2007_12_08 Windows and doors and a hint of stain

For those of you who look at all the pictures on the Kodak site where I post more of the pictures and comment on them individually I apologize that a lot of this commentary is copying from there. I really need to get this stuff caught up and my back hurts and I need to go to bed so you're getting the short version here this time. :-)

Saturday Steve and the crew worked all day and into the night to get the Pella windows installed at least to the point that it'll be able to keep the water out pretty well. They also put in the 4 sets of double French doors and the other 3 upstairs regular outside doors.

The front door is still an issue so it will be done later. Heritage sent the wrong materials list to Pella and the hinges are on the wrong side, so we're waiting for Heritage to tell us what they will do to get that straightened out.

The garage doors and regular exit door in the basement as well as the basement windows will also be done later.

The outside wall outside the dining room was stained the other day. There's one picture of that.

As I said, the guys worked all day and some of the later pictures were taken when it was pretty dark.

Here they are trying to see how the half-round windows fit above the dormer windows. They finally got it, but it took some doing.

By the way, the muntins are still in the boxes. They'll go on the windows later. They're the things that go on the inside of the glass to make them look like individual panes of glass instead of one large glass pane.

Below is the result when they finally got them together. Now they have to cut the semi-circle in the header above the dormer window! Steve was on a roll when the windows were done and didn't realize that the little half-circle windows were to go there. So, they had to cut the curve into the house before putting the window in. All's well that ends well.


There is something that sticks out around all the windows that is used to attach them to the house and then Pella provides a tape that goes over that and against the surrounding wood. See the top edge here. There is a board behind the tape. The opening above that allows for log settling. They'll insulate around the windows later. On the right side notice that wood trim goes over the tape.

The picture below is of the 2 sets of double French doors in the great room. Since Pella shuts down their plant for 2 weeks or so during December to recalibrate some of their equipment (if I understand it correctly) they cannot get the fixed glass windows above the French doors ready until early January so they are simply covered with plastic for now.

Now Randy and Steve are fitting the semi-circular wood pieces that will serve as the window trim at the top of the half-circle windows. They had to be cut manually and it required several attempts before getting it right. They are standing on folded up stepladders that are just standing on the roof above the area outside of the dining room and just leaning against the dormer. Not the safest position! One fall and if they didn't stay on the deck they'd drop another 19 feet or so to the rocks below.

This is the part of the outside wall that HAS been stained with the honey colored stain that protects it from water, sun, insects, mold, mildew, etc. It's Wood Guard with stuff mixed in with it to protect against insects and mold, etc in case you're wondering.

This is a view of part of the dining area (to the left) and the great room (to the right). As you can see it's getting pretty dark out there!

Here is a picture from the kitchen area toward the dining area. The frame sticking out is where a peninsula will be once the kitchen is installed.

2007_12_05 Windows, Door, and Bleaching before staining

Pella delivered the windows and the front door (there was a mix-up on this and they ended up delivering a right-swing door instead of a left-swing door as the plans called for) and the logs were bleached to get ready for them to be stained. Our builder is negotiating with Heritage Log Homes to see if they will pay for a new front door since they were the ones who sent the wrong info to Pella, but we don't know yet what their response is. More on that later I guess.

This is a shot of the small half-circle windows that will be installed on top of the dormer windows upstairs. I intended to make pictures of all the stuff Pella delivered in case they were stolen, but I quickly forgot to do so!


Here the Pella guys unload the windows from their truck. It as so cold that day that the truck driver (who is from Minnesota) said that he was freezing! I thought that was pretty funny since it was probably only about 35 degrees that day.

Here is a picture of one of the windows that they have put in. They will later have a tape required by Pella to go over all the edges of the windows and then insulation put in between the window and the sides and tops and then have the finish trim installed over the tape, etc.

The door below is wrong! The hinges should be on the right (it looking at it from inside), but they would have to be on the left on this door. Our plans called for a left-swing door (opens from right to left as you look at it from the outside), but they sent a right-swing door. Our plans were correct, but the materials list showed right-swing door and that is what the Heritage home office people sent to Pella. Kathy Pearson is negotiating with Heritage to see if they'll replace the door for free ($3,000+) or what. We'll have to decide ourselves what to do if they don't or if they will but it might be another 3 or 4 weeks to get a new door. We don't know how this will end up yet. :-(

Below Steve Easterwood is bleaching the logs with a bleach/water solution to even out the color difference between the logs. He then washes the bleach off with water. This will have to dry overnight before he starts staining. Then he'll stain them with the honey colored stain.

