escape unfortunately (or fortunately? It was pretty darn wet and rainy and blustery today :-)). But I did bake chocolate chip cookies last night for Tim to take with him this morning to share with the guys :-)

Anyway, here's where they were at when he left:

And you'll find more photos from today at crappymusic!

Lights are on but no one is home (yet!)

They've rigged up some temporary lighting in the basement so they can work down there. I know it's only temporary but it's kinda cool to see lights on in our house! ;-). The styrofoam layer on the basement floor is all down now, and I believe they are ready for the concrete pour.

The square cement structure on the left is the foundation for what will be the deck next to the kitchen. You know - where we'll sit in the morning eating our breakfast, reading the newspaper, and watching the deer eat apples from our trees :-). The footings in the forefront will be the foundation for the extension of the deck past the laundry room. The laundryroom will have one of those cool split doors (the kind where you can keep the bottom half closed but open the top half) that will open onto the deck.

Our TV room will be in the sunken area where the wood covered in plastic is sitting.

The temporary wooden railings mark where the staircase to the basement level will be. And in the far upper right is where our bedroom will be located.

I even laid down on the spot where our bed will eventually be and watched the clouds drift by and a hawk circle overhead (and apparently, Tim captured the moment on camera :-))

Here are some more pictures of the progress made this week.

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Baby's got Floor!

I walked on our floor today. At the new house! Yeah baby - it's not "our property" anymore - it's our HOUSE! The plywood is all down and attached on the main level. Josh says that they should start framing walls next week! And George will be submitting the window order now too.

When I got there at lunch today they were raking out the gravel in the basement to prep for the basement floor pour. And it was pretty cool walking around inside. Yes - our house has an INSIDE! Because since the main level now has a FLOOR, that means the basement now has a CEILING!

Nelson has had his equipment fixed (get your minds out of the gutter people. Apparently he's had a run of bad luck recently with his dirt moving machines breaking down) so he'll be back out tomorrow continuing to fill in the trench around the concrete basement walls up to the top of the waterproof barrier. He's got some filled in already and tamped down - so in addition to having a floor, the house looks less like a sinister fortress with a moat and more like a house with a basement.

Being the dork that I am I forgot to bring my camera. So pictures will have to wait until tomorrow or Friday. I gotta get me a damn camera phone. I can blog from my phone as you've seen - I really need one that can take pictures too for those moments when I forget to bring my camera.

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Floorin' it

Went out to the property for the first time this week since Tuesday. Wow! It looks like a lot of the floor joists are in, they've dumped a bunch of gravel in the basement and around the foundation, and they've finished the waterproofing around the poured concrete. I think Tim said they'll be ready to start some of the filling in next week, and they'll probably pour the basement floors in the next week or two.

Tim had the guys put those plywood sheets down on Friday so we could walk around on it. The lower one on the right is in what will be the "family room" and the upper one is where the dining room will be.

Things look like they're progressing on schedule.

The river is gone too. Whew ;-)

More photos of the progress made last week.

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A River Runs Through It

Apparently a little water has been accumulating at the site with all the heavy rain we've been having. We now have a little stream running through the middle of our basement. They've got a sump pump running pretty constantly (just behind where I was standing to take this picture) to pump the water out of the building site.

What's that? Me? Nervous? About a little itty bitty water pouring out of the ground and into our house? Naw. Don't be silly. It'll be fine. :-)

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Camp Cupcake?

No... It's our basement! Ok - it kinda looks like a maximum security prison at the moment but that'll change soon.

Tim's got a tonne more pictures of the latest stages of construction. Very exciting!

The Science of Building our Dream Home

Today was the day they poured the walls. Very exciting. Once they strip the forms (next week) it'll really start looking like an actual house!

Some dream house trivia from today:
- About 60 yards of concrete went into the walls
- that's about 7 trucks worth
- "A lot" of rebar went into the walls too. The "a lot" is a finely honed estimate from Mike, the concrete and rebar guy.

Having watched "Deconstruction: Science of Building a House" on Wednesday on the Discovery Channel (HD, of course!) Tim and I were prepared and well educated for today's house construction events.

