After many months of designing, drawing and implementing the rough-ins for this gorgeous home we are ready for the decorative portion of the construction to start happening! With the incredibly large array of choices that can be incorporated into a home nowadays, it can be a daunting challenge to sift through every option to be sure that the style & function that is desired is achieved, and there is often quite a range of prices for each component that needs to be considered as well.  With all of  the decisions that will ultimately create the finished product needing to be made through this phase, the point between final framing and drywall  can be a long drawn out process! With all houses, the seemingly endless choices are mostly complete once the rough-ins are done (the major ones anyway!) ~ from here on in, the transformation from all of the background work to the visual reality really begin…..

Electrical, plumbing and heating rough-ins account for the majority of the rough-ins and they were all extensive in this home. The fireplace is a strong focal point in the open concept floor plan, so even though it looks simple, it’s design took many discussions and drawings to arrive at the correct proportions and final design.

Let me show you some of the work that has been done to reach the next exciting stage…..

The hearth still has its forming attached, this will be removed shortly in preparation for it’s completion. The hearth is a concrete slab that was poured prior to the block work for the fireplace rough-in being continued, this will now be polished and sealed.

The red piping is for the infloor hot water heating system – won’t feet feel toasty warm with that under the tile and wood floors!

The panel at the end of the hallway (actually it is in a large closet off the office) is where all of the zones meet – it looks so neat and organized doesn’t it? After all of this is pressure tested and inspected, the concrete trucks arrive and all the lines disappear…..

Then, the insulation can be installed and the rooms start to take on some shape. It is amazing how much lighter the house becomes at this point, with the lumber and plywood not absorbing so much of the light.

The insulation bag in the photo above shows a R14 – this is only used in all of the interior walls, we have always insulated interior walls for sound proofing. The walls are all batted with R20 and the ceilings are batted with R40 ~ there can be no blown in insulation used in this house because of the lack of attic space in this design.

This week the drywall began….

The exterior is coming along, the 1×3 clear cedar soffits are complete and the wall areas that were chosen to be clad in the same product are almost finished. The balance of the exterior siding will be started this week, an acrylic stucco is the final decision and we think it is going to look just perfect.

Now onto the next steps – there will be about three more weeks of drywalling, then the stone tile that is arriving today can start to be installed on the fireplace and the floor tiling will start to be installed shortly after that. With the first coats of paint not too far off in the future… it will really start to get exciting!

So, there have an update on the progress of this house, I will do posts on it more frequently now that there will be more interesting progress to share!