Siding, Sliding

This is a fun part!  They've started on the siding.  Most of our house will be covered in lap siding.  We really wanted a wider plank than was usually produced by all the fiber-cement companies, about 8 inches high, less when nailed.  So we went with a somewhat newer product called SmartSide, that is actually wood-based.  It has become more and more popular lately, is easier to work with than fiber-cement, has tested well under severe weather, and comes in longer and wider widths.  So we have 12 inch tall boards, which I like much better.

We had a little bit of a communication mix-up with the trim - but now we think we're all clear and they'll be adding a bit of pencil trim on to the windows they had already done.

   

 With the warm days we've been having, a lot of water went down our vents (white thing behind Mike's head) in our cold storage room - and froze.  This shouldn't be a recurring problem once our final grading is done, gutters are put into place, and maybe some wells put around the vents.  Mike worked really hard though digging around them and putting in a sawed-in-half bucket to block further water from running in.

And here's Mike again.  Sitting on our stairs in our future front room/foyer area. 

Four - Way

A lot of insider-stuff has been going on at our house lately.  Pipes, wires, pumps, plugs, sprinklers (grrrrrrr), and so on.  Had our Four-Way Inspection this past week, and we're good to go.  Of course there were a few little nit-picky things, like needing an extra outlet in our master bedroom - never mind that there were already seven outlets in there and this one will be behind the door when it's opened, but comply we will - with a smile.  This week they'll be insulating and then comes drywall and it will really be looking like a real house.

Here are a couple of exciting pics . . .

This one is showing the wall where our someday projector will project a movie - Joey insisted we prepare for a home theater.  So there are a few speaker wires there, too.  Through the wall is a future downstairs bedroom and bathroom.

Our mechanical room.  This is the tidied up version of all the stuff that has been done.  I wish I would have taken a picture of all those wires before they were packed neatly into those two breaker boxes.  It was pretty wild.  Somehow they figured out what wire goes to what - we hope.

Windows, Windows

MOVING WINDOWS:  I think the final count was 12 windows that we had moved.  (A few of them were moved more than once.)

THE MASTER BEDROOM WINDOWS: We were trying to decide between centering the windows on the outside or the inside. When it was framed, the windows were centered on the outside, but it was really off in the room. So I came up with a solution that I'm quite pleased with, if I do say so myself. I think the windows look good from the outside and they're centered on the inside now, too - so I won't twitch every time I look at them.

The Master Bedroom windows are the top 3 on the right.

This is how they were first - centered on the outside.  Looks good. But on the inside they were quite off-centered.

 

This is just a computer rendering-- what it would look like if we took the windows and shifted them so they'd be centered on the inside.  Not lookin' so good from the outside, eh?

 

And this is the compromise.  We kept the easternmost window lined up, and squeezed the middle window.  Now it's centered on the inside (yay!) and I think still looks good on the outside. 

  What do you think?

 
THOSE TWO LITTLE WINDOWS: When it came time to cut into the roof to put in those little windows with their own little roofs - I realized how much was already going on with the house. I loved how it was looking, but we thought those little window things would just be too much. So we didn't cut into the roof and dropped the cut-out for the windows down. And then we had them move them up a little again. So, they framed those windows 3 times (eek) - but it was still easier than doing the little roof-thingies, right? I like to think so.

(So we're looking at those little square windows to the right and left of the main 4 windows in the front of the house.)

These windows were TOO HIGH.

These windows were TOO LOW.

Ahhh, JUST RIGHT.

(Anyone out there just begging to build our next house for us??  Too bad, we're here to stay.  Probably why we're being so picky.)


ACTUAL WINDOWS:  And they're in!  Tada!  Hooray for windows!  No more snow on the floors and hurricane conditions for the workers.

*Did you see the pillars?  They will have rock on the bottom and then white for the slopey parts.

Catching Up and Roof Shingles

Hi! We're back. Sorry for the blogging break. We'll try to catch you up. Mostly they've been working on the inside stuff such as plumbing and electrical wiring. Other than that there are a few things we'll try to blaze through very quickly:

ROOF SHINGLES: I should have listened to my contractor!! He suggested "weathered wood" as a good color for the asphalt shingles. I went to the roofing place, picked out a few I liked, including "weathered wood" and I drove around looking at examples. Sure enough, the one that looked the best was weathered wood. Then, because we weren't sure what color we were going to do on the siding, and because I seemed to remember that I liked black/grey shingles, I went with a neutral black/grey shingle. That also determined the color of the metal roofing that was going over the porch: grey, instead of the weathered copper that I preferred of the metal colors. So, they put the shingles on and the black/grey turned out very BLACK. It's so dark, people didn't know whether the shingles were on yet, or if it was the tar paper. Waaaaah. Oh, well. Can't change it now.

Here's a pic of the house with the shingles.

Here's an up close of the shingles. You can see the variation up close, but since you approach the house from so far back, it just looks black.

So here are some things I learned about making decisions: 1) Trust the people who really know.  It's hard to judge what the shingles on a roof are going to look like from looking at a 1x3 foot sample - unless you build houses for a living.  2) You're more likely to make a decision you like sooner rather than later.  Give it some thought, but give your gut some credit.  3) Taste is personal.  Polling others on matters of taste will just confuse you. 4) Follow good examples.  Unless you're a professional designer, if you see a picture of what you like - just copy it.

I'm sure they'll look just fine.  And after all, since we live in Huntsville, they'll be white for five months out of the year.