The master bedroom portal is being framed. The unfinished wall above the bathroom window has been left open to blow soy foam into the ceiling and wall cavities.
The kitchen portal and west side guest bedroom portals add a wonderful stepped view of the house. It reminds me of the Hopi pueblos
The soy foam insulation blown into the framed wall cavities. This stuff is great because it is not a petroleum- based product. It cost a little more but we like the idea of using soy beans for insulation instead of oil.
This is the electrical panel in the kitchen pantry. It feeds all the circuits in the heated space (with exception to the laundry room). We have a main disconnect on the exterior of the house, a panel in the garage that feeds the mechanical room panel, the pantry panel, and all the garage electrical needs.
We have been framing out the interior walls and this image is of the great room wall that screens the master bedroom and also houses all the media equipment. The stone crew has set flagstone on the top of all the low walls.
The corner beehive fireplace is in place and we set earth blocks for the banco. The stone masons covered the banco with stone.
The flagstone on the banco wraps into the window sills. This will be a great place to sit and read a book on a sunny winter day.
Soy foam in the great room pony wall cavity above the dining room ceiling. The foam is 11" thick. The stone masons have covered the low wall between the great room and the dining room with flagstone.
Wiring and plumbing in the guest bathroom wall. The domestic water lines are PEX tubing. Blue tubing for the cold water and red for the hot. PEX is great stuff to work with and is also used in the radiant in-floor heat.
Jenny has been working on the landscaping. There is native grass seed sown on the cut slope and it is covered with a nylon netting with aspen fiber fill to retain moisture and reduce erosion. This fabric was recycled from our neighbor's, Mike & Michelle Chapman, re-seeding project.
A busy couple months
I have been remiss in adding entries to the blog but the weather has been very cooperative and we have made the best of it. On sunny days we moved the work outdoors to construct the Portals. Stormy days were good for framing interior walls. While Griffin and John tackled these tasks, I worked on electrical wiring, domestic water piping, and waste drains. This past week we have had the roofers from TL Roofing on-site completing the portals roofs.
Flagstone detailing by Jake and his crew at "Little Guy Masonry"
The stone masons have been on site the past two weeks applying capping stones on the parapet walls and completing all the interior flagstone detailing. The interior work includes stone on the window seats and capping low walls in the great room. I had a semi load of flagstone shipped in from Sedona Arizona ( http://www.azflagstonesupply.com/ ). Some was snapped to size for window sills and capping the parapet wall and the rest was random pieces for bancos and the portal floors. The stone is of excellent quality and the masons enjoy working with it.
The fireplaces are taking shape
The fireplace installers wrapped up the installation of two Adobelite beehive fireplace kits which will be finished with an exterior framework and stucco coat that will give them their final shape. This work has been the only struggle for me on this project. Very poor communication and differing perspectives on craftsmanship have resulted in compromised results. Maybe someday in the future, I may redo some of this work.
We passed Inspections!!!
This week we passed the Electrical Rough-Inspection, the Framing Rough-in Inspection, Domestic Water Plumbing Rough in Inspection, and the Drain system Rough in Inspection. We are now cleared to start drywalling.
The Mechanical Room takes shape
Dave Himes with Southwest Geothermal has done a great job piecing together the equipment for the Geothermal system. This has been no small task due to an undersized room and the large amount of equipment that must fit in the space. I fabricated two racks to allow stacking equipment. We are on a well that has hard water which requires equipment to treat the water. This, in addition to the radiant heat system and the geothermal water to water heat exchanger gives the following list of equipment:
Geothermal water to water heat pump
80 gallon storage tank
40 gallon buffer tank
80 gallon electric domestic hot water tank
Pressure tank
Aeration cistern
Carbon filter
Hague water filtration and softener system
The Interior and Entry doors arrive
We ordered our doors from Santa Fe Doors in Albuquerque NM (http://www.santafedoor.com/ ). They arrived a little over a week ago and we are very happy with them. The design is perfect for the house and the workmanship is excellent. The front entry door and the garage portal door were given a distressed look that really sets them off.
We ordered our doors from Santa Fe Doors in Albuquerque NM (http://www.santafedoor.com/ ). They arrived a little over a week ago and we are very happy with them. The design is perfect for the house and the workmanship is excellent. The front entry door and the garage portal door were given a distressed look that really sets them off.
So you can see we have been hard at it and a beautiful house is emerging as the result.
