The Creek House Renovation Adventure

The best birthday present ever - and full house photo tour!

2008-01-09T17:21:00.000-05:00

We've taken to hunkering down at home and mumbling softly to ourselves over and over "I love our house, I love our house".

We went out of town for New Years (which is also my birthday) to enjoy the city for the night and do all those fun city things for a day. You know, walking out the door and down the street for a morning muffin and coffee. Browsing bookstores and window shopping. Dropping in somewhere unexpected for a late leisurely lunch. We got to our destination around 2:00 pm and did spend the afternoon doing many of those things. Then we had a fabulous dinner and went to an actual bar to see actual live music. It was all wonderful, but what we realized was, well, we'd rather be home. So the next morning when we woke up, we scrapped our plan to have a leisurely day in the city and went home and had a fabulous leisurely day there. And that realization, my friends, might just be the best birthday present yet.

So here are some updated photos for you so you can see why I'd rather be here. We've also been working on the master bath and Matt has finished the incredibly beautiful walnut vanity. Keep working your way down and you'll get to it eventually!!

This is an overview of our main kitchen/dining/living room

View of our living room and the amazing wonder dog Indy. In the upper right you can see the jams for a future set of stained glass doors which lead to the unfinished loft.

I love stained glass! This is a beautiful piece that was a gift from Matt's aunt this year. It's gorgeous and fits in with our house perfectly.

The kitchen is my favorite part of whole house. Above the window in front of the sink is a wooden sign that reads "RAW BAR REGULAR" - a gift from our great friends from Cape Cod (and one of our favorite bars).

The stars hanging up high have been collected over the years from antique shops in the area. They are the heavy iron original stars that were bolted to the exterior of homes that had been braced against hurricane winds.

Another thing I am so excited about! Our good friends Johnny Rea and AZ gave us an aerogarden as housewarming gift!!!!!!!! Obviously, they rock. Countertop hydroponic kitchen herbs:)

This photo shows the dining area, and you can see the future stained glass doors up there at the top again. The idea is to build one of the sliding library ladders that will run on a copper rail above the framed pictures and tuck in next to the tall window when not in use.

Another living room view with the new stained glass piece. For those that have seen earlier pictures, that is the window that has the best stream view before the stream goes under the house. If you look all the way to the left you will see the new copper light switch plate.

A gift from my mom (we are SO LUCKY)! We are hoping to get enough of them over time to cover all of the switch plates in the main room. Don't you love them?

Our guest room (if you know us (and we like you) COME VISIT)!

This photo is taken from the bed in the guest room. The loft will be finished with a cherry knee wall and ships ladder at some point down the road. Right now the only way us there is to haul a ladder in from the garage.

Our office (which you can tell I did not bother to straighten before taking pictures), but who am I kidding, this is what it looks like.

We recently resurrected the cradle from my moms attic and cleaned it up. We are hoping to put it to use in the guest room when our new nephew visits.

It is a beautiful hand carved piece that dates back to 1851. The article in the frame is a picture of my mother with me shortly after I was born. My grandfather had refinished the cradle in time for my birth, and the paper did a short story on it.

The master bedroom with princess Amelia

The latest and greatest of our projects. Matt custom built this black walnut vanity for our master bath. He even dug through the wood pile to find the perfect rough edge with remnant bark for the front face of the counter top.

My sinks. The subject of many debate. They are actually serving bowls. From an outlet. And they only cost $20. But convincing Matt that they could be turned into sinks by simply drilling holes in the base took months. I won.

And last but not least - The finished shower....

With rock spill over detail

Thankful

2007-11-21T14:22:00.000-05:00

Poor Thanksgiving. Caught between Halloween and Christmas, it seems sometimes like the pre-game to Christmas. But it is one of my favorite holidays. No stressful gift giving, not a lot of decorating. Just time to hang out and enjoy the company of those around you, maybe eat a great meal and remember how lucky you are. I have so many things to be thankful for I could not begin to count all of them or write them all down. From the basics of being in good health, to having a entire extended family that I not only love, but like all the way down to being able to live in my own home again and that Matt and I were able to build it together.

But I must say, what I am most thankful for right now is having a partner who is brave enough and strong enough and believes in himself enough to strike out on his own. As anyone who has started their own company before, it is not for the faint of heart. It is humbling and frustrating and agonizing at times. And I am thankful that I am spending my life with someone who wouldn't let that stand in his way.

So tell me, what are you thankful for?

new pantry and assorted other goodies

2007-11-07T09:09:00.000-05:00

We have been on roll. This is something that I silently hoped would happen. I did not want to be those people, the ones everyone warns you about when you announce you are going to renovate/remodel/rebuild your house. The ones who get the project 90% completed and then just run out of steam. I'm not talking about the 'burn out and take a break for a couple of months' kind of people, cause we are definitely those kind of folks. I'm talking about the ones who take a break never ever start back up again. I even know of a family who eventually boarded up a door leading to a bathroom they never got around to finishing. I definitely don't want to be them (although that gallon of paint I bought months ago to paint our bathroom is still sitting on the floor, so maybe I already am those people).

But seriously, now that fall has rolled in and it is getting darker sooner, we have once again been working on ticking off our punch list one thing at a time. Our most recent accomplishments include:

1) Finishing our master closet, including all organization involving bins, baskets, and goodwill

2) staining and finishing all windows in the kitchen/living room (Check out the photo above)

3) finishing all interior trim in the kitchen/living room

4) building a stone entrance step up to the front deck

5) clearing out the loft in the guest room and moving a bed up there

6) and what I am currently most excited about, THE PANTRY

Matt built cherry drawers with the scraps from our interior trim and then mounted them on 200 lb. full extension drawer slides. We had the pantry wired with several outlets halfway up the back wall, so all of the appliances can be plugged in and used right there if we want. The center unit with the wire baskets also slides out fully, so everything is accessible. He even built a small wooden basket on the inside wall for all of the vacuum cleaner components.

All of the hardware was ordered from Lee Valley, including the full assembly for the center "larder unit". If you haven't ever looked at their catalogue, I highly recommend it for everything from hardware, high end hand tools and gardening tools.

Next up:

1) pantry doors - the curtains are only a temporary fix

2) ship's ladder and knee wall for guest room loft

3) guest room closet

4) stain/finish the rest of the windows

5) stain/finish all interior doors

6) paint bathroom

7) build living room loft doors

8) build over fridge cabinet

9) build new front doors

Check out my photos!!!

2007-10-23T13:22:00.001-04:00

Seriously, if you are just killing time surfing around on the internet... I recently launched www.laurabelangerphotography.com and I am selling prints online. You can check them out be clicking on the imagekind button on the right sidebar, or go to my website! Its almost time for Christmas so SHOP SHOP SHOP!

New Closet built ins

2007-10-21T18:49:00.000-04:00

We are working on a number of projects, so we should be having slightly more frequent updates for awhile!! Most recently, Matt was able to build and install the built ins for our closet. This new system far surpasses the old system, which involved a lot of piles. Much more organized with the actual hanging and folding. I am not a fan of drawers, because you can't really see all of your options. So I had Matt build a cubby system for all of my folded cloths and then he has all of the drawers in the dresser. We had saved all of the cherry rips from the interior trim, so we face framed the closet with cherry to match the rest of the house.

The most major change we have had to make so far to the house was switching the swing of the closet door to make room for the cubby built in.

We will now be able to actually hang clothes without worrying that the rod is about to break!

View from the washer dryer. Putting them into the master closet was a great idea that we almost bypassed. I was worried about lint and piles of laundry etc. mucking up the closet and thought they needed to be separate spaces, but the only other option was back out in the garage, so I caved, and I am so glad I did!

A last minute addition was the shoe rack. I'll admit it does make the closet a little claustrophobic, bit it is better than tripping on boots.

Momentum

2007-09-13T09:30:00.000-04:00

Momentum is a funny thing. When you loose it, it's like slamming into a brick wall. Which is about how the progress on our house is coming since this summer. At the rate we are going now, I'm kind of amazed that we ever made it out of the tent...

Three weeks ago I bought a gallon (hopefully THE LAST gallon) of paint, for the last room in the house that needed painting - the master bath. This morning, I finally moved the gallon of paint from my car to the bathroom. PROGRESS. So needless to say, I do not have pictures of a newly painted bathroom, or anything else for that matter.

I am hopeful that the onset of winter will inspire inside projects like closets and the pantry, or at the very least some doors.

