Paint Update: A Can of Worms....

Paint Update:  A Can of Worms....

October 12th --  At my weekly on-site meeting with my architect, I asked  for his opinion on the exterior house paint colors.  Little did I know what a can of worms I was opening.  

He was not encouraging and thought the color scheme I had selected was "cartoonish."  I wasn't really sure what he meant by that, but he suggested that I go to a local paint store, bring photos of my house, and speak with a "house whisperer."   He told me that he wanted to paint his house in green tones, talked to this "house whisperer" and was told by her  that his house didn't want to be painted green.  Out of respect, I waited until he turned his head before I rolled my eyes.

My architect is a wise man, so after thinking about our conversation, I did what he suggested today, sort of.  It turns out that there was a colorist at the paint store (the "house whisperer" wasn't there), and she immediately explained what the architect meant by cartoonish.  Basically, Victorian farmhouses built in 1903 would have never been painted with the blue pallet that I was gravitating towards.  So that color scheme would have made the house look more like a caricature of a Victorian Farmhouse that an authentic period house.  Who knew?

So, after a mini-lesson in the history of house colors and traditions involving Victorian Farmhouses painted around 1900, I left with three new color schemes to consider, including one with some blue, because I am the homeowner and that is my favorite color, but it is a "period-appropriate" blue.

So the polls are once again open, dear reader (Yes, I do know that not all computer screens are "color-balanced" but you are very sophisticated readers and I'm sure you'll get the general color schemes here):

Option 1  includes a "warmer" color scheme:

top color (either body or trim) -- berkshire beige
middle color (either body or trim) -- bear creek
bottom color (accent) -- sweey rosy brown

Option 2 includes a grey-greenish color scheme:

top color (accent) -- boothbay gray
middle color (body) -- desert twilight
bottom color (trim) -- knoxville gray

Option 3 includes a traditional body and trim with just a bit of blue as accent:

top color (accent) -- blue gaspe
middle color (body) -- fairview taupe
bottom color (trim) -- boothbay gray

  I'm having a difficult time deciding between options 2 and 3:

So, yet again, please send me an e-mail message with your preferences (and, no Yellow is not an option!)

Thanks again for your continued interest and your help!

Frames of reference....

Frames of reference.....

October 10th -- Sometimes I wonder if my words and photos do a decent job to convey what is actually going on in this old house project in a way that makes it comprehensible to others. 

After all, I've thought about this project for the past 26 years, I am living in the construction zone, I am breathing construction dust, and as much as I try to write about this renovation from the perspective of someone who isn't thinking, living and "being one" with this project, I do wonder whether my words and photos give a good sense of what is going on. I've always had a critical bent, and let's face it, some of the blog posts I write probably do a better job than others.  I have a privileged view because I have a good idea of what the finished project will look like, but I  imagine that sometimes my dear readers must wonder what the heck I am writing about.   I think that pretty soon, I won't have to worry about this because with the framing almost done, it should become easier to see how the space will turn out, no matter what words I use.  

Progress in framing is now giving way to a better frame of reference.

I'm written a lot about the new master bathroom, but here is a photo that shows the framing for where the soaker tub will go, below the two windows.

The photo to the left shows the framing for the pocket door that is located at the east end of the soaker tub. This door will lead to a small enclosed room where a Toto toilet will be installed.





The photo below and to the left shows the view (looking through the master bedroom wall) of where the double vanity will be.  The photo below and to the right is the framing for the walk in shower that will also include a tile bench.

I know I have shown many photos of the fireplace in the master bedroom, and here it is again because both fireplaces (this one and the one in the main-level gathering room) and the furnace were inspected today, and yippie, skippy, we passed.  The weather is also turning colder and when I look at the fireplace, it already gives me that warm fuzzy feeling.

