chimney – Primm & Property

Posted on September 19, 2020 by Emily

Day 337

Not a whole lot of progress at the house this week, unfortunately. Tradesman are slammed in the Nashville area, which is not good news for our house build, but it is good news for being able to pay for the house build, since both Josh and I work in professions related to construction.

We did get 8″ of rain at the property last Sunday, according to our neighbor. This helped to get the grass going. See it peeking through the straw matting?

They finished the first chimney this morning and are about 1/3 of the way done with the second. I am hoping they finish it this weekend so we can get the roof on next week and the bulk of the exterior trim and siding finished. That will be a HUGE deal to have the house looking fairly complete from the outside.

The siding and trim on the dormers is complete and I am SO PLEASED. It looks a little funny now because some of the material is white and some is beige (it will all be painted the same color), but I love all of the layers of detail. I’m a bit of a trim enthusiast as you can tell by my dormer detail from the plans:

Josh and I spread some more grass seed and erosion control matting this morning.

There was a different crew working on the chimney than had been there before and one of the guys came up to me and asked if I might have some mixed fuel for my weed eater (which he must have assumed we had in the truck) that he could borrow for his saw. I told him I didn’t have any, but if there was any on site, it would be in the garage.

I thought this was kind of odd, but then it occurred to me that he thought Josh and I were the lawn crew.

I did not tell him otherwise.

Posted on September 13, 2020 by Emily · 1 Comment

Day 331

Well, well, well…

We have a well!

I stopped by for a quick site visit this week and this was happening in the backyard.

It amazes me that they can do this all in one day.

Mostly because of what they charge for this.

Nonetheless, I am THRILLED that we have a well, and therefore, a water supply. We are waiting on the official report, but our builder told us that they were somewhere around 140 feet down and getting 15 gallons per minute.

Continuing the exciting infrastructure tour, Walt, our builder, is seen here pointing to where the propane tank will be buried behind the garage.

And, lastly, here is the electrical thinger. It will have a cover and we can plant some shrubs strategically to block it from view as you come up the driveway.

We’ve been watching Yellowstone, Longmire, and now Justified lately so I am really feeling my 10 gallon hat shadow in these photos.

In other news, we have exterior doors! Front door…

French doors from the living room to the screen porch. I have a thing for French doors so these make me especially happy.

Kitchen door to the screen porch.

I’m also obsessed with transoms. There will be many throughout the house.

OK, back to the exterior: John graded the hill by the garage and it looks approximately 1 million times better.

They also put in the gravel driveway up to the garage, which means, were there not a bunch of supplies and bathtubs in the garage, I could park in the garage!!!

I will be doing this the first chance I get.

Having the hill graded meant it was time to seed and straw. This was our project yesterday morning. Here is Barry (my dad) loading up the erosion control matting at the local Farmers Co-op. I predict we will be back here many times over the next few decades.

My Dad and Josh did a fine job getting all of the matting and straw in place.

My job was to spread the seed. The workers did not know what to make of this. One day, I show up in business casual attire and am telling people what to do. The next day, I am wearing yoga pants and a fedora, spreading grass seed.

I like to keep them guessing.

The masons are almost done with the first chimney.

And they have started on the second.

We REALLY need them to finish the chimneys so the roofers can finish the flashing and put on the roof.

My other order of business yesterday was to paint some samples for the exterior.

I LOVE this color. It’s Benjamin Moore “Limestone”.

The exterior is coming along. I can’t wait to see the whole thing painted!

Posted on September 6, 2020September 6, 2020 by Emily

Day 324

Happy Labor Day Weekend!

We spent the bulk of the day at the property yesterday.

Josh wanted to mow the septic field to make it easier for installation of whatever is required for the septic system. I don’t really want to know the details. I just want it to work.

Meanwhile, as the guys were working on the exterior trim, I was available to answer questions.

At first, I think they were annoyed that I was there. But after a little while, they started to come and get me to ask questions and make sure they were lining up all of the trim correctly.

I think it also helped that I had brought them donuts.