Buried treasure

2007-08-20T12:30:00.000-04:00

We are slowly starting to gear back up for work on the house. We’ve taken most of the summer off, which has been nice. We’ve still been getting things done, slowly picking away at smaller projects, but with no self-imposed deadlines. We’ve also been spending time helping out other folks that seemed to think building their own house was a good idea.

For the past couple of weekends, Matt has been working with a friend of ours that owns a local granite shop. In exchange for some weekend work, Matt has been getting truck fulls of granite, which we are using to back fill around one of our pilings. We might just be the only house around here that has more imported polished granite in the foundation than in the house. We seem to have hundreds of different types of granite and several types of marble down there, imported from Italy, Pakistan, India and all over Africa. It is mindboggoling to think of all the different countries represented down there, with rock that has all come together to fill a little hole in western North Carolina.

Oh to be the geologists who unearths this in a thousand years.

rhododendron and garages

2007-07-11T09:47:00.000-04:00

We are very fortunate to live in an area that has four seasons, incredible natural beauty, and an abundance of water. We teeter on the edge of being a temperate rainforest, and that results in extremely lush forests. Native rhododendron grow rampant, and this time of year they are all in bloom. It has often been noted that rhododendron and mountain laurel were contributing factors in the isolation of Appalachia. To tall to see over and too thick to walk through.

We have an acre and a half which is covered in rhodo and laurel. We relish the privacy they afford us as there is truth in there ability to isolate. Most of out property looks like the picture below.

But, there is one downside. We ( and this time I mean Laura) have spent the last three weekends underbrushing in order to allow for a little more light and air circulation, as well removing an accumulation of downed woody debris. Not all of it, but the excess. And sadly, the pile in the picture below is about 1/100th of what needs to be done. So far I have worked my way up one half of one side of the driveway. That leaves the rest of the driveway, all around the house, and in the back where we are planning a native shade garden. But, before we can continue we need to figure out what to do with this first pile. Its too big to burn, too expensive to haul. So, we are investigating the purchase of a chipper/shredder. Right now we are looking at a 10hp Troy Bilt. Does anyone out there have any experience with these? If so please leave a comment with your thoughts!!!

So, with the underbrushing on hold, we decided to tackle the garage. It has gone through several transformations over the last year from our living room/kitchen to storage to concrete countertop staging area to dumping ground to Bermuda triangle or all things construction related. Talk about keeping your fingers crossed that it doesn't rain! We did manage to create relative order out of the mess below, but after we finished I was too tiered to hold the camera up to take a picture. But, Matt has his shop back in working order now, full of tools and sawdust. Which is good, because we are excited to announce that he is getting ready to go out on his own! He will be doing custom interior woodworking around Western North Carolina. I'll provide more info and links to his new website soon!!

Master bath tile and kitchen hardware

2007-06-19T10:50:00.000-04:00

Well, we finally tiered of opening our cabinets and drawers by their sides and decided to put forth a more serious effort to find hardware for the kitchen. We had hoped that we would find something unique and befitting to our kitchen. We looked high and low, scoured the Internet and all local sources. We thought several times we had found what we were looking for (in one case, a beautiful hand cast branch, which unfortunately sold for $750.00 A PIECE!!!). So what did we end up with? The exact same pulls from Lowe's that we had in the old kitchen. Go figure.

We have also been working on finishing the master bath tile in anticipation of the plumber coming this weekend. Everything is set, including the suspended granite seat, and we are in the process of grouting and sealing (and I must shamefully admit, in this one instance when I use the term "we", I really mean Matt 100%). This project has taken so much longer than anyone anticipated. Slate is beautiful, but tricky. Plus, we decided (I have no idea why), to use slate on the ceiling of the shower as well, so there was the added stress of is the tile or isn't the tile going to crash down and cleave me in the skull. But somehow, Matt eventually got them to all stick in place long enough for the thin set to set up.

It is hard to tell from these pictures, but the shower has a really cool cave like feel. Sort of like standing under a waterfall rock outcrop.

Hopefully, we will have at least part of a functioning bathroom in another week or two!!!

Wow. Long time no see.

2007-06-11T11:54:00.000-04:00

Wow. Long time no see. A whole month, I had no idea!

Sorry about being so out of touch, but we’ve just been so busy. But we don’t have any pictures today because we haven’t exactly been busy on the house. Don’t get me wrong, were still working. We’ve been finishing the tile in the master bath, hanging the last shingles for the siding, and unpacking. But we’ve been lazing about, enjoying life, and catching up on all things un-house related. Like finally having friends over for dinner again (no one ever wanted to come over to the tent, we could never figure out why!), actual reading of books, and hiking around now that it is light after work.

We even finally took our much overdue first anniversary trip this past weekend to the Natahala River for a two day whitewater kayaking workshop. Our first anniversary coincided with the start of this project, and in my naiveté, I scheduled the trip for Sept., sure that by then we would be ready and able to take a break. But, you know, I was only about ten months off, so we jokingly celebrated our second anniversary with the trip. And it rocked. We’re already scheming the quickest way to sell off all of our sea kayaking boats and gear so that we can replace it all with whitewater boats and gear.

But I promise, more pictures this week. A little updating of the small projects and loose ends as well as a preview, perhaps, of the projects awaiting us at the creekhouse.

View from the living room couch - I never get tired of it!!

Ta Da - LOTS of pictures

2007-05-02T17:18:00.000-04:00

Here is a preview of our house now that we are close to finished!! We had the appraiser here yesterday, so now we are both just relaxing and enjoying the house for a few days before we get back to work on it. Check out the pictures and let us know what you think! If you want to see the before and after layout, check it out here http://creekhouseproject.blogspot.com/2006/08/theres-no-place-like-home.html. Pictures of the house before can be found here http://creekhouseproject.blogspot.com/2006/06/before-and-after_19.htmland here http://creekhouseproject.blogspot.com/2006/06/before-and-after-part-2.html All new exterior and roof, original deck and hemlock
Brand new back deck overlooking creek

original window in living room looking out at cascading creek

looking at the main living area and kitchen from hall

guest bedroom with loft in new addition, creekside left

new guest bathroom

renovated office in the same space as original guest bedroom

new kitchen (located in former master bedroom space)

concrete countertops!!

living room view from doorway to new master bedroom

dining area which opens to new back deck

view from kitchen

new master bedroom addition creekside right

master bedroom looking out to new deck

beginning of new master bathroom!

Final push, round 1

2007-04-27T12:56:00.000-04:00

This is the big weekend. The final push before our appraisal. The house is far from done, but we are trying to wrap up as much as possible by Tuesday. It feels kind of like cramming for exams, only more exhausting and nerve wracking. The whole house building process would be so much more pleasant without the financial part...

If you ever wondered what a years worth of Roth IRA contributions would like if you converted it to wood, here you go. All of the cherry for the interior trim.So this weekend, all of those boards will be making their way to the windows, doors (and hopefullybaseboard areas).

And after that we have just few (!?!) more things on the list. But hey, at least some of them are scratched off!

Concrete countertops - a reflection on process

2007-04-24T13:04:00.000-04:00

We are well on our way to having concrete counter tops! They are out of the mold and looking fabulous so far. We hope to have them finished and installed by Sunday, so this post will detail the first part of the process and I'll have follow up next week.

So here it goes, the good, bad and stupid:

1) We first consulted with www.concreteexchange.com and researched a lot of Cheng's books. We ultimately ended up using his mix as well, which we found very easy to work with. With so much going on, we didn't want to mess with recipe of additives to the sacked concrete. We knew we wanted dark grey solid color counter tops, something with an effect similar to soapstone. this eliminated any grinding on the surface and need to consider decorative inserts or aggregate.

2) Building the molds was very strait-forward for us. Accurate measurements, solid construction and wood are all strong points so we didn't run into any problems here. We followed a number of the suggestions made by Cheng, some of which may or may not have been necessary, but I like directions. The material to make the molds cost approx $75, as we did not have any melamine on hand and we needed rebar, wire mesh, silicone, etc.

3)A level area to set the molds for the pour is critical, so that you end up with level counter tops and not wedges. Since we were pouring all three counter tops at once, we needed a fair amount of space under cover. None of our work benches in the garage were large enough, so Matt built a level platform on the garage floor. The platform worked well, but was only a couple of inches off the ground. Ideally, it would be much higher, so you a) wouldn't have to work all crouched done, and b) wouldn't have to lift the ridiculously heavy counter tops off of the ground.