Here's what we learned about concrete and rebar in particular (this and much more information is also available on this very informative web site about concrete, as well as The Rebar Page , both of which I came across on the Internet while searching for "concrete tensile strength rebar")

Concrete has a very high compressive strength - about 3 tons per square inch. This is good.

However, concrete also has a relatively low tensile strength and low strength-to-weight ratio. This is bad. It can lead to cracking and eventual failure of the concrete form.

How? I'm so glad you asked :-) As load is applied to the top of a concrete form, there are actually two forces at work within the concrete: A compressive force, and a tensile force. Imagine a beam of concrete and a load being applied to the top of the beam. The Rebar Page has a nice diagram that shows how these forces act within the beam.

This low tensile strength of concrete is generally overcome in construction with the use of rebar. Steel reinforcing bars have relatively high tensile strength. Embedding rebar in the poured concrete reinforces the concrete and allows it to withstand a much greater load without failing.

Concrete needs moisture to hydrate and cure (harden). The reaction of water with the cement in concrete is very important to its properties and reactions many continue for many years.

As concrete cures, it gets hot. The heat comes form the breaking and making of chemical bonds during hydration.

Concrete hardens as time passes. It takes a great deal of time for all the bonds to form which determine concrete's strength. It may feel hard a couple of days after it has been curing, but it is still undergoing chemical reactions and may continue to do so for several years.

Oh - and for those of you who read our "Stingers and Concrete" entry documenting the footing pour and were wondering what in the world "Fly Ash" is - here you go (as defined by Rempel Bros Concrete LTD):

"Fly Ash is a by-product from coal fired electric power generating plants. The inorganic or mineral constituents of the coal, such as clay, quartz and shale, fuze and chemically recombine during burning to produce various crystalline and glassy phases of fly ash. The fly ash is entrained in the flue gas and cools into spherical, usually hollow shaped particles. These particles are collected in electrostatic precipitators or bag houses and the gradation or fineness of the fly ash can be controlled by how and where the particles are collected. Fly ash reacts with the free lime generated by cement hydration to form cement-like compounds, which increases the strength and reduces the permeability of concrete".

Well - enough of this educational stuff. Here are some goofy little video clips of today's action.

And of course, more photos!

"Green" Gables and Gay Rodeos

An update from George, our builder: According to the recycle report from Rabanco, they were able to recycle 83.01% of that old double-wide that we demolished and disposed of! Not too bad for, as George put it, "a funky old place". Funky is an understatement. I think I've mentioned that Tim and I felt like total slum lords when we had a tenant living in that thing. Very glad though, that so much of it was recyclable!

More updates on the dream-home front from George: The guys are now tying steel and will begin setting "buck-outs" and the opposite wall forms this week.

What are "buck-outs" you ask? Those of you heavy into bull-riding (and I know there are oh so many of you who read this site) will recognize it as a rodeo word. If you go to that other search site, and search on "buck-outs" the number two result returned is "Let's Rodeo! The incredible world of gay rodeo" which is an interesting read in and of itself that I highly recommend.

Exerpt: "Watching a serious bull-riding gay cowboy hop onto the back of 2,000 pounds of pissed-off pot-roast will surely put to rest anyone's ideas that gay rodeo isn't serious rodeo or that gay men can't be real men."

The Internet (or is that Internets?) continues to be a gold-mine rich with nuggets of interesting and diverse information. I love it! Go Cowboys!

But I digress. A "buck-out" (or "buckout" which is how most sites spell it) in construction terms is a reinforced opening in the form, used to maintain shape (eg for a window, door, sewer line, etc) during the pour.

Anyway - If all goes well, George figures they'll be pouring the walls by next friday!

Tim and I were out at the property ourselves this weekend. All the outer wall forms are up and we wandered around "inside" and took some photos.

Once in a Lifetime

It's our dream house. Our home. It may SEEM like we've just committed ourselves to two lifetimes worth of debt, but it's ok. Really. It is. We are. We just got the final papers for our construction loan. Can you tell?

To paraphrase David Byrne:

"MY GOD!...WHAT HAVE WE DONE?"

Off to go breath into a paper bag now... :-)

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It's All About Form

Week 5: September 27 - October 1
- Strip footing forms (DONE!)
- Wall Layout
- Basement Wall forming (In Progress!)

