I have been keeping up on reading the forum and the knowledge here has been extremely helpful. Thanks to all! Julia in Norristown, PA

Details, Details, Details!

Posted to DreamHome by Lynnette in Orlando, FL on 4/10/2008 5:26:50 PM

As the saying goes "God is in the details".  I dont think they meant things like construction details, but it really does suit the subject.  After all the drywall was textured, we quickly got in there and primered everything that stood still.  We waited for the primer to dry and then began the paint selection process.  I already had a pre-selected palette of colors I wanted to use in the house, but determining exactly where they would work best was a bit of a challenge.  I spent an entire day with two girlfriends and 12 cans of test paint and proceeded to paint walls in a multitude of colors.  It was time consuming and tedious but it was definitely worth doing.  I am happy to say that in one day all the colors of the house interior were selected and ordered including ceiling and trim paint.  Originally I thought selecting tile was difficult, but it turns out paint was tougher.  The house was painted inside and we began installing the crown molding.  The double step crown in the downstairs hallways looks great.  My husband really spent a lot of time paying attention to the details in the ceilings and it definitely payed off since no one that enters the house ever looks anywhere but up :)  There really is a lot going on up there and I cant imagine building this house without taking the extra time and money to do such a nice job on the ceilings.  There are still many things that need to be done such as touch-up the paint here and there, but we are moving through room by room and making sure we go over every square inch and miss nothing.  The tile has been installed in the master bathroom and downstairs guest room shower.  Upstairs the theather room/man cave bathroom shower tile has been started as well.  The exterior window and door trim installation has been completed, and the stucco guy has filled everything in very nicely to give it a very seamless look.  We now need to be concerned with the paint outside which needs to be completed and touched up in some areas.  The stonework on the exterior of the house has also been done.  I have to admit I really love the way everything is turning out.  It never ceases to amaze me that the house looks exactly like I had pictured it in my mind inside and out.  We are really enjoying watching it all come together.  There are still some things left to do like install the floor tile and interior doors.  We have the granite window sills still left to install as well.  When those are put in, we will be trimming below them with molding.  The staircases have to be completed with the wrought iron that I have not yet selected.  A/C, Septic, Gas, & Electrical need to be completed as well.  The driveway needs to be set-up and poured and the cabinets need to be ordered and installed.  Lots and lots of details left to go, but we are handling it with patience.  I look forward to posting lots of pictures as things start to come together.  I have many pictures to share already of the tile and ceilings.  The exterior pictures will also look slightly different since it is complete except for the paint touch-up.  I cant wait til we pour the driveway because cleaning the dirt that gets tracked inside is starting to get old fast.  The budget has not taken too much of a hit so far, and because of the slowdown in construction we have actually been able to benefit quite a bit.  The photos will follow:

Photos

Ceiling in the family room	Double-Step crown in hallway leading to mudroom area with plaster detail over arch.	Family room and breakfast nook
View of kitchen and breakfast nook from family room	View from kitchen doorway through dining room to front foyer	An upstairs bedroom
Dining room ceiling with chandelier	Tile in bath of Theater Room/Man Cave	Master Shower
Master shower, other end		Master Tub
From another angle	Full view	Guest bathroom shower
Bottom half of guest shower	Other end	Garage, lighting has been installed
Road facing part of the garage with stonework	Front of house	Rear of house
Rear of house

Drywall!!!!!

Posted to DreamHome by Lynnette in Orlando, FL on 1/31/2008 2:31:56 PM

The drywall is in and almost done with mudding.  It is truly amazing at how quickly a crew of about 8 men can hang drywall.  Our entire house was done in a matter of 3 days.  Add to that one and a half days to completely mud the first layer and in less than a week, our entire house actually seems to have taken shape and seem like the home it should soon become.  No small feat considering alltogether it is somewhere in the neighborhood of about 7400 sq. ft.  That includes drywall in the garage.  It is very impressive to walk around and calculate the rate at which they had to move to accomplish such a feat.  My husband calculates that they are hanging around 300 sheets a day.  If you take into account how high the ceilings are that is a big deal.  We also have lots of architectural details in the ceilings which I am sure added tons of extra time and work for them.  The hallways downstairs are all coffered as well as the office, master bedroom, dining room, breakfast nook, and family room.  The exterior work has continued with the window sills and trim around the windows and doors.  The arched windows are still untouched since the radius has to be made special.  Hopefully our foam guy will get off his duff and get this done soon.  He also needs to install some stone on the outside.  Since the only work done recently has been drywall, that is all there is to update.  However, I have tons of photos.  Seriously, there are a lot of photos...Sorry!