2007_12_03 Kathy's in the house

Kathy wanted to go see the house to see how it looked now. I got the Jeep as close as I could to the garage and helped her inside the house. I helped her up the basement stairs to the first floor like we do at Auburn's football games.

Below is a picture of her in the kitchen area standing by one of the log support posts:


This shows the wall that has been put up for the peninsula. Yes, those are leaves on the floor.

The dining area is going to be small since we decided to make the kitchen a little bit longer than it had been in order to allow us to have all the kitchen appliances that Kathy wants to have. We believe that by taking all the leaves out of the table (so that it is round instead of oval) it will allow us to still get the table and chairs in there and we can use it that way when it's just the two of us.

When company comes we should be able to put leaves in and turn the table so that it runs lenthwise toward the great room (since there is not wall between the dining area and the great room) and it will still be OK.

This is Kathy standing beside one of the dormer windows.

Kathy looking out:

Here is the balcony on the kitchen side. It's not finished, but you can see basically what it will look like once the railings are in, etc.

Here is Kathy on the east balcony waving. Bye, Bye!

2007_11_29 View from down the hill and balcony close up

The shot above was taken from the road below the house that runs through the bottom third of our property. As you can see the leaves are almost gone now and the house is becoming quite visible from the road. Actually, it's visible from several miles down the valley at this point.

The picture below shows the slight progress on the balcony. The rafters are starting to be put up. The roof of the balcony will be very close to the main roof as you can see.


Once done the balconies will provide nice places for you to go to check out the view. During the winter there will be mountains in the distance. In the summer you will be able to see some of that too, but the trees are so thick that they are also nice to look at.

2007_11_28 Starting balconies and TEMPORARY stairs to get to 2nd floor

They started working on the balconies. Once done these will provide a nice place for you to go (once we get some furniture out there for people to sit on that is) to check out the view or trees depending on the season I guess.

Also, they finally put up some temporary stairs that go from the first floor to the second floor! They needed some way to get the windows upstairs when they are delivered by Pella so this will do the trick until the actual timber stairs arrive.

They started working on the balconies. Once done these will provide a nice place for you to go (once we get some furniture out there for people to sit on that is) to check out the view or trees depending on the season I guess. Also, they finally put up some temporary stairs that go from the first floor to the second floor! They needed some way to get the windows upstairs when they are delivered by Pella so this will do the trick until the actual timber stairs arrive. The leaves are leaving (appropriate isn't it?) the trees so more of the mountains can now be seen.

2007_11_09 Dormers getting nearer finished and getting ready for fixed glass

Short update today. The dormers upstairs are making progress although slowly. Also, the large fixed glass windows are not here yet, but the openings are ready for them when they are.

First, here is one view of a dormer minus the roof and window that is.


This is a shot of the window openings that are waiting on the window glass from Pella.


It looks like it's going to be early January before the Pella folks get the glass ready. They shut down their plant for 2 weeks soon to re-calibrate some of their equipment or something.

2007_11_05 Nothing new so the pine trees suffered

Although Steve had thought he would be up there on Saturday they apparently were not. I went up there today expecting to see them today, but the place doesn't look like there has been any change since I was there last week and they were not there today either.

I managed to get a shovel out of our storage facility last week and I took it up there today. Since there wasn't anything to take pictures of or to watch (since they were not there doing anything) I picked up trash for a couple of hours and then took out my disappointment on the pine trees!

I used the shovel to dig up about 18 of the little rascals! That wasn't as easy as I'd hoped since there are so many rocks in the ground down there (on the slope down the hill) it was hard to do the digging at all. Also, since I didn't have any hatchet or axe I had to dig deep enough to allow me to use the shovel to pry the roots with the shovel and pull them out. The roots of those darn things go way down and they're tough.

Anyway, I got out about 18 of them, but I have a lot to go. I wish I had my chain saw so I could cut down the large ones, but it's so far back in the storage facility I can't even see where it is and climbing over the stuff is not really an option for me since I'd kill myself and probably break some of the things in there.

I don't know when Steve and his crew is coming back. :-(

More reports later....

2007_10_31 Dormers almost done, view from down the hill, and fall colors

After the dormer rafters were put up on my last trip to the house they were getting them covered up today (Thursday). They put on the 4x6 inch tongue and groove ceiling and all the other roof 'layers' on them today.

