Day 232 - Miscellaneous Stuff

Fireplace stone is almost done.  With the hardwood floors done, only the hearthstone and hearth are left to finish.  It looks fantastic!  i love the drystacked look to the stone.

More doors got hung today.  Tom, Travis & Al are working to get the trim finished by next week, so that Fresh Coat Paint can get in and start painting.  Emily is finalizing the paint colors this week!

Dave finished the grout in the Front Entry and the 2 season porch.  The tile looks great!

Kummet Electric to the Rescue!

Brian Boser is a great guy.  I sent him a text message on Monday morning to see if he could come out to the house this week to change the thermostat electrical boxes from vertical to horizontal.  He said, "No problem!  I'll be out by the end of the week."  Who's truck do I see on Monday evening at 7pm as I'm driving home?  None other than Brian's!  He had already changed out 1 electrical box and was working on the second.  Now that's service!  Thanks again, Brian!

A top-of-the-line Dirt Prevention System has been installed!

aka - 3 green plastic mats!

Day 230 - Hardwood Floor y'all!

This weekend the hardwood floors were installed!  The were installed in 3 long days by a family friend named Nate "Smitty" Smith.  Smitty is married to Emily's old college roommate, Deborah (or Debbie as she's know to the rest of the world!).  Smitty works for Anderson Ladd and has installed hardwood floors professionally for 16 years.  They typically do a lot of gymnasium floors, large commercial spaces and condos/apartment complexes.  He drove up on Friday and started working around 8am.  He finished up Sunday just before 6pm.  Deborah came up on Saturday morning with their 9 month old little girl named Lucy and spent the weekend with Emily.

Smitty & Deborah

Deborah & Lucy

Smitty with the Bets

For the hardwood flooring, we decided on an engineered hardwood from Mirage.  It is 5" wide Old Hickory in a Sierra stain.  We chose the engineered hardwood because if should expand/contract less than solid 3/4" hardwood.  It turned out beautifully!  A HUGE thank you to Smitty for all of his hard work!

Burning the midnight oil

Bathroom Tile

Bathroom tile has arrived.  Here is a sampling:

Stone for  master shower floor.  White subway tile for walls.

Kid's bath:  White subway tile with fun accent tile

Basement bath:  16"x16" tile with accent

Doors

Some of the doors have been hung.  The natural cherry will look very nice against the white trim.

Trim work is looking great!

Picnic Time

This Sunday we had our first family meal at the new home.  DQ on the hardwood floors!

Day 226 - Tile, Stone & Newel Posts

The fireplace is looking amazing and the tile floors are really starting to take shape.  Unfortunately, there was a little "miscommunication" on the newel posts that we ordered 6 weeks ago for the stairs!

Good stuff first.  Here is a pic of the fireplace:
 .

Ruggedly handsome if I do say so myself!

 The tile floors in the mud room, 3 season porch & front entry are looking fantastic!  The tile is a ceramic tile from Mannington called Serengeti Slate.  The color is Midnight Mist.

3 Season Porch

The tile pattern is a mix of 12" & 6" tiles.

Dave hard at work on the front entry

Newel Post Headaches!

We didn't like the standard newel posts available thru our lumber yard's supplier, so we had Bayer Built (the company that supplied our stair parts & doors) design a custom newel post for us.  We wanted a very simple box newel.  In the end this is the design we came up with:

6 weeks later the posts arrived.  They were exactly what we wanted except for one slight problem.  The inset panel was made too tall.  With newel posts, there needs to be several inched of space at the top of the post to connect your hand rail, and at the bottom, there needs to be 15-24" of space in case you have to sink the post down through the floor to secure it properly.  Unfortunately, our post has neither of these things.  The guy who made them lives in Royalton, MN.  After a few phone calls, the posts are going back to Royalton to be fixed.  Hopefully they will be back to our house by the middle of next week because it's getting down to crunch time.  We start laying the hardwood floors in 2 days!!!

Siding Update

The Quality Edge siding rep came out to the house today and met with Emily, Ken from the lumber yard & Dave our siding installer.  The rep agreed that the oil canning was very evident.  There were also several areas where the paint was scratched off the siding even before it was taking out of the box.  I'm thinking that Quality Edge might be due for a corporate name change!

We are looking at different siding options, but it looks like we are going to be forced to change our color to a blue or gray.  No what we had initially wanted, but it will still look great if we have to switch.

