Week 31: Siding Complete, Insulation Complete, Gutters Complete, & Drywall Started

Posted in Boys' Bedrooms, Dining Room, Drywall, Exterior Design, Great Room, Gutters, Insulation, Master Bathroom, Master Bedroom, Siding by stephaniesara

I think the word “milestones” is appropriate for this week. We began 2016 with some huge accomplishments…siding was finished up this week. Insulation was started and completed, and drywall began!

Let’s start with siding…or really end with siding! It’s very exciting to see the entire house completely done with siding. There’s only a couple of little things that are still missing – the corbels to add a bit of detail on the gables and the mudroom front door still need to be done. But realistically, it feels like we’re done! The top of the great room gable on the back of the house was completed this week, and the siding on the backside of the garage was finished as well too.

: The back of the house is completely sided now!

: Of course Cameron climbed on top of the stockpile with me to take some pictures!

: The underside of the gable was finished with tongue & groove pine.

: Here’s a view of the house that we won’t see after the decking is complete. The small covered area on the left is the BBQ area.

: The backside of the garage was finished this week. They had to install strips of wood on the lower half which is concrete in order to install the siding. The belly band hides the intersection between the upper and lower installations.

On the inside of the house, insulation was added which included insulating all of the walls – exterior and interior. I walked through the house on Wednesday and it was amazing that they were done with it – they only started on Monday! It’s pretty wild now to walk through it because it feels so much darker than it did before. Light used to penetrate into every room because it was just studs. Now the rooms without windows – like the powder room feel sooooo dark. Which is probably half because the light can’t enter the room and half because all of the insulation is brown. Once the sheetrock goes up, I’m sure those rooms will feel a bit lighter.

: Insulation was started and finished this week. All of the walls in the house were insulated – inside and out! Here’s a picture of our master looking into the master bath.

: It’s a little hard to see, but here’s the great room insulation.

: The sloped ceilings were insulated using the batts.

: I told Matt that all of the insulation on the walls felt like an insane asylum. Then I went into the storage room (which we’re not drywalling), and it totally feels like an asylum! Yikes!! Guess where the new “timeout” room is for the boys 😉

And drywall was started! On Wednesday, they loaded all the drywall into the house and they started working on it the next day. By the end of the day Thursday our entire master bedroom was completed. And by the end of the week there was so much completed! All of the ceiling are done and so are all of the walls in the boys’ area.

: All of the drywall was loaded into the house on Thursday. Matt took this pic of the crane loading in into the house from the truck

: The drywall really makes the ceiling details stand out – here’s the future coffered ceilings in the kitchen.

: The dining room ceiling looks fantastic!

: I swear, these boys think it’s so funny to pretend to go to the bathroom…where’s the toilet?!?

: These channels were added to the ceilings of the bedrooms and playroom downstairs for sound proofing. It won’t completely soundproof between the floors but it will help. We tested it and it does work pretty well!

: Cameron loves his new room and we love all of the natural light that it gets.

: Spencer was pretty bummed that his closet was drywalled over. Pretty sure the drywall crew has some tools (or something they don’t want stolen) in there.

Finally, gutters were done this week too! I originally wanted the half round gutters, but apparently they hold less rain and considering the amount of pine needles and rain that we have in the northwest, I opted for the more practical solution. Regular k-style gutters it is!

: Every time I see it, I love how it looks!

: Just another view on a sunny blue sky day!

: Gutters were added this week – I’m happy that we won’t have mud splashing on the house when it rains any more.

: Just some gutters…nothing fancy!

3Jan2016

Week 30: Siding and Last Minute Electrical Changes

Posted in Electrical, Exterior Design, Siding by stephaniesara

The majority of this week was spent on siding the back of the house. The lower level was sided first, and then the upper level. They got an amazing amount done. I guess that’s because it’s really just a whole bunch of lap siding and not too much detail work – actually I don’t think there’s really any detail work downstairs. The upstairs on the back gable of the great room will have some detailing, but they haven’t even started that this week.

