2008_03_21 Plumbing continues-Red is hot and blue is cold

The plumber and 2 helpers were back this week. They got most of the stuff done with roughing in the faucets in the bathroom showers and upstairs tub.

The pipes are not copper. They are a very hard plastic type of pipe. The red ones are for hot water and the blue ones are for cold water. The man from Lowe's who came on Saturday to measure for the kitchen cabinets, bathroom vanity and linen cabinet, make up area, etc told me that this stuff is really great. He says that even if it freezes it won't burst it just blows up like a balloon and then when the ice melts it resumes its original shape. It's hard enough that you can't mash it with your hands, but it does bend some.

This is the stuff that will be behind the tile in the shower and will control the fixed showerhead.

Across the shower is the control for the hand held showerhead.


Below you can see where the tub filler, 2 faucets, and the hand held sprayer will be on the tub upstairs.

2008_03_20 Security system and Intercom system wiring being done

The security alarm company was out to do the wiring before the log siding gets put on the inside walls and covers everything up. The man who works for the alarm company also has his own business and one of the things he does is to install intercom systems. He also does home theater systems, but I'm going to use the geek squad at Best Buy to do that since I just spent a fortune there yesterday buying a flat screen LCD TV, a Blue-Ray DVD player, a home theater receiver and 6 speakers. They'll set everything up too and the builder can do all the wiring and I may get Clay to help mount the TV on the wall. Anyway, I'm using the security guy to do only the security and the intercom.

Below is a picture showing the rough in for the intercom's main station. It's just outside the kitchen on the wall outside the foyer bathroom.



The picture below is of the conduit carrying the wires to the electrical box on the ceiling of the balcony. If I had known that we were going to want lights in the middle of the ceiling there instead of on the wall the builder would have hidden the wires on top of the beam, but this way allows us to do that without having to tear up the roof!




We plan to have the builder do the same thing for the light on the porch outside the dining room since we may someday want to put a ceiling fan out there and those don't tend to work well when mounted on a wall.



Here are Kedrick (on the right) and Corey (on the left) putting in wires for the security system.

Kedrick is using a flexible drill bit to try to drill into the log and curve the hole over to come out next to the door jam inside. He missed though! So, now we have a door jam with a 3/8 inch hole in it. I'll need to get Steve to fix that and it'll need to be painted over!

The intercom system will let us play radio, etc in many of the rooms, out on the screened porch, and down in the workshop in the basement in addition to the normal intercom function, doorbell, etc.

Below you can see the black wire that is the antennae. It is about 30 feet long or so and then it splits into 2 wires that he is spreading out some more.

2008_03_13 Metal Roof

The metal roof is now on and awaiting the gutters which will come later. The builder wants us to wait till later after the final grading of the land so that none of the downspouts are affected by the land getting moved around (e.g. the ground ending up higher or lower and the downspouts not being right then, etc).


Below you can see the roof closer because, well ... it's closer! :-)

2008_03_11 Moving light and fan wires in master bedroom

The wire for the ceiling light and fan was originally too close to the French doors and I asked Steve to move it so that it was eight feet three inches away from them.

The wire was previously in the beam that the beam his hand is on butts into at the end nearest the doors. That was going to put the ceiling fan off-center in relation to the bed, TV, and fireplace.


The wire has to travel under the ceiling by passing through a groove routed in the tops of the beams since there is no attic above since it's the second floor bedroom up there.

Once they got one end snugged up to the tongue and groove and lined up properly they secured it with two 8 inch screws. The beam is really tight even without the screws, but the 4 screws will hold it nicely.

Below Steve is getting ready to check to see that the sides of the newly installed beam are lined up and are perpendicular to the bottom of the beam at the end.

Now it's in the proper place and ready for a ceiling fan!

