Making Hay While the Sun Shines . . .

. . . more like doing the outside stuff while the temperature is above freezing. There's stucco to finish, nailing up cedar, and putting up the rock that is to arrive tomorrow.

The Durock is ready to receive it and, I'm not going to miss that pink around the base of the house.

The sand at the east end of the house has been moved about 23 times I believe.

The wood surrounding the front door is in place.

Bees or Locusts?

I'd say that the house witnessed a beehive of activity today. The roofers swarmed all over the roof. Mark the Plumber was doing his magic. Bob and Jay and Dennis continued their assault on the work.

But the locusts, errrrr roofers dominated the scene and everyone else including this writer walked gingerly around them. Clearly they had worked together for a long time as insults, barbs, teases and trash talking occurred frequently. I thought I was at one of our family gatherings for a minute.

Without attempting to enter into the GAF vs. Certainteed debate, we chose GAF for the quality of the installer and the warranty, which is 20 years material and labor for virtually any reason.

Charlie chose Northwoods Roofing and Construction to do the install. I spent a little time with the owner, Mike Kegley, who told me how much the roofing industry has changed just in the past few years. He is required now by the state to certify his business and earn continuing education credits. The insurance industry led the push for this and while the adjustment was a little difficult because of paperwork, Mike feels it has resulted in a better product for home builders.

His business has not fallen off (excuse the expression) because of the recession. It turns out that instead of building, most people are fixing up. So he finishes about 200 roofs a year including a little winter slowdown.

Working on the front porch, Dennis and Jay continue nailing up the vertical cedar siding.

The Pith is headed down to Madison and Chicago for the next two days for a quick visit and a sudden turnaround in order to get back by his anniversary. This blog will be barren, which is not much of a change, but will be back in full force by Thursday. Check out North Pith, too, for even more rambling benedictions.

The Latest Poop

The hookups for the radiant floor heating are installed. I looked (stared) at this system for at least 15 minutes yesterday trying to figure it out. I'm still not certain that I understand it. But I'm certain that Ann had the all-time best reaction to seeing this.

"My, isn't the red pretty?"



Here's a look from the ground floor looking up the staircase. I'm still considering putting the cat box under the stairs, but am given pause when it comes to reaching in and cleaning it out.

The guest room is not ready for guests, but is acting like it.

The staining crew was hard at work again today. (Pics tomorrow). With the heat and lights on it was good to be back and working on something productive. We have a whole lotta staining left to do and just ran out of stain today. So we'll have some shipped next week and bend to it.

The kitchen is going to be laden with beams and these are some big honkin' beams. One of them looks to be about a quarter mile long. So we'll need lots of stain I'm afraid.

Apropos of nothing (except the title): I often was asked to attend conferences in Washington, DC and reported on the discussions.

Once when I returned I was introduced as 'the poop from Washington.'

Mud

The mystery of the lens spots continues. I cleaned the lens before taking this shot. Still with the 'noise'. And it happens only when the flash is used. I have some other pics taken from the same location without the flash--no spots.

Oh yes, the mudding got mostly done today.
And Ann saw fit to leave her mark.

One Day Drywall; the Next Day HEAT

From the Master Bedroom to the bath (l) and closet (r).
A peek at both floors.

The little heater in the kitchen area provided a comfortable temperature.

Today the electric company (finally) hooked up the meter allowing for light and heat inside. The insulation guys returned to insulate the ceilings now that the drywall is up. The shingles were delivered and the stone was ordered for the exterior.

Additionally the floor samples arrived; the landscaper made some initial design impressions and some other stuff happened that I have forgotten about because my head's spinning.

It looks like my buddy and I will be doing some interior staining this weekend because some more posts arrived.

It's Drywall *cough*

With apologies for the paucity of posts and updates, I beg your indulgence gentle reader (and I do mean you, Dad!) It seems my cameras and I are engaged in a power struggle--literally. For some reason my batteries last about 1/100th of the normal charge. Canon will see to the cause.


In exchange for your understanding I will offer a couple of snaps of a nature bent at the end of this post.



For now, here's the houth news.

Last Friday we arrived to find the drywall being delivered by a machine right out of a science fiction movie. This thing had an arm that could pluck duck hunters out of the marsh in a New York minute. (Hey, that's not a bad use for the thing.)



Of course I didn't have my camera so this enormous event went unrecorded.


But very quickly on Monday the drywallers got busy and a cracked through this stuff like nobody's business.


Here's a shot from the living room looking through the bookcase into the master bedroom. I wasn't aware of all the drywall dust in the room until I downloaded this picture. I will be seeing my doctor tomorrow. I think the longevity of drywallers must be short.





In other news, our solar panel project has been approved by the Wisconsin Focus on Energy program. The program offers $25oo and the federal government will offer a tax credit of 30%. So this makes the idea very affordable. The panels should go up fairly soon so you can look forward to seeing them in a future post.


As you can easily see from the following images, the tamaracks are in their full glory. These wonderful trees will shed their yellow needles soon and will reemerge in the spring with the softest green you can find.



This angle looks north from the rental.