I spent a lot of time drawing and detailing all of the trim and I am thrilled to see it come to life!

On the other side of the house, the masons were starting to brick the living room chimney. Hopefully they’ll be done with the two chimneys in about a week.

It had been a little while since we had a family site visit and tour so we decided to have a picnic and invite the quarantine pod:

My sister and brother-in-law both drive mini coopers, which don’t stand a chance on our easement road as it is currently quite rugged due to construction traffic and lots of recent rain. Consequently, these two parked their car up at the top of the road and hiked the quarter of a mile to our house. Here, they have just arrived from their journey, sporting full hiking apparel and their backpack beach chairs.

This just cracks me up.

Kath and Grandmother also made the pilgrimage, in sportier ensembles. They arrived by Jeep, which could manage the road just fine, and dropped them off at the garage.

Julia and Nate hadn’t been in awhile, so we gave them the extended tour. Here they are practicing being overnight guests, with Julia in the shower and Nate…taking care of business.

After the tour, we had our inaugural fine dining experience at the house. We set up folding tables and camping chairs for a picnic lunch in the dining room. This made me so happy. I can’t wait for many more meals in this room, though hopefully with slightly upgraded furniture.

After lunch, Josh continued to mow and my dad did some weedeating around the fence. I had brought some irises from our current house that needed to be divided and replanted.

I planted 20 or so by the fence, to the left of our driveway entrance. In 6 or 7 months, they should be blooming as we drive up to the house!

Posted on August 10, 2020August 10, 2020 by Emily · 3 Comments

Day 297

Nearly 300 days in and it’s been a big week!

At my site meeting with the builder Friday, there seemed to be dozens of people working. Some were framing, others were putting in windows, and then John was out on the bulldozer moving dirt. I’m not entirely sure that some of them weren’t paid actors to make me feel like there was major progress happening. It worked.

The first major item I discovered was the driveway. It has been graded up to the level Josh specified with a fresh layer of gravel. Compared to what it had been, it was like driving on glass.

The second major item: windows!!! They are all in and I couldn’t be happier not only to see my pretty windows, but to see the views again from inside the house.

We have also gained a dumpster. Less exciting, but it means things will be happening.

I’m obsessed with these windows in the library. I had originally planned for 5 here, but when I was reining in the budget, I cut it to 3. Though you’d be hard-pressed to convince me there is such a thing as too many windows, I think 3 feels right here.

Several items of note in this photo:

windows
the raised hearth
there is a chimney and it is the correct size

All of the framing issues upstairs have been corrected. This is the spot where it all fell apart a few weeks ago.

Many walls have been moved to achieve the specified measurements and alignments in each room. Please note here in the master bath that the vanity wall no longer obstructs the windows and that the hall and doorway into the bathroom are now centered on the windows as intended.

Now I can sleep at night.

Chimney take II. Now that the chimney has slimmed down, my shutters will be able to lay flat against the exterior wall.

The lovely library windows again. I am also in love with the small window to the left of the dormer. I put it in to tie in with the windows in the mudroom clerestory on the front of the house.

The driveway up by the garage is looking better and better as John continues to dig it out.

And you might be wondering where all of this dirt is going?

To the front yard! John is getting pretty close to the final grade up against the house.

And who is that off in the distance?

That would be Josh and my dad, continuing to work on the fence.

Yesterday morning, I gave my mom and grandmother a guided tour of the house, highlighting all of the structural updates and furniture placement thoughts. I fielded questions at the end, which led to an in depth discussion of stair parts.

I was stalling to avoid fence duty.

But, alas, I was summoned to put in something on the order of 500 screws to be sure the boards were well-secured to the posts.

Though I own many power tools and am not afraid of a little DIY, we will be hiring out the fence on the other side of the property.

Josh finished putting in the last few hundred screws today. Meanwhile, I sat in the dining room and finalized a detailing document for the builder with diagrams and notes about things like plumbing fixture placement, countertops, tile layouts, and cabinetry coordination. It’s currently 36 pages.

This was my fancy setup.