4) Based on my calculations, we were going to need 5.9 cubic feet of concrete. So, we ordered 6 cubic feet of charcoal mix. The directions specifically indicated that we should not use air entrained sacked concrete, and we had a little difficulty locating the right stuff. We eventually ended up having to go with 4000 psi instead of 5000 psi. We got the concrete, rented a mixer, and got ready to pour.

This is were things went a little askew...

First, we mixed the first batch a little too dry. We were both so worried about adding too much water and running the risk of cracking that we didn't add enough. This made the concrete very difficult to vibrate into place. I mean it was really dry. We even added more than the directions on the mix initially called for, but it still wasn't enough. We decided to mix the second batch a little two wet and figured that the two batches would mix with all of the vibrating, and the problem would be solved (which it was!).

Unfortunately, even though everything I read had said make sure you have extra concrete and mix, I cut it too close. We ran short, which really sucked. Once we distributed all of the mixed concrete evenly amongst the molds, they were all about 1/4 inch short, so we weren't able to screed the tops. Needless to say, I whacked myself on the forehead several times.

But, after a week, they popped right out of the molds looking pretty fabulous.

Normally, you need to dis-assemble the mold any pry it away from the counter top, but I guess because our mix was so dry, ours just popper right out. So our mold are intact and can be stored to use again should we decide now or later that we want to try again.

Next up...

I'll be spending this week grinding the underside of the counters because they are really rough and a little uneven since we were not able to screed. Once that is done We will apply a slurry to all of the surfaces to fill in the air pockets and then seal and wax them once they are in place. The sealer and wax will bring them back closer to the color they were when wet - a dark dark grey, almost black.

Teaser

2007-04-20T15:59:00.000-04:00

We popped one of three counter tops out of it's mold this week and they look FABULOUS!!! Which is such good news because, well, we weren't so sure. The pour didn't go quite as planned, mistakes (or what we thought were mistakes) were made, and we became doubtful. Which is really sad and frustrating as anyone who has made molds for concrete counter tops knows. A lot of work goes into mold making, so to blow it on the pour - well that's just wrong. So, after a week of thinking somewhere in the back of the mind that maybe all of that hard work was for not, we are elated, and the counter tops are just plain cool. There will be much more on this in my next post, with a blow by blow of what we did well, what we thought we did wrong, how we tried to fix it, why we weren't sure they were going to turn out and PICTURES!!! Stay tuned...

Countertop forms and a back deck

2007-04-10T14:35:00.000-04:00

Countertop forms are built! All we have left before this weekends pour is the rebar/wire mesh reinforcements. Matt built a level platform on the garage floor so that none of the countertops come out looking like wedges, and we've sealed all of the seams with silicone so that the melamine won't swell. Our forms are pretty basic, since we have a small kitchen and an apron front sink, we only have one seam and no knockouts (except for the faucet). We are having a smooth, polished top so we don't have to worry about inserts or exposed aggregate. Just simple, dark charcoal countertops. I can't wait!! After this weekends pouring of the concrete, we'll let it cure for about a week and then cross our fingers next weekend when we break the mold.

We also got the back deck of death a little closer to finished (at least temporarily). We know we are re-doing the front deck in another year or so, but haven't had the time to really think about what we wanted to do with it or what kind of material we wanted to use. So, we didn't have any idea what type of decking we wanted for the back, since we do want it to all tie together. But, we had some pressure treated lumber, and a free handrail some friends had unloaded on us, so for the time-being we are having a plain, green tinted pressure treated deck. Not exactly what either of us had in mind, but it will do for the time being. At least we can actually use it. More than likely, the handrail will be replaced this summer with a handcrafted rhododendron railing, once we have a little free time to get creative.

The view from the bottom of the creek at the back of the house. Another upcoming project this summer will be to put stone up on the cinder block piers. But once again, we need to figure our what kind of stone - we have no idea and have not even really looked into it. Oh well.

It's been awhile, but we're back

2007-04-06T10:07:00.000-04:00

We needed a break, but we're back in action. After the push to get into our house, and then the unfortunate timing that forced us to be sidetracked with our rental house, we needed a break. As Matt pointed out, we had not had a single day off since out trip last summer. We were burned out and a bit frazzled and our motivation was almost non-existent. So we headed down to Florida to visit with my dad and my brothers and sister. We hung out at the pool, wondered around the beach, and basically did absolutely nothing except eat and relax, which was just what we needed. Because we need the energy to tackle this list:

And although you probably can't read it, there's a lot to do, trust us. And quite a bit of that list must be accomplished in the next month, because we are having the house reappraised. So with that in mind we figured the first thing we need to do is finish the back deck, 'cause

this just doesn't look good (or safe for that matter). And we'll probably finish up those french doors too, because the 'newspaper/insulation between the doors' look doesn't go with the new couch.

We cheated

2007-03-23T10:30:00.000-04:00

We’ve been cheating on our house. Its hard to admit, but its true. But we promise, after this weekend its over.

You see, almost two years ago we bought another house. A “project” house. An investment if you will. We were not ready to start on our house, but Matt wanted a project, and the right house came along and we bought it. We never even got a really good look at it. It already had renters with 6 months left on their lease, so we bought it and they started sending the rent checks to us and we began making plans for what we would do to fix up the house once their lease was up. We closed on it on Matt’s birthday, and joked about it being his birthday present.

By the time the lease was up, we were starting to plan the overhaul of the creek house, and we worried that we didn’t have the time or money to put into fixing the rental house. The renters were happy and they wanted to stay, so we let them sign another lease. And so it went. Until January when they were officially two months behind on rent* and we went to talk to them, and they announced they were moving to Kansas in two days. What they left behind was a horror show I prefer to block from memory. If I was of the criminal persuasion, I would have set fire to the house and claimed good riddance. It was a disaster and in my humble opinion, threat to human health.

So the first weekend in Feb., when we should have been trying to finish up the creek house enough to move in, we were instead filling a 40 yard dumpster to the brim with all of the trash and rotting food and unidentifiable items they left behind. We changed the locks, shut everything down, and walked away. But then we got a call from the neighbor, and they had someone (a relative) that wanted to move in right away. And call us crazy, but somehow, we promised to have the house in a livable condition by April 1. Why? I have no idea. But this entire month has been devoted to working on the rental house. And, after this weekend, it will be livable – because my husband is a rock star.

So far we have (and by we, I mostly mean Matt)
-hauled out 40 yards of debris and trash from the inside of the house.
-disinfected and scrubbed every surface with hospital grade disinfectant (twice).
-gutted the kitchen
-gutted the bathroom
-ripped off the fake paneling on all of the walls
-patched all of the plaster
-installed wainscoting in the living room and chair rail (as a way to cover a large hole in the plaster that we could not patch).
-put down new flooring in both the kitchen and bath
-tiled the kitchen countertop
-replaced all of the kitchen appliances (this was easy, because we saved all of the appliances from the creek house for this purpose).
-replaced the tub surround
-primed the entire house

This weekend we will reglaze several windows and put a new epoxy coating on the old cast iron tub. Then, hopefully, we will be done. I have no before pictures, because as I said earlier, I am attempting to block the original condition of the house from my memory. But I will post some pictures after this weekend of what it looks like now. Then, we will return to our regular programming.

We've Moved In!!

2007-03-07T10:31:00.000-05:00

This past weekend was a blur . One big whirlwind cleaning frenzy. It began at 7:00am Sat. down at the neighbors house as we packed up everything of ours and moved it out, and then gave their house a thorough scrubbing in an attempt to remove all dog hair dust and construction debris we have dragged in over there this winter. We revved up bright and early again on Sunday to move out as many tools, etc. as practicable from our house and then began shopvaccing and scrubbing everything in sight in preparation for moving in. By the time we collapsed on Sunday, we were pretty well situated with minimal furniture, dishes etc.

And then it finally happened. As soon as we were in the house it hit. The past year of non stop work caught up and I hit a wall. Monday, I barely got up off the couch. Tuesday I worked late to make up for Monday, and today I'd do just about anything to lay on the couch all day. My whole body hurts, I feel like I have a migraine, and my back and neck have enough knots in them to rig a tall ship. It is definitely time to rest.

Behold the kitchen!

2007-02-28T10:44:00.000-05:00

Behold the kitchen! We will install the downdraft stove tomorrow (in that big white spot where I didn't bother painting) and all of the plumbing should be connected by Sat. We plan on building our own concrete countertops, so we'll start that project in the next few weeks. Until then, we make some temporary plywood tops.

We'll also need to repair this:

We got a little too "custom" and after the drywall finisher was done, the fridge didn't fit into it's built in.