Back to framing...so, framing also means filling in those places in the floor where there was once no floor.  [Ok, that was a weird sentence.]   This next photo shows where the old weight-bearing wall was located between the main-level bedroom (now the guest suite) and the dining room.  This photo shows an odd shape because that old wall also included the brick chimney stack that has was removed.  Because there wasn't a floor under that wall and stack, the framer laid down a subfloor patch so that there will be continuous red oak floors in the guest suite.  The new wall between the guest suite and the dining room will contain translucent glass library doors, and you can see the framing for those doors as well.

This next photo, below, shows another subfloor patch in the guest suite (across the room from the photo above) where a cold air heat return was and has been modified for the new heating system. Again, you can see the framing for the other translucent glass library door.

The previous blog post was all about the crazy differences in ceiling height and floor height and how the framers installed framing to lower the kitchen ceiling so that it will match the ceiling height of the gathering room addition that the kitchen will connect with.  I also wrote that the floor height in the kitchen will need to match the floor height in the gathering room addition, even though it will be 3/4 of an inch lower than the floor height in the dining room.  Today the framers worked on straightening the kitchen floor so that an oak floor overlay can eventually be installed.  

In the photos below you can see the existing oak floor and and the subfloor patches the framers put in today, and how the floor from the kitchen will connect to the floor of the gathering room addition at the same height!

And....another significant event -- several boxes of canister lights, that will be recessed into the new ceilings, have arrived on site.  Here they sit on the floor of the dining room and at tomorrow's morning meeting with the architect, he had promised to explain to me why he wants there to be "wall washer" canister lights in the gathering room -- I can't wait.

To the left you can also see how the framers have "moved" the doorway from the dining room into the kitchen over to the south a bit.  Why, you might be wondering?  Well, the vertical stud to the right now aligns with the vertical stud in the kitchen (look carefully to see that second vertical stud behind the first one).  That second vertical stud lurking behind the first one will be part of the wall for the refrigerator that will be located behind it.  The architect told me this doorway needed to be moved because who wants to sit at the dining room table and look at the refrigerator?   Good point.  Instead, there  will be a lovely view through the kitchen to the windows at the west end of the gathering room addition and even of the glow from the fireplace next to those windows (shown below).

As I write this, a storm is brewing outside as the winds are starting to blow.  There will be snow in the mountains, but just wind, cold, and maybe some rain down here.  I think I might be spending some time tonight staring at photos of my fireplaces and basking in their glow.

Plumbing and uniform ceiling heights...

Plumbing and uniform ceiling heights...

October 9th -- Ha!  There is nothing that is uniform in a house that is 110-years old....but one can dream, right?  More about this later, but for now the good news is that with so much of the mechanical systems being replaced there will be state of the art heating (even though the heating duct work was challenging because of constraints from the age of the house and having to retrofit the duct work through the attic to the upper level rooms).  Will there be similar challenges with the other mechanical systems?

To attempt an answer, today's focus -- the first of many -- will be on plumbing.  The plumbers have been working to begin the process of laying in pipe.  Below are a few photos from the new master bathroom.

Here you can see the plumbing for the sink drains for the double vanity.

Here is the view from outside the bathroom, which also shows the pipe venting to the roof.

Back inside the master bathroom, here is where the very cool Toto toilet will be installed. 

The photo above and this next one, show that the original flooring, which was the old master bedroom, is in pretty rough shape.  A new overlay will need to be installed to strengthen the floor, or as my contractor has told me, it is a good thing that I don't weigh more than I do because I could have easily found myself falling to the floor below!

This next photo below shows a new overlay on the floor of what will be the main-level guest bathroom, and a similar overlay will be installed in the master bathroom floor (above).

When completed, the house will go from having two full baths to a total of four bathrooms (two full on the upper level and two on the main level (a full guest bathroom and a 3/4 bathroom in the gathering room addition).  Since all of these bathrooms have to connect to the main sewer line, there is a growing maze of plumbing, as shown in the photos below. 

OK, this post started out with a tease about uniform ceiling heights.  It turns out that an interesting challenge has presented itself.  Because of specifications made by the structural engineers, the ceiling height of the addition is a bit over an inch lower than the ceiling of the original house.  The architect anticipated this, and because the new galley kitchen will span the old kitchen and the new addition, the solution is to re-frame the ceiling in the old kitchen to align with the ceiling height in the addition.

