Very busy week this week on the job site for me – we went through a lot of decisions as Paul had me meet the Electrician and the Mason (again, I am terrible with remembering names on the first meeting and I have forgotten them – sorry) and on Friday morning I went up to Amherst New Hampshire to finalize the kitchen and bath built in designs.

Electrical

The electrician walked us through in a very, very thorough, but efficient manner, the electrical layout.  I came onsite at 7:30am on Monday and he and his team had clearly been onsite for quite awhile as he had put in the rough ins for electrical power every 12′ feet in each room and had marked out locations for switches.  Also he had identified areas he needed decisions on. Fantastic stuff and we worked through things effectively I hope

Inside the house, some of the key decisions we made were:

• confirmation of the power outlets along the walls of each room (and wall switches too)
• two in floor, flush mount, under floor power outlet boxes/ canisters s in the middle of the great room – location and type to be determined later (like Hubbell SystemOne?  or the Legrand Evolution? or Steel City?)
• Quad electrical outlet box near the computer setup
• Where ever possible we will do LED lighting
• decision to have no over head built in lights in the bedrooms – wall outlet driven only.  Which then drives the switched/not switched circuits.
• Wall lighting in the hall.
• No in ceiling lights in the cathedral ceiling space – all track lighting.  We will have 3 main tracks above the main beam in the living room.  A track above the beam over the kitchen sink.  And if I remember properly, a track in the main entry hallway.
• An electrical box for a ceiling fan in the middle of the living room
• Kitchen cabinets will have under cabinet lighting
• Location of the main panel to be in the equipment/utility room
• And probably some other stuff that I am failing to remember sitting here at my keyboard
• aaaand I did forget – Panasonic vent fans for the bathrooms – which apparently will be designed to run all the time as per the ‘stretch code’ that lots of towns are going to.  I wonder – can we vent this under the house like the kitchen ventilation – and eliminate another penetration of the roof?

We then moved outside

• Location of in ceiling lights, on sensors, in the carport – for those after dark arrival home from work in the winter
• Flood lights on all sides of the house – some switched only, some on sensors
• Addition of a 50 amp, 3-phase panel in the garage (for arc welding and anything else that needs heavy output
• electrical outlets in the garage every 12 feet.
• Power for twin tracks of lights (florescents probably) in the ceiling of the garage

Miscellaneous

• External electrical power outlets on the garage wall in the car port
• External water spigot in the garage wall in the carport (for easy access to all sides of the house
• under house flood lights – switched and external power socket – for late night retrieval of items from under the house, critter removal and general interesting look
• location of the generator and propane behind the garage, on the down hill side
• wiring for lamps along the driveway

A lot of stuff – fortunately he was taking notes on the studs as we went and it was mostly pretty standard stuff.  Also, I almost forgot – Paul and I discussed that the plans call for a 7 foot garage door – he proposed going to a 7′ 6″ door, and lowering the level of the concrete slab for more clearance and headoom.  This would also eliminate a concrete ramp up to the garage door.  This all sounded great to me – less site work and mounding of dirt and gravel, the ramp would crack and break anyway and more room sounds awesome.  Paul is going to take a machine in and remove some of the gravel from the garage.

Masonry

On Thursday morning, I met with the mason, who Paul has worked with extensively and who has done several Rumford Fireplaces.  The fireplace is a 36″ Superior Clay design, and as you can see in the pictures below is tilted slightly towards the center of the room.  We decided on a traditional concave grout contour, the fact that the chimney should be square on its self – so it would be at an angle to the room with 90 degree corners.  We did a last second addition of a bluestone cap on the top of the chimney as an anti-icing attempt (plus it will look good I think – a nice capping horizontal line.

Kitchen & Bath

Finally, I went and met with Shelby Brown at Fairview – the kitchen designer Paul recommended.  Finally I remembered someone’s name (but I do have her business card so it is hardly fair – lol).

In in prior post, I noted that we eliminated the overhead ventilation hood – by doing a downdraft cook top and venting under the house.  That freed up some new thoughts – often a dangerous thing!

I pulled out my copy of Atomic Ranch’s book on mid-century modern interiors  (ISBN 1423619315) (which as an aside, is a great book.   So is their other book and their magazine).  There is a Eichler remodeled house with a fantastic kitchen in it (Shelby has my copy of the book – a new one is on the way!) – so I can’t give you the page number.  However it had a few interesting features that I have now blatantly stolen

In their kitchen, same as mine, the island is an eating area, with a stone counter top – to support an extended off the end overhang, there is a drilled I-Beam for counter-lever support and the cabinets have aluminum picture frame faces with a translucent pebbled glass main surface.

