We are rejoicing over the rain in the Hill Country even though it may have a slight impact on our build schedule.
The stucco crew got ready to start their job by erecting scaffolding on the back side of the house. They will wait to commence work until it dries out a little.
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| Scaffolding on Back Porch |
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| Scaffolding under Mudroom Window |
Danny, our electrician, and his crew have been busy inside the house placing various shapes of "boxes" to hold different kinds of lighting. They also have been refining the locations of the blue outlet boxes and the "gangs" of switches for lights.
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| For Attic Lighting |
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| For Pendant Lights over the Serving Counter |
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| For a Recessed Can Light |
When you have many lights, you need many light switches.......unless you invest in a pretty pricey special lighting system. We discussed a sophisticated lighting control system with our low voltage expert and decided we could live with "gangs" of switches. Building a house means making many tradeoffs between competing priorities. Translation of the previous sentence: you put your money into the features most important to you!!!!! So, we will have several walls with stacked levels of switches.
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| Gang Switches |
Bruce's study and the main room upstairs have vaulted ceilings requiring sloped recessed can lighting. On the electrical walkthrough, the crew realized there was not enough depth to install the sloped recessed cans. So the framing crew came back in and added wood to increase the depth to make room for the sloped cans.
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| Note the wood added to the edges of the beams |
The framing crew has also been busy moving a door in the mudroom/utility hall, crafting the space for the pocket doors, and starting the framing for the serving island. We decided to move the door to the storage closet after seeing the flow in three dimensions. What looks like a smooth flow on a paper plan sometimes needs refinement when you actually walk it.
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| Freddie framing new door location |
Pocket doors are a great way to conserve space in a house. We have them in several locations: the kitchen pantry, guest closet and Bruce's study.
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| Pocket created for Pantry pocket door |
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| Rail for Pantry pocket door |
The guys started framing the front wall of the serving island today. This wall will be faced with the same stone as the house exterior. The cabinet on the other side is part of the work being done by Mike Edwards.
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| Base of the Serving Island Buildout |
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| This wall will be covered with stone. |
We had a pleasant surprise when went into the upstairs bathroom and saw the first piece of our plumbing selections had been delivered. The upstairs bath has a standard tub/shower configuration.
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| Upstairs Tub |
But not all surprises are so pleasant...........and today we had our first real "challenge" in our project.
A confluence of a software problem, inattention to that software problem, and not "checking your work twice" caused our lumber supplier to send the wrong engineered support beam for our garage construction - over which is built the second floor. The house is totally framed, the plumbing has been routed upstairs, the upstairs tub delivered and drain cut in the floor, and so onnnnnnnnnnnnn.
As you can imagine, we scheduled a very serious meeting in our garage this afternoon. So, the pickup trucks arrived.
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| Boys love their trucks |
In the shot below, note the pole in the middle of the garage......the lumber guys thought the problem with the support beam could be solved by leaving a pole in the middle of the garage. Our builder explained very clearly that a more elegant solution was required.
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| Pole of Shame |
After much discussion, receiving more load calculations from the lumber company, and consultation with the owner of the framing company, a solution was reached. Unfortunately, fixing this mistake will require quite a bit of rework and slightly change the look of the upstairs bathroom. But, structural integrity was our priority and we have achieved that goal. We look forward to moving forward in the coming days with new work.
Featured Flora of the Day
Bruce snapped shots of these pretty little cactus flowers on different spots of our property. Aren't they lovely?
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