So - things are progressing on track :-) Now that the footings have been poured and that has set, and the forms have been stripped, the guys are getting started on building the forms in preparation for pouring the concrete for the basement walls. When we were out at the property yesterday, they had about 1/3 of the wall forms up around the perimeter.

The wall forms really help to give some additional perspective. It's getting exciting... :-)

More pictures in our House Building photo album.

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Stingers and Concrete

Heather's Tool Tip of the Day #2: A Stinger is a tool used to vibrate the concrete after it is poured to help remove any air that might be trapped in the mix. According to architectureweek.com,trapped air will form bubbles that create small holes and pits in the surface of the concrete as it sets up. Plunging the stinger into wet concrete vibrates the concrete and releases the trapped air. Also sometimes referred to as a "stick vibrator", a stinger looks like a large metal rod attached to a hose that is in turn attached to a motor. When it is turned on it vibrates and hums. "Stingers" come in a variety of sizes and configurations. Some are round and some are square. The dude that was "stinging" our concrete was using a round one.

Now - if you're using a stinger in the pour of a concrete countertop (ie, a much shallower container), architectureweek.com suggests that you "run it along the surface of the wet concrete, taking care not to let it dip into the concrete..." According to them, "this technique is very effective. It's also very messy".

If, after reading all of that, you need to take a break now to go have a cold shower I completely understand. Do what you gotta do. (In about a week I'm gonna see people arriving at our site via some really interesting search strings thanks to this post).

So... now that you're back, as I'm sure you've deduced by now, our footings did in fact get poured today! Here are a few pictures to give you a sense of what was going on.

Oh - before we get to the photos, let me share a couple of additional factoids I picked up from George:

1) there's about a ton of rebar in our footings right now, and I believe George said that they poured about 20 yards of concrete into our footing forms all told.

2) they are using a special concrete mix containing fly ash (I think between 15 and 25%) as specified by Rob, our architect. This mix is also apparently referred to fondly in the industry as "eco-mud" :-) According to the Northwest Ecobuilding Guild web site, fly ash increases the strength and workability of the concrete, and substitutes energy intensive cement with a waste product. Yet another green element to our cool house :-)

In that last photo you can see the dude in the background "stinging" the concrete as it is being poured.

And here's a little video (yeah - I know it's sideways but my version of breezebrowser doesn't rotate AVI files... and I forgot that when I shot the video. Still, it's kinda fun. :-))

There are even more pictures from today in our House Building Photo Album.

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The Rebar Man Cometh

Apparently, the Rebar inspector was scheduled to come this morning. I assume he did, and that we passed.

I tried to find something interesting on the internet about rebar inspectors to share with you all. But there just wasn't anything interesting on the internet about rebar or inspectors. Not to knock the trade! It is a necessary step in the building of a home that is intended to last many many many years.

So let's see... how about some factoids about rebar:

• "Rebar" is actually an acronym for "Reinforcing Bar". It's actually a Steel Reinforcing Bar.
• http://www.stainless-rebar.org is an excellent source of information about... yes, you guessed it... stainless steel rebar.
• It hurts to stub your toe on rebar. But if you absolutely have to have some rebar sticking up within toe-stubbing reach, there are many ways to prevent such injury, including but not limited to, creating a small slit in a tennis ball and sticking it on top of the offending rebar

I also did find this checklist for the "Footings Stage of Inspection (pre-pour)" and what I believe is what the Rebar inspector was there to do:

• Seismic Categories D1&D2: < 3 in. clearance of rebar to soil or
• < #4 (1/2 in.) vertical bar or > 4ft. on center {403.1.3}
• < #4 (1/2 in.) bar in top and bottom of footing/wall {403.1.3.1,2; see t 404.1.b; 1806.7.1}
• < 8.75 in. from soil sidewall to rebar at side in l2 in. walls {T404.1.1(3)}
• < 6.75 in. from soil sidewall to rebar at side in 10 in. walls {T404.1.1(4)}
• < 5 in. from soil sidewall to rebar at side in 8 in. walls {T404.1.1(2)}
• Monolithic footing: < one #5 (5/8in.) or two #4 (1/2 in.) bars in middle third of footing {403.1.3.2ex.}
• < 12 in. overlap at splice lap or engineered
• < 20 in. if 1/2 in. rebar {rec’d; rec’d; 1912.16.1}
• Bricks/etc. used instead of Adobies@ to raise rebar above soil {403.1.3; NA; 1907.7.1}
• Footings not on undisturbed soil {403.1; Fig. 403.1a}, [NA, NA]
• Wood foundation footings: basement with < 8 in. or crawlspace with < 6 in. stone, etc. footing

