It's starting to feel like a home

Today, for the first time, when I walked under the installed roof trusses it felt like a home. It's amazing the difference a roof makes, even when it's not yet keeping the elements at bay. Having the roof on gave me a better and deeper understanding of how the floorplan will translate into actual living space in a few short months.

The framers worked until nearly 6 p.m. last night in high winds. It was amazing to feel 35-40 mph gusts and see them staying steady on the roof. As the photo and video show, the first floor is almost fully framed, and I saw this morning that more OSB has arrived, so I'm assuming we will have exterior walls by the end of the week. Very exciting stuff!

...Quick update...
When we stopped by this evening, we were thrilled to see that they've started installing Zip System wall panels on the exterior. This will eliminate the need for Tyvek wrapping and should still provide a good air barrier and moisture control, plus it gets us LEED points should we decide to go for LEED for Homes.

Our GC expects the roof and exterior walls to be fully installed no later than next Friday--a week and a half away. He says that we're running about two weeks behind because of all the hot weather we've had, but hopes we'll be able to make some of that up in the next five or six weeks. I need to get busy ordering materials again so that I'm not holding them up. The windows may be in as soon as this Friday, but we still haven't heard a quote on the front door. At least the GC is up on it and is bearing down on the vendor. It's nice to know that I'm not the only one sweating the details.

Framing continues

I haven't posted lately because I feel like it's been moving at a near glacial speed over the last week or so, but as I look back at these photos that Patrick took last week, I realize that there's been a steady hum of activity as the walls progress around the perimeter and the rooms within are finally beginning to take shape. I'll have to get some more photos soon.

We stopped by a house in our neighborhood that's being built by a different builder over the weekend and were astonished by the difference in quality. We had initially considered this builder, but pulled out of the deal at the last minute because of a mold clause they had in the contract. Basically, the clause freed the builder from any liability should mold appear--even if it was the result of builder error. While I believe that we probably could've negotiated this clause out of the contract, I strongly feel that any builder that would put a clause like that in their contract probably isn't going to deliver the kind of quality we want, so we bailed. And I'm so glad we did, too. We noticed the difference immediately--from the squeaky, bouncy subfloor to the rickety and steep stairs from the garage inside to the debris everywhere. You never know for sure how things will turn out, of course, but at least we feel like we made a good decision going with our builder. We are definitely pleased with the work completed to date.

And here's yet another window update: we went with the Marvin Infinity, which is a fiberglass and not vinyl window. It's basically in between the wood and vinyl options. Apparently, around here, wood is seen as bad. According to the GC, about 15-20 years ago, the wood window manufacturers had to change their sealer to meet new EPA guidelines, but the long term effects of the sealer weren't fully tested. The wood windows that were installed around here during that time frame have had considerable problems with dry rot, so the public perception is that wood windows are bad. So, it's fiberglass for us. We were really happy with the Marvin Integrity windows we installed on our last home and are hopeful that these will be very similar in quality.

We've started ordering some light fixtures for the house and have gone outside the recommended lighting vendor. Rejuvenation had a 25% off sale on certain fixtures so we jumped on it and now have fixtures for our pantry, bathrooms, laundry room, and MBR closet. I'm not quite sure where we'll store all the boxes, but so what?! We love their stuff!! If you haven't been there--check it out. If you like anything from Victorian to mid-Century, you'll love their period fixtures, although you may not like their prices. Now, we just need a chandelier, island lights, exterior lights, (and possibly kitchen table light). I'll try to get some images uploaded of the lights as they come in.

Lots of activity now

I didn't post last week because we were out of town for a quick mini-vacation before the return to school. Since my last post, the foundation and garage floors have been poured and the framing begun. The basement level is nicely framed now and they're working on the main level. They've also poured concrete on the ceiling of the safe room. Seeing that made me realize we need to talk to our builder about air flow in there. The whole point of the safe room, of course, is to provide protection during tornadoes, but if the worst happens and the house falls around us, we'll certainly need to a supply of air, otherwise our concrete bunker would quickly become a tomb. Not good. I'm sure he's thought of it, but I'm going to ask the question just in case.