My favorite part of the kitchen!

Racing to the finish line

2007-02-26T13:32:00.000-05:00

Wow, what a huge weekend!! We are so close to being able to move in. Last Thursday we had the power turned on and then Friday the radiant floor system was turned on. And it is fabulous. We installed hydronic radiant heat throughout the house and within two hours of turning the system on, the house went from 46 degrees to 70 degrees. I still can't believe that we didn't have a hole in any of the piping (Jim King, if your out there reading this, you now officially owe us $100!). Once it heated up, the system barely ran all weekend because the icynene is such a fabulous insulator.

Nothing beats warm floors, they are even better than we had anticipated - I just want to lounge around on the floor all day!

So yes, of course we spent the weekend at the house.

In fact the only thing keeping us from moving in is the lack of a bathroom. So part of the weekend was spent tiling the guest bathroom so that the plumber can come this weekend and hook it up. Then, once we are in the house, we will work on the master bath, its just a little more time consuming and all we want to do right now is move back in!

We did a natural tile with these little glass mosaic inlays. I kind of wish now that we'd gone with a dark gray grout for more contrast, but once the bathroom is finished I think that I will be glad we went with the light brown grout. But at this point, as long as we can shower in here next week, I really don't care if the grout is hot pink.

Two other big things happened, we got all of the kitchen cabinets in and most of the appliances. We still need to install the downdraft stove and repair the wall that was "reconfigured" to get the fridge in place, then we can start working on the countertops. We've decided to create our own concrete countertops, so if anyone is out there that has done them and has any tips, we'd love to hear them! I'll post pics of the kitchen later this week.

The other thing that happened was we had this guy come in from Atlanta to paint the ceilings. He does astronomically correct night skies that are invisible during the day and look very planetarium like in the dark. It took him two days to paint three fairly small ceilings, and I must say without a doubt it is the coolest part of our house (besides the creek). The ceilings are stunning. I'll give you the link, but I must warn you the website is cheesy and in no way does justice to the work. But I guess it is kind of hard to take a picture of... http://www.stellarvision.com/

It almost feels like home

2007-02-19T12:46:00.000-05:00

A huge weekend, with more pictures to come! We finished up the pine tongue and groove ceiling so we could move the staging out of the living room, and then finished up all of the heart pine flooring. Somehow, we managed to avoid hitting any any of the radiant floor pipes. We now have signs posted in the house instructing all subs to NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES drill into the floor. Because don't you just know that after we managed to install the entire floor without hitting any tubing that something like that would happen!! We also managed to get the living room painted just before the flooring went down, so that I was able to take advantage of the staging before we broke it all down.

One of the homeowners Matt helped build a house for (check it out at www.kengaylord.com, just go to projects and click on Onnick/Farash Residence) dropped by on Sat. to lend his own very skilled hand to our house. We are hoping that he is going to design/build the gable end detail to our house, as he has an artistic sensibility that very much appeals to us. He even stuck around to help Matty move the new kitchen cabinets into place! Thanks Paul!!

Without all the staging and power tools laying around, it really started to feel more like our house. We got so excited that by Sunday afternoon we were moving all of the new appliances in to see everything in place. The idea was I would get a couple of pictures, and then we would pull everything back out so that the electricians could get in and out to connect all of the outlets, etc. We were really worried about the washer and dryer fitting in as we had originally envisioned a stackable in the space, but had found that the combo theoretically would just fit in side by side. Well, they went in with no problem. Unfortunately, the problem was with the fridge. I had given Matty exact measurements of the fridge and he had built a a space for it to slide into with allowances for drywall mud, etc. But our finisher used A LOT of mud. So after several failed attempts (several as in 9 or 10) to get the fridge into the space, we ended up ripping off the drywall bead and sanding the sides down to create just enough to get the fridge in with a good bit of coaxing. Somehow, during this process, it never occurred to me to grab the camera, so you all will just have to use your imaginations. For the full effect, incorporate a lot of expletives.

Copper Farmhouse Kitchen Sink

2007-02-09T15:36:00.000-05:00

Well, we've got everything but the kitchen sink. A few days after we received the shipment from the Expo Design center, we got the call that our kitchen cabinets were ready. All we needed was the kitchen sink... so I ordered this:

It should arrive in a few weeks, so I'll post pictures of the actual sink. There is a lot going on in the coming weeks and we should be posting a ton of pictures. We are trying to be in the house by the beginning of March, although it will be far from done. The plan looks like this:

This weekend - finish putting up the pine ceiling

During the week - finish painting guest bedroom, hall and living room, pick up kitchen cabinets

Next weekend - finish putting down the floor, durarock the bathrooms

During the week - tile guest bathroom, plumber and electrician in to do all finish work

Final weekend - put down decking on back deck and railing. Grout and seal tile and paint in guest bath.

At that point we will still be miles away from done, but hopefully ready to move back home! Keep your fingers crossed!!

Pine ceilings and amber shellac

2007-02-06T11:51:00.000-05:00

We now have half of the tongue and groove pine ceiling up. I know, half seems to be the theme... half the ceiling up, half the floor down. We spent the first part of the weekend finishing the boards on the ground, and then Sunday was spent putting them up. Matt was a little worried about the shellac, nothing like the word "orange" to strike fear into the heart, but it turned out really nice.

The pine itself is really knotty with a ton of character. We got it really cheap, so we've been having to pick through it quite a bit as a lot of it is either unusable or at least portions of boards are unusable. But all in all, I think we still got a great deal and we love the feeling of warmth.

As I mentioned earlier, we used amber shellac, or what was formerly known as orange shellac. We chose it because it has been around for ages, so it gives the wood a much more antique type finish. It dries ridiculously fast, in about 30 minutes, which is great when you have a couple hundred boards to finish. And its all natural, non-toxic and comes from a completely, renewable resource. Oddly enough, its actually made of resins excreted by the Lac Beetle. But, we like bugs, so it works for us!

Our halfway point. Matt is going to build barn doors for the loft up there. One day we might come back and finish it for a library/office/reading nook space.

And, in other news, we finally received out shipment of everything we bought at the Expo Design center back in November. Now that it is all stacked up in the garage, it doesn't seem like all that much. But low and behold, what you see there will soon be transformed into everything that goes inside our house that makes a house a house and not a shell of a building. Lights that light, toilets that flush, fans that spin, dishwashers that clean...

reclaimed heart pine engineered flooring

2007-01-30T17:40:00.000-05:00

I must say, we are pleased as punch at the way the new floor looks. The picture above was taken in the master bedroom. In case you missed it a few posts back, we decided to switch from hardwood to reclaimed heart pine engineered flooring, as it is better suited to radiant heat. And this weekend we put down half of it. Yes, only half. I know it may seem like we should have been able to put it all down this weekend, I mean after all the house is only 1400 sq. ft. But you have no idea. We had to lay the floor around this:
The radiant pex tubing. The tubing that will soon hold water, and therefore should not have any holes accidentally poked into it with a floor stapler. Because if it did get a hole in it, we would not know until it was filled up, and then we would have to pull the floor up to find and fix the leak. The brand new floor that we just spent all of our money on, that looks so pretty, that I love. So it was a slow, methodical, nerve-wrecking process. One that we will hopefully only have to endure one more time to get the living room/kitchen finished, and then never again. Ever, ever, ever.

Wishing and Dreaming

2007-01-25T15:55:00.000-05:00

I can't wait for spring and landscaping and yard work. Maybe I'm just over winter. Or maybe I'm just over this whole ongoing, seemingly never ending transitional lifestyle we have been living for the past year. The one with all of our stuff in storage and us walking around for the last eight months in the same six outfits cause that's all we kept out of storage and hauled around in Rubbermaid bins with us from garage to tent to the neighbors house. And of course landscaping and yard work always come after building a house, so my longing for them might just be a longing for our being sort of kind of finished, my stuff being unpacked and us living back under our (new) roof. Or it could just be because I want these cool landscape lights so bad I can feel it all the way down to my toes (www.escortlighting.com).