Below is a view of them working on the one over the west bedroom. Steve is up on top.



Here Roberto and Randy work on the vents.

Below I was standing near the window in the dormer and looking back toward the bedroom and up to the ceiling of the dormer. The area that is in the very back where the roof of the dormer is above the regular roof will be behind a wall that Steve says goes straight up from the bottom edge of the dormer in this picture to the top of the dormer ceiling.

Down behind the house there are a few little trees that are getting pretty now that fall has begun to arrive. These are in the area just slightly below where the septic tank drain field (the infiltrator) is located. Kathy really likes this picture. The rock is one of the larger ones we have in this part of the property. There are some that are 6 or 7 feet across further east, but right where the house is there are just millions of them that are an inch to 6 or 8 inches, but few larger ones. This one is an exception.

The last picture is one I took standing down the hill (just in front of the little red leafed trees) looking back up toward the house so you can see how it looks from the south side now that the dormers are done.

I had called Steve yesterday to tell him that the front wall of the storage areas in each upstairs bedroom really did have to be moved back to 5 feet away from the dormer windows (sticking out into the room only 5 feet) instead of the 6 feet he had made them. He had misunderstood when I told him before that they needed to be only 5 feet out. Steve had thought that I meant that the head room height needed to be 5 feet so he put them where the head height would be 5 feet and that made them stick out 6 feet. That cut the distance from the wall to the window that next to the door out to the balcony down to only 7 feet and from the wall to the bedroom door down to just over 10 feet. With the bed, night stand, and chest of drawers that we need to put in bedrooms that was not going to allow room for them as we want them. So, by moving the walls back to the 5 feet that I had told him that will give us 8 feet and 11 feet for those two distances. That will be much better. Steve said he'd move them.

Steve asked where I wanted the walls in the basement. I showed him where to put walls and where to put doors so we could have some open area, an area that can be used for a workshop, and a separate area to store things in that won't get dust in it from the workshop.

Steve says that we probably will need to have at least one wall down there that separates the garage area from the rest of the house that is a firewall. Wood can't be used for that so he wondered whether we wanted the sheet rock (dry wall) on the side of the wall that faced the outside or the inside. I told him that if we have to have it at all I think we'd want it facing outside (toward the garage doors) as opposed to toward the inside. That way it can be wood siding facing the 'inside' where the elevator, bathroom, and stairway will be so that it will still look log-like in there. I told him that we'd probably want to know whether we were making a big mistake monetarily though in case one way is way more expensive than the other.

However, Kathy Pearson had said that log siding was no more costly upstairs than dry wall because the labor to put it up was less than the labor to put up the dry wall. I'm assuming that the same will hold true down in the basement too, but maybe not. Steve said that we may not even have to have either side be dry wall depending on the insurance and/or fire inspector requirements. He doesn't know. Maybe I should ask Mike Toungette, our insurance agent!

2007_10_29 Bedroom storage, Dormer rafters, front & side flashing

Well, last week it rained almost all week and Steve and the crew didn't work much at all. They did work on Saturday, however, and were there again on Monday.

They worked on the dormer rafters today. They put up some end flashing and side flashing too.

Remember the low head room areas in the upstairs bedrooms that we have decided to enclose for storage space? There was a misunderstanding on what we decided and I didn't make it clear enough to Steve that when I asked him to take them out to 5 feet from the window area that I meant 5 feet toward the other end of the rooms and not to where it was 5 feet of head room!

It makes a difference of a little bit over a foot in how far they would go out into the rooms. Steve thought it was to be 5 feet of head room and that made it stick out about 6 feet out into the rooms. I need to re-calculate to see if we can give up another foot of room there and still get the furniture in.

The bad thing is that we'd lose some floor space, but it would give us more storage and there would be more room for the doors in them. He said they could move it without too much difficulty. I'll have to figure it again and let him know.

Below you can see one of the little storage areas from the side. We think we want the little doors to them to be on the sides, but if we have Steve move the end of them a foot or so closer to the lowest point near the window then it would offer the possibility of having a larger door to access the storage area. So, there are pros and cons both ways.



Below you can see that this one in bedroom B. Bedroom B is the one that is the larger bedroom which does not have the bath attached.

They have put on some green flashing on the front and sides. It is an evergreen color. I'm not sure where this color comes from. It is perhaps not the color of the roof we want, but so far Kathy hasn't shown us any roof color samples. We have always told her that we want a Hunter Green color or at least whichever name the color that is a fairly dark green is given by whomever is supplying the metal roofing.

