Oh Happy Day

Fast, efficient, effective. Three of my favorite words. That would describe the crew from Steve Clark Dry Walls, who we hired to hang the drywall for us. Steve was recommended to us by our awesome banker, Mike Terpak with Access National Bank in Reston, VA. His crew started around 8am today, and completed work around 8pm tonight (hence the poor quality photos, since it's getting dark out waaayyy to early for me). In that 12 hour period, they hung about 160 sheets of drywall throughout the house plus 16 sheets of Durarock in the bathtub/shower areas. It looks to me like they did a very good job, and the crew will be back in the morning to start taping and mudding all of the seams. They'll bring it to a smooth finish, ready for priming, and should be done within the week. This is an exciting time -- oh happy day!

The Economy Has Recovered!

Based on the lines at every store this weekend, and the amount of money we spent on the house, I think we can officially declare that the recession in the U.S. ended as of September 7, 2009.

If only that were true....

Over the past few months, we had shopped around for a while at various retailers for appliances. Andreas's boss, Tim, suggested we look at Lowes, since he found them to have the best prices overall. We had a good sense of what the appliances for our house would cost, and then, as it turned out, Lowes had a 20% off all Energy Star appliances sale this past weekend. Ka-ching! It was great. Each appliance we could buy with an Energy Star rating has now been purchased: Washing machine; dishwasher; refrigerator. The dryer and the slide-in range are not available as Energy Star approved. Except in Winter months, we likely won't use the dryer that often anyway, as a clothes line in the backyard will dry the clothes and add a fresh smell that will remind me of home when I was growing up. The range was our splurge - an Electrolux with great features. Our refrigerator/freezer (with the freezer drawer on the bottom) is Samsung. The washing machine, dryer, and dishwasher all are Bosch.

Now it's time to brag and talk bucks. Or savings of bucks, to be more precise. Andreas and I picked out an efficient Bosch washing machine and dryer. We were excited about the quality, but not thrilled with the price. The washing machine alone cost $1,098. That's more than I had ever spent before on an appliance in my entire life. But it was really quality, and really efficient. While we were waiting our turn for assistance, we wandered the showroom floor and came across three floor model Bosch washers - the exact same model as we picked out - marked down several times. All had a few scratches on them, but they still were brand-new, and everything seemed in order. We wondered why these floor models were so cheap. When a sales rep (Zony was his name) was available, we asked him why it was marked down so much. He said people usually don't want to buy them when they learn that they have to buy an $1,100 dryer to go with it. But since we already planned to buy that dryer, this was quite a deal for us. Zony helped us with all of our other appliance questions and the order, then it came time to buy the floor model Bosch washer. He needed an override for the discounted price, so he asked his manager to enter that. While asking his manager for the code, Zony asked him to give us an even greater discount on the washing machine, to which he agreed. Are you sitting down? The $1098 washing machine cost $200. We bought an extended warranty....just in case.

While our appliance brands don't all match, we're excited about the quality we got - best in class (well, best within our budget) for each appliance type. The only appliance left to buy is the range hood, which we'll order tomorrow. We've already picked it out.

While we were on a shopping roll this weekend, we decided to go to IKEA to get our kitchen cabinets. We will have only base cabinets, not upper cabinets. The cabinets we selected are very warm, yet contemporary in style. Fortunately, IKEA had everything in stock, so we took our new cabinets with us. They're ready for assembly! People who like to dismiss the thought of IKEA cabinets either are a bit uppity about name brands, or they don't know the significant increase in IKEA kitchen cabinet product quality over the past several years. My father and I made the cabinets in the kitchen in my condo, and they're beautiful. The IKEA cabinets look almost as good, but for a lot less money.

On a completely separate note, I saw yesterday the work of the siding crew and I am glad that Aaron fired them. Again, and again, and again, I emphasized to Aaron how important it was that his siding crew nailed every board of cedar in a straight, vertical line. I even sent photographs to of other buildings to show exactly what I meant. However, his crew's nailing, which does not show up on the photo we posted the other day, looks horrific! It's like they were on drugs and zig-zagged everywhere with the nail gun. I think all of the siding needs to come off and Aaron will have to replace any boards that are damaged. He had clear instructions, and in writing, so it's his responsibility to make it right.

Recycling Dumpster Report

As you might recall from earlier posts, we had a recycling dumpster on-site during part of our house construction. Rather than sending everything to the landfill, our dumspter vendor (Environmental Alternatives, Inc.) goes through all of the dumpster content and recycles everything that they can. Only what cannot be recycled goes to the landfill.

We filled the dumpster twice. About 45% of the dumpster content was metal, wood, concrete aggregate, gypsum, or other recyclable material. So while more went to the landfill than we hoped, almost 15 tons of material were recycled.

Long Live EarthCraft House Virginia!

