Sunday, December 20, 2009

Snowy Sunday



We started the morning with a bit of a shopping spree at Home Depot, picking up some miscellaneous plumbing and electrical supplies so Tom and Bernie can be extremely productive tomorrow. We proceeded to the house, following behind people who clearly had no business driving in the snow. They didn't know how to do so safely, and for the public's sake, they should have stayed off the roads. It was good we went to the house last night to shovel a path to the house and clear the decks. That allowed us to start working productively as soon as we got to the house.

Since I hadn't been in the house for almost two weeks, I had to go around and inspect the work that had been done. I smiled all the way through. First, Jeff Gunther and his helper Andrew are doing an amazing job with the deck. I'm impressed with their work. Season's Services did a nice job touching up the EIFS they cut away in order for the ledger board to be attached to the house. Craig Smith's doing an excellent job with the interior trim carpentry, Marcelino's crew did a nice job finishing the basement bath tile and tiling the upstairs guest bath for me while I was in Pennsylvania with my family. And Andreas and Bernie did an amazing job installing the radiant floor system. It's really quite impressive -- I was in such awe that I forgot to snap some pictures of that. Tom clearly was productive installing lighting fixtures, plugs, etc. and Andreas attached all the face plates right behind Tom as he installed the plugs.

In addition to a number of small tasks, today we attached the two Duravit sinks on the walls - one in the guest bath and one in the master bath. The sinks look great to us - clean lines and minimalist design. The designer of this sink was Phillippe Starck. Before tiling the master shower, we wanted to ensure the Durock was sealed as much as possible, so we used a product called Kerdi, which is made by Schluter Systems. It's an orange colored waterproof membrane that is attached to the Durock using Thinset. Then Thinset's applied to the top of the Kerdi and the tiles are embedded in that Thinset. It's a great system and one that will ensure our shower stays dry for the long term. If you're installing a shower like ours, you might look into using the Schluter Kerdi System which includes a basin as well. Had we known about that product before Bartley poured our shower basin from concrete, we would have used the Schluter System instead. Schluter's a German company, so there's an umlaut over the u, but I don't know how to type that in blogspot.

I hope you enjoy these photos.













4 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  2. Thanks for the photos.

    Love the electrical chase baseboard and doorways/pocket doors.

    Seems you've struck that tough balance between simplicity/minimalist design AND saving money and materials (as it's not always the case).

    ps. on our bathroom renovation, the contractor used "red guard" to seal the durock. it was pretty stinky so i don't know how green, but should add to the water resistance of the shower. (short video here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/satjiwan/3139021726/in/set-72157611624272895/

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  3. The house is looking OUTSTANDING guys! We've really enjoyed following you through this process and can't wait to see it all finished. You should be very proud of the great project you've put together.

    We just got our building permit and will begin our construction in January. You can check out our blog at: http://novagreenovation.blogspot.com/

    We'll definitely be referring back to your blog for tips and inspiration!

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  4. Great... light a fire and burn the house down already!

    Just kidding! Wow... It's really starting to look like a HOME, not just a building. The end is in sight!

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