2008_03_10 Gutter system, metal roof, Charli's boards

The first picture is one of Kathy's favorites. On the day that Clay, KC, Clarli, and Jasper were here, Clay was taking some of the larger boards from the scrap pile and putting them in the basement in case I wanted them for something later. Most of them were either logs or larger boards that were 4"x 8" or so. Charli wanted to help so she made 2 trips. The ones she saved were the two little pieces of 2x4s on the right! How cute is that?



Also, you can see the gutter system that we bought from Dixie Homecrafters called Gutter Guardian. It allows water in, but it doesn't allow any leaves, pine needles, etc. First there is a row of tiny holes that are small enough to allow some small amount of water to go through them without being large enough to allow any leaves, debris, etc in. They also tend to slow the speed of the water down a little bit as it passes over the holes.

The picture below shows the gutter as well as the interior support system that is screwed into fascia board through the gutter. It supports the upper guard and locks it into the proper position in relation to the roof and gutter so that it stays where it needs to be to optimally allow water in and keep leaves out and also make sure that it doesn't get bent out of shape by wind or limbs that might hit it, etc. The supports are not as close together as the ones in the picture. This is just a sample section to show how they go together. I think the supports are just every 30 inches or something like that.



However, the main design feature is that the top part of the gutter completely covers the gutter itself, but allows water to still go into it while not allowing leaves, etc to do so.



It does this using the surface tension of the water to allow the water to flow down over the top of the gutter and then take a turn over the edge and back into the gutter since the water "sticks" to the surface of the metal top much like water "sticks" to the side of a water glass and run down the side and drip from the bottom if you pour it slowly rather than all at once. The water will stick to the gutter and follow its curve back underneath the top cover and then go into the gutter itself.


One thing that we'll have to remember is that it will take the roof a few weeks (usually over a couple of months of sun and after it has rained a few times) till it works as well as it will eventually. That is because of a coating of some kind on the surface of the metal, but once it has weathered a little bit the water will "stick" to it better and the roof will function more efficiently.

The gutters will be 6 inch gutters because with metal roofs the water comes down the roof at a faster rate than with shingle roofs and since the steepness of the roof is fairly steep. Steve (the guy doing the building) supported what they told us about the gutters needing to be 6 inch gutters with metal roofs. He said that nothing smaller would work.


The gutters haven't been installed yet since we're waiting till the final grading is done on the property so that the downspouts won't have to be moved later when the dirt is being moved around the house.


The gutters are designed so that leaves and debris can't get in, but water can. The example is shown on a regular shingle roof. Ours will be screwed to the fascia board in a different way since they can't go up underneath the metal roof which is screwed down.

The gutters are also designed so that the downspouts do NOT have to stick up inside the gutters. That is so that there won't be a portion of the downspout sticking up inside the gutter to create a lip or little wall that water inside has to build up around before it will go down the downspout. They believe that any amount of downspout sticking up can result in water remaining in the gutter and that allows mosquitoes to breed or any debris that might get in (pollen, dust, etc) to not get washed down the next time it rains.

They have a patented way to attach the downspout to the gutter that allows them to have nothing sticking up into the gutter at all. See below:

The above part is attached to the gutter with the left side in the above picture fastened to the gutter. The hole in the gutter that is cut above where the downspout is to be attached therefore has nothing sticking up into it. It simply empties into the large end of the above connecting piece and then goes down through the smaller end of the above connecting piece into the downspout.

Then there is one shot of the new metal roof.

The gutter company is going to install gutters on every place where the roof would otherwise dump water onto the deck or ground. Although the decks or balconies and sides of the house will, of course, get wet when it rains, the volume of water that would otherwise hit the deck or ground and splash back onto the logs would both tend to wash away the deck stain faster than desired and cause the logs to stay wetter and be more prone to mildew, mold, etc.