Engineered Heart Pine and Devine Paint

2007-01-17T15:25:00.000-05:00

The shear pace of work both at the house and at the other job that pays for the house has led me forego posting over the last couple of weeks. But, a lot has been happening and therefore there is much to catch up on!! First, we made notable product shifts and are very happy with both. We first planned on using wide plank heart pine flooring throughout the house. It was one of the first things we located, back when we were in the early planning stages (which seems so very long ago). Then we committed ourselves to the radiant heat, knowing that wide plank wood floors + radiant heat = lots of shrinking, swelling and other floor movement generally not recommended. But, we didn’t care. Rustic houses are not by nature perfect. We would embrace the imperfections. But then, our distributor didn’t have wide plank, only 4 inch, and we had estimates on finishing the floor, and we were not looking forward to the time the floor needed to acclimate nor the price of finishing. So in less than fifteen minutes of internet research, we found a company in Charlotte that makes reclaimed heart pine engineered flooring (engineered flooring being the recommended type for radiant heat) in a 7 ½ inch width. We had samples sent over Fed – Ex and the next day ordered the entire floor off auction and Matt drove down and picked it up. Not bad, and we figure it has saved us a couple hundred dollars overall not to mention the month of acclimatization and finish time.

The other product shift was paint. We were going with Benjamin Moore, always reliable, lots of colors, etc. But when I went in for some paint chips I found Devine Paint. And is it ever divine!! I asked the guys at the paint shop about it and it is what they are all using in their own homes now. I picked up a couple of samples, and after testing them out I was sold! This paint is gorgeous and sooooo forgiving. It truly only requires one coat, it doesn’t show brush or roller marks and the depth is incredible. I love it! You should check it out here http://www.devinecolor.com/.

Other than that, Matt has been padding up the floor around the radiant floor tubes so that we can install the new floor and putting on our snazzy new door hardware; I have finished siding the front of the house; we have painted all of the drywall ceilings and we have painted the kitchen. Next up is installing the tongue and groove pine ceiling this weekend and more painting!

Radiant heat

2007-01-04T10:16:00.000-05:00

My brother Daniel just left after being in town for a few nights to help out on the house. He maybe didn’t pick the best few days in terms of fun jobs, as he spent all day yesterday pulling pex for the new radiant floor, but he was taking advantage of the last few days of his winter break. Next year he will be in college, and he will hopefully (keep your fingers crossed!) be at the same college as our other brother and that puts our house smack in the middle between college and their home, perfect for overnight visits on their drives to and from school! And now Daniel will know that he is the reason we have toasty warm floors that make you want to walk around barefoot and lay on the floor.

Besides the radiant floor, we have primed 70% of the house and are trying to figure out paint colors. I’m stuck on this idea of having a citrusy green kitchen, but am having a hard time finding the right green, and a hard time deciding what color to paint the living room as their will be no real divide between the kitchen and living room. Matt doesn’t want a green that is too bright, I don’t want one that is too sage or blue, and so far I can’t find what I’m looking for. So, if anyone out there has any suggestion, PLEASE let me know!!!

The next big project is padding up between the pex pipes on the floor so that we can lay the floor. We opted not to pour concrete over the radiant primarily because of weight issues. We are still using the original bridge structure as part of the support structure of the house, and since we are not engineers, we decided less weight = better idea and left it at that. Once the floor is padded up we will pick up the heart pine and let it acclimate for awhile in the house while we wrap up the siding. In the meantime, I’m going to order the kitchen cabinets so they will be ready once the floor is in place.

Painless sheet rock and pretty doors

2006-12-20T09:36:00.000-05:00

It still amazes me how much can be accomplished when you actually pay people to come and work on your house. It took less than three days to have all of the sheet rock hung, and now the finishers will be done by Friday!! That means we will be priming and painting by Christmas!

Below is a picture of our new guest room with a small loft area. We took pictures of everything, but as exciting as we are finding sheet rock, we do still realize that it basically looks the same throughout the house, so we'll wait till we paint for the full house tour:)

So what did we do while others worked diligently on our house? This:

Matt, once again astounding me with his skill, built four beautiful solid cherry doors. I love them!

Icynene

2006-12-13T17:22:00.000-05:00

We have made two decisions that we are very happy with (well, that's not all of them, just the ones pertinent to this post).

First, we decided a long time ago that we wanted to insulate the house with icynene (http://www.icynene.com/). Several of the houses that Matt has built have used this and he has been very impressed with it. It seals the house up to, insulates exceptionally well, and acts as a noise/vapor barrier. Based on our research, Matt's previous experience, and the recommendations of others who have this in their house, we felt it was worth the extra money. But, I've got to say, it was A LOT of extra money - so if you are in the market for insulation, brace yourself and look around. We received quotes from all of the installers* in the area, and their bids differed by more than $4000 for our 1400 sq. ft. home.

* If you are in NC/SC, I highly recommend Glenco Foam Division out of Greenville SC. Larry and his guys did a fantastic job!!!

Second, we hired out the drywall. I have read enough DIY blogs to realize that absolutely no one on the planet enjoys hanging or finishing drywall. I have also learned that if you undertake this project you will be doing it forever, with no light at the end of the tunnel. With this in mind, Matt started keeping a look out on his job sites for drywallers who would be interested in side work. This enabled us to hire a couple of guys relatively inexpensively.

So, this is what it looks like right now, but by next week it will be completely drywalled and ready for the finisher!!!

Exterior stain

2006-12-08T15:24:00.000-05:00

We (I) decided to stain our shingles. Originally we thought we’d leave them natural, but halfway through I decided that I really liked the way they looked when they were wet from the rain. The best way to achieve that look was with a weatherproofing sealant that was just slightly tinted. We tried several things until we very happily settled on Cabot Clear Solution in Heartwood. It is very subtle, but will just allow the siding to weather more slowly. The pictures show the difference if you look really closely. Over the past two weekends I have gotten our front gable and the two back gables stained because we needed to wrap up anything involving-bolt through staging brackets (http://www.lynlad.com/catalog/item/1985389/1408659.htm). These brackets are fabulous, and allow for quick staging set up and take down. The only downside is that because they bolt through the wall, once you near insulation and sheetrocking you can’t go around drilling holes through you exterior walls. And, since we are at that point (!!!!), all future staining will be done from a regular old ladder.

In the picture above the entire gable and the lower portion of the side wall have been stained.

More Expo photos

2006-11-22T14:10:00.000-05:00

Drum roll please ... My favorite purchase from the trip is the Jen-Aire range! I am sooo happy about this stove. And, luckily for us we do like it because we did not have any choice in the matter. Because we designed our house to maximize the direct light that we get (which is hard to come by becuse of the heavy tree canaopy) we ended up eleminating all upper kitchen cabinets in favor of windows. So, we needed a down draft range, and Jen-Aire happens to be the only company that we could find that makes an electric down draft. The one pictured is the gas version, but that's just because it is the only one they had on the floor.

We also picked out a black french door bottom freezr fridge and a black Bosch dishwasher. We've never had a dishwasher before, so this was pretty exciting. No more fighting about the dishes. We researched for the one that could take two week old crusty dishes and turn them into sparkling clean dishes with no pre-washing. Whereas I doubt that such a majical dishwasher exsits, this one should be close.

We also got these:) This is another first, as in first new washer/dryer. The only time we have needed to purchase a washer/dryer was when we first moved to NC and theywere going in the garage. Since we knew they would be temporary, and we weren't going to have to look at them, we just bought a mismatched pair at the Habitat for Humanity store. I scaled back from what I really wanted (LG Tromm Steam Washer in Navy Blue) because we didn't have enough space and if we had enough to spend that kind of money on a washer/dryer, I'd just pay someone to wash and fold all of our clothes. So we got the Whirpool Duet, and by all accounts from consumer reports, they are great and reliable - even if they are just boring white.

This blotchy blue tile will be part of what is going in the guest bath. We are going to cut it down to squares of four tiles and placing them like diamonds between large rough white tiles. They will be on the floor only as the tub/shower is an insert.

Our master bath will be slate with river stone in the base of the shower and spilling out onto the main floor. We will also have the river stone in the entry way, but not quite sure et what form it will take. We want to create the effect of the stream flowing into the house as the entry way is directly above the creek.

We will continue to post more pictures from our Atlanta trip over the next couple of weeks.

2006-11-20T14:04:00.000-05:00

Well, the trip to Atlanta was extremely productive, if not a bit frightening. Matt and I learned that together we have the ability to make our decisions at lightning speed while spending money as if it grows on a well fertilized tree in our backyard. We blew through the Expo Design Center in less than three hours, leaving our design consultant in a state of shock and looking a little bit dizzy. In that short period of time we managed to buy all of the plumbing fixtures, all of the light fixtures, the tile for the master bath, guest bath and entry, not to mention all of the appliances. The only things we did not buy were the kitchen cabinets and countertops and the main heart pine floors. These three things would be the only things in the whole inside of the house we had already decided on and located. Well, sort of. The countertops are actually going to be concrete and we are making them ourselves, so we will see. The cabinets are being custom ordered and the floor is coming from a local distributor. But everything else was decided on last weekend, and we might add for the record that anyone in Atlanta or the southeast for that matter should consider looking up Mike Wright at the Expo Design Center. Quite simply, he was fabulous. So, here’s a preview of some of what we picked out:

These faucets will go in the master bath. We will be converting two large bowls with handpainted ferns into vessel sinks and Matt is going to custom build the vanity.