We really need to be able to see the options before roofing is started so that we aren't surprised and Kathy doesn't end up having to change the order with the supplier whoever it ends up being!

The picture below is just to show the wiring that is going through the ceiling boards and goes down into the ceiling of the great room. They will be for lighting and a ceiling fan.

This is a view of the dormer's progress as viewed from the deck outside the dining room. Check out the pretty blue sky! It was a nice day today with temperatures in the 60s and no clouds at all.

Now that they have moved to the other dormer this is the view of their work. Dormer rafters up. Soon will come the ceiling boards, plastic, insulation, 2x4's, OSB boards, and felt before the metal roofing material.

Here is a view of the bathroom upstairs as seen from the loft. The door on the loft side is visible here.

Below you're looking through the loft bathroom door toward the other door that goes from the bathroom into bedroom A. The bathroom looks pretty big without any fixtures in it, but even afterward I think that it will be adequate.

OK, the picture below shows the flashing across the front where the siding meets the porch roof and the corner where the roof starts going up on the side. The front flashing sticks up a little bit (by design according to Steve) and then it gradually goes down so it will lay flat against the roof on the side where it goes up.

I need to find out a few things from Scott and Kathy. For example:

Steve says that he doesn't know how the air conditioning ducts will be run so that proper vents will be in the bedrooms, loft, bathroom upstairs since Scott and the AC people will need to tell him how that will be done. He says that it may require that the ceilings of the closets in those bedrooms be lowered so that the duct work and vents can go above them.

We also need to find out who is going to be doing the metal roof so we can see color samples to be sure we get the one we want.

We have not yet seen any of the hardwood floor samples to choose the color of stain that we want on the red oak floors.

I told Steve that I'd try to get up there again tomorrow after I have done some more figuring on the space upstairs so I can tell him whether we want him to move where the storage areas (low head room areas that we are having him wall off) begin so that there is more room for beds, furniture, etc or just leave it as it is.

Oh, yes, I told Steve today to just leave the foyer bathroom door where it already is (i.e. facing the foyer as opposed to facing the great room) since it really does LOOK better that way and we probably would not put anything along that wall (facing the foyer) anyway since it would stick out pretty far into the foyer unless it was a thin table (which we don't currently own!). We're going to leave it with the door facing the foyer.

2007_10_18 More Roof stuff

They now have put the OSB board up on the outside of the upstairs studs and they have done more work on the roof system since the last time. They have moved the scaffolding from inside to the outside.


You can see the progress on the roof from this view. First, the 2x6 inch ceiling boards are covered with plastic, then come the 4 inch foam insulation sheets, 2x4 boards on top of that, OSB boards, then the black felt (or tarpaper as I've always heard it called), and eventually the metal roof material will go over that. I don't know if there are other things before the metal roof or not, but I haven't heard of it if there is.

You can see here that the outer edge of the roof doesn't require insulation. It isn't over heated or cooled areas since it's just overhang on the sides.

Now that the scaffolding has now been moved outside you can see the great room a little bit better.

I went up there to see the progress on Friday too, but the crew hadn't gone up there at all since it was raining in the morning where they were (about an hour and a half south of here). It hadn't rained on the mountain so I just spent the time picking up garbage and hauling it off.

I haven't been able to get the hi-tech guy from Crabtree Computers to call me back lately so I haven't been able to set up a meeting between us, Will Parker of the smart-home place, and Steve Pearson to make sure that we aren't forgetting something now that might prevent us from doing things later that we might want to do (even though we may not be able to afford to do them)! I've left 2 messages over the last week or so and haven't had a return call yet!

It's supposed to rain Monday and Tuesday so I don't know whether Steve and the crew will even come up there or not. We'll see!

2007_10_15 Roof being completed in layers

The picture below was taken through the top of the dormer window upstairs in the bedroom on the east side of the house with the bathroom attached. It's zoomed in pretty far so in the "normal" view the mountains wouldn't be so close to you. This is the same view where the large fire off in the distance was a week or so ago.




Below is a shot taken looking toward the roof line through the dormer window upstairs. You can see several layers of the roof from this angle.