The gutters are warranted for life on materials and workmanship and for 20 years on the paint itself. The guarantee is also transferrable when we sell the house. They also guarantee that if the gutters ever clog for any reason they will come and clean them out for free. They are not cheap, however! That's the only disadvantage I can find in them so far. :-)

2008_03_06 Metal Roof finally being put on

St. Clair Metal Roofing company in Ashville, AL started putting the metal roof on this week. I believe that our builder said that he was buying the metal itself from A&E Metal Roofing Supply. Their web site is www.aemetalroofing.com. Although I don't know for sure if that's where he ended up getting it their factory is in Alexander City, AL and that's where the builder lives. The metal is 26 gauge metal if that means anything to you. The smaller the gauge the thicker the metal. For example, 26 gauge metal is thicker than 29 gauge metal.

They started working on the section of the roof over the great room and dining room.

Another view.

Here is a view of the way the ends and corners look. We'll have to get some other company to put the gutters we want on after the roofer's are done. We went to the Birmingham Home and Garden show on Friday.

There were at least 3 different gutter companies there who offer some system that prevents leaves, etc from being able to get into the gutter. The design of the metal that completely covers the gutter allows water to go past the gutter and then because of the water's adhesion to the surface it's on allows it to flow over the edge and then back in toward and into the gutter. They are guaranteed to never need cleaning. If you are interested in looking at this type of gutter you can check out the web sites of the following: LeafGuard at www.leafguard.com, Gutter Cap at www.guttercap.com, and Dixie Home Crafters who have GutterGuardian gutters at www.dixiehomecrafters.com (click on clog-free gutters).

We'll have to see whether their systems will work well on our particular roof since it is both metal (which allows water to run faster than traditional shingles) and also a couple of sections of steep roof (over the great room) and each of those things (and maybe especially since both exist for us) sometimes cause the water runoff to travel so fast that it overcomes the surface tension of water that allows all these roof systems to work.

It may be that we end up putting this system on part of the roof and a more traditional system on sections of the roof that might not permit this system to work. I think that some of the areas that might not work well with these systems just might be low enough that I could clean them without risking death, but we'll see.

Below you can see the ladders that they use. They have a hook on the top end that hooks over the top of the roof to keep it anchored for them to use to walk up the roof.

Here you can see the roof, the sky, and guy. He's waiting on another piece of metal to be cut to fit somewhere around the dormer behind him.

They lay the metal out on the deck and then mark it to be cut with the metal snips or shears. This piece is just over 23 feet long.

When they cut the angles they use another scrap piece of metal that fits over the ridges perfectly as a guide to make their mark on the metal to show where to make their cut. Below you can see how that is done. Once the line is drawn, he then cuts it with some large metal snips or metal shears if you prefer that term. You may call them tin snips or tin shears. Whatever you call them they are like big scissors that but metal.

They worked on the metal roof on Wednesday and Thursday and planned to try to finish on Friday, but I don't know if they did or not because it rained on Friday and they wouldn't work when the metal is wet. It's dangerous enough when it's dry. I didn't go up there on Friday. The gas bills have become pretty bad with the prices now up above $3.00 and we also wanted to go to the Home and Garden show in Birmingham on Friday anyway so we could see many of the products we may want or need. If they didn't finish up on Friday they plan to show up on Monday to continue working so hopefully by this next week the roof will be finished.

2008_02_28 Plumbing, tubs, showers, floor joist supports

On February 28th the tub for the upstairs bath arrived. Scott brought it up in his truck. Below Scott (left) and his brother, Steve (right), look at the jets on it.

Scott, Steve, and Steve's crew then picked it up and carried it to the house. I carried the heavy camera!

They managed to get it up the temporary stairs without either dropping it or having anyone fall off so it was a complete success. The tub is only about 5 feet long and 42 inches wide so it's not as big as some jetted tubs are, but it should be all Kathy might need or grand kids might need, etc so it should be sufficient.

Below you can see that this tub and the shower are designed to fit together so that they become a unit. You may be able to tell that the shower unit has to be picked up and then set down over the end of the tub. The shower does not yet have the glass door or the portion that completes the side of it that forms the "wall" at the end of the tub. They are glass and will be added later.

