Staining Cedar

There's a particular look we were going for with the cedar stain and I think we're achieving it! At Amicus Green Building Center in Kensington, MD, we purchased a "one coat only" stain that's made from plant oils. The color we chose is mahogany, which will give the beautiful orange-ish, red color we'd like for the cedar. This will be beautiful with the lighter color stucco below and the dark metal roof. As I mentioned in an earlier post, the cedar arrived on Friday. I had ordered the stain from Amicus a couple of weeks ago, it arrived, so I picked it up after work on Friday evening and I spent the weekend staining. I got most of the shiplap cedar siding done on three sides, and all of the cedar trim on one side. I only made it through a couple of the longer cedar fascia boards before running off to a friend's 60th birthday dinner. In any case, I made a lot of progress and Andreas is off tomorrow so he'll pick up where I left off - finishing the cedar fascia boards and the final side of the cedar shiplap siding. I have some more shiplap to stain for the outdoor shower, but there's not a big rush to get than completed since I'll build that fencing around the shower at my leisure. Here are some pics of the stain and the wood - both finished and unfinished.

Progress!

While I was out of town, a lot of things happened at the house. I need to get out of town more often, so progress continues!

Bob DeMarr and his team did the street cut and trenching to the house, as you saw in the photos from the other day. Later in the week they drilled through the 12" thick concrete foundation to bring the water and sewer lines through into the house. Meanwhile, Bernie from Clarke County Plumbing was on-site working on the rough-ins for all of the plumbing - bathrooms, kitchen, laundry, etc. Southland Insulators came back to finish the air sealing in the first floor. And Bartley's crew came back to re-do the deck piers they excavated and poured way back in February (the ones that collapsed when the excavation for the basement began). So we now have footers for the deck framing that will begin on Monday. Also this week, Bernie will continue with the rough-in plumbing to connect the sewer/water lines and the sump pumps; Elmer will be on-site to do the parging over the interior TerraBrick walls (except the pantry, which we're leaving as bricks to show them off), and Aaron will continue with his to-do list of items he needs to follow-through on, such as correcting the height of the baseboard outlets, installing the fireplace chimney and 6" duct for the range hood, etc. We're close to plumbing and electrical rough-in inspection time, which is very exciting.

The latest word on the corrected clerestory windows is they should be here early next week. Once that's done, we'd like to move quickly on finishing the exterior, laying the radiant floor pex tubing, and pouring the concrete first floor so we can then close-in the walls with drywall. It now looks like we're aiming for a mid-October move-in. Stay tuned!