These next few photos show the work of the framers that will result in lowering the existing kitchen ceiling.

I can hear you saying, so what's the challenge in that?  Well, while the kitchen ceiling will be lowered, the floor height is also off, but only by about 3/4 of an inch.  We can't really raise or lower the floors, so the new kitchen wood floor will match the floor in the addition, but to make the transition from the dining room to the kitchen floor, a threshold will mask the slight difference in the floor height.  Yeah, I still hear you saying, so what's the challenge?  Well, it turns out that the southwest corner of the house has settled over time such that the south side of the kitchen floor has also settled to be about an inch lower than the north side of the kitchen floor.  There is no real good fix for that because the floor joists go into the brick foundation and to jack up the floor height, we'd have to go into the foundation, and .... well, you already know from earlier posts how scary that brick foundation is.  

So, when you come to visit and you are standing in the kitchen and you think that you've had too much wine because you feel like you are listing to one side, you can actually have some more wine, because it is not you that is listing!   So much for uniform anything in my old-new house....

Below you can see the original hutch that was built into the kitchen 110 years ago that will remain, but will be located just outside the new pantry and across from the new laundry room.

And, the plumbers have already roughed in the hot and cold water connections and drain for the washer, as shown below.

The framers have maybe 1-2 more days of work and they will be done for now.  After the plumbers get more of their work done, the framers will be back to frame the "boxes" that will hide the plumbing and heating duct work that don't nicely fit into the existing joists and studs.

Besides the plumbers, the electricians will come to make a major assault on rewiring and putting in new wiring.  This means that I will soon have some meetings about outlet placement throughout the house, and I'll need to make some choices about light fixtures.  After the wiring and outlets are settled, and the final framing is done, the dry-wall crew will appear, along with the much anticipated new walls. 

Dormers, just about done......

Dormers, just about done....

October 8th --  Both dormers are just about done.  The siding and shingles are up, but the roofers will need to do some flashing and lay some shingles on the south-side dormer.

The following photos show the repaired south-side dormer with the over-hang that the overhang that should have been there when it was built, but never was until now.

And, here is the north-side shed dormer...

Here is the view of the entire north-side of the house that gives a better sense of how the newly sided and shingled shed dormer ties into the addition with the placement of shingles and siding.

Finally, as a preview of things to come...this photo below shows the master bedroom fireplace venting (just to the right of the left-most window) and on the roof is the venting for the future kitchen range top vent!

Changing colors, falling temps....

Changing colors, falling temps....

October 5th -- The first frost came early this year; about two weeks earlier than average.  Last night's low was in the mid-20s following the first winter-like storm that also brought a snow-rain mix; intermittent snow flurries (the flakes melted on contact), and a dusting of white on the foothills.  All this while the fall leaves are still changing their colors.

Looking to the southeast from an upper-level window, I can see the colors of fall.  





The deep reds of New England that I loved during graduate school are rare around here, but I have a lovely 25-year-old Dogwood tree in my yard (shown in the photo below) that gets as close to the red colored-leaves of fall than most anything else in the neighborhood.  Dogwoods are not supposed to grow here, but mine has beat the odds.   

On the topic of colors....my contractor has told me that it is time to pick out the exterior paint colors for the house. I've always been partial to blues, and that is where I'm headed yet again.  I've selected a "creamy blueberry" for the accent color (the darker blue below) and "steel blue" for the trim color (the lighter blue below), but I'm torn between two different colors for the base or body of the house -- a darker "granite grey" and a lighter "moonlight grey," that has a tint of blue.  The guy at the paint store said that a lighter base/body color shows more dirt than the darker shade, but he thought the darker shade was more 'dreary.'   The base or body color will cover the painted brick and the horizontal siding, and a few other features of the house (e.g., the ceiling of the front porch, some of the accent shingles).  Here's where you can help me decide.