Check out all the progress on the back of the house! Just a little bit more left to do.

The scaffolding’s there for them to work on the great room gable next week.

This is the backdoor to the mudroom with the windows to the mudroom and the mudroom bathroom.

Here’s a view from the mudroom back door to the back yard – the covered porch here is where the BBQ will end up going.

From the backyard, here’s what the covered BBQ area looks like. The electrician convinced me to put a can light in there – I think it’ll work great!

The deck still needs to be built, but the outside of the kitchen is all done!

The top part of the garage has siding, but they still need to work on the part below the belly band.

No real changes on the front of the house, but I had to include at least one photo of it!

Besides the major progress outside, I think I practically drove Matt crazy with all of the little last minute details that I had to ask about (or have him change) before the insulation goes in next week. Last week we went to a friend Hans’ birthday party and his wife Jenni was showing me the awesome new Dyson that she received for Christmas. It’s 100% amazing…super tiny, light weight and cordless!! Whoo hoo! Isn’t it sad that at parties we’re now having fun looking at vacuum cleaners?? So sad. Anyhow, I immediately told Joel that we need to get one. Only problem…the cabinet in the laundry room that I was planning on storing the vacuum doesn’t have an outlet to charge a cordless vacuum! So that was priority numero uno to talk with Matt about this week. And well, you know, since the electricians need to come back, why not add an outlet to the pantry? And add a ceiling fixture in the mudroom bathroom? So a couple hundred dollars later and now I’ve got my outlet where the vacuum is stored…I’m blaming Joel for this one – if his buddy didn’t have a party I never would have seen the vacuum! 😉

See that outlet on the right…yep, my future vacuum will plug into that!

And one panoramic of the backyard – have I mentioned how cold it’s been here?

27Dec2015

Week 29: Siding Progress & Drywall Prep

Posted in Drywall, Exterior Design, Fire Sprinklers, Siding, Windows by stephaniesara

Lots of siding progress happened this week, including finishing the front of the house! The only thing missing is that dumb mudroom door. The correct millwork was added/grooved into the door and it’s back at the house. We just need the door framers to get it up there…and then the front will be done. Can’t wait! The back of the house had a lot of siding progress including being wrapped and just a few more sections need siding. Tons of progress!

The front of the house is finally done being sided! I love the way it turned out.

The garage was the last piece to be completed, and I think it turned out fantastic.

I walked out on the little deck between the master and the kitchen. Here’s a view looking back towards the master.

The back of the house has really come along since last week and is so close to being done…just a bit more.

Every time I see all those windows in the kitchen eating nook, I love it – it’ll be exciting to see all of it sided soon.

Here’s a view of one of Cameron’s bedroom windows. The trim turned out perfectly!

On the inside, everything is getting ready for drywall, including adding the metal strips at the top corners of the ceiling. This is so that the drywall is nailed into the ceiling studs/joists as well as the metal brackets which are attached to the walls. They’ll resist upheave from the ceiling/attic so that the drywall will resist cracking or nails popping.

All of those metal strips were added between the walls and the ceiling to secure the drywall correctly.

The fire sprinklers also got some insulation around them so that they could be inspected. The inspection passed with flying colors, and no issues with the design or construction – yay! Matt said that the insulation is “tented” around the sprinkler lines so that nothing (including insulation) can get between the smoke/fire in the house and the sprinkler heads. Who knew!

Insulation was added to “tent” each of the sprinkler lines.

Just another sprinkler line in the dining room – and I just love that ceiling!

20Dec2015

Week 28: Siding Progress

Posted in Exterior Design, Siding, Uncategorized by stephaniesara

This week, more siding was installed. The front of the house is almost complete – only missing the gable above the garage and the mudroom door (which is still being fixed). The side of the garage has all of its siding as well as a small amount on the back of the house. Not too much to write about this week, just lots of pictures! Progress, progress, progress!