Andreas kept a close watch on the crew today, inspecting on a regular basis and coaching when they forgot to do something that met the EarthCraft House technical guidelines. The EarthCraft book and Andreas's persuasive personality persevered and, at the end of today, we had 22 clerestory windows installed! The only clerestory window issue remaining is the window that broke, presumable en route from WeatherSheild to Quality Window & Door.

If all goes well, the siding crew will finish installing the cedar siding tomorrow.

Here are some pics of the windows installed as well as the new house wrap properly installed and with seams and staples taped over.

Super Siding

Andreas snapped this photo with his iPhone and emailed it to me. I had to get it up on the blog. Doesn't the cedar siding look wonderful? I love the shiplap siding with the 1/8" gap between the boards. That adds so much character in a contemporary design way. The color of the Osmo all-natural stain we selected is so beautiful to me, exactly what we wanted, and I think it looks fantastic against the light grey/tan stucco. This is a nice way to end the day!

Holey, Holey, Holey

Bob DeMarr's crew came back to core drill some holes through the foundation and the TerraBricks for the TRV fresh air inlet and exhaust and the fireplace fresh air inlet. In addition, Piedmont Roofing came back and completed the roof penetrations for the fireplace chimney and the kitchen exhaust hood pipe.

TRV Fresh Air Inlet:

TRV Exhaust:

Fireplace chimney:


For Range Hood:

For Dryer Vent:

The Electric Company

Earlier this week, Dominion Power's subcontractor dug the trench in our lot and ran the conduit and electrical wires through that. It's great that we won't have above ground power lines running from the street, down our lot, and connecting to the house. Underground lines will look better and, importantly, are not susceptible to tree branches falling on them, knocking out power.

At our condo in Arlington, we participate in the Dominion Power's green energy program. I expect we'll do the same in our new home.

At the same time the crew installs the conduit and wire for electricity, they laid conduit for Cox Cable. That's standard practice, even though we don't plan to have cable TV service.

Thanks, Tim! And Sunday Progress

Last night, Andreas and I enjoyed a delicious bottle of Prosecco, which a neighbor (Tim) gave us several weeks ago as a thank you gift for the tour of the construction site we gave him. The gift was unnecessary, but greatly appreciated. We raised our glasses toasting Tim and the other, gracious, residents of Falls Church, who we have enjoyed meeting over the past several months.

Today we cleaned more. It's not glamorous, but it is necessary. We vacuumed in the basement, preparing for more scrubbing of the floor. And the upstairs, where we cleaned up around the duct system registers. And Andreas broke up more concrete that was dropped around the lot by Bartley's crew. I think that's the last of it. Finally, we placed plastic sheeting down over the newly-poured concrete floor to protect that when the windows are installed tomorrow - at long last. Sorry, no photos again today. Except one of the tasty Prosecco!

Saturday Progress

We started work early this morning. The first task to tackle was filling in the basement window wells with stone. Of course we didn't want to fill them up all the way, but there was a deep mud pit area in each window well and that needed to be filled in, up to the base of the window well insert. We bought 1/2 ton of inexpensive #57 crushed stone to fill up most of the pit, and 1/2 ton of a more expensive decorative stone (it's called chalet) to top that off. So what you see from inside the basement is only the decorative stone. We couldn't have put any more stone in the bed of my little Ford Ranger since we already were close to maximum weight. So we thought we might have to make a second run for stone. Then it occurred to me that we could make lemonade out of the lemons Bartley's crew handed us this week. We broke up the leftover concrete they had carelessly dumped on our lot and put that in the window well pits first. We covered the broken up concrete (which is as if we had just put some larger rocks down first) with the #57 crushed stone next. It worked out well - we didn't need to make a second trip for stone and we used some of that concrete and didn't have to take it to the Fairfax County dump. There's still some left, but we think we might be able to use that for another project.

After a quick lunch, we filled the bed of my truck with free Wood Chip mulch from the City of Falls Church. We used some of it to freshen up a neighbor's yard area where some muddy water from our construction site ended up after a heavy rain earlier this week, some of it covered over the mulch Bartley's crew dumped concrete on, and the rest of it went on the corner of the lot to stabilize some soil, hoping to minimize any future run off.

Now came for the hard work - cleaning the basement floor. As we wrote in a post some time ago, before the sump pumps were installed (and once after they were installed when a crew unplugged the sump pump right before a heavy rain) we ended up with water in our basement. The water brought with it some very fine dirt that sat on the basement floor for months while we've been focused on construction. We decided to clean that up so we can soon stain the basement concrete floor. It took a few hours on hands and knees with a scrub brush, and now the basement bedroom, closet, and bathroom is clean. The floor is drying and we'll test the coloring for the soy-based stain tomorrow before we clean another part of the basement and then put down some plastic tarp to try to keep the area from getting dirty again.

Sorry there are no pictures today; we were busy working and I forgot to snap some photos. It's too dark in the basement to take good photos with the iPhone, so I'll try to bring a real camera tomorrow.