There are the 2x6 inch tongue and groove ceiling boards which are on top of the rafters, then the plastic sheeting, then the 4 inch foam insulation sheets, then some 2x4 boards on top of them, then the OSB board which will have the felt sheeting on top of that, and then (I guess) the metal roofing on top of that. At least if there is anything else that goes on I'm not sure yet what it is.

2007_10_10 Collar ties, fire in the distance, roof insulation

On Wednesday when I went up there they had put up lots of collar ties to brace the rafters in the great room and both upstairs bedrooms.

The view below is from about the closet area in bedroom A (the one with the bath attached) toward the door out to the balcony with the window to the right of it. We had them switch the door to be on the left with the window on the right in this bedroom. The other bedroom we had them put the door on the right and the window on the left. Both bedrooms then will have the window on the end of the bedroom that is closest to the dormers that look down the mountain. The reason for that is so that the door swing will be away from the end where the bed will be and that will keep it from getting in the way when walking around the bed to get to the dormers, etc. It's easier to see on paper.






Below you can see the collar ties that hold the rafters together. There are 6 of them over the main great room area. We eventually will have track lighting installed on some of these to get some light up to the ceiling out there. I don't know anything about how many tracks will be needed to get light where we might want it, but it appears that we can buy them for about $60.00 or so for an 8 foot track with 4 flood lights on it.


Below is the view from the bed in bedroom B looking out over the driveway. There needs to be enough room on the wall over there to put a small TV either on the wall or on top of a dresser or something so you can watch TV from bed when you come to visit. Oh, and I'm certainly hoping that there is enough height 12 feet away from the left side to put in a ceiling fan without it getting in the way when viewing the TV! If not, you'll just have to come downstairs!

The have also finished putting up the ceiling over the entire 2nd floor. Below you see (from the dormer window in bedroom B) the top of the ceiling over the great room. Too bad you have to put other stuff on top of it isn't it?

Below is just another view of the ceiling in the great room taken from the loft. It looks a lot like a church in this picture since the log post with the collar ties beyond it look almost like a cross.


Below you're looking higher up toward the ridge beam.

Today they started putting up the plastic barrier over the roof and then the foam insulation that will go between the ceilings and the actual roof. Here is Randy getting ready to slide one of the 4 inch thick foam insulation panels over to Steve who was directing the operation.

They've put several of them down and are working their way across to the other side. Steve has been marking them with a can of green spray paint to show where the wiring below is so they'll know later. The stuff is very light, but it's sturdy enough to walk on without hurting it.



Now they are putting boards on top of the foam that will form the support for the next layer of the roof system.

At the end of the day they had managed to get the front side of the house done. The wind was pretty breezy and they had some difficulty getting the plastic sheeting down in the wind. I was afraid that the foam insulation sheets were going to get someone blown off balance and they'd end up going over the edge. Didn't happen - yet. They've got more to do.

There was a fire many miles away today. I don't know what it was, but it was producing plenty of smoke at times. The first picture is without any zoom at all.



Below I zoomed in to 12x. I had to keep the camera up against the window edge to keep it still enough to get a picture at all!




The bad news is that although they came to work on Thursday 10/11 they soon ended up going back home because overnight Steve's work trailer was broken into and some of his smaller tools were stolen! They didn't take the big things like the air compressor, etc. They just took the stuff like nail guns and staple guns, etc. You may recall that not long ago his brother's (Scott's) entire trailer was stolen with all his tools in it so both have had thefts in the last month.

Steve reported it to the police. They think that they may have a lead since someone has reported a boy and a girl in a red truck acting suspiciously in the area. I don't know whether they'll ever recover any of the stolen items or not though.

I wanted to go up there tomorrow and maybe meet with a man (Will Parker) who works for Crabtree Computer Services to see what advice he can give us about home automation that we may want to either do now or plan for in the future, but now I don't know whether Steve will be there or not or whether he'll be there all day or may need to leave early or something to take care of the problem. Since my sisters who live up near Knoxville and Boston are both coming down on Saturday and will be here through next Tuesday I'll probably try to see if he can meet us next Wednesday or later.

We bought one ceiling fan/light today. It's a 52 inch Hunter outdoor fan. A few days ago we bought 6 motion and heat sensitive security lights for outside. I got 4 for the first floor area and 2 for the area around the basement. The heat sensitive part is so you can set them to detect movement when it's a person as opposed to blowing trees, etc. They can be programmed lots of ways depending on when you want them to come on or not. The only thing I don't like is the fact that they are white, but Steve said that they could paint them whatever color we want. We think we want them to be black.