The area where Steve is standing could be left open, but we may put a linen cabinet of some type in there to fill that "hole". However, whatever we do we have to leave a way to access the machinery part of the tub in case it needs maintenance.

We could put a very shallow linen cabinet that only comes out to about half the width of the tub so that there would still be room available to get to the motor, etc of the tub. However, we could also put in one that is deeper than normal so that it comes all the way out so that it goes out as far as the tub and then just put in a removable panel in its side so it could be removed to gain access to the tub's working parts. I prefer that method I think, but it will make it very tight to get in the light switches that will be on the wall right by that door. The distance between the door frame and the cabinet would be barely enough for them to fit.

In the basement you can see all the metal straps that hold up the pipes that come from the sinks, shower, and toilet.

What you're looking at below is the shower in the master bathroom. It is an irregular shape as you can see. Why? Well, mostly because we wanted to have it as large as the space would allow and that made the log wall sides 4' 6" on the side to the right of the corner and 5' 0" on the side to the left of the corner. Also, it had to have inside wall sides that were a little bit different in length for a couple of reasons. We wanted to keep it as large inside as possible which meant having unequal lengths along the log walls and the shape of the master closet which is adjacent to the bathroom also affected the angle of the shower door.

If you have seen pictures before of the closet you may remember that the corner of it that would stick out toward the bathroom was chopped off to prevent it from extending into the bathroom area. Doing that allows there to be more wheelchair room in the bathroom if that's needed some day.

Now, back to how that affects the angle of the shower door! In order to keep it from looking "off" I wanted to keep the shower door to be parallel to the wall of the cut off closet. With them being parallel it will look OK to me, but if those two angles had not been parallel it would have (in my opinion anyway) made everything look too jumbled up.

There will be a fixed shower head on the "inside" wall that is on the right below. There will also be a separate hand held shower head mounted on a bar on the "inside" wall that is on the left that will allow it to be fixed at any height along the length of the bar or removed to be used by hand.

We also plan to put a corner shower seat and the best corner would seem to be the one in the corner of the two log walls. We'll need to make sure that that doesn't adversely affect the ability to put a wheelchair in there though. If it does then we could just continue to let Kathy use the shower seat we have now that she uses in our shower now.

The shower drain is just put in temporarily for now. It has nails that are nailed part way in and bent over holding it in, but the guy who puts in the pan and then builds the curved bottom with the mud (that's apparently what they call it) to give the tiles a curved base can unbend the nails so he can do his thing and then permanently install the shower drain when he's ready. At least that's how I understand it.

The tub/shower below is the one that is going into the bathroom in the basement. There will also be a toilet and a pedestal sink. We're not planning to spend a lot of money on the basement bathroom.

We had planned to just put in the plumbing for it should we (or someone else some day) want to put in the bathroom fixtures. However, the builder thought that we'd not save a lot of money doing that and it would be easier to do it now than later. In the grand scheme of things the cost of the tub, toilet, sink, and faucets, etc won't be all that bad. At least this way if I want to make a quick trip to the bathroom or want to wash my hands if I'm working in the workshop they won't be too far away!

They had to remove 2 inches of the top of the floor joists underneath the shower in order to allow for the entrance to it to be virtually at the same level as the floor so that a wheelchair can roll into it without having to be faced with a raised barrier and still allow for about a 2 inch slope down to the drain.

What they did to accomplish this was to cut out the OSB board and cut out 2 inches from the top of the floor joists that had been supporting the floor (the OSB board). Once they removed 2 inches from the 2x10s they then became 2x8s. Since Scott wasn't happy reducing the strength of the floor joists he decided to buy some long pieces of angle iron that are about a quarter of an inch thick and about 4 inches along each side and use them to add support to the floor joists.

He had them drill holes every couple of feet through the angle iron and the floor joists and then they bolted the angle iron to the bottom of the floor joists to give them additional strength. I think that even if I gain a lot of weight the floor in the shower will still hold me!

