construction – Primm & Property

Posted on December 12, 2020 by Emily

Day 418

Well folks, we have drywall!

Living Room.

Dining Room.

Dining room through to library and a peek into the kitchen on the right.

Kitchen…and Joshua.

Stairwell up to the studio.

Studio…in need of railing…

Front stairwell in need of a railing upgrade.

Guest bath.

Hall bath. Tile guys are getting all of the floors prepped to start tiling next week!

Master bedroom.

Tile, waiting patiently to be installed. Hardwood floor installation starts Monday, too!

And…garage doors have been installed. They will be painted black to match the other exterior doors, but I am in love.

We are entering the exciting phase when all of the “pretty things” are installed over the next two months. Stay tuned for tile, cabinetry, trim, doors, countertops, appliances, hardware, lighting and plumbing fixtures, and all the other things HGTV leads you to believe can all be installed in three days.

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 24, 2020August 24, 2020 by Emily

Day 311

Our moat is working well and keeping delivery trucks at bay. (sigh.)

They were trying to deliver our exterior doors in this picture, but unfortunately our plywood bridge here was not going to cut it.

It is strictly a pedestrian bridge. A very small pedestrian bridge, for very small pedestrians.

I safely crossed the bridge several times; however, I will be very relieved once the electrical has been inspected and approved, and the ditch can be filled in. I am hoping this will happen tomorrow.

Somehow, these bricks showed up for the chimneys…

Inside, there has been progress on the mechanical, electrical, and plumbing systems (MEP). At our site meeting, I walked through with the builder and the electrician to verify placements.

The electrical foreman’s name is “Country”. Now, when our builder told us the electrician “Country” was coming, I had in my mind that this man would look something like Blake Shelton. “Country” is neither tall nor cowboy-like. No, in fact, he is a stout, hispanic man who is about my height, which, for the record, is 5′ 4 1/2″.

Because I had very detailed electrical layouts for him, which I assume made his job easier, we are now best friends.

Now taking suggestions on what my construction nickname should be.

“Country” and his crew have been busy wiring the upstairs.

(This is my husband Josh in the picture. Not “Country”.)

The HVAC guys have most of the ducting in place.

And we have some plumbing! These are drain lines for the mater bath sinks.

Kath has hot and cold supply lines in the guest bath! She’ll be tickled.

These nooks in the mancave and studio came in handy for all of the HVAC.

Just a few more pieces of plumbing to put in. (yikes!)

I give them an A+ for organization.

And they finally remembered to frame in the basement access!

I took a class in Phenomenology in graduate school and for some reason this photo reminds me of a spa we studied in Japan. It was all about a sensory experience with light, touch, and sound.

OK, time to end the interior tour.

Out front, our baby volunteer trees are starting to grow. Just another 50 years or so until they’re as tall as the others.

Hopefully the house will be done by then.

Posted on August 18, 2020August 23, 2020 by Emily

Day 304

We are in the not so sexy stage called “rough in”. It is during this stage that they put in the guts of the house, which are critical for it to function, but not the most photogenic.

The electricians were placing all of the housings for lighting and putting in switch and outlet boxes. My electrical plan was so detailed that the electrician only had 3 questions for me. Not bad for several hundred components, if I do say so myself.

It is always my goal to leave absolutely NO room for interpretation when it comes to electrical plans. I’ve seen far too many switches *centered* on large walls across from the entrance to a room.

Not in my house.

Electrical panels boxes, easily accessible in the garage.

Slightly more exciting than the electrical, they’ve built the tub deck for the master tub.

I’m hoping they will enlarge the opening for the tub or the cat will be the only household member able to use it.

They’ve started on the roof as well…which will be super handy once they have it complete.

Handy because we arrived yesterday to check on things just in time for a torrential downpour. Conveniently, they had just dug the ditch for the electrical lines, which runs right across the middle of the property, between the house and the driveway and all the way around to the back of the garage.

We put Barry’s truck in 4 wheel drive and hoped for the best.

On the bright side, I got some good wide angle shots of the house as we slid through the mud all the way around the house.

The electrical ditch basically had the effect of a moat. So, now we know what that’s like in case we ever want one.

For now I think we’ll stick with fences to secure the perimeter.

Speaking of, my dad and Josh have almost finished the fence. It’s looking mighty fine!

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?!

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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…

Posted on June 21, 2020 by Emily

Day 247

Hi, it’s me again!

More framing progress to report over the last 24 hours.

We had a family site visit yesterday afternoon while my aunt was in town. It was neat to give the grand tour and walk through each room.

Our greek revival cottage is taking shape!

The office is feeling really good and looking like a disco in the afternoon sun.

As they add the sheathing, it frames the views and I just can’t get enough. I’m all about the views.

The second floor is still quite the maze of framed walls and temporary supports.