Kitchen lights!! The alabaster cone lights will be a part of the cable light system in the kitchen and we will have on of these fixtures hanging over the stove and one ovcer the sink. The other pendant will be over the small island workstation.

Next up will be appliances and tile!

Spending $ Fast and Furious

2006-11-10T11:03:00.000-05:00

This weekend Matt and I are heading down to the Expo Design Center in Atlanta to buy all of the fixtures, tile and appliances for the house. We've got a good idea of what we want, and a number of things picked out already, so we are hoping for something fairly painless. (If you hear muffled laughter as you are reading this, I'm sure it is coming from someone who has "been there and done that".) The idea is to spend all day Sat. with the design consultant picking everything out and then sleeping on it for the night before going back to sign on the dotted line Sun. Two really nice things about building a small house relate to the cost of the finishes. First, because our house is only 1400 sq. ft., we have the ability to spend a little more on the finishes (in part because we have saved money by building a smaller house and in part because there are simply fewer finishes to buy). And second, because the house is small, we don't have the option to even contemplate most high end kitchen appliances because we simply don't have room for them:) Hopefully next week I'll be able to post some pics of what we decided on!!

The Great Rough-In

2006-10-30T17:00:00.000-05:00

Things move so much faster when you hire people. Profound and insightful, I know. But after months of working a little bit in the evening and then all weekend, I have been looking forward to seeing the rate of progress increase once we reached the point where we needed to bring in our subcontractors.
We now have
1) A completed roof. We went with the standing seam 26 ga metal roof for overall durability and lifecycle, as well as weight. Since we have built on a large span over water, we wanted to stick with lightweight building materials where possible.
2) electrical rough-in has begun and should be complete by the end of the week.
3) ditto for the plumbing rough in. We even have the shower/tub for the guest bath in place.
4) All interior walls/ceilings framed. We finished up with some last minute changes this weekend. Once we were actually walking through three dimensional space, we realized somethings just were not going to work out like they had on paper.
5) quotes for the spray foam insulation. All we need to do now is decide on an installer and sign the contract. Again, we chose this option primarily due to our location. Icynene and other types of spray foam insulation have moisture resistant qualities and have great sound barrier qualities. After a good rain storm the sound of the creek can be deafening, so it is nice to have the option to shut the doors and windows and just have it be quite in the house.
6) the rough in for the radiant floor system is complete. Again, we chose this due to the location. The floors use to be freezing in the winter, which I guess is no surprise with ice cold water running underneath.

The kitchen!! You need to use your imagination for the cabinets, stove, fridge, sink, etc. but you get the idea.

Won't You Be My Neighbor?

2006-10-26T16:53:00.000-04:00

We have officially moved out of the tent!!! For the past week Matt and I have been showering on a regular schedule and cooking dinners rather than eating takout. Our dogs have been lounging blissfully by a roaring fire while Matt and I relax over a glass of red wine. We have been waking up in the loft of a beautiful rustic mountain cabin situated next to a waterfall, looking out a big picture window at our creek house. It’s all too good to be true.

Last weekend while Matt and I were working away on our house, a gentleman came walking down the driveway. It turns out he is our neighbor and he and his wife were in town for the weekend. You see, our neighborhood has a lot of rustic mountain homes, many of which are second homes. Our neighbors have owned their mountain house for over 20 years, but have not spent much time up here over the last year or two because they have been renovating a 1800’s era Victorian. So, while Matt and I have talked to them on the phone, and Matt actually met them once about two years ago, we haven’t yet had the opportunity to really get to know them. So, after making introductions, we offered to give Mr. Neighbor the tour of our project. While we were all leaning against 2x4 stud walls chatting, out of the blue Mr. Neighbor said he thought it might be a good idea if we just moved into his house for the winter as he and his wife would not be using it. We tried to contain our excitement while Mr. Neighbor headed down the trail to his house to check with Mrs. Neighbor. To our amazement, she too thought this was a great idea and before we knew it we were down at their house getting the tour as they both welcomed us and our dogs. We have, without a doubt, the nicest, most generous and gracious neighbors anyone could hope for. So, this winter we will be acting as the caretakers of our neighbor’s mountain house…

The part that Matt likes most about this arrangement is its connection to Mr. Marvin, the man who built the original creek house. Mr. Marvin was a wood worker and talented carpenter. After he retired, he built the original house over the creek along with a large workshop, wood kiln and wood shed. Throughout this entire process, we have often looked at each other and said “Do you think Mr. Marvin would like this?’ or “Do you think Mr. Marvin would be proud?” In fact, he is somewhat of a mythic figure around here. And after Mr. Marvin thought up his plan to have a house over a creek and started building, guess where he lived. Yep, Mr. Marvin lived in the same place while he built the original creek house.

Roofers were here '06

2006-10-19T17:36:00.000-04:00

The rumors were true! When we arrived home last night, actual work ( a lot of work) had been accomplished in our absence. In fact, it looked just like this:

I'm sooooo happy:)

Spotted

2006-10-18T13:00:00.000-04:00

Roofers have been spotted at our house!!! More importantly, roofers have been spotted on the roof, roofing!! We have no concrete evidence at this point in time, but will post photographic proof tomorrow:) I'm so excited I could do cartwheels around my office!

PROGRESS! (a little bit at a time)

2006-10-16T13:27:00.000-04:00

We are finally back and ready for a new post with new pictures. In the weeks since our last post we have had a lot of small projects and loose ends to contend with. None of these seemed to warrant a post by themselves, but looking back now over the total of what has been accomplished in the last few weeks, I think we might actually have something to fill you in on!

First and foremost, we have finished all of the exterior trim!! If you have been keeping up with our blog, then you know that this fact thrills me to no end. All of the exterior trim is done in cedar and was treated with a tinted water sealer. We started with Olympic clear, but decided half way through that we needed a little contrast with the siding. So, after a couple of trial runs we settled on Cabot Heartwood Clear Solution, which is a penetrating oil finish. We will eventually do something similar with he shingles, but we wanted to let them age a bit first.

The crates sitting in the middle of the driveway are our roof!! In fact, if all of the planets are aligned correctly, then there are two roofers at the house right now installing the roof. This is exciting for a number of reasons. 1) A roof does make the difference between a construction project and a house project. Once we have a roof we will have a house (so to speak). 2) The roofers represent our first subcontractors. This means that work will be getting done even when Matt and I are not at the house. Work will be getting done that we didn't do. We will come home home from our regular jobs and things will have been accomplished in our absence!
After a brief period of deliberation, we decided we needed to rip up the subfloor from the existing house. If you were to cross section of the floor from the existing house, it would have gone something like this: 1) pre-finished oak hardwood 2) tar paper 3) plywood subfloor 4) plastic vapor barrier 5) R-30 unfaced fiberglass insulation 6) pressure treated plywood. Since we ripped up the first and second layers and then ripped the roof off, there were several weeks where rain just pounded the subfloor. We were envisioning water pooled beneath the plywood, on top of the vapor barrier. And that's what we found, along with a lot of wet insulation. We replaced all of that old soggy insulation with Reflectix insulation and a new vapor barrier. We will come back from underneath and insulation behind the Reflectix once the plumber and electrician have finished roughing in.
We have also finished installing all of the new windows:) And sometime in November we should have all of the doors. Matt is going to begin working on them as soon as the time changes and we give up the last remnants of daylight after work. He is going to build the French doors and two exterior doors leading from the additions to the deck, along with new jambs for the two original exterior doors. Once we are actually living in the house, then he can go back a build the new front doors, but for now we are going to use the old ones.

The view on my ride into work this morning. Two pretty not to share.

Exterior trim, oh how I hate thee

2006-09-19T13:18:00.000-04:00

In my past life I don't think I ever noticed a piece of exterior trim. I noticed siding, windows, roofing material, etc., but I don't think I ever looked at a house and said "Nice trim". Now I must also shamefully admit that I should have been paying attention to trim, as it is something that Matt has spent a lot of his professional life installing. I've listened to him talk about it, even looked at sketches he has drawn in an effort to make me understand how cool something he has been working on looked. But payback is hell, and now my every waking moment revolves around trim, and I hate it. It is tedious, I still don't really care that much about it, and it takes forever to install. Or at least ours does, but that might just be because Matt is a perfectionist. So this past weekend, just like the weekend before and the weekend to come, we installed trim. But we had some help. Matt Brown made a return appearance, as did my sister, who flew down all the way from NYC for the weekend just to help.