I never thought I’d be so happy to have a $5.98 folding chair from Walmart.

Posted on August 5, 2020 by Emily

Day 290

Well things have improved slightly in the last week.

They have corrected the bulk of the framing issues and are tackling the final items.

The dining room chimney is FINALLY underway. I have asked about this 147 times because it’s such a critical element to the look of this side of the house.

Speaking of chimneys, they have framed out the fireplace walls inside – woohoo! This is in the dining room on the other side of the wall we were just looking at.

This is in the living room.

You’ll notice, we are missing the chimney here. A chimney had been built, but upon inspection of the measurements, it was not the right size.

The chimney is being rebuilt.

That’s all I will say about that.

Some good news: we can now walk down the basement stairs somewhat safely.

More good news: they’re almost finished moving the dirt for the driveway so we’ll actually be able to park in the garage.

There is still a lot of dirt to move. Our chia pet dirt pile is thriving in the backyard.

Meanwhile, in the front yard, Josh, my dad, and my brother-in-law were getting our 4 rail fence started.

I think the only reason they agreed to do this work themselves was so they could rent a skid steer.

If 2020 were a fence…

Don’t worry, they got it straightened out and set in concrete.

Looking much better!

Still a long way to go…

The guys also worked along our easement road, digging ditches to help with the water runoff issue so that there will be a road left by the time we’re ready to move in.

I’ve been recruited to help with the fence project next weekend. Please send help.

Posted on June 25, 2020 by Emily

Day 250

Hey there!

I stopped by for a quick visit between meetings the other day and saw many interesting things as I turned onto our easement drive:

The property adjacent to ours that has been for sale for quite a while now has a gigantic septic fence in place.
The “For Sale” sign had been taken down, so this sale is likely really happening and we are getting some new neighbors. We were secretly hoping the seller would give up and offer to sell it to us and our existing neighbor for a fraction of the cost.
Due to the odd shape of this lot and the gigantic septic field in the middle of the lot, I have no idea where they will place a house. I really hope it’s not a big factor in any of our views.

On a more positive note, I spot a chimney!

A little imagination required, but can’t you see it coming to life?!

Screen Shot 2020-06-24 at 8.08.58 PM

The chimney was really exciting to see. There is another one on the opposite side of the house that is more for looks and balance. This one here is a wood burning fireplace in the living room, but the dining room and library will have ventless gas inserts.

I love fireplaces.

It’s hard to imagine wanting to have a fire right now because it’s almost 90 degrees and 80% humidity as I write this.

No worries, though, because I can just lay down in the puddles on the floor to cool off.

It’s sort of a panicky thing to see water like this on the interior of your house even when you’re still in this rough stage of framing. The good news is there are no windows and doors on the house at this moment in time so there will be plenty of time for this to air out and evaporate.

There’s that gigantic septic field fence from the other side.

As soon as I saw this, I told Josh we may need to go ahead and put up a fence along the shared property line…

Back to the progress! Check out these dormers taking shape. The bedrooms are going to be so cozy.

Though I know we have to have it for waterproofing, I really detest this paper they are putting on in a somewhat random fashion. It is very distracting and they are covering up the window openings.

I can’t wait until we can cover it up with siding and put in the windows. I’m hoping at our meeting tomorrow, the builder will tell us this is happening very soon.

I like this view because you can’t really see the ugly paper.

Also, it cracks me up that it looks like our house is hiding behind the tree, somewhat unsuccessfully. Sort of like when my cat sticks his head under the sofa and thinks you can’t see him.

I turned around from my vantage point and admired all of our little “volunteer” trees that have sprouted up. Hopefully some of these will make it to be big trees someday.

As I was leaving, I spotted a work truck at the edge of the other property adjacent to ours. It is entirely wooded and we have about 40′ of woods between us, but we haven’t see a soul or any evidence of human life on this property the entire time we have owned our property. A little strange that literally the same day that the other property looks to have something happening on it, this one does too. We went from feeling like we were out here by ourselves to all of a sudden having a bunch of activity.

Looking into that fence tomorrow…