Elevation is Attitude

This is the outside wall of the kitchen. The windows will be two panes over one pane, but the rest, Voila!

Ted to the Rescue--again

So, yesterday we had this problem with the staircase in the basement.  Today, we do not.  The master builder rides again. 

When I arrived at the house this morning, Nathan said the stairs were almost done. Ted was in the basement.  So I called out to him and asked him about how he was dealing with the problem of headbanging.  Said Ted,"There is no problem with the headbanging.  I have solved it."  He held the ladder and I climbed down into the cellar.  Ted pointed out the floor joists and beam that are right over the start of the stairs.  He said,"There will be a wall supporting the ceiling right next to the stairs.  I can therefore slim down the girder and joists to create more headroom." 

The girders that went in through the second floor window are now installed. Nathan and Jeremy show off their work here:

Ted says that he will begin framing the rooms on the second floor on Monday.  He will nail a pattern on the floor first.  He wants me to have physical sense of how the space will be divided before he puts the walls up.  This will be really exciting. 

We Begin Again

Ted is back and the boys are going great guns. Now, that the first floor has had its face lift, the second floor is the recipient of a new girder as shown in this link:

The Second Floor Gets a Girder

We work from the ground floor up.  Ted replaced all the windows in the basement, and then the mason came.  He pointed all the windows, filled in all the cracks in the foundation,  and bricked up the old bulk head.

A little Edgar Allen Poe going on here?

Ted also went to work on the basement stairs.  He was calling himself a dummy because he cut the stairway before checking to see if the local code had changed.  Since he was trying to fit the stairs in a tight space, he cut them for 8" risers, which was the maximum height under the old code.  It's now 7 and 3/4".  Can you stand it?  Two hours lost.  Tragedy.

The stairs do add to a dilemma we have.  I had the downstairs floorplan designed around the placement of the mosaic:

The idea is that when we walk in the front door, we face this just as we did in the Asheville house.  The mosaic is big--about 48" across.  It needs a 5' wall.  Martha designed the wall to be 4'.  Once we moved the fireplace farther into the living room and off the line of the wall, we created more space to make the wall 5' and still have sufficient pathways around the fireplace into the dining room and kitchen.  Now, the problem is that there may not be sufficient headroom in the basement for the staircase.  While the basement isn't living space, Ted wants to check with the housing inspector about how low the ceiling above the stairs can be.  The way to increase the headroom is to bring the staircase to the second floor farther into the front hall, possibly obstructing a full view of the mosaic. 

THIS CANNOT STAND. ART BEFORE HEADBANGING PREVENTION. 

Final Kitchen Plan

Okay, next is execution. 

Ted is in Nantucket

Quiet week without the constructor. We miss him.  While we wait for his return, we are really and seriously finalizing the kitchen.

We have a basement floor

They poured the floor in the basement today.  It's beginning to feel like a house.

 And, working on the second floor was Northampton's contribution to Men's Fashion Week.

I lied

I said we had chosen our countertops and paint.  Well, after I painted six different blue grey colors on a board, we went back to Ashfield stone to match one of them to our stone. We picked a color, but changed the stone.

Crowsfoot and Ben Moore Philipsburg Blue

We will use the quicksilver in the bathrooms with white vanities and a "blue slate" ceramic tile, which is an amazing match. Once again, photos don't capture it.

Fire!

In the fireplace, of course.  We wanted a gas fireplace that would be visible from both the dining and living room.  Current code for vented gas fireplaces requires a flue up through the roof of the house.  Martha, our architect suprema, said that this would seriously wreck the floor plan.  We were bummed, but unbeknownst to us, Martha was undaunted.  she called and hunted.  One call led to another.  And, in the end she found a UNVENTED gas fireplace for us.  Not only did we not have to put any holes in the ceiling or roof, we didn't have to have fake logs.  Ted will build a surround and mantle for it.  We may use some crowsfoot stone on the living room side.

Kinda edgy and cool, huh?

Dr. Ted Inserts a Microllam

After Ted gutted the house, he consulted with engineers and the architect to decide how to hold the house up.  Did code require some updating?  Did the planned room reconfiguration require a different support system?  Well, he decided, yes indeed, the house needed some major reinforcement, so it would continue to stand up.    He bought some Microllam, a brand name for laminated wood of micro-thin layers that is meant for structural support.
He decided that the new beam needed to run from the front to the back of the house.  Its one piece and therefore very,very long.  How, you may ask, does one get a a Microllam in place?

Why, cut a hole in both ends of the house and just shove it in.

It's installed

July is Here and Here Comes Construction

We are now completely destroyed.  We have floor plans for the house.  Tomorrow we will file for a construction permit. What that means is Ted can start framing the inside.  Once he has completed that, he can work on the outside while the plumber and electrician go crazy.

What this means for us, is it's toilet time.  Here's the current accommodation:

Think we need an upgrade?

Our Plans are Set

Martha finished the floor plans for the house. We are now applying for a construction permit.  There will be a little tweaking, but this is essentially it.

We may need to adjust the size of the guest room on the second floor.  Martha aligned the rooms with the beam that Ted will place along the center of the width of the house.  She thought that it would be better to have a straight second floor hallway.  In order to do that, the guest room is only 10 by 12. 
Martha will draw up a scale with furniture in it, so we can judge.  The alternative is to lengthen the room, putting a little zig zag in the hallway.  We would also have a small section of boxed in support beam in the bedroom. There is always a trade off. 

The third floor is great, but we do have one decision to make. Martha has placed a skylight in the roof in the bath and in the back of the room since there are no windows on that side of the house.  There are a few problems:
1.  Skylights leak.
2. Skylights are hard to clean.
3. Skylights are really expensive to put in.

So, we will wait and watch.  Once we have a better idea of what the house essentials cost, we will see if there's any money left to seriously consider these.

Oh, and then there's the kitchen again.  Ted hates the pantry. He went on and on about how much lost space it contains.  He wants me to consider covering the front wall with shallow pantries and shelving.  He does have a point that a 12" deep pantry is not a place that you lose the fish sauce.  My reaction was that I could then hang art on the back hall side wall.  You really have to have art in the kitchen, you know.  And, oh, the island is missing in the plan.  Must be Bali Hai.  Some day you'll see it...
I am going to print one of these plans and play with the configuration.  The stove, frig and sink stay where they are!