Below you can see the plumbing to the tub/shower in the basement.

Below Scott is using a nail gun to frame up the shower walls in the master bath shower.

Scott is standing in the doorway. The area under the window is where Kathy would like to put a short cabinet or vanity that will allow her to put on her makeup, etc there.

I guess we have to get shutters for all the windows in the bathrooms, kitchens, etc on the first floor. We went to the large home and garden show in Birmingham on Friday and got lots of good info on businesses that do everything from shutters, to garage storage solutions, to gutters that keep leaves out, people who make mantels, create water features (which Kathy would like some day), and lots of other things. We already have asked one gutter company to come out and give us an estimate on Monday.

2008_01_23 Foggy Day - not the foggiest, but one when I had the camera

Often when at the house in the mornings the fog is really thick. I was going up to the property back on January 23rd and had the camera handy so I decided to take a few pictures to show Kathy since she's almost never up there early in the mornings. The first picture shows how the fog has completely covered up the mountain that rises up directly behind the tree line behind the house in the distance.



The 2nd picture is taken from the road that goes through the bottom third of our land and is looking upward toward the house (which you can't see).

The 3rd picture was taken from the top of Scenic Peak looking toward our house. On this day you could actually still see some trees down past the bottom of the hill, but some days the fog completely obscures everything and if you didn't know the road eventually turns back up you'd think that it just went down forever.

One day when I was up there talking with either Scott or Steve down in the basement the fog was actually "rolling in" through the basement windows like waves in the ocean. You know how they show foggy looking stuff around people's feet on stage sometimes? Well, the fog that day was a good bit thicker than in these pictures and it was really amazing to watch it coming in through the windows and rolling over and over itself.

Well, enough about fog. We're in for a lot of it since almost everyone we've talked with has told us to prepare for the fog!

2008_01_22 Pella Front Door before it is stained

I needed to show Kathy the color of the unfinished door so I took this picture to show her. It's a Pella fiberglass door that has a wood-grain pattern.

We have yet to decide what to do with the door as far as whether to paint it (or stain it) to match the evergreen color of the Pella windows and the metal roof or to stain it some color like golden oak or walnut, etc to look like wood.

We have been told that you can stain it like it was wood as long as you know how to do it to retain the wood grain appearance. Scott (the builder) says that to get a good result staining it you have to put the stain on and use a putty knife or something and drag it over the surface. He says that doing it that way allows it to look like it would if it were actually wood. He says that if it were to be stained using a cloth or brush it would not turn out well. We'll have to decide whether to paint it or stain it, but if we stain it I'll make sure that Scott supervises that part of the job! :-)

2008_01_21 Rug we bought for great room

We bought a 10' x 13' rug for the great room recently. Back in early January we saw it and took this picture of it at a place in Birmingham called Mazer's. I went back in late February and it was still there so I bought it. We're storing it in the guest bedroom till we move into the log house. It has some browns, some blues, etc and Kathy thinks it will look nice with the browns in the house and 2 brown leather sofa's we bought from La-Z-Boy and the two blue leather recliners we got from them as well. At least we hope so. This is one huge rug!

2008_01_09 Bad stain job, Pella Fixed Windows, basement framed walls and doors

Remember me? I know, it's been about 90 days since an update. Well, in the next few days I'll try to get you up-to-date.

First, the stain job. It has been a disappointment so far although our builder says that they will fix it later when we're closer to being finished. The builder used a painter named Steve to stain a house they recently finished. He did a great job.

One day the builder or his wife one or the other got a call from Steve asking whether they had any jobs for him and they told him that they did (our house). He got directions, etc and went to work on our house. I was there when he started.

He didn't seem to have any experience doing log home staining because he couldn't get the stain to go through his pump-up sprayer and come out as a thick spray as it is supposed to. The stain can said that it could be thinned with mineral spirits if necessary and it told him how much per gallon of stain.