We are going to riff on this – I found online aluminum I-Beams at Onlinemetals.com and they were cheap – so I ordered two 7 foot lengths of 6 inch I-Beams – so we can screw up without having to wait for more delivery.  We are going to weld on a 1/4″ aluminum plate to spread the support out and use it to support the countertop weight off the island at the opposite end of the island from the cook top.  To provide visual balance, from the living room side, we added one small cabinet that is aluminum with a pebbled glass front.  The rest of the cabinets are all maple.  I am sure this is impossible to visualize without a picture, but I am hoping it will look really neat and it should be very functional.  My Mom pointed out that if you are eating near the cook top, that may not be super nice – so we are placing at the end of the island and the seating clustered around the other end

So – kitchen decisions:

• Cabinets are Decora – all maple with a 45 degree bevel on the edges.  Slab sided (ie – flat on the front).  The aluminum single cabinet tie in with the I-Beam is also Decora
• Counter top is Quartz – London Fog (or London Sky – i am unsure of the manufacturer.)  Quartz is 95% ground quartz and 5% resin – so you get a strong but less brittle than stone, slab that is very even – an engineered product.  It does not require sealing and is very heat resistant (but not as much as stone – so a trivet is recommended).   The counter top should look something like this Ceaserstone online sample and will go well with the raw aluminum elsewhere
• The island will be lower than normal – regular table height (29″ vs normal 36″) – so you can eat at the island while sitting in a regular chair instead of on a stool.  It should seat 5 or 6 people
• Layout wise, along the wall, it will be, from left to right:  dishwasher, sink, refrigerator, stack of wall oven and microwave.  Cabinets on the wall bracketing the sink.

Bathroom decisions:

• Each bathroom is going to have a floating vanity – I unfortunately have forgotten the make and model.

Miscellaneous:

To help fund the changes in the kitchen, we decided that I will self provide furniture around the computer/office.

I will ask Paul to build in the computer desk however – just to have something to use right out of the gate.

A bare bones update – more of a list of things that I have decided on or need to finalize with Paul tomorrow morning.

New London Style Pizza is waiting – so this is going to be fast

Roofing:

Everlast 24 Gauge Architectural Series – color:  SIERRA TAN

Appliances: – all from the great folks at Hunter Appliance (they were excellent.  They have a very, very good service department so they can really speak to how well does a product install, run and service.  Reliability is important to me so we oriented that way and did a lot of mix and match of manufacturers).  Many, many thanks to my salesman Howie – he really took the time to listen and took the time to explain why he was recommending each item.

1. GE built in single wall oven.  Model JT3000SFSS  (in chrome)
2. GE Profile microwave (to go with the wall oven)  model PEB7226SFSS  (in chrome)
3. GE Trim kit for the microwave to match the oven   model JX72230FSS   (in chrome)
4. Bosch 500 series dishwasher, pocket handle, with 3 racks (24″)  model SHP65TL5UC   (in chrome)
5. KitchenAid 22 cubic foot, 33 inch full depth refrigerator.  Right hand hinge door    model KRBR102ESS  (in chrome)
6. KitchenAid 30″, 4 element cooktop with central down draft ventilation.  This was not onsite when we were there – they had just sold their last one.  However, this link here shows basically the same thing.   model KECD807xBL   ( all black – no chrome surround)
7. SpeedQueen washing machine – top loader  – not sexy or elegant but the only choice if you want reliable AND a top loader according to Hunter.  They said it is this or go European front loader.  Model  AWN432SP113TW0  (white)
8. SpeedQueen electric dryer – the reliability matched pair  🙂   model ADE3SRGS173TW0   (white)

Plumbing Fixtures (bathroom and kitchen).