Patrick and I have decided to buy the inexpensive vinyl windows instead of the beautiful Marvin Ultimates. No, I'm not particularly thrilled about it, but we believes that it makes financial sense. Here's why. First, all of the windows in the neighborhood are vinyl, so it doesn't seem like it's much of an aesthetic issue for most people. Should we sell in the future, it's unlikely that Marvin windows would be appreciated (or perhaps even noticed), making it hard to recoup our costs.

Second, in discussions with our builder to "green" the house, we have decided that it's worth the additional money to install a geothermal system and think our construction dollars are better spent here. The federal government is still offering significant incentives for installation and with the projected savings on the monthly electricity bill, we should achieve payoff in about three short years. The change in system should take our a/c from 13 SEER to 32 SEER, a tremendous jump in efficiency!

BTW-as an update on the insulation issue, I was grossly mistaken on our wall R-value according to plan. Although we had discussed adding insulation with our builder, not much had come of it and he had only bumped the attic insulation from R-29 to R-34, but the walls were still rated R-15. We sat down and talked last Monday and have now ensured that the attic will be R-46 and the walls R-19. Luckily, we addressed this before framing began, negating the need for costly change orders. For the walls, we had to plan for 2x6 walls to provide room for the added insulation.

We are also discussing adding Solatubes (http://www.solatube.com/) to some spaces on the main level. For those of you unfamiliar, Solatubes are similar to skylights, but have minimal heat gain and are shaped like a tube, rather than a flat rectangle or square. The cost of Solatubes is minimal (I believe it's something like $65 each), but installation can be tricky. I've only seen them on commercial facilities, but our builder recently installed some on a nearby home so he's given us the address to drive by and take a look.

With all of these efficiency improvements, we thought it seemed best to let the Marvin Ultimates go--particularly because so few people seem to really care about having nice windows. It's a mystery to me, but this is--after all--an investment and ROI and not exploding our budget are both critical to its success.

Out with the new; in with the old

Although we are sorely disappointed, we've arrived at the necessary conclusion that we should not do the kitchen and baths in a Modern style. We have been discussing it at length and finally have admitted to ourselves that we really need to keep style consistent throughout the house. On the one hand, we're disappointed that we don't get to play with some very cool designs for kitchen and bath. On the other, it does make some decisions much simpler.

We'd been struggling with how to keep the kitchen and bathrooms Modern, yet have them fit seamlessly with the rest of the traditionally-styled suburban house. Although we had some ideas for accomplishing this, we realized that the Modern kitchen and baths would also affect our window, flooring, and door choices, which truly need to fit with the modified Ranch and integrating even a hint of Modern design into the front door and windows would make the house feel hodge-podge. Besides, even though we're building the house for us, we were still concerned about potential resale issues in this very conservative market. Basically, we didn't feel it made design or financial sense to corrupt the design and ignore its inherent qualities.

The good news in all of this is that it should be cheaper because we can specify some materials that are more "common" and therefore less difficult to come by. Also, since we're going with a style that's more Prairie/Shaker, we're already familiar with many products that fall into that complement and can use some preferred vendors (like www.rejuvenation.com) and make decisions expeditiously.

Although we're disappointed, we definitely feel that this is the right way to go. There's always the next house...

Before it gets too hot tomorrow morning we plan to go out to the site to pick up debris for recycling and trash. The guys who've been doing the site work are not the tidiest and have left probably 500-750 nails and lots of plastic bottles, food remains, and other non-recyclable items. I found a recycling facility in downtown Wichita, so we'll take the nails, rebar, plastic, etc. down there on Tuesday; they only accept recyclables three days a week. We'll aim to get the space as clean as possible to keep the debris from getting permanently entombed in the concrete floors this week. Seems like we shouldn't have to be doing this, but at least it's getting done--and we know we'll do it well.

House is waterproofed, garage is filled

As promised, here are the images of our appliances. You'll notice that we didn't go all stainless. Personally, I'm a little tired of all stainless appliances (and brushed nickles accessories), so I thought a black and stainless combo would work for us. We opted to get a cheap microwave that we'll tuck inside the island instead of doing a combo oven/micro that would--can you believe it?--cost more than double ovens. Looking at our cooking style, we decided that a gas range would work for us instead of a range top and wall oven, but we really wanted one with a griddle b/c we make lots of weekend pancakes, quesadillas, etc. Besides, having a small second oven will be great for making roasts, carnitas, oven stews, among other things. Clearly, the range is our splurge, but we figured we're allowed one special item in our favorite room!