The following photos show the different base/body colors:  below to the left, the "granite grey" is on top, while the "moonlight grey" is on the bottom 

Again, below, the "granite grey" is on the top, while the "moonlight grey" is on the bottom.

 Here the "moonlight grey" is on the top, left and the "granite grey" is on the bottom, left.

Which base/body color do you like best?  Vote now by sending your choice to me via e-mail, and I will be forever grateful to you for helping me to decide.  I'll reveal the "audience" choice in a later blog post.

With the changing colors also comes the falling temperatures.  As of a week ago yesterday, the heating system installation was complete.  However, the thermostats for the four zones have not yet been installed.  The system is currently running with a "temporary" thermostat that is not on the zone system, but is heating my living/temporary kitchen (main level) and my front office/temporary bedroom (upper level).  The exposed heat duct in the upper level bathroom provides some warmth in the bathroom.  

As the temps fell last night I was pleasantly surprised by how toasty my office/temporary bedroom was.  I'm pretty sure that this may have been the first time in 110 years that there was heat in this room. other than from a portable electric heater.  It was awesome!  Although I'm now sleeping in my three-season down sleeping bag (it functions more like a down comforter than a sleeping bag), the coldest night of the year so far was amazingly comfortable.  In fact, I was so toasty that I slept in this morning, which is a rare thing for me!

The falling temps also signal the need to change over my summer clothes for warmer clothes.  Although this has always been a significant effort in an old house with only one true closet, this year the challenge is a bit different.  When I had to "pack up" the contents of my house last spring, I tried the best I could to plan and anticipate what clothes I would need.  Of course, with spring and summer mostly on my mind, I selected some fall/winter items, but in retrospect, probably not enough.  So, last night I filled a box with summer sandals, shorts and t-shirts to take to the garage.  This afternoon I attempted to locate a few pairs of fall/winter shoes, socks, a couple of sweaters and one of my most favorite clothing items of all time -- soft corduroy shirts.  

There is literally a mountain of boxes in my garage, and I attempted to climb that mountain with mixed results.   I did find a couple of pairs of winter shoes, but not exactly a specific pair I had in mind; nevertheless, my feet are now ready for the snow.  Oh well...I did find a heavy cotton sweater (where is the box with the wool sweaters?), and I recovered several pairs of warm socks.  I did find two soft corduroy shirts, but that heavier-weight jean jacket is probably in the only wardrobe box that was inaccessible.  All was not lost because I did find a heavy-weight "Mad Men" hooded sweatshirt.  When it comes time to unpack and move all the stuff that is boxed up in the garage back into the house, I'm sure there will be lots of wonderful surprises, as well as more trips to donate much of  what I boxed up last spring.  

Deconstructing construction....

Deconstructing construction....

September 27 - October 3rd -- I have learned more than I ever thought would be interesting about the process of construction.  A few things that I have learned are counter-intuitive and worth sharing.   One of those things is that some times in the construction process it 'makes sense'  to "deconstruct" something that has already been "constructed" -- and, we are not talking about change orders here.

Case in point.  The roof has already been completed and passed inspection, however, that was before they reframed the dormer on the south-side of the house to include a missing over-hang that the architect said should have been there when the dormer was built -- maybe over 50 years ago.  So, now they are removing the siding from this dormer (which was replaced only about 8 years ago) and they will need to demolish part of the newly shingled roof on the dormer in order to frame the overhang and soffit.  It seems that given the many moving parts of this project, it "makes sense" with respect to the cost of logistics and staging to complete the roof when they did, and to now remove part of the shingled roof in order to complete this part of the project.

At the end of the day, here is the new overhang and the new section of roof that will need to be re-shingled.

Similar to this type of logic is the following having to do with paperwork:  My public utility has several rebate programs, including one for replacing a less efficient water heater with a more energy efficient one.  All I need to do is provide the documentation.  Easier said than done as I need to get copies of invoices, signatures from installers, and complete the rebate form.  My contractor is really good about helping with this, but he has to get the paperwork from his subcontractors and a copy of the invoice and sometimes signatures on the rebate forms.  Apparently, construction types detest anything having to do with paperwork. This morning my contractor told me that if the rebate is for $100, the subcontractor would probably rather just write me a check for $100 than actually complete the paperwork.  Who knew?