Paul really recommended Symmons as very good value for your money.  I went to their sight online and like the styling just as well as the Kohler that I had previously bookmarked – so I have replaced Symmons items when their is a product line match with Kohler (Kohler does a lot of extra things as well like sinks)

1. Symmons ORIGIN series for the bath
   1. single handle lavatory faucet – one for each bath  – model S-9612-1.5 in chrome
   2. Origins Tub/Shower/Hand Shower system for the guest bath – model 9606-PLR  in chrome
   3. the master bath is going to have a walk in shower and I want a rain system as well as a regular hand shower system – I am unsure of the mix and match up – but the rain shower head I am looking at is the 12″  2.5 gallon per minute Symmons   – in chrome
2. Symmons ORIGIN series for the kitchen
   1. Single handle faucet with separate sprayer.  Model S-23-3  in chrome
3. Kohler bathroom
   1. San Raphael elongated toilet (concealed trapway, gravity flush, elongated bowl and 1.6 gallons per flush).  Model K-3466 in white
4. Kohler kitchen
   1. Kohler undermount single sink – a system really with an elegant stacking system – expensive but practical.  Model K-5540

Other stuff to talk to the electrician about tomorrow morning

Light switches – rocker switches seems to be the way everyone is going these days.  Some interesting advances here

Hallway and other public locations switches

1. Hubbell Wiring RSD115ILW tradeSelect® Illuminated Two Position Decorator Quiet Switch  – this is a rocker switch that when turned off, also functions as a night light – so you can find the switch in the dark.  This would be annoying in your bedroom but great in the hallway, bathroom and the public spaces of the house
2. Wiring the living room for ceiling lights and fan(s).  I am worried it will get very hot at the top of the ceiling (I am not sure where the make up air intake will be for the furnace?).   Lighting up there will be some sort of track lighting.   As far as fans go – I am looking at these:  the Big Ass Fans,  Haiku series – in polished aluminum
3. For electrical outlets & random stuff – that will be a discussion with the electrician – but I, if possible my “would like to have” list of things and other randoms is below
   1. 4 way receptacles – since every wall receptacle seems to instantly acquire a power strip to be able to service more items
   2. flood lights outside
   3. external power receptacles in the car port (garage side)
   4. some capacity for network Cat6 cabling
   5. a home base for electronics in the garage or pantry?  aka – server room
   6. in floor receptacles scattered across the great room.  Like the Hubbell SystemOne Floor boxes for wood floors.
   7. the potential to run multiphase power in the garage for MIG welding using medium duty welders

 

Finally – cabinetry

Paul has two designers and I like portions of each one of their designs – but the change from a ventilation hood to a down draft system has created possibilities – I have some ideas that I want to discuss for the cooktop island.  I am bringing a copy of my book Atomic Ranch – mid century interiors to the site tomorrow 

My first full weekend back in Carlisle for awhile and lot has gotten done

My Mom, Dad and I went over to the job site on Saturday morning – Paul and his family were there as well as the plumber (brain lock on my part – his name has slipped my mind, despite shaking hands with him several times – sorry!).

Paul and I reviewed the progress so far – which has been great.  NSTAR has been fiddling around but should be able to run power in the next few weeks.

On the house itself, the roof trim is all up and the mahogany oil stain looks fantastic.  It is a three coat process and there is a definite difference between coat #2 and #3 which can be seen in the photos below.  It is a Sikkens product.  Paul explained that he is going to give me a sample / control piece that has been finished with three coats – after three or so years, I will need to bring out the sample and compare colors – where needed, a single new coat will be applied.  As long as I keep on top of it, everything should last a good long while

In terms of decisions

• we decided on the Sikkens clear oil that will be used for the exterior siding and the tongue and groove ceiling.  It should give a nice variety instead of making the surfaces all blandly the same color.  The team will sand the interior and clean things and after the clear is on, put another top coat on to polish things up (less ability for dust to cling!)
• In the ceiling area of the carport, we decided on a mahogany luan plywood, with battens to cover the seams
• We talked about the length of the window seat by the fireplace – the plans call for an 8′ length but we are thinking of extending that so it covers the full window.  More to come there.
• The fireplace structure is going to be tumbled brick and we agreed on how the chimney front will go
• We discussed the skylights in the bathroom – manual vs electric.  It turned out that I did not remember correctly the design I had picked out – I went manual on the factory release but had forgotten.  We are going to proceed that way for now
• Additionally – we discussed whether or not we should add a cap/flashing to the butt end of the ceiling beams by the clerestory windows.  The butts are vertical/flush cut and are going to be exposed to a lot of sunlight and I have been worried about the wood checking and cracking.  Paul rubbed his chin and started to think about water.  We might add some copper flashing as a cap around each beam.  I think it could actually look pretty good – and as Paul pointed out, that replacing those beams would require removing a large section of the roof and that would not be fun.  More thought needed here!
• And I keep remembering things – we also discussed what color to paint the PVC sprinkler system pipes.  We definitely want to do that before they mounted.  I am unsure.  One way to go would be to go black and let them visually disappear – the other would be a mechanical color.