More Pictures From Yesterday's Concrete Pour

The pump is controlled via remote control:










Pouring the Shower:




Tools used to smooth the concrete:

Concrete Pour

They're boarding my flight to Fort Lauderdale (quick, overnight work trip), but I wanted to post these pics from the start of the concrete pour this morning. I haven't seen the end progress, but Andreas said that Bartley did a great job. P.S. The concrete is a green mixture with 40% slag (or fly ash, I didn't catch which one).

Short Update

I'd love to write a nice, long update describing in detail everything that's been going on. But I can't. That's because very little has happened at the house. It's extremely frustrating that more is not happening. But people aren't following through on their commitments and there's little control we have over subcontractors. On the positive side, the plumbing passed the rough-in inspection, so we have a green light with that. Elmer's crew finished the cement parging, but they left a huge mess we're still trying to get cleaned up. Aaron brought his pressure washer, so we'll be cleaning the basement floor thoroughly and then staining it. And don't even ask about the windows. You do not want to get me started on what an awful, painful, unbelievable situation this has been.

I know it will be wonderful when it's all done. But with most folks slow to respond or not showing up when they promise, I doubt this house ever will be done.

Parging's Complete, Plumbing Rough-ins Complete

I'm a day late in posting this - I had trouble with my Internet connection last night after I uploaded the post on the mulch. Elmer's crew completed the cement parging of the interior walls yesterday.

The crew helped our construction manager, Aaron, place the fireplace in its spot in the living room. Unfortunately, when they uncrated the fireplace, they noticed that some of the stones that run along the base of the fireplace were cracked and others were chipped. I guess that's understandable, considering the fireplace was shipped all the way from Belgium. (Don't talk to me about that carbon footprint - actually, it's an exceptionally efficient fireplace that can heat our entire first floor with just a few logs.)

Our plumber, Bernie with Clarke County Plumbing, installed the rough-ins for the basement bathroom and ran the lines for the sump pumps.

Stabilizing Soil

On Saturday, we spent much of the day working to stabilize the soil by placing mulch on our lot and the back yard of the house next door (which we borrowed for a period of time during construction). We used up all of the leaf mulch the City of Falls Church had, and we used a good bit of their wood chip mulch as well. We'll find some more leaf mulch, either in Arlington or Fairfax County, so we can finish placing that in the neighbor's yard and then seed a lawn to replace the lawn/weed mixture we killed with the clay earth stored there for several months.

Parge Away!

Elmer's crew spent some time today making a huge mess of the house. But that was expected. Parging the walls with cement is not the cleanest task during home construction. I came to the house tonight to install the RG6 cable wire into each room, and snapped some photos with my iPhone of the parging. I suspect they only worked 1/2 day, given that only a small area was done and we had some thunderstorms this afternoon. Check out their progress so far.

100th Blog Post

This marks our 100th post. And I'm happy to report there's been some more progress. In the past couple of days, our recycling dumpster was hauled away. We filled two dumpsters during the construction, which is less than 1/2 what typical construction sends to the landfill. And many of the items placed in our dumpster will be recycled instead of dumped.

Bob Demarr's crew spent about 7 hours fixing the problems with the rough grading caused by Bartley Corp's team. Bartley's job foreman admitted to Andreas that they really don't do grading work - they don't have the right equipment or labor. That showed with the mess they created. It took Andreas more than 30 hours to dig out tree protection fencing Bartley ran over with a machine and dumped dirt on top of. I spent another 10 hours uncovering the Holly Tree roots they graded over, even though the root protection zone is clearly marked on the grading plan. Alas, we're now on the right path with grading. Demarr's crew hauled away a few truck loads of dirt today, leaving the lot looking much better than it has the past six months!

Inside, Bernie from Clarke County Plumbing, continued work on the rough-in plumbing. He put the vent pipes through the roof (now Piedmont Roofing will come back to seal that all up) and worked on the basement bathroom. Ferguson delivered the tub, toilet wall carrier and shower faucet rough-in and Bernie will install that soon. He also drilled through the EIFS to prepare for the outdoor shower piping, the hose bibs, and the sump pump piping. Unfortunately, he drilled the sump pump holes too high - the sump pump pipes were supposed to come out beneath the deck - so we'll have to work with Bernie to get that resolved.

Also inside, Aaron laid the pex tubing for the bathroom radiant floor heating. I want the shower floor to be as toasty warm as the rest of the bathroom floor, so that had to be laid today so a first layer of concrete can go over the pex tubing in the shower tomorrow. Bernie can then protect the shower floor properly with the rubber membrane and when the concrete floor is poured, it will work out perfectly.

Elmer's crew started work today on the parging. They spent the day applying a metal lathe around the doors and windows. They'll finish that tomorrow then apply the thin layer of cement to the walls and round out the edges by the doors and windows. After that cures, I can apply the American Clay Earth Plaster over the cement parging.

Jay with Quality Window & Door hasn't provided the exact date yet for the corrected clerestory windows to be delivered - hopefully that will be in the early part of next week so the cedar siding can go on Thursday morning.