Photos

One of the hallways downstairs. Note the ceiling details. This view is from mudroom looking towards Family Room.	Front Entry	Front Entry with view of dining room to the right.
Dining Room ceiling	Master Bedroom	Family Room
Hallway leading to room above the garage.	Bonus Room	One of the girl's bedroom.
Garage	Garage from the opposite end.	Kitchen
The other side of the Kitchen.	Ceiling in the Family Room.	View from the dining room.
Office	Master Bathroom, tub and shower area.	Master Bathroom, where the cabinets will go.
Master Bathroom, area in front of the tub and doorway into the bathroom.	Laundry Room.	Back stairwell
Room above the garage.	Other daughter's bedroom which faces the front of the house.	Living Room which is behind the curved staircase.
Current elevation of the house (still needs stone and window trim)

Insulation Almost Done

Posted to DreamHome by Lynnette in Orlando, FL on 1/5/2008 4:35:15 PM

From the last post, I definitely underestimated how long the foaming would take.  Lets just say that post was on the 11th of Dec. and today on the 5th of January we should be completing it.  So much for one week of spraying.  My husband hates the foaming with a passion mostly because he hates the spray suit and ventilator he has to wear.  He feels way too restricted in those items and I think slightly claustraphobic.  He will be overjoyed to be complete with this particular aspect of the house building.  He keeps saying when this foaming is done he never wants to see that machine again!  This coming from a man who does not shy away from hard work.  So it must be a miserable job.  I know it took us two full days to cover the house with plastic so as not to have too much of a mess left over.  Thank goodness we did not skimp on the use of plastic.  That stuff gets on literally everything.  After the foam is complete, we will have to trim the foam flush with the studs anywhere they will be hanging drywall.  The architectural foam guys came and started installing some of their stuff.  They only got as far as the front portico and installed the decorative brackets.  They look really good.  There is a lot more architectural foam that will be going up as well as stone on the front of the house.  They will be handling all those items.  From the sketches it is going to look fantastic and I am so excited to see it completed.

Our stucco is finally absolutely, and definitely done!  After we had painted the whole house, there were some "touch-up" areas that needed to be re-stuccoed, and so that will have to be re-painted.  But, we are just glad that the stucco is finally complete because that also created quite a mess.  Since we used the commercial grade synthetic stucco you dont have to wait for days of dry time and curing.  We will be painting the areas that need to be re-done this week.  There is still so much left to be done.  I certainly hope we can keep focused.  We are going to take a good long hard look around in the interior before the drywall goes up and make sure that any and all wiring that we could possibly ever need or want is taken care of now.  It is much easier to do those things before the walls get closed in.  This is something that I have already done about three times.  One more wont hurt.  Also, the areas in the bathrooms where we will need to hang any towel bars or hooks will be looked over so they can have extra reinforcement installed before the drywall goes in as well.  All interior decorative architecture will also be evaluated such as niches and such.  We want to not have any regrets in these areas and make sure we have those things wherever we will ever want them now.  I have only a few pictures to post since there is not enough visible change right now from the last post.  The front porch with decorative brackets installed as well as more interior insulation.

Photos

front porch with decorative brackets	View from another angle	Grand entry with foamed walls
More foamed walls	Our daughter standing in the attic space looking at the foam