Day 225 - A Very Busy Week

What a difference a week can make!  In the past week, Dave Kampsen & Co. started putting on the siding (more on that later...Grrr...), Dave Gessel did all the prep work for the tile, Tom, Travis & Al started trimming out the windows/installed the front door, Ron Leech & Sons started putting the stone around the fireplace, Brian from Albany Heat filled out geothermal loop & installed our range hood and G&E Cabinetry installed our cabinets!  That's a lot of people going in & out of our house.  Let's break it all down for you:

Cabinets

Gered & Evan from G&E Cabinetry came on up from Sheldon, IA and started to install all of our cabinets.  Those guys are fantastic!  Gered is easy to work with, arrives on time, works hard & makes beautiful cabinets.  In 3 days they had everything installed & ready for countertops.  Nice work gentlemen!  There were a few small hiccups along the way.  Gered & Dave, our tile installer, got to have the age old argument of what comes first the cabinets or the tile?  Gered felt the cabinets should be installed first.  Dave said tile should be laid first.  Hmm...imagine that!  In the end, no blood or tears were shed, and the most of the cabinets went in first (The lockers for the mud room will be installed after the tile is installed).

Here is the kitchen.  Gered is on the left.

This is Emily's desk a.k.a. the Control Center of the Home!

Front Entry Bench

Kids' B

athroom Vanity

Gered in the pantry

Mudroom Bench

Dovetail corners on the drawers.

 Mudroom Bath & Kitchen Pantry

Office File Drawers/Storage

 Master Closet Storage

Master Bath

Kitchen with the vent hood installed

Kitchen Hutch

Stonework

Hank works for Ron Leech.  At the end of last week after the fireplace mantel was installed, they put a coat of mortar around the fireplace.  Yesterday, they started to lay the stone.  Depending on the supplier you buy it from, the stone is called Eagle Ridge Ledgestone or Marbella.  It is a mostly grey ledgestone with some rust/orange/brown highlights.  We are planning to use the same stone on the front of the house, around the walk-out basement and on the chimney.

Tom trimming the Durock to fit

All set to start laying the stone

Eagle Ridge Ledgestone or Marbella is the name of the stone

A little mud & stone and away we go!

Mantel courtesy of G&E Cabinetry.  Mud courtesy of Ron Leech & Sons.

Say Hello to Hank!

Hank is the man responsible for or beautiful new fireplace

Steady hands, Hank!

 

Doesn't that look great?

Hmm...so many rock to choose from...

Emily is definitely impressed!

Tile

Dave Gessel spent all last week prepping the bathrooms & main floor entryways for tile install.  In the bathrooms this meant installing Durock cement board and mudding everything in place.  He also had to waterproof & seal-up around the windows to prevent any leaks.  Finally, he had to pour the floor for the master shower.

 

Dave pouring the shower floor in the master bath

Master Bath Shower

 

Shower Floor Drying

We have in-floor heat for the mudroom and the 3 season porch to keep our toes toast on those cold MN winter nights.  Brian Bose from Kummet Electric came and installed the electric mats, and Dave poured the self leveling floor over the top of them.  He will glue the tile directly down to the poured floor.  Because the front entry doesn’t have in-floor head, it didn’t need the poured subfloor.  It just has Durock on the floor to glue the tile to.  We will have tile in the master bath, kids bath, basement bath, and in the kitchen backsplash. 

3 Season Porch In-floor Heat

Dave checking the thermostat wiring.

After the pour

Mudroom Floor

Dave admiring his work!

Window Trim

For the window/door trim, we went for a simple look with clean lines.  That’s fancy designer talk for everything is square with no routered corners.  We have 3.5” trim on the sides & bottom of the windows.  On top is a 5.5” piece of trim with 2 “mouse runners” to add a bit of pizzazz.  The top trim piece hangs over the sides ~1.5”.

Smile Tom!  You're on candid camera!

Master Bedroom

Siding

We new early on in the process that we wanted to use steel siding for a number of different reasons.  It is sturdier than vinyl.  It holds up better to moisture than Hardieboard of LP siding, and it is “self venting” and should help prevent water from getting trapped behind the siding & rotting the SIPs.  We chose Quality Edge siding because we liked the color of their red siding better than other red siding choices. One problem with steel siding is an effect called oil canning.  Dave Kampsen (Al’s son) is installing our siding.  He warned us that in his experience the Quality Edge siding has a bigger problem with oil canning than other siding products.  We decided to go with the Quality Edge anyway because we like the color the best.  Turns out it may not have been the best choice.  When they first started to install the J-channel (the trim piece that allows the siding to butt-up against the windows, they noticed that the paint was already peeling off!  They returned the boxe & had another one sent out.  Same problem with the second box!  So…for now the siding installation is on hold until a Quality Edge rep can come out to the house and look at the siding.  We may have to pick out another siding & color.  Pics to be posted in the not too distant future.