Approaching the half-way point...

We are closing in on four months since ground-breaking, already, and looking forward to about another four months ahead as we target our June completion. We'll see...

We've been visiting our construction site more often lately; several times this week. Seeing the progress (or lack of) on any given day makes it more difficult to see the steady progression, but looking back at this week in summary it was another productive one, again helped by some fantastic dry winter weather!

We started this week with a Sunday crab-trapping excursion on our community dock, which reaches out into the Intracoastal Waterway. Using a couple of different techniques we caught about a dozen blue crabs, six keepers, and enjoyed a delicious steamed treat for dinner!

First catch of the day! It takes one to catch one, maybe?

"You go first"

The reward for our efforts -- steamed, and seasoned with Old Bay, of course!

On the construction front, our wooden doors were installed and today work resumed on the siding.

Our "low-voltage" wiring was installed this week after careful planning and considerable related heartburn. It may be overkill, but we should have enough Internet, WiFi, and cable TV capacity to support a small shopping center! We'll be installing in-ceiling wireless routers to ensure consistent coverage throughout. We're trying to anticipate needs for network-based security, sound, entertainment and automation, even if it's sometime in the future, while the walls are open.

Cat 6e network cabling reliably provides full 10-Gigabit Ethernet speeds over 100 meters. In other words, a lot of data, moving very fast!

We also had the gas lines installed for things like the rangetop, a grill outlet, fireplaces, the front porch gas lamps, and potentially a whole-house generator. Still thinking about that last item, but it would sure make life comfortable when power is out for an extended period during times of sweltering heat!

The days of hard iron piping for gas runs are long gone. Flexible tubing enclosed with a tough rubber insulating sheathing is the modern solution for enclosed spaces  

Pressure testing at the site of the future gas meter looks promising!

As the work day closed today, the crew was working on construction of the exterior staircases. They need to do some on-site engineering to accommodate reality versus what the designer put on paper, which would have the whole rear staircase floating on air, apparently!

Platforms for the multi-level rear staircase are in place and supported with temporary bracing

Front staircase stringers and treads can be seen here, tucked up under the front porch. You can also see the installed front door and portion of new siding completed today

Last, but definitely not least, we spent the day on Monday running around to review the tile, stone, plumbing, flooring, and lighting options that Bonnie has been working on with our designer. Tile and stone selection - we're +80% there. Plumbing - 95%. Lighting - 70%. Flooring, however, falls into the "still confused" category. We definitely want a casual, maybe more rustic feel, so wide oak planks in a matte or oiled finish is where we're leaning, but color choice is another matter.

This "dog bone" woven-looking tile will serve as the pattern for a small "rug" that we'll have installed in the center of our master bathroom

The kitchen island, at minimum, will be covered in this "Fantasy Brown" granite. We think the "fantasy" part of the name stems from the fact that it's gray, not brown!

Speaking of color choices, the interior paint palette is something we need to get busy on. Our designer is working on a recommendation or options for us to consider, a couple weeks out, so maybe the flooring will fall into place once we have this as part of the equation!

That's it for our update this week!
Ron & Bonnie

The Doors have arrived!

They should be installed tomorrow, but we're happy to report for now that the wooden doors that will adorn the front and side entries of the house arrived yesterday without incident, and they look great!

The mahogany door (left), flanked by side lites, is the front door, and the narrow fir french door in the foreground is one of two that will allow coastal breezes in to what is likely to be named "The Parlor" going forward. We've been rethinking our dining needs, and are changing our original plan for two kitchen islands to a single island with a dining table, so what was initially a formal dining room is likely to be a social gathering spot for ladies night, or whatever it's called. 

Progress this week was a little light, pending deliver of these doors, which once installed will permit the siding crew to continue in earnest.

Today, the fireplace boxes were installed for the family room and rear porch. We are still thinking through finish design considerations, but something a little more casual than formal seems to be winning out, with something of a rustic look in the mantel and maybe some brick, ship-lap or stucco used in some combination between the two areas. "Tabby" stucco is a traditional Charleston finish that uses crushed oyster shells for the aggregate. Seems like it might be difficult to keep clean, but sounds cool!

On the ground level, the staircase and surround walls for the stairwell and elevator shaft were framed. Tomorrow the crew will start on the front and rear staircases. All of the framing and plywood sheathing on the ground-level of the structure, including this interior stairwell, will be pressure-treated lumber, giving another level of protection against damage in the event of flooding.

The only framing work this week was the building of this interior stairwell from the freshly-poured garage floor to the main level

Framing for the elevator shaft was completed as part of the stairwell enclosure. You can see the transition from pressure-treated lumber on the lower level and untreated on the level above

On that note, our little island community was not submerged when Charleston had its 1,000-year flood last year, or during Hurricane Matthew this past fall, so hopefully these are good signs for the future!!

