One down - one to go!

Today Peter and I fired up the mixer one more time to finish sculpting the first center tree. It went well and we made good progress. While I did the last of the carving Peter finished off the extra mixed mud by completing the front facia. The sculpted fiberglass reinforced concrete is coming along nicely on the front of the house and we are well past the half way point overall. Haley did the last of the paint work way up on the snorkel lift, finishing off the giant front truss. We'll send it back to the owner tomorrow. 

Our lofty goal is to finish the outside of the house by Labor Day. With two more painters starting tomorrow we may just make it!

-grampa dan

Going to pot

These days I suppose that old expression means something quite different than it used to. At our new house it means something yet again.

As we considered the many options for lighting we opted for pot lights as our primary source of lighting. With the modern LED lighting solutions this is a good way to spread the light without having the lights grab the attention. A seven watt bulb can now add as much light as a seventy five incandescent watt bulb used to. That means we can light an entire room for less than it used to cost to turn on a single bulb.  The new LED's don't generate heat either. We don't want the lights to be the focus of our house but rather just be there and do what they are supposed to. This week I've been measuring and fastening up the pot light housings in each room. There are many, with the total being in excess of 120. 

There will also be accent indirect lighting that shines up onto the curved ceilings through the hallways, in the dining and living room areas and under the top cabinets in the kitchen areas. This will be special low voltage strip LED lighting using Heico lighting modules.

The ceiling joists in our house do not all go in one direction (often in the same room) and so many measurements must be taken and some compromises must be made as I carefully space them out through the rooms. The trick is to imagine where we might need the light to best focus on our needs in the future. It is far easier to add an extra light or two at this stage than to retrofit them later. 

Pretty soon we will light up the house and see just what we have done.

-grampa dan

The big trees at last!

The big center trees were the very first feature that we started work on as we built the house. The top portions of the trees could not be welded until the soffits were in place. The soffits had to wait until the roof was on. The roof had to wait for evertying else under it to be built. And so the huge root systems sat ready and waiting since the concrete walls were poured. The roofers finally got to the the north west side of the house this past week. As soon as the Penfold crew cleared that area the carpenters moved in to work on the soffits. The minute they were done our crew finished attaching the lath.

This morning Peter and I fired up the cement mixer and we began applying the fiberglass reinforced concrete and then sculpted a good portion of the first tree. I've been waiting for this day since I did the first sketch of the trees flanking the big round window so very long ago. The wait was worth it! Although it will take another day to complete the mud work, the tree already looks to be everything I imagined! Once the concrete has cured we'll begin painting from the top down. As we work our way down with the finishes, we'll cut off the temporary scaffold supports that are welded back into the structure, patch the holes and then finish off the trees.

-grampa dan