Next steps are that I meet with Paul and the electrician on Monday morning.  Paul is looking for final decisions on a number of items – so I have been working on them.  These are –

1. Final decision for the roof color
2. decision for kitchen appliances and ventilation – or more specifically the size of the cook top and the ventilation structure
3. fixtures/trim kits for the plumbing
4. electrical outlet locations
5. Ceiling fans discussion with the electrician

To keep this post of a reasonable size, I will do a new post with the appliance & roof color decisions

Below is are photos from yesterday’s visits (we went over twice)

I just got back last night from San Francisco where we had our annual Disaster Recovery exercise and our next year strategic planning offsite (sort of heel to toe on those) – however, both went really, really well so the lack of sleep was definitely worth it.  I have been laying low today (plus it is on and off again drizzling here)

Paul and his team have been making progress however and we went over to take a look.

Upcoming is the final decision on the metal roof color, the hood over the kitchen cooking surface and the brick work for the fireplace.  As far as roof color goes, the roof manufacturer is Everlast Roofing and I really like the Brite White.  It looks good, will have the minimum heat loading and will match the barn next door – so very site specific

I haven’t figured out the cooking hood yet but the brick looks great.  Paul and I just need to confer and keep him on track 🙂

My parents and I stopped by the construction site today after stopping off at the Transfer Station and dropping off the recycling and trash.  Great day, great weather!

Paul and his team are going along great – hopefully soon NStar will show up and run electrical power up to the house so they can stop using a generator for power.  They are doing a fantastic job and the house is really taking shape – my Mom said that it is just “floating there” (when looking at it from across the mill pond) and I think she is right.  With the complex roof lines, I was really hoping for something that was open, airy and uplifting – not a hulk squatting on the lot.  Nothing is done till its done, but it is looking good!

Speaking of Rumford style fireplaces – what is a Rumford anyway?  In short it is fireplace that is designed to maximize the infrared radiation (aka – the actual heat from a fire) out to a room.  The way it does this is by having flat sides and a very shallow and open hearth.  To keep the fire drawing well and not smoking up the room, the chimney/flue design is much like a smooth wind-tunnel.  The top-front of the fireplace (below where the mantel is normally) is a smooth internal airfoil.  As the hot air rises, the airflow is smoothly accelerated there and keeps the smoke flowing up the chimney.  There are other effects like induced turbulence in the flu to increase burning of gases etc… – but that is basically it.  Measurements on some fireplaces have the temperature at the front top of the fireplace at 72 degrees while it is hundreds of degrees hotter only a foot deeper in the hearth.

Here is a classic photo of the design

and more technical details on how it works

So who thought this all up?  A native son of Massachusetts – Count Rumford.  He started writing up his ideas and plans for this type of fireplace in 1796.  Count Rumford was born Benjamin Thompson in Woburn MA in 1753 and was given his title in Bavaria where he spent the Revolutionary period (he was a Loyalist and Woburn is only a few miles from the Lexington and Concord revolutionary battle fields).  His writings are very interesting, even today.

While I have probably seen a Rumford design in older houses before, I have not ever been able to build a fire in one.  I heard about the design from the This Old House 25th anniversary show, which rebuilt a house about a mile from my parents place in Carlisle – they put one in.  Programs 2410 and 2411

So – this fall should be fun to experiment with different fire building strategies to see what works best

http://www.rumford.com/index.htm

http://superiorclay.com/fireplace-firebox-design/rumford-fireplaces/

A brief gap in the updates on the construction front while I had some business travel to California and Paul awaited delivery of some of the roof trusses.  Paul however made progress with getting NStar/Eversource rolling for running electrical power to the house – that should be happening “soon”.  The contact and initial jousting over schedules has happened – so hopefully not too long for that.

The trusses arrived and they are very interesting.  Part of the plan for this house was to not do a Deck roof throughout the entire space of the house and garage.  A Deck roof is a very specialized structure – adapted as the name implies – from house decks, and performed by only some special roofers newcastle.  Without going deeply into the details, most of which I am not expert in, what you see from the inside is a cathedral ceiling with massive beams and tongue and groove cedar planking.  This allows for really open spaces and lots of wood to be shown.  For a different feel (and lower cost) Deck also has a truss based roof system.  I chose to utilize that for the mechanical and private areas of the house – I am hoping that this will give the public and private parts of the house two very different feelings or vibe.  (note – there is also a different truss system for the floor shown in some of the earlier photos here – allowing for very easy wiring.)