Back to the homebuilding...
It's exciting to see the foundation nearly complete. The waterproof coating has been applied this week and perimeter drains installed on both the inside and outside. Yesterday, we watched the dump trucks deliver loads of sand to fill in the exterior perimeter drain and the garage. Some of the dirt from the excavation was mixed with the sand for filler, but a nice sand base is needed on the top layer to fill in the air pockets the help the concrete floor lay flat when it's poured next week. Our builder was on site when Patrick stopped by yesterday afternoon, and he expects the garage and basement floors to be poured on Monday and Tuesday. He said that the weather should be perfect for it next week--low 90s--for pouring. If it's too hot when it's curing, the flat surfaces will form cracks, he says. Lucky for us we're scheduled for a cool down soon. The temperature has been in the 100s this week, so it'll be great to be a little cooler.

Many thanks to those of you who've been offering suggestions for improving efficiency and ways to incorporate sustainability in our new home. It's greatly appreciated and we're taking your suggestions seriously, so keep them coming!

Exterior elevation

As we enter Week Three of construction, I've been made aware that I haven't yet posted images of the exterior, and will remedy that now. I've been reticent to post images partly because we haven't settled on a final design, but also because I don't feel that it accurately represents me and my interest in sustainabiltiy. This house is truly for Patrick and the kids and not what I'd envision, but as I said in the first post, we're working with what we have and are making the best of it.

For those of you who know me well, you understand that I'm committed to sustainable living. I try to buy local and organic vegetables and eggs and non-CAFO meats. In our former house, we put in low-flow toilets, used low-VOC paints for the interior, added insulation, used CFLs, and kept off the lights whenever possible. Instead of burning tons and tons of heating oil, we put in an efficient fireplace insert (that spewed far fewer particulates than a traditional fireplace) and kept it burning from dawn until after bedtime from October through April, allowing us to keep the temperature in the house at a frosty 58 degrees in the day and 56 at night, but at least we had one warm room. We try to use as few toxic chemicals as possible, and I drive a reasonably efficient car. I don't do these things to be obnoxious and claim bragging rights, but because I truly believe that it's the right thing to do for our health, children, and future.

Why am I saying all this? It's because I've been having a hard time coming to terms with the conventional method of building we've fallen into. Wichita is sorely lacking in green alternatives, be they building methods or organic farmers' markets. I'm discussing sustainable strategies with our GC, but it's not easy going so far. I would've preferred to hire an architect to design a LEED-rated home, but we were limited by time and school district. Since we never intended to build a home right now, we were forced to make some fast decisions and ended up in a subdivision that, by default, must define the look and feel of our home's exterior. It also determined the size, which I feel is excessive. We're more than doubling the sf of our last home, which was a 1959 Cape and therefore small, but the size and layout worked well, apart from the lack of a master bathroom and the fact that our son had to bunk on the first floor. This 4000 sf house is much more than we need and want, but anything smaller and we'll stand out as being "too" small, should we want to sell in the future.

To counter these "negatives", we've asked our GC to beef up the insulation and we've purchased Energy Star appliances. We're looking at adding photovoltaics or a micro-turbine and either a solar heater, tankless heater, or hybrid heater (GE). I've also requested low or no-VOC stains, paints, and finishes, and we're looking for formaldehyde-free cabinetry. Patrick and I are discussing the benefit of low-flow fixtures for the baths and kitchen, and considering touch-free faucets in the kids' bathroom and kitchen as well as occupancy sensors in the kids' rooms and family room in the basement. We'll use low-e, argon-filled windows to minimize solar gain--surely a big issue here, where it's nearly as sunny as Honolulu. Plus, we're installing ceiling fans in the bedrooms and great room and will add insulated garage doors to lower the heat load.

These are some of the technologies we're hoping to use to make our house as efficient as possible. If any of you have ideas for improving the design or efficiency of our new home, please feel free to voice an opinion. It would be appreciated.

On a side note: for those of you eager for a little eye candy, my sister-in-law has requested images of our new appliances. I'll be sure to include them in the next post for your viewing pleasure.