By early next week we hope to have settled on the majority of our interior lighting, plumbing, and tile selections. We're going to do some running around on Monday to revisit all of the choices that Bonnie and designer Sandy have been working on. Outdoor lighting, with the exception of the gas lamps we'll have at the front door, are yet to be contemplated. Here are a few of the lighting selections we've agreed on, we think...

A combination of bronze and antique
brass seem to be tying together the 
main- level lighting design

This "articulating arm" bookcase
lamp will cast its light onto the built-ins in the family room

Two of these gas lamps will welcome visitors at the front door

We'll also be studying up on audio-visual technology over the next few days, and trying to determine what we'll need in the way of "low voltage" wiring throughout the house to supply television signals, audio, and anything we'll want to do with security or home automation. There is just so much to consider, and the technology is changing fast!!! It seems like "wireless" will soon rule in all of these areas, but it's not quite there for everything we'll need today.

We're looking forward to another week of progress ahead! Our builder is targeting ~mid-March at the latest to be starting drywall, so we have a couple of weeks to get all of the final rough-ins in place and be feeling good about it!

Enjoy!
Ron and Bonnie

Week 16 progress report, and a stroke of good luck!

This week we solved a couple of mysteries while progress on our new home continued at a healthy pace.

The concrete ground-level floor was finally poured on Monday. It had been scheduled for last week, and it turns out this was delayed due to a small debate and a mix-up in communications between builder, inspector, and the city's building department. Everything turned out to everyone's satisfaction and we were cleared to proceed last Friday.

After the pour, the crew had to do some trimming in the area of the elevator pit, which you can see in the foreground below. The sunken area allows the base of the elevator car to drop to floor level at rest.

Most impressive this week, the time-lapse camera we had written off as lost in the rubble was found by the construction crew. The camera, snapped off its mount by an earth-moving Bobcat last week, had fallen to the ground in a position that continued to record our construction progress, albeit from a new vantage point!

Ground-level snapshots from our fallen time-lapse camera that continued capturing the action for two days before being rescued.

Even more incredibly, the camera just happened to snap a photo as these two gentlemen picked it up during the rescue process (a photo is taken only every 15 minutes)! We're not sure who they are, but after taking this unintended selfie they put the camera in our permit box for safe keeping, and we recorded another two days of the inside of a box before recovery!

Thanks, guys!

Bonnie has kept busy working with our designer on tile selection and continuing the difficult work to find the right combination of lighting and plumbing fixtures and cabinet layouts. Hopefully, we'll be able to show you some of these in the next couple weeks, but all-in-all we can say we're seeing light at the end of the tunnel.

We also received the majority of our exterior doors this week, and work continued on the exterior with the trimming of porches, soffits, and fascias. The crew is planning to work this weekend, and now that we have some doors and a ground floor they can resume work on siding, and building out the permanent staircases, both inside and out.

Work on the mechanical rough-ins continued in each area as we make minor adjustments here and there and start to visualize the end results, and resolve those inevitable conflicts over precious real estate in the ceiling, wall and floor cavities!

Our generously sized attic is being overtaken by this HVAC monster serving the upper floor. A similar web of gigantic ducts is woven through the truss floor system that separates the main and upper living areas.

It's getting crowded in here!

One last check of the view from Guest Bedroom #1 through the 3/4 glass door that leads to the upper front porch

We hope you enjoyed this update as much as we enjoyed creating it!

Ron & Bonnie

A little bit of this and a little bit of that...

Quick update this week. A little bit of progress all around, with the electrical rough-in being the biggest area of note.

Remarkably, our time-lapse camera was found, pretty much unscathed! 

Found!!

We haven't had time yet to see what we've recorded to date but will be taking a look at this over the weekend. We'll reinstall it in a more secure location, to pick up where we left off when it was ripped from its mount by earth-moving work last week.

While only a small portion of the house has been sided, pending installation of the doors, the installed siding has been painted, so we're starting to get a feel for what the finished result will be. So far, we like it!

On the selection of finishing details, one area we're making good progress is with the plumbing fixtures. We still need to settle on a fancy pedestal tub and a farm sink, but in the meantime, we've locked in on these faucets for the bathrooms and kitchen.

We were expecting the concrete garage floor to be poured this week, but for some unknown reason it wasn't, so we'll be following up on that this weekend. At the very least, it should be poured this coming week. Based on the current schedule we should have our doors to install next week, minus the mahogany front door, which will enable the rest of the siding installation. 

On the planning front, we'll spend some time on lighting selections, and try to nail down the cabinet layout, more or less!!

Maybe not obvious, but here's the kitchen island, with rough-in for the prep sink we'll be using to clean blue crabs on a regular basis!

"Cans" for the recessed lights have been installed. Here are two on the rear porch, of the 65 or so we've specified throughout the house. We'll be examining these over the weekend to make sure we're happy with the layout.

That's enough for this week. Enjoy!

Ron & Bonnie