Moving day!

No, we're not moving back into the house! That will be 4 months from now. Today Jeff and I went up to Camano to move the appliances and random other things from our neighbor's garage so that he can put his boat away for the winter. We put them in a storage unit down on Good Rd. until the garage is done, and then will  move them back.

Jim, Jeff, and Dave made light work of it!

The house is still drying out; all our wet and muggy weather hasn't helped. Jim is going to bring in a huge heater to dry things out- or wait on Mother Nature for two more weeks.

Meanwhile the heating and hot water system is being installed; all the controls are  in the garage.




The cedar shakes will get dipped, now that we've settled on a color...



...driftwood gray- we hope.

Turkey



Lunch at Scandia,  best Mediterranean Chop Salad I've ever had. Donna was doing a great full- service  job, using her electrified yellow tennis racket to zap any yellow jackets that dared to come near our plates.  :)



Met an adorable cairn terrier named Turkey in the Scandia parking lot. 

 Home to Seattle; it's 77 degrees, and humid!

from the car......





Farewell Summer!

What a beautiful day at the beach!  At this point we have been in construction for 6 months with a scheduled completion date at the end of January. That's  just four months away! We're in the home stretch!

Today we met with Jim to discuss the project, schedule, budget, and the 'details'.

the giant dehumidifier

The house is starting to dry out after the gypcrete pour. Jim has a big fan and a huge dehumidifier, extracting about 5 gallons of water each day!

Jim at the door

It was so wonderful to see all our doors in place, although they are swaddled in their wraps, they really pull the frame together!

I spent a little time on the last day of summer with our neighbor and friend, Gigi Bryant, and her mom who is visiting from Arizona. The temperature was delightful as we sat on the bulkhead enjoying the day and catching up.










Our little SeaNymph has been out in the bay all summer, fairly neglected.  As we pulled it to shore to put it in drydock, we noticed a gull happily camped out on the seat. Could it be Cedric? As the boat got closer, the gull arose leaving a throne of  $*x#^! - and a dead flounder!  And  my prophesy at the end of the Sept 8th post, http://camanohouse.blogspot.com/2010/09/one-giant-leap-for-lemkin-kind.html  was exactly what we saw today.

The Sea Glass Counter is a Winner!



(click on all images to enlarge)

 I just got the sample of the counter  we're having made for our guest bathroom, using many of the nuggets that Amy and her trusty comrades have collected over the years. It is beautiful!

It's hard to see the details but  the background is a pale gray green and there are little flecks of shells sprinkled throughout!

The surface is highly polished , so that you can actually look through the glass nuggets and see the wear on the back side.

Because the shells are so light, they don't really come up to the surface, since the piece is made upside-down.

 So how do I find a way for  everyone to see these beauties- under the vanity?








You've got to see it  in person!

Hats off to Aaron Cohen at Novustone!  http://www.novustonellc.com/

93 Steps to Nirvana

At the end of July it was apparent that many decisions about the house lay ahead of us: from flooring to appliances, light fixtures and cabinets, roofing, doors, hardware. I decided it was time for another of my numerous spreadsheets! This one contained all the choice points facing us. There were 91, so I called it The 91 Steps to Nirvana!

(With the addition of [very incentivised] solar power, and structured wiring, we're now at 93 decision points - and I'm sure there are more that I overlooked.)

With Jim's encouragement, we went to work and I'm happy to announce that there are only 11 decisions completely unmade, and 12 that are close. All the rest are made!!!   I hope!

We've done a lot of 'research', and have probably driven our contractor nuts. But we're getting some great products, and are learning how to prioritize and be decisive at the same time. And we're learning what we like, and when to defer to our partner.

Jeff reminded me yesterday, that I had expressed dismay a while back that our relationship felt more like a business partnership! It seems as though all our conversations had been centered around the house.

But as we chip away at our list, we're beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel, and the beautiful house that soon will be called home.

The Sea Meets the Sink

While the gypcrete dries, we busy ourselves researching the items on our  "must decide" list.
   Finish choosing appliances and light fixtures.
   Decide what we want in a structured wiring system.