The construction of the trusses themselves is interesting.  They are nailed together with standard carpentry nails through galvanized metal plates – gang nail systems.  I had not seen these before and I did a little digging – they seem VERY strong and apparently houses in south Florida that were constructed with them survived hurricane Andrew much better than those which were not.

The plates are pierced and form lots and lots of “nails” – so you get a flat surface that has connection to the wood below – across its whole face.  Then you use a half dozen carpentry nails for that deep connection.  It seems like both a very strong and fast way to build a truss

In some of the earlier photos, you may have noticed the big orange machine in the background – that is Paul Heberts’ Lull Telescopic Lift machine – a key piece of equipment on a Deck House building project from the looks of it.  It handles the majority of the heavy work related to taking the flat pack materials from the factory and placing them around the site and for final assembly.  My dad happened to capture a series of shots placing a truss.

The trusses are now all in place I believe – or really, really close to being done – so some interior shots below – you can really start to see how it is coming together now.  Fantastic progress since June when it was just a hole in the ground waiting for a foundation.

Some design thoughts : 

From what I can tell, the house tends to get a fair amount of breeze from the south due to the lay of the land. The south facing glass has more sections that open – so the house is asymmetric in terms of volume and location of openings – my thinking during the design phase is that this might induce a venturi effect when the wind is not blowing strongly – in other words, it will act like a wind sock in low wind speed conditions – the large opening moving to a small. This should generate a compression acceleration of the air speed, creating a proverbial “ahhh – a nice breeze” on day that would normally be considered low wind or even stuffy.

I am starting to think about a post that ties together the design thought process I went through and how it is turning out in reality – maybe even a series of posts with a separate category from “construction”….  hmmm….  🙂

My brother Jeff, SiL Meghan and nephews Mason (8 yrs) and Owen (1.5 yrs) have been visiting for about 2 weeks now and we have been having a fantastic great time with some good adventures too.

Yesterday it was a bit cooler so we warmed up the coal fired forge and Mason crafted his first piece of iron.  He is now officially an apprentice Blacksmith!

For the first project, my Dad and I decided on something that could be used around the house, showed off a few different but straight forward techniques and would be relatively quick to complete – we decided on page holder for cookbooks.  Basically an iron bar with some subtle curves in a very flat U shape and fingers to hold the pages.  The bottom of the U sits on the counter above or below a book that is flat and open.  The fingers are laid on top of the book and are far enough from the spine to be able to easily hold down the pages without hurting the book.

We took a raw 1/4″ mild steel rod, flattened and shaped it with multiple heatings in the coal fire. Mason did all the hammering, a whole bunch of the pumping of the forge blower (forced air through the coal fire) and the wire brush clean up.

We taught him how to check for heat over hot metal, see what clinkers are  (used up iron oxide – not good for heating things since they are used up – but very neat to look at), eye protection and how to use the drill press with the power wire brush (to clean off the forge scale at the end)

Here is Mason with the cookbook holder he made with Uncle Nick and Grandpa Fohl today over the old coal forge and anvil.  The anvil came from a barn sale several decades ago and is over 100 years old.

Unfortunately, we were too busy DOING to take pictures while we were making it.  But lots of orange hot metal and hammering.  If you have never seen what that looks like, below are a number of older ‘in progress’ shots for illustration purposes.

On the house front, it is coming along.  I FINALLY closed this past Friday on my construction loan after what felt like a really slow swim through a lake of molasses.  Cold molasses.  But moving on now!

As you can see from the pictures below, the house is starting to look like a house.  The main beam in the living room is truly BIG – I think it is over 3′ and maybe up to 4′ from top to bottom.  I think it is really starting to look neat

For comparison, here is what the initial rendering from Deck Acorn House looks like.  This dates from pretty far along the design process so the final design should be very close to be what the house turns out like

Ps – Fohlfield is the old family name for the house on South Street – a cognomen given by Jack Robinson to the family homestead.

The house is starting to take shape and look like a house

The Santa Rosa Fohls are enjoying their visit to Carlisle and we made a couple of stops over to see how the house is progressing.  Quick & obvious progress as the framing goes up.  I am sure that it will slow down again as the finish work starts – this is all stuff that will be hidden away under the skin when it is completed.

Photos below are from July 9th and 12th