Uh. Ok. Whatever. Anyway - here's a picture of some of our rebar that was being inspected this morning. Because that is infinitely more interesting than the above commentary (That's sarcasm; I'm not fooling myself :-))

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Home Sweet Farm

While I'm posting old pictures, here is one that means a lot to me. This is the farm we lived in, in Pembroke. I think we moved there when I was 2 or 3 - drove out from Edmonton. I actually think I remember parts of that drive.

I only lived in the house for 3 years of my life - 3 very early years at that. But it formed a very strong impression of what "a house" is in my mind, and also what "a home" is.

It was interesting when we first set out on the adventure to design and build our dream house. Our architect, Rob Harrison, has a pretty detailed questionnaire on his web site that he likes his clients to fill out so that he can really get to know his clients' likes, dislikes, what is important to them in a house and a home, what their day-to-day lives in that home will be like, etc. And as we went through the process of answering the questionnaire, very vivid memories of this farm resurfaced and wove their way into our responses. Not just the structure or physical features of the house - which to this day still characterize what a real house looks like for me. But also the memories - of birthday candles being blown out at our dining room table; my dad trying to teach me how to whistle in the family room; galloping across the room on my "horse" that was really the antique trunk in the corner; My parents waking me up on the couch to go to bed and my sleepy protests that I was just "resting my eyes"; Mom making peanut butter cookies in the kitchen and letting me put "the dents" in them with the fork; "Old Heck" sitting at our kitchen table telling Mom and Dad his stories; Squeaky giving birth to kittens in the bottom drawer of my dresser; Picking fiddle-heads with my Dad and searching for old glass bottles in the swamp behind the house; stockings hanging by the fire at Christmas, phone calls from Santa on Christmas Eve, and reindeer hoof prints leaving a trail in the snow that mysteriously and abruptly ends... Good memories.

When we moved to Germany we lived in an apartment. Which I thought was cool too, in its own way. And in the PMQs we lived in, they would hold a window painting competition during the Christmas holidays. One year, for our entry, Dad reconstructed this photo (but in colour) on our living room window. We didn't win the competition. But I thought it was the greatest artwork I had ever seen.

Someday Tim and I will drive past the farm. Maybe even knock on the door, and ask if we can look around :-) I'm sure it'll seem much smaller than I remember. So maybe it's best if we just drive by. I'd like it to be winter, though, when we do.

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Construction continues and the rainy season is definitely here

Well, last week they finished excavating!

As of today, they now have the forms laid out for the concrete footings. They should be pouring the concrete next friday I think.

You can see from the photos that we've had a little rain :-). It's pretty mucky, and our stream is running pretty fast too.

You could really hear it, even from the far end of the property. And just because I can, and because I'm a geek, I've brought those sounds to you :-)

Here are a few more construction pictures from last week and this week.

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Fish Tape and Dirt Moving

Heather's Tool Tip of the Day #1: Fish Tape is used to "fish" wires through ceilings, walls, and conduit. I sense I will be hearing about, seeing, and perhaps even using tools that I've never heard of before, so thought I'd start mentioning them here as they come up. So now you know.

Tim used it to hook up the telephone in the job shack.

Anyway - they started excavating today! There are now huge mounds of dirt surrounding a large gaping hole that will, some day, be filled with our house! And a new machine showed up today to help push the dirt around. They also erected a silt fence to help protect the wetlands.

I hung out at lunch today for a little while and watched them dig the hole and move the dirt. It was kinda like watching kids in a sandbox - only this was a much bigger sandbox, with much bigger machines, and much taller piles of dirt :-)

I think they're supposed to start pouring the foundation middle of next week. That'll be cool.

Here are a few pictures of the piles of dirt and the gaping hole.

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