So, he decided that he needed to do that, but he didn't have any mineral spirits! A painter without mineral spirits?!? So, I volunteered to drive him to Oneonta to get some. When we were back he thinned the stain, but it still didn't work. More thinning. Didn't work. More thinning. Finally worked. Well, sort of.

So, he proceeded to put the stain on, but it appeared to me that it just wasn't going on thick enough (the stain said to put it on until it couldn't absorb any more) and it was also streaky. He was a nice guy, but I mentioned to the builder that it didn't really look good. One of the things that was most discouraging was that the logs (first floor) were taking the stain much darker than the log siding (upstairs) giving it a two-toned appearance. Heck, it looks like a '55 Chevy (you remember the ones that always seemed to be something like aqua and white or something?).

Finally, after I had expressed concern with Kathy (the builder's wife, Kathy) several times Steve and his crew got to see the job too and Kathy talked with them to get their opinion. One of his crew, Roberto, and his wife have done the staining on many of the homes they have done, and he said it was not done well.

The painter named Steve went by to see Kathy (the builder's Kathy) to get part of his money and she discovered that (you won't believe this) this "Steve" was a totally different Steve from the Steve who had done their previous staining job that was done so well! This Steve had just gotten their name from someone and called them out of the blue to see if they had any work for him. They thought it was the Steve who had done a good job, but it was just (what are the odds?) another Steve entirely!

So, they relieved him of any further duties and just told us that they'd get Roberto and his wife to "fix" it later.

For now, it looks pretty stupid, but I guess I'll just try to be content until they have an opportunity to fix it. The builder, his wife, and Steve the builder all say that there is almost always some difference in how the stain is absorbed by logs and log siding so there is often a slight difference for some unknown reason, but it shouldn't be this different. I'll wait to see if they can fix it before letting my blood pressure go up too far. :-)

Here is a good picture to show you what I mean about the two-toned appearance:



Below is a dark picture from inside showing you the Pella windows that are now finally installed in the great room.

Here is another view from the outside. Just a note about the strip of light colored wood around the outside edge of the windows; this shows where the windows were moved a little bit by the Pella installers when they came to put the fixed glass in. They are not just guys who put windows in without looking at the entire project to see if some adjustment needs to be done.

They determined that it would be more visually appealing if the windows upstairs were aligned better with the French doors below so they used their carpenter skills to make some slight adjustment in the placement of the window frames. As a result, you can see that there is a strip of unstained log siding that was previously covered up by the pine board trim around the windows which is now uncovered and therefore unstained. That will need to be fixed later.

Below you can see the studs put up in the basement for the walls of the workshop, etc. You're looking toward the workshop area that will be an L-shaped work area. If you can see the red metal post that is way in the back and in the middle of the workshop floor that one will be removed by Steve's crew since it isn't necessary (nothing really above it that requires support and the other supports are close enough to support the stuff above) and it will make the shop much more user friendly! You can see that most of the other metal support posts (that appeared to just be everywhere before walls started going up) actually will be either inside walls or just adjacent to them and won't be so unsightly as I'd feared.

The picture below shows the area underneath the stairs that will go up to the main floor as well as the doorway to the left that will go into the area where the elevator will be. That's how we'll go into the house once we get out of the car. Here you can see the one support post that will remain "out in the open" even after walls are put in, but it's needed to keep the house from falling down into the basement! Well, it's needed anyway so it stays. :-)

Sorry to have been so long in sending out an update, but things have been slow since the holidays for a lot of reasons like subcontractors taking off during holidays, waiting on fixed glass windows from Pella (they shut down their factory to re-tool their equipment), the bank requiring a new title search before EVERY draw and the title company for whatever reason taking forever to get their report to the bank, weather delays, etc, etc, etc.

Now things are moving again with plumbing, electrical, heating and air, metal roof, etc all being worked on recently. So, I've got several reports to send you in the next few days so get your reading glasses and get ready to be overwhelmed with lots of pictures, etc in the next few days!