The main part of the house has all of its siding now, just a bit missing on the garage gable.

I don’t take pictures too often at this angle, just fun to see it from a different point of view.

The north side of the house has siding, and a small amount around the back of the house as well.

The south side of the house which is the side of the garage has siding. Originally we were supposed to have 4 windows on this side of the house, but I think it looks good even without them.

A close up view of the siding details at the dining room windows.

The shed dormer in the master closet.

The main gable at the front entry and the shed dormer in the laundry room (on the right).

The ceiling above the entry was installed this week – it looks fantastic. Now I just need to decide if I should paint it blue or just add a clear coat!

A closer look at the front porch ceiling.

13Dec2015

Week 27: Siding, Garage & Pocket Doors, and Prepping Studs for Drywall

Posted in Doors, Exterior Design, Framing, Siding by stephaniesara

Siding

We’ve had some crazy weather this week including a windstorm on early Tuesday morning which took out a Puget Sound Energy major transmission line at 3am. That meant we lost power until about mid-day on Wednesday. Amidst all of the weather craziness, the siding subcontractor did get quite a bit more work done on the front of the house. Matt said that the work they’re doing on the entry is the most time consuming since it’s a lot more detail work and the type/style of siding changes.

Almost all of the entry siding has been finished this week. Just a bit more above the arches and it’ll be complete!

The gable above the office was completed this week. I love the mix of board and batten and the “mini” siding in the very top. And doesn’t the frieze boards look good? I know…it’s hard to see at this angle, but they’re there!

The front of the house really is taking shape now! So many changes this week including more work on the entry and garage doors!

Garage Doors

Our garage doors were also installed this week on Tuesday! It’s awesome to finally see garage doors instead of black plastic. We chose carriage style garage doors with X’s and windows on the front of them. The two garage doors on the left are 9′ doors while the one on the right is an 8′ door. I knew we wanted a 3 car garage since we always have so many outdoor toys for the boys and have NEVER been able to park in the garage because of them. This will give both Joel and I each a space to park, and another place for the boys’ bikes and outdoor toys. It’s shocking the number of nerf guns and scooters they have! The only problem with a 3 car garage is how massive it can look on the front of the house, so to make it look a little less intrusive (and so that it didn’t seem like the main focus of the house), we designed the 3rd bay to be set back and at a smaller height. I think it turned out great!

The garage doors were installed this week – the first two are 4 panel doors and the smaller one is a 3 panel door. They look good now, but they’ll look even better once the hardware has been installed.

Here’s a closer up look at the garage doors. We used Northwest Door’s Carriage Style door.

The doors and tracks were installed, but can’t open quite yet – we’re still missing the motors.

Pocket Door Frames

The frames for the pocket doors were also installed this week. We have two locations where we have pocket doors in the house. The first being the master bathroom entrance from our bedroom; and the second is a pocket dutch door that’s in the hallway between the mudroom and the rest of the house. Most of the time, this mudroom door will be open when we’re home. But when we’re away our Yorkshire Terrier, Bella, will be in the mudroom and by just closing the bottom half of the pocket dutch door we’ll be able to keep her in there and it’ll act as a little “doggy gate” for us.

The double pocket doors to enter the master bath were also installed. It’s fantastic to see the true opening width now.

The pocket door between the mudroom and the rest of the house was installed. This one will be a bit tricky to work out the details, because it’s a dutch door. The top will be on a track and I think the bottom will have casters.

Prepping Studs for Drywall

The last thing worked on this week was prepping the studs for drywall on the inside of the house. They used lasers to tell which studs weren’t even with each other. In order to get a fully level wall, they either shaved off portions of the studs that stuck out too much or added cardboard shims to the face of the studs that weren’t quite wide enough. This was done all over the house on the studs or on the plywood surfaces.