Oh, and here's another drywall shot (in case your lungs are getting too much fresh air) looking toward the dining room.

Mile Posts

It's funny how some things that are constructed are incremental, putting things together slowly and carefully. And sometimes it's a little taxing to see the progress despite knowing that it's there.

And then there are other things, big things, BIG things that gives one pause.

Sometimes it involves big machines like when the roof trusses were installed.

And sometimes it's when something big, like one of the decks takes shape.

And yet another is when the whole place is dug up, looking like a World War I trench. This is the gas and electric being installed.

The next big thing will be to have heat and electric inside!

Looking like Han Solo when frozen in carbonite, out handprints are planted in the insulation causing the R value to drop to R-1,298.

The shower base is installed downstairs in the guest bath.
The Pith came home from the ALDS in Minneapolis after driving through snow to see this scene at the construction site. A review of the brief trip to Minny may be seen here.

Coming Together

The guys began the installation of the tongue and groove cedar siding in the back of the house, and I must say, 'A blind squirrel finds an acorn every once in a while.' All the work and negotiations on the color of stain; all the work by Kurt and Ann to put it on the wood; all the design work that Charlie did, and all the work to install it has certainly paid off and made to look as though things are really coming together.

When the stone is installed it should complete the package.

In the interior, the insulation is done and it appears as though the guys cleaned up very well after me and the students.

We underestimated the sound-proofing of this material. One of the installers mentioned that a lot of houses use the insulation on the interior walls for sound proofing. WARNING TO HOUSE GUESTS: We didn't.
Meanwhile, back in the back, Dennis (l) and Jay (r) keep plugging along.

What a Day!

Everyone was here today, it seemed. Marc dug in the water line from the well to the house in preparation for the gas line.

The usual suspects Bob, Jay and Dennis were doing their excellent work--Dennis and Jay putting the finishing touches on the garage roof and supervising the grill; Bob attempting to keep everything under control and in perspective all while putting in the central vac system.

The insulation guys were doing prep, installation and education.

And on top ofevery thing else, a portion of the senior class at Conserve School taking a class in sustainability was given a tour by Charlie, our contractor.

We here at Houthpith believe in the power of education and were well pleased to find out that these fine young people would use our project to further their interests in sustainability.

The class came prepared for Charlie's instruction as seen below:

Haz mat suits were recommended, but these young people willingly accepted the risk of contamination.

Of course, as is our wont here at Houthpith, we are just kidding.

These are their Senior portraits.

Here's Charlie in action:

Charlie's Class from Northpith on Vimeo.

But on to more important matters, such as insulation.

We (the generic 'we' including the building crew, sub-contractors and law enforcement) are using cellulose insulation. According to Wikipedia, the source of all knowledge, "the word cellulose comes from the French word for a living cellule and glucose, which is sugar. Building insulation is low-thermal-conductivity material used to separate the internal climate and sounds of a building from the external climate and sounds. Cellulose insulation is plant fiber used in wall and roof cavities to separate the inside and outside of the building thermally and acoustically."

(Editor's worthless note: Thomas Jefferson's home, Monticello is insulated with cellulose.)

Applegate is one of the premier brands of cellulose insulation. See their website here. (Don't miss the 1200 degree test video.) Another use of this insulation evidently is to protect one's hand when using a blowtorch to burn off countless layers of skin.

The insulation is blown in through the use of powerful motors located in their truck. The material is wetted as its installed to expand it slightly and provide adhesive qualities.

OK, this next part I'm going to sound like I know what I'm talking about. Let me assure you, I don't.

Because the cellulose is made up of so many different materials, including newspaper, it contains many, many little pockets of air, which act as the insulators. The R value of the walls will be a minimum of 27. The ceilings, get this, R-90.

I sometimes feels as though our body heat and breath will heat the house. (More on that later.)

Here's a closer look at this stuff:

Student Cellulose from Northpith on Vimeo.

The insulation guys were informative and helpful, encouraging the kids to apply the cellulose themselves and assisting with their technique.

After applying the stuff to the walls the whole thing is smoothed out with the rotating bar held together with bicycle handle grips.

The students, well one of them, jumped in with gusto. Eventually they all gave it a try including this writer. The cleanup went well.

And in other news, it's time to play . . .

. . .

. . .

PICK OUT THE STAIN (YET AGAIN!)

This time it's floor stain. You have five concrete stains to choose from beginning from the left.

#1 I'm calling Baby Poop

#2 is Car Grease

#3 (above and below the pinkish square) is Concrete

#4 is Dried Blood

#5 is No Country for This Stain

It must be stated that stains in the picture are darker than they appear to the eye.

Pick out the stain you like best. Let the Pith know in the Comments section.

Prizes include the undying thanks of grateful homeowners.

Stucco in Place on Both Fronts

The stucco we selected came out looking very good, but mostly because of Jay's expertise in applying it. Stucco is sort of weird. When it dries, it darkens. Jay was working on the rear of hte house and it looked significantly lighter. He evidently did the more trecherous side first.

Emma says, "Go Pack."

As Promised