Here’s Josh looking out the dormer window in the back bedroom. I’ve always loved dormers so each room on the second floor has one. I might have gone a little dormer crazy in the design, but I think they make the rooms cozy and add a lot of dimension to the exterior.

We have some rain in the forecast, but I’m thinking framing might be complete by the end of the week. Stay tuned!

Posted on June 14, 2020June 15, 2020 by Emily · 2 Comments

Day 240

Nearly 8 months into owning this property and building our forever home and we finally have some walls!

I can’t begin to describe to you how excited I was to get in there and walk through the house.

This is the garage…

Of course these criss-crossed supports are temporary, but man did I feel like I was in a James Bond movie trying to sneak through a security laser maze.

Josh was trying to catch some shade as he drank his hot coffee. It was at least 10 degrees cooler in the garage than in the sun.

This is the view out the window from Bu’s (cat) room, off the mudroom. He is not going to know what to do with himself once he sees the neighbor’s horses.

Barry, Kath, and Grandmother came out for a tour. Here I am in my element, explaining the layout of the house and which pieces of furniture will go where.

I got pretty toasty during my lecture, so I went down to check out the basement for some relief from the heat. They got the floor poured Friday and it looks great!

John has done some more work on the grading by the garage, but there is still a bit to go before we can possibly maneuver a vehicle into one of the bays.

He was working on the driveway while we were there yesterday until his equipment broke…

But we have walls(!), so I wasn’t going to let the equipment breakdown get me down.

Someone in my family, who shall remain nameless, asked, “Once framing is done, what is left?”

answer: pretty much everything.

Posted on May 30, 2020 by Emily

Day 226

Well, the weather has been spotty and as a result the concrete guys are behind. So, no slabs were poured this week as hoped.

They did apply some lovely waterproofing. Though black is normally one of my favorite colors, I’m not loving the look here.

Good thing it will be covered up by dirt before too long.

John was there this morning working on the grading by the garage.

There’s still quite a bit to grade on this side so we don’t have to drive off a cliff into the garage.

I found a new pile of dirt to take pictures from. To me, it looks like our house is made out of giant legos.

Oh hey!

I caught Josh drinking his coffee on the front porch.

I think this is the first of many thousands of cups of coffee he will enjoy on the front porch.

On our way out, we noticed one of our neighbors seems to be drilling a well. We will be doing this too at some point soon.

Still so many things left to do for our house to be complete, but we are making progress, slowly but surely.

But mostly slowly…

Posted on May 24, 2020May 24, 2020 by Emily

Day 219

We were pleasantly surprised to see that, in just a few days, almost all of the block had been laid!

Here they are finishing up the back of the house and then the only section left is the front porch, where my dad and Josh are standing on the right.

John has been spreading out the Pride Dirt Pile so it’s harder for me to get up high enough and far enough away to get everything in one shot. I had to use the panoramic setting to capture this, which is a little bit distorted, but you get the idea.

Though I can barely contain myself in anticipation of framing, seeing this step has been extremely exciting!

That L-shaped thing on the left will be our screened in porch. I’ve never had one of these before. I predict that we will spend a great deal of time on that porch, safe from all of the mosquitos and critters that will eat you up out here.

Also, please note on the left, Barry (my dad) taking a picture of me standing on a pile of dirt taking a picture.

Now, when we are not on the screened in porch on the back of the house, we will most likely be on the front porch, which will be right here.

I have the rocking chairs ready to go for the minute the house is complete.

The horses next door are largely disinterested in the construction.

So, this is the second time in my life that I’ve gotten to be part of the building process on a personal level. The first time was when my parents built a house outside of Philadelphia when I was 4.

You might say, that’s where it all began, or at least where it became clear, that I would wind up in a career related to construction and design.

IMG_4988 (1)

Last year for my birthday, Josh put together some still shots from a home video circa 1992 of me supervising on the jobsite at my parents’ house. I was sporting pink sunglasses and an ensemble I can no longer pull off.

Josh did get me a new pair of pink sunglasses so I could recreate the inspection vibe when the time came for us to build our house.

Well, the moment has arrived.

Josh brought the ladder so I could climb down into the basement.

The view from below.

Here I am several decades later, sporting my pink sunglasses and assessing the situation.

On our way home, the same way that we had come just a few hours before, there was suddenly a tree all the way across the road. Josh maneuvered around it and then he and my dad tied it to Josh’s truck so he could pull it out of the road.

It’s always an adventure out in the country!

Speaking of adventures, we have been practically camping in our current house for the past week because our refrigerator decided to stop cooling. Thankfully, it has since been fixed and we had 7(!) days left on the warranty. Always the optimist, Bu was making the most of the temporary setup and had found himself a great spot for lounging and watching the squirrels in the front yard.

He is going to love the screened in porch.