Here’s an example of one of the walls where a couple of the studs were shaved down and if you look really close you can see that a shim was added to another one of them.

Here’s a close-up which shows the cardboard shim on the left and the shaving down of the stud on the right.

Shims were even added to walls where spots were low.

6Dec2015

Week 26: Siding

Posted in Exterior Design, Siding by stephaniesara

The siding company started on Monday of this week. Over the past couple of weeks, I had to make final decisions about the siding. I always knew the main siding boards I wanted an 8″ reveal, but I had to decide on all the rest of the trim! And it’s definitely not as easy as it sounds. There’s so many different parts & pieces of trim. I definitely knew that I wanted to have window trim, corner boards, belly bands, and I really had a hard time deciding if I wanted frieze boards or not. Here’s a quick description of what each of these are:

Here’s an overview of what each of these trim pieces are (although this home doesn’t have corner boards).

(via)

Window Trim: this one’s pretty self-explanatory. It’s the wood that wraps around the windows. The only thing, is that there are TONS of different options for this. So I had to choose a style as well as the width for all of the pieces. Here was the picture that I sent Matt for what I wanted…except, I didn’t want to have the pieces of crown on top of the windows. I basically wanted flat trim all the same size (5 1/2″) around each window, with a sill piece. I’ve driving by a handful of old farmhouses around our area – carnation, fall city, etc – and they have this simple style trim – love it!

Here’s my inspiration picture of the shape/size of the window trim that I want for the house – except mine will be painted.

(via)

Corner Boards: These are vertical pieces that wrap the exterior corners of the home. I chose to do these the same size as the window trim at 5 1/2″.
Frieze Boards: These boards wrap the underside of the gables. They’re shown pretty well in the picture below or in the first picture above – it’s a flat piece of trim that is at the same angle as the roof line. These were harder for me to decide if I wanted to have them. On our house, the fronts of the gables have barge boards on them, and mine are pretty wide – I think they installed 10″ boards. So they overhang the house quite a bit, and therefore it’s hard to envision how much of the frieze boards will actually be visible from the street level. I really love the way that they outline and accentuate the house though. But there’s an added cost to have them since they are more labor intensive to install (vs. not having them). I was completely torn on this one. I doubt anyone is even going to notice these things, and truly they add NO VALUE to the home…but I personally love the way they look. And part of building our a custom home is to get some things that we think are beautiful – that’s what makes it our home vs. another spec house, right? Ahhh, decisions, decisions. So, since I couldn’t really decide, and since we can’t go back and add them later, we said – the hell with it – just add them!

Here’s a house that has both corner and frieze boards.

(via)

Belly Bands: These are the wider boards that sort of frame out the bottom of each level in the home. So we’ll have a belly band run between the main and lower levels, and we’re also installing on around the bottom of the entire house (front, back, and sides). These boards are taller than the other normal horizontal siding and really separate out some spaces. This was really important to add on the backside of the garage which is a full height retaining wall. Since there’s no windows on that wall (b/c underneath the garage is backfilled in with dirt), having siding run from the backyard level all the way up to the roof would have looked awful. Just a sea of siding. The belly band really breaks it up and gives your eye a place to rest. I like the way belly bands look on houses anyhow – they add some visual interest to homes.

Here’s some pictures of the siding that they’ve accomplished this week:

They started with the north side of the house which is Spencer’s bedroom downstairs and the master bathroom & closet upstairs. Instead of stepping the belly band around the bottom of the house as it turns the corner and heads down the slope, I had them install it at a diagonal. The less concrete we see….the better!

They ended the week by getting a bit of siding done on the office.

Still a lot more work to do on the front of the house!

Just another view of the work done the first week of siding.

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Category Archives: Siding

Week 31: Siding Complete, Insulation Complete, Gutters Complete, & Drywall Started

Week 30: Siding and Last Minute Electrical Changes

Week 29: Siding Progress & Drywall Prep

Week 28: Siding Progress