Water (?) and Warmth

The well drillers arrived on schedule. And two weeks later the truck is still sitting there. They hit water at 90', but only got a flow of 2gal/min, so need to go deeper. Then something on the truck broke, and they haven't been able to get it fixed yet. They haven't moved the truck because then they would have to start all over again with the well. Sid said we have the largest, most unique lawn ornament in the neighborhood. 

Because we don't have water yet, we also don't have the in-floor heat functional. The furnace is up and running though! Feeling pretty good in there now. The drywall crew would not come until heat was functional, so that was a must-do. 

Delivery of the drywall to the upstairs rooms was through the window! These windows were just barely big enough to pass one pair of sheets at a time through the opening.  Can't blame them a bit for not wanting to carry it up the stairs. That stuff is heavy, and these are 12' long sheets. 

The shop was another story. Smaller windows. Their solution? Cut through the wall! Troy was not happy! He did say it was not a difficult thing to fix, and I think he was mostly angry that they did not call him first- a breach of professional etiquette. 

But now it is all up and looking pretty! Having the big, smooth surfaces really accentuates the angles and I'm LOVIN' it! 

Funny thing about the drywall on the stairs. Since childhood I have disliked open stairs with no risers. Many basement stairs are like this and I was happy to see that the basement stairs in our current house were not. As this house has been built, every time I've gone up and down any of the 3 flights, I've held onto every exposed stud as I went. As soon as the drywall was up, I was trotting up and down without touching anything! I was all the way upstairs before I even gave it a thought. I can't even explain this to myself, much less to anyone else.
 
There's two things I want to ask Troy about. First is drywall around the shower. I thought that area had to get cement board of some kind. 

I was NOT impressed with the cuts around the bathtub upstairs. Did a bit of online research and I THINK it may get a border of thinner drywall over the flange, and then will look a lot better. For now I'll wait and see what happens. Surely Troy won't let that stand as-is! Overall the results in the entire house look sloppy. I hope whoever does the tape and mud gives a bit more attention to the job. 

For the most part, we've been very pleased with the crews that we've met. This crew was an exception. They have spilled food and left it laying there for days, spilled coke in several places on the floor upstairs in the shop, left half-empty pop cans all over. And turned the heat up to 90! (That may not have been them, but I will ask Troy if there was some reason for it to be that high.) We turned it down to 60. 

The sample arrived of the flooring I ordered. The store was out of samples and had a couple sent out for me. This is all of our choices so far. From the top left: floors for bathrooms and mudroom; accent tile for shower; chip is the bathroom counter; large tile is the shower walls; LVP flooring for the whole house; and at the bottom is my kitchen cabinets. All of these things will be installed by us. 

I ordered my cooktop this week. We paid $600 instead of the MSRP of $1400. (Home Depot sells it for $850). We saw the 36" version of this stove at BMO when we bought bathroom cabinets, and liked it better than the ones we'd seen at a local store, so searched out the best price for the 30".  

A Warm House- Almost

 After electrical, the next step is insulation. We are doing spray foam in the house, and batt in the shop. Because the shop will not be kept at warm at all times, cost beat out efficiency in our budget.

Spray foam requires a room temp of 40* and up to get the proper chemical reaction. Last week Troy told me to contact the propane company to get the tank delivered and the temps have been well below freezing for several weeks, so I assumed the tank would have to be in place so they could have heat in the house before applying the foam. I also had assumed that since the ground is now frozen solid, the holding tank for the shop septic and the well would have to wait for spring. I was wrong on all counts! 

The propane tank won't arrive until next week, and I got told by both the propane office and driver that they expected me to call for that back in October. I never gave anyone a projected timeline because I didn't know one, but they left me feeling like I had done something wrong. Oh, well.  

Sid and I went out today and were very surprised to see the spray foam done! Thank you, Lord, for 2 days with highs of 30+! 

Every place that had 2x's stacked together had the cracks sealed with putty. I've never seen that before. Never even seen it mentioned on the building groups. 

The upstairs is ready for the blow-in fluff; great room ceiling still needs the plastic to hold it in. 

They've just gotten started in the shop. The side rooms upstairs have batt in place.

The middle room has the roof vents in place. Sid used to make these vents at a previous job. 

The furnace was installed in the house. Even with in-floor heat, we still get a furnace. We need the air handler for the AC, and the price difference between with/without the heat is minimal enough to be worth getting the heat. It will act as a back-up heat source, and also help with temp regulation in the spring and fall when the in-floor heat cannot accommodate the sudden temperature swings. 

The holding tank behind the shop went in today. 

The well will also go in this week. Getting so close!

Electrical

 The last 2 weeks (minus holidays) have been the running of the electric. Not a lot to see, as it doesn't exactly make for exciting pictures. Here's the highlights. 

Wires everywhere. I never thought much about the running of wiring, but I've done enough craft projects involving weaving and cord to have  a pretty good idea of what all goes into running each of these wires and getting them connected in the proper locations at each end. I can't decide if it would infuriating or fun. Probably a little of both. 

One of the fun things about designing my sewing room from the very start is getting to determine where things like outlets and switches go. The two outlets here will be double outlets, and are just above table height. These will power my, and student, sewing machines, as well as possible task lighting. The switch next to the window will be for the 3 overhead task light- over the machines, the iron, and the cutting table. This is a handy place for it rather than having to walk to the far side of the room when the sun goes down. 

Can lights everywhere! Four over the library, 4 over my nook, and I didn't count how many over the main part of the sewing room. There were supposed to be cans over the great room also, but Sid nixed that. I agree with his reasons, but wonder how hard it will be to light that space sufficiently. There will a chandelier over the table, and up-lights above the side windows to bounce off the ceiling. 

There was much discussion over placement of various outdoor lights. Front porch will have lanterns on each side of the door and a can light above the swing. Back porch will have 3 can lights. Garages will have 3 "barn lights" between and beside the doors. The plan was for 2 light over the garages, but the beam over the doors and the low roof line directly above made that impossible. The light for the shop garage will be directly above, due to a gable making space, and another barn light by the door.

One thing I have learned through this process is that even in a custom build, it may not be possible to get everything you want. Sometimes reality gets in the way. Reality wins every time.