Me and my sister Sarah Ellen trimming the front window.

More trim, it never ends.
And of course, the only thing more fun than trim was removing five headers with the saw-zaw. Somehow, during the translation from design phase to order phase to delivery phase for windows, 40 inch became 4.0 Ft., so our rough openings weren't sufficient. No one knows how that happened, but I have a sneaky suspicion that I somehow screwed up, so I offered to take out all of the offending headers (with the help of Sarah Ellen).

New Pics (1 of 2)

2006-09-05T16:09:00.000-04:00

As promised, lots of new pictures! It was a big weekend with a lot of excitement, both the good kind and the not so good adrenaline pumping, why in the world are we doing this kind. We did, however, make quite a bit of progress this weekend.

1)It took four of us to unload the new beam on Friday and then four again on Sat. to lift it into place. Well worth it as we think the new beam and new porch look fabulous!!

2) We have windows!!! Or at least some windows. Matt let me (i.e. helped me) put in the kitchen windows in a very chivalrous effort to make me feel like progress was being made on the house and that we were not going to spend the rest of our lives working on the roof.

New Pics (2 of 2)

2006-09-05T12:49:00.000-04:00

3) We have framed in the last exterior wall, a small bump out with french doors. This bump out will have a small shed roof, and the rafters are already cut. This is the LAST section of roof, and one small enough that it can be framed, plywooded, and tarpapered in a matter of hours.

4) Speaking of roofs, we also spent half a day working on the tar paper in all of the valleys in order to ensure that there are no leaks whatsoever. While we realize that the primary waterproofness of a roof comes from the actual roofing material, we figured it couldn't hurt. And it worked. It worked really, really well. How do I know this? Because Monday night we had one of the worst thunderstorms ever. Lightning and thunder all around the tent, the creek rising like crazy right beside us, and us knowing that at any moment lightning would strike a tree near us and it would come crashing down on the tent. Made for a fun night. Below is what the creek looked like this morning when we finally emerged.

We're Still Here

2006-08-30T14:43:00.000-04:00

No, we didn't run back to Africa. We're still here. It's just that we haven't really done anything picture worthy in a while. As those along the coast well know, hurricane season is upon us, and hard as it is to believe, even way over here in the mountains a hurricane can wreak havoc. Tons of rain and thunder storms are keeping us off the roof, which in turn is keeping us from moving onto the next step. So, while we are getting lots of odds and ends done, there is not a single picture I could take right now that would make someone say "wow, they ARE getting a lot done!"

We did get to run up to Cape Cod for a VERY short weekend during all this rain and celebrate the 2nd birthday of Matt's goddaughter and the wedding of two very close friends. And Matt did manage to pick out an 18 foot long reclaimed heart pine beam for our porch roof. It should be pretty cool, although in all honesty, neither one of us have actually seen it. I think I'm past the point of hand selecting every little thing for the house. If it will hold the porch roof up ROCK ON! That's all I need to know. Although, we will need to figure out how to get the beam to the house - it's a little bigger than the truck.

So keep your fingers crossed - if the rain holds out for Labor Day weekend, we will hopefully have some awe inspiring photos that show "wow, they ARE getting a lot done!" Assuming we don't get washed away in the tent before then.

One Man Wonder

2006-08-15T13:21:00.000-04:00

Rain put a bit of a damper on our plans to finish "skinning" the roof this weekend. We had folks lined up for a full day Sat., but the rain didn't let up until late afternoon. Thus, Sunday we were left with a roof in no better shape than it had been all week.

Until Matty had the idea that he could plywood the roof himself...

Yep, the one-man-wonder pulled off his biggest "don't try this at home" feat to date. He managed to get 3/4 of the remaining roof plywooded and tarpapered all by himself. Now you may be wondering to yourself why I myself was not up there helping. I, in fact, spent most of Sunday wondering the same thing. But, Matty laid out the ground rules for this project months ago and at the top of the list was 1) Laura is not allowed on the roof - EVER. I have a pretty substantial history of head injuries (some might even say I'm a bit uncoordinated). So Matty has forbidden me to get on the roof, for fear that I would plummet to a certain death. And no amount of stubborn debate on my part this weekend managed to change his mind. So, instead, I stood on the ground looking up at something like this, trying to figure our how I would break his fall if he slipped...

Hi Ho, Hi Ho, It's back to work we go!

2006-08-07T17:20:00.000-04:00

I love shingles! No really, I do. They are not heavy. They only require one power tool to install. I do not have to worry about cutting off appendages. I do not have to worry that I will stumble and throw myself onto a circulating blade of death. Nope, nada. It's just hours and hours of lining up pretty shingles that smell wonderful, all fresh and cedary - and the best part - I can do it all by myself. I even got to pick out and purchase my first major tool, a refurbished Senco pneumatic staple gun. I love shingles and I love eBay. You have to use your imagination a little bit, but we think it will look stunning.

And while I am happily whiling away the hours putting up siding, Matty has been finishing up the framing for the roof. Luckily he likes framing because if it were up to me, it would never get done.
A view of the inside with the new roof frame, taken from the living room looking towards the kitchen.
Our gable end additions officially tied into the main roof.

There's no place like home

2006-08-02T14:53:00.000-04:00

Wow, what an adventure. The african safari was definately the trip of a lifetime, and one that Matt and I are very grateful to have had the opportunity to experience. Words, and even pictures, fail to give justice to such a spectacular place.

We have, however (as predicted), returned with even more determination to work hard on the house. The enjoyment of tent life is sure to have a shelf life (it's hard to compete with the 5 star tents on safari), so the day after flying home we were back at work. We've got a punch list of all the loose ends we need to tie up before we can have the roofers come over, however none of it is exciting enough to warrent posting. So, instead, I have posted our before and after floor layout. The original house was a total of 840 sq. ft. and the new layout will be approximately 1400 sq. ft.

There's no place like home, there's no place like home...

That's one way to do it...

2006-07-13T18:47:00.000-04:00

How to Build a House - Belanger style

Dig holes and remove any large boulders by hand, utilizing basic lever systems.
Remind self that entire civilizations were built before excavators.
Haul 80 bags of concrete in buckets for piers.
Cross fingers while crane guy wields steal beams over house and into place without a line of sight.
Weld steel to existing I-beams and proudly announce that you have a foundation.
Frame additions.
Pack up house and move everything into snazzy onsite portable storage unit.
Move into guest bedroom and commence to demolishing part of the house.
Move into large tent on the deck.
Plumb outdoor shower and then wave at neighbors while shampooing hair.
Be thankful that it is summer when all the leaves are out and neighbors can’t really see.
Worry about showering this fall when it gets cold and the leaves fall off.
Demolish rest of house.
Advertise in local paper for free roof trusses and give the roof away.
Round up everyone you know 4th of July weekend to re-frame roof.
Sheath main roof with plywood and tar paper.
Take a break – go on safari
(no really, we are going to AFRICA this weekend for a two week safari)
Secretly worry than upon returning from exotic and luxurious safari with swanky tents and premier outdoor showers “for adventurous types” current situation at creek house might not seem so cool.

Yep, Matt and I are putting our tools away and going on safari in southern Africa for two weeks! The timing, we admit, is a bit odd, but when my family offered us an opportunity to take this trip with them, it took less than a nano-second to accept. Once we return, we’ll be more determined than ever and ready to tackle our house with even more enthusiasm than before. If we get a chance, we’ll post some photos next week from our trip:)

Last Man Standing

2006-07-06T12:55:00.000-04:00

I know it looks like I am a horrible house cleaner...

But really, I just have very challenging conditions.