  Determine whether now is a good time to take advantage of the many             incentives that would make the addition of solar power part

of our project.

But the funnest one of all has been to take the many  pounds of sea glass and shells that Amy has collected over the years, and turn them into a countertop for our guest bathroom!

Believe me,  Amy and Owen  have scavenged many 'nuggets' from Puget Sound beaches.  Then there are the jars full of shells that she and I have brought back from Sanibel Island, Fairfield Beach, the  Cape, Mexico, and Hawaii.

I spent one afternoon last week, cleaning off the sea glass and dumped it into the tub to dry.

Yesterday I assembled a collection of the glass bits, the shells, stones, and worn pottery. The weight of all these nuggets turned out to be 65lbs.!



I took them to Aaron Cohen whose business, Novustone, http://www.novustonellc.com/ makes recycled glass surfaces- countertops, tub surrounds, planters, and they're BEAUTIFUL!

He took the nuggets, arranged them on his worktable, and with a glint in his eye, he put together a color pallette for the counter. He'll have a sample next week for us.

Gypcrete, the true story...

Here are the pictures I promised. They show the actual pouring of the gypcrete over the PEX tubing.

Next time you visit, you'll know what what went into creating  those toasty floors under your feet!

Gypcrete is  a soppy mixture of cement, gypsum, sand and water. It's actually lighter that concrete which makes it  good for residential applications. It is mixed and poured like concrete, but its moisture content makes it  pretty much self-levelling.

 

It took about three hours to set up clean up and cover the two floors.

Jim sealed the door openings on the water side to prevent the wind from drying it out too quickly; but now the challenge is to get it and the wood completely dry before proceeding with the insulation.

Gypcrete and Birthday Cake!

When Jeff and I were up at the house this past Wednesday, Jim told us that Friday would be an interesting and busy day for the blog. So I left Jeff at home to take care of the last minute food prep for Amy's 29th birthday party and trotted  off with Barbara to photograph the installation of the gypcrete floors.

To our great dismay, when we arrived around 11, not only was the work done, but the workers were all packed up to leave!

Oddly enough, we found the two guys who were doing the upstairs floor, standing on the stair landing, carefully planning their exit!

 I handed one of them my camera, and asked him to photograph their work.

These tubes supply the downstairs floors
and a similar set is upstairs

In designing the house, we decided to go with radiant heat. Although it's more expensive to install, we'll appreciate the efficiency-and the comfort.










This information from the Dept of Energy explains the system in some detail:
http://www.energysavers.gov/your_home/space_heating_cooling

After a nice chat with Jim, and a delicious lunch at Scandia, Barbara and I headed back to Seattle.

Jim has promised pictures of the actual process - the subject of a future post.

And yes, Amy's birthday party was a lot of fun!

One Giant Leap for Lemkin-kind!

Oh boy, Jim warned us that we were going to have to make a lot of decisions today, and he was soooo right! We started at Tiz's Doors

 in Everett to choose interior doors, trim, hardware, and look at stair railing options. Lots of decisions, and Jim Baerg was very helpful. 

After that, we headed for the house, only to see all the windows in and the tubes for the heating system in place; the guys laid all the tubing on both floors in 2 days!

It was a beautiful day at the beach!




Our next meeting was with Bruce from  Intech Systems, to discuss structural wiring. (That would be TV phone, music, alarms, etc.)  Bruce was quite knowledgeable, and walked us through a lot of options.  Oh yeah, between these meetings, Donna from Scandia Coffeehouse in Stanwood stopped by to take a look. I've posted Scandia before.
http://scandiacoffee.com/
This has been our place to grab a bite (great food!) and do our planning with Jim.

Next meeting was with Kurt, our cabinetmaker. He is local, has a small shop and does great work, as we saw in Jim's kitchen. We did a preliminary walk-through to show him what we were looking at in the world of cabinets, and.... bookcases!

A few last lighting discussions, and we headed home to Seattle with JUST enough energy to do this post.  :)

Things are coming along very well.

Except that Cedric is a little annoyed. He lost his perch on our old roof, and I fear, retribution is in the Sea Nymph!