Paint and Insulation

Posted to DreamHome by Lynnette in Orlando, FL on 12/11/2007 4:14:20 PM

Just a short update.  We have started to foam the house.  This is a job we are doing ourselves and it is going to take about a week to complete.  We started out with 2lb foam, but that only covers about 4500 board feet at 1 inch per drum set.  The 1/2 lb foam covers 14,000 board feet at 1 inch.  We have two sets of 55 gal. drums of the 2 lb.  We will be spraying the inside of the exterior walls upstairs with that, and when we run out we will finish up the rest of the job with 1/2 lb foam.We are doing it at 4 inches thick, so at the rate of coverage it would take us about 9 drum sets more, minimum, to do just the rafters in the 2 lb foam.  I wont even get into what that cost is.  So since foam at 1/2 lb is still very good, we will just use that and also under the floors upstairs for sound.  The insulation is put on hold until next week, since our outside lift will have to go back on the 21st and there is exterior painting to do.  My husband has a job to do for a client the rest of this week starting tomorrow, so nothing will be done.  Then, starting on Monday, they HAVE to get as much paint done as possible to finish before the lift goes back.  The photos are just from 2 days worth of painting, and they will have it done well before the 21st.  We got the drawings back from our architectural foam guy on the details around all the exterior windows and doors as well as the columns.  They are going to look great.  We will also be adding some stonework to the bottom part of the columns and the bump outs in the front of the house.  The drawings look great and I cant wait to see the final product.  That job will be started in about two weeks.

Today I also finalized and purchased all the tile for the showers and baths.  What a daunting task that was.  I however am very happy with all the selections and hope that everyone who comes over will love them as much as I do.  The faucets for the master bathroom tub and sinks were also ordered this week as well as the sinks and faucets for the kitchen.  I have had as much as I can handle of money spending this week, and do not want to think about buying anything else.  Unfortunately it is the Christmas season and it is inevitable.  So I will just put the brakes right now on the house spending and concentrate on family for now.  I have some pictures of the paint as it was around lunchtime this afternoon and the insulation from Saturday.

Photos

Ready For Insulation

Posted to DreamHome by Lynnette in Orlando, FL on 12/6/2007 10:54:22 AM

Since my last update, things have not gone at the pace we had hoped or expected.  I suppose that is to be expected, but honestly there were two major factors to blame for the hold-up.  The mechanical and two windows.  We needed to have both of these things complete before we could get our framing inspection, and we ended up waiting about three weeks longer than we should have before they were finally taken care of.  The mechanical took longer because the HVAC guy has been very busy with some commercial projects, and the windows that were missing from our dining room kept coming in with the wrong radius, therefore not lining up with the center window correctly.  We ended up having the Silverline Windows guy come in from the factory just to be able to figure out why they kept getting the size wrong.  In the end we used the last windows they shipped and ended up ripping out the bottom three windows and the top center one to adjust everything and make it work.  No small feat for anyone who remembers that this house is ICF and the concrete has rebar inside.  But I suppose all's well that ends well, and we have the window looking just perfect.  You can see the window in question beside the front door to the right from the outside.  Stucco has been progressing and is almost complete.  It looks really good.  I am so glad I chose to do an old world texture.  That smooth texture looks so much better than the rough one.  Also, the texture goes all the way around the whole house and upstairs not just the front.  We have done all the eaves and they are completely closed in.  We do not need to vent the attic since we are using a foam insulation.  We have put yellow board on and have had it stuccoed over to complete the look.  They look great!  As with any owner builder house, once you are in construction you will find things that need to be either changed or added.  We have added many arches throughout the house, both inside and out.  The last arch to be added was over the front door.  I never loiked the flat square the framers put in, and it bothered me all this time.  Finally we decided it was time to put in the arch or never have it done.  My husband put it on himself and made it match the window that sits directly below it.  It is not a very dramatic arch, but it is symmetrical to the windows so it looks good.  We had our mechanical inspection yesterday and passed it the third time around, and our framing inspection was today and that also passed.  Next step will be the insulation.  Cant wait.  To date since the last post the following inspections have been done and passed: electrical, low voltage, gas lines, mechanical & framing.  I will post next during the insulation process.  We will begin tomorrow.  I have several pictures to share.

Lynnette

Photos

Retaining wall we decided to add around the oak tree in front of our garage. This will reduce the need for a dramatic slope in the front yard.	Master tub framing. The tub will be placed in once we decide exactly how we want to situate it in this section.	Photo of the stuccoed eaves. They look so good.
Here you can see the dining room windows and the arch above the front door.	The area around these windows finally got all finished in and stuccoed.	My daughter in the dining room.
Dining room arches from the hallway coming out of the kitchen. Also the bottom of the rounded staircase can be seen.	These are the arches looking from under the stairs into the dining room.	This is the mitered window in the breakfast nook. Looking from the family room.
One of my daughter's bedroom, looking towards her bathroom. The shower stall is visible.