What I love about this project

2006-07-05T14:30:00.000-04:00

What I love about this project:

Our friends and family. It really has been amazing. Every weekend folks just drop by to work. We never really know who is coming or for how long, but people just seem to keep coming by to work. This past weekend, when the rest of the country was grilling out hotdogs and shooting off firecrackers, we had nine different people come by to help us out! It has kind of been like one long drawn out barn-raising. We couldn’t have done half of what has been accomplished so far without all of the help. Now if I can just keep enough food and cold beer around to keep them coming back!
Watching Matty work (and working for Matty). There is something extremely cool about seeing someone you love in their element.
Discovering once again how well Matty and I work together. Especially with all of the dire warnings and predictions you receive all kinds of people, including the checkout girl at the grocery. A marriage can not only survive, but thrive while living in a tent, working two full time jobs and remodeling/rebuilding a house (due in a large part to the aforementioned friends and family helping out!)
Giving the roof away. As I have mentioned in previous posts, there is something a little crazy with ripping down a perfectly good house. So when it came time to take off the roof, we advertised it as free to anyone willing to come work a weekend to help take it off. We had two local guys come over one Sat., and now our old roof it on its way to becoming a new workshop and shed for a camper trailer. A far better deal than wasting away at the landfill.

We ended the drought!

2006-06-26T13:23:00.000-04:00

Yes, yes, yes. Anyone from the southeast who has been worried about the lack of rain, you can rest easy – we have fixed it. Western NC has been in a bit of a drought lately, running 6 ½ inches behind normal. But have no fear, no less than seven minutes after we pulled the last truss off of our roof on Saturday, torrential rains began falling. According to our local paper “Heavy rains over the weekend brought needed relief to drought conditions in Henderson County, but torrential rainfall Saturday and again on Sunday dumped up to two inches in some parts of the county in a 24-hour period.” Heavy rain expected through Tuesday and no roof on the house… go figure. But we did manage to get the roof off and get our ever evolving living situation organized in the garage this weekend.The last truss coming down just before the rain

Our new garage basecamp

Before and After

2006-06-19T16:31:00.000-04:00

We must admit there is some level of insanity involved when deciding to rip down a perfectly good house. Aside from size, Matt and I had very few complaints about our house. The further we get into tearing it down, the more we recognize just how well built the thing is... But, there is just no way around the fact that 840 sq. ft. of living space is just not going to be enough for the long haul. So for the time being, we have set up camp on our deck, plumbed a temporary outdoor shower (we do still have to get cleaned up and go to work:)), and moved all necessities into rubber bins. Thanks to the Stierwalts, we have a tent that rivals the original size of our house - we've got a queen size bed and a tv/dvd player in there! So, in the spirt of good fun, we are posting some "before and after" pictures.

Before . . . . . . . . . . . . . After

Before and After (part 2)

2006-06-19T15:29:00.000-04:00

Before pic of our bathroom...

Our bathroom after... This is actually my favorite temporary change. The outdoor shower rocks, and I even did all the plumbing myself thanks to our friend Matt Brown, who came up with the idea and sent helpful emails.

Before (notice the windows, floor, walls, door, electricity, etc.)

After - not bad considering its a tent. We've even got a queen size inflatable bed!

Our living room before we decided to whip out a sledge hammer

After... You'll notice that we are using our new bedroom as our living room, it all depends on what end of the bed you situate yourself on. And yes, that is a TV in a tent.

Demolition

2006-06-12T13:29:00.000-04:00

The weekend after Memorial Day we packed up everything in the house and moved it into a storage unit, set up camp in the guest bedroom and got ready for demolition. This weekend we were able to gut our bedroom and the living room/kitchen. We even got one of our new kitchen walls reframed.

Our former bedroom torn to pieces... I love blown insulation:)

And Matty loves brick

Indy making a dumpster run. I must find him a tool-belt. Don't be fooled by any of the other pictures. Indy is the one who is really building our house, we just couldn't put him on the permit application as the General Contractor.

The new framing on the right is for the kitchen. Three new windows to look out at the creek and the hemlock.

These two pictures are what our house looked like this morning when we went to work...

Long Weekends

2006-05-30T17:36:00.000-04:00

Long weekends are wonderful! We managed to get all four walls up and the rafters in the master bedroom. We are but a week away from beginning to rip our house down:) I went out this week and even bought an inflatable bed (per Matty's request;)), as it appears we will be camping out for quite some time.

Matt working on the walls of the new guest bedroom.

Master bedroom with most of the rafters up.

Building Walls, part 1

2006-05-26T10:08:00.000-04:00

Matt and I spent last weekend building the two gable end walls for the addition. We got them both built by Sunday and then Matt trimed them after work. By Wed. Matt had rounded up a crew from work (5 guys in all) to come over and lift the walls up into place. This weekend we will build the four remaining walls and start putting the rafters up... then its onto demolition of our house!

Matt and I building our walls.

Game On

2006-05-15T13:59:00.000-04:00

This past weekend, we brought the crane out one more time and had the steel frame that will be our foundation put into place. A welding crew from the local steel fabrication place came down and welded the whole thing together and to the existing steel. Now its game on as we get down and dirty with Matt's favorite part - wood. As soon as we finish framing in the addition and getting it as close to dried in as possible, we are going to have to rip off the roof of our house to tie it all together!

Placing the steel on the piers...

The welders in action...

Matt Brown and Johnny Rea enjoying a cocktail in our new room

Green Means Go

2006-04-14T15:02:00.000-04:00

We received our first approval from the building inspector (much to Matty's relief), which means we can now start building our piers. No more laid back sunny days in the Home Depot parking lot. Now its back to hauling cement...

Who knew I had masonry skills?

Home Depot Parking Lot

2006-04-12T17:13:00.000-04:00

Have you ever tried to look at a little piece of paper and visualize what it will look like once it is as big as a house? Needless to say, I do not have this skill. We have made countless drawings of the addition, the whole house, the elevations, etc. I even built a scale model to try to figure out what it will look like when we are done (really, I'm not kidding). So, when we could figure no other way - we packed up the truck and headed toward the acres of asphalt that surround our town. We ended up at the Home Depot where I was able to convince the manager to let us use a section of the parking lot to draw our house out to scale with sidewalk chalk!

Matt, standing on our new deck!

Big Holes, Big Rocks

2006-03-20T14:07:00.000-05:00

Over the past month we have been doing all the leg work needed to begin construction. We have been working with a retired engineer who has been helping to design the "bridge" that is to be the foundation of our addition. The existing house is built on steel I beams supported by a series of piers, very much like a bridge over the creek. Luckily, our engineer has built more than a few mountain bridges - just none that doubled as houses.

This weekend marked the official beginning of construction. We signed off on our financing and acquired our building permit Friday. We began, true to form, by celebrating with our friends (and architectural advisor) John and Amy over dinner followed by some live music at our new favorite spot, The Back Room at the Flat Rock Wine Shoppe. Saturday, John and Amy came over and we embarked upon the tedious process of laying out the lines for the addition. I had no idea basic geometry could prove to be so difficult. But, we finished, and we even managed to begin digging our footers!

Sunday brought more digging (a lot more digging) and our first obstacle. Three feet down into one of our footers we unearthed a big boulder that needed to be moved. Because of the location of the footer, there was no way of bringing any type of equipment down to pull it out. Thus, it became apparent that somehow Matt and I would have to move the boulder by ourselves. Not only did we have to move it, but somehow we had to lift it three feet out of the hole! Most of Sunday morning was spent with Matt and I wallowing around in the mud with pry bars trying to hoist this thing up. We made a little headway by prying it up and wedging smaller rocks underneath it little by little in an attempt to raise the boulder. Finally our friend (Mark) Stierwalt came over, and in a feat of Incredible Hulk-like strength, Matt and Stierwalt were able to move the boulder out of the hole. In fact, it took them just under five minutes. So much for the three hours of huffing and puffing I had put into it earlier.

SUCCESS!

We're Off and Running!

2006-02-20T12:11:00.000-05:00

The Great Creek House Renovation Adventure has officially commenced!! We have embarked upon a mission to turn our most perfect 800 sq. foot house into an even more perfect, although slightly bigger house. It started at Christmas, when Matt gave Laura a "starter set" of tools and a promise to be very patient. It continued with many dark winter nights contemplating sketches and peering into Laura's foam board house models. Exactly how complicated could we make this project?!

The Creek House, April 2005

. . .
The Creek. . . Running under our house!

Well today, the first big step occurred as the tree crew came and cleared the way for the addition. The addition is going to be constructed off the back of the house, so the views seen here won't change too drastically. The trees that were removed all came from behind the house. We thought we were going to have to remove the big hemlock growing out of our deck, because it is infested with the woolly adelgid, but our tree guy thinks he can save it!

Wow that's a big crane, imagine bringing that thing down the driveway.

Matt tried to talk the tree guy into letting him go up on the crane, he wanted to be like Mel!

The top and middle of a Hemlock being lowered onto our driveway.

They were being flown right over our house...