Back to deconstruction.....since they were going to be installing new siding on the south-side dormer, the contractor, architect and I all decided that we should probably remove the original cedar shingle siding from the north-side shed dormer (that contains the bathroom) and replace it with new siding.  

Here is the shed dormer with the painted cedar shingles:

 

Here is shed dormer sans shingles:

When both dormers are re-sided they will have the same siding, which will pull these elements together.  

The mason continues to make progress on the brick ledge -- the idea here is that once the brick is painted to match the rest of the brick on the house, it should look as if this is part of the original brick foundation.

Here is a photo of the back door, rear-entry of the house with the brick ledge (and a weird shadow from the sun as it was low in the very late afternoon sky).

The mason is laying the brick ledge around the house  and then he will lay the brick on the wall (below) where the interior gas fireplace will be.  Below you can see the vent for the fireplace.

  Here is the brick ledge progress on the rear north side of the house.

There is a bit of a race between the heating contractors and the arrival of fall and the colder temps.  These guys are trying very hard to get all the vent duct work done in the house so that I will be warm while living in the construction zone.  I very much appreciate this, although they don't seem to hear me when I tell them that I don't usually turn on the furnace until well after the first frost anyway.  Oh well.

Everywhere there is duct work there needs to be a heat register, or more cutting into the red oak floors.

It has been a real challenge to get heating to the original rooms on the upper-level.  At one point the upper-level was heated with a gas stove that was in just one room, with little heat actually getting into the other rooms on the upper level.  Below (to the left) you can see the progress in the duct work that has been put in place where the brick chimney stack was removed.  The duct work has to go up through the old space where the stack was and then through what is left of the attic to heat registers in the ceiling of the small front bedroom (which I'm currently living in), another room, and the bathroom I'm currently using.  To provide some perspective, here is hole in the floor of the bathroom where the vent has been placed (shown below to the right).  The rest of the photos show the progress in getting the heating duct up this wall into the attic.

Coming off of these main heating ducts is a network of smaller, snake-like ducts.  Below you can see the snake ducts that are located in the eaves on the north side of the house in the wall of the future master bathroom. 

Because these ducts all have to connect to the furnace, here is a sequence of photos showing just how complicated this system is -- also, if you look carefully, you can see some of the zone-heating vacuum dampers (look to the left edge of the duct below)

You can see the network of "tubes" that go from the electronic controller box that will control the vacuum system for opening and closing the dampers.

I had mentioned in a previous post that the soaker bathtub for the new master bathroom had been delivered and was sitting on the front porch.  I couldn't imagine how they would get that tub to the upper-level because there is a bend in the original staircase that presents a significant challenge when trying to move large items, such as furniture, to the upper level.  Sure enough, there was no way the tub was getting to the upper level by the stairs, so about four guys lifted the tub up and over the covered deck on the back of the house.  As evidence, here is the bathtub, in its shipping box, just inside the door to the covered porch in the master bedroom.  It should be a breeze now to get it from here into the master bathroom.

If you took note of the date of this post you'll see that it covers several days and that was because I was out of town again.  Throughout this adventure, the worst part has been when I had to leave town, and I came home from my travels to a refrigerator with no power (and rotting food)...not once, but twice.  Before I left town this time, I was better prepared;  I put up a few signs to prevent yet a third surprise.

I had considered adding a skull and cross bones or an attention-getting threat to the signs ("If you remove this electrical cord from this outlet all of your hair will fall out!).  I even told the electrician that if there was no power to the refrigerator when I returned that I would probably go "postal!" 

 I reminded my contractor that I would be away and asked if he would please check on the power to the refrigerator while I was gone.  Fortunately, my contractor has a great sense of humor and sent me a text basically telling me that my refrigerator was still running....and taking a tour of my house.  I can't express in mere words what a delight it was to return to my house to find the light on when I opened the refrigerator door!