Ferret & Hound {On Architecture and Interior Design}

The Big News!

2010-04-13T13:40:00.002-04:00

Well, at least I get to distribute part of the big news....the rest we are still waiting on but I will let a little hint slip. We have been approached as to whether or not we would like to be featured as a story on a very unique website. This is still in the works but we will keep you advised.

In the meantime, the other big news! From the very beginning this project of building the F&H Homestead has been about building and creating and allowing ourselves to truly get down and dirty in the middle of a project. It has been fantastic but now, on schedule (hard to believe sometimes) we are officially ready to take our house to market. We are listed as of last Friday with Sothebys International and are officially for sale. We have started a new website which features the house for sale. It is linked to the listings and can be accessed through our listings on all the major MLS sites. We are very excited and now focus on little touch ups here and there, watching the grass grow out front, and enjoying our house until the right buyer comes!

23 Rabbit Hill Road

A Kitchen at Last!

2010-03-24T17:50:00.036-04:00

For those of you who remember, the kitchen is the big nucleus of the homestead. From the very beginning, the kitchen was designed to hearken back to earlier times. As a cook myself I wanted the kitchen to be warm, welcoming, well built, but above all, functional and easy to work in. I shun the modern showroom kitchens and the slim-trim, sleek-lined Italian kitchens because, in general, those kitchens are for photographs and not for living and cooking.

Going back over 16 months now I commissioned the kitchen cabinets. We carefully laid out the kitchen so that the hob, sink and refrigerator were all in a usable, traditional triangle layout. Granite has its place but it is over-used in my opinion and not at all functional....plus it is really hard to keep clean which is the way it looks best. We wanted LOTS of counter space, usable counter space. We elected to use 1-1/2" cherry butcher block and to finish it in a food-safe tung oil. The cabinets themselves are all solid maple. With the exception of a few doors, the entire kitchen is milled maple, cut down from 2" thick planks of beautiful maple. The cabinet boxes are solid wood, no plywood which can warp and de-laminate over time. No nails either, all splines and pegs just like a cabinet maker would have used in the old days. All the cabinet backs, doors, and drawer bottoms are hand made tongue and groove planks finished in clear tung oil. This is a true craftsman's kitchen.

Regrettably, for a variety of reasons, the kitchen remained until almost the last to be finished because it required the greatest finesse and detail. The cabinets are all finished in Benjamin Moore Alkyd Satin Impervo White Dove. The hardware is all Austrian-made hinge and American-milled chrome pulls and knobs. I waited to make sure that everything was ready, including me. When last we left off, there was no back splash, no cabinet doors, and nothing was painted.......

Step one was to finish the back splash. I could not find the size tile I wanted anywhere (or at least not in the type/color I wanted). We selected a yellowish-marbled soft Egyptian limestone which has a lovely smooth feel and soft appearance. I wanted a "subway" tile but I did not want the standard 3"x6" tile which we had used in the bathrooms upstairs. I wanted a small, 1-1/2"x3" tile but I could not find it anywhere. Not to be deterred, I decided to take the 4"x4" tile I found and cut each one down to size. Above you can see each one being put in place separately. Most tiles this size come mounted on a mesh in 1'x1' mats. Mounting each tile at a time took a lot of time.

After finishing the back splash (photos to follow) it was time to tackle the dishwasher....something that had scared me for months. We had chosen a Bosch 800 Series SV45M03UC near-silent dishwasher to match our other appliances. It came with a sheet metal front on which one may mount a panel or ready-made factory panel in white, stainless or black. I wanted a panel to match our cabinets but due to problems with out cabinet maker (I will explain as we go) I was stuck either buying a stainless panel from Bosch for a mere $345.00USD (the dishwasher only cost $800.00USD) or making one myself. I reached down and decided to jump in.

I selected a piece of premium maple plywood at 3/8" thick and a 1/2" maple board for the border. I made a picture frame the size desired to cover the dishwasher and then routered the inside of the frame to accommodate the maple panel. You can see the detail above. Next I need a way to get this panel affixed to the dishwasher pictured below. This was the part that really woke me up at night. In the end it proved very simple. Note in the photo above, the screw I have positioned in the wood. I put one on each side on the back of the panel. The head of the screw was positioned perfectly to be inserted into the keyhole slot on the dishwasher face below. You can see the keyhole on the right below....it is the second hold at the bottom of the top panel on the right. There is a matching hole on the left as well.

When the panel was done, screws attached on the back, I painted both sides with Benjamin Moore White Dove Satin Impervo and then fastened on a drawer pull which matched out drawers. Note above the two white strips at the bottom of the dishwasher face....those are Velcro strips to hold the door at the bottom...this was a long shot but it worked like a charm. Next, I put it in place on the door......you will see that photo below as I show the kitchen completed.

With the back splash and dishwasher door on, I painted all the face frames on the cabinets. The gentleman who built the cabinets did an amazing, old-school job on the cabinets. Unfortunately, for reasons I can only speculate, something went wrong with Jamie. We had intended to use face mounted hinges for the doors. When it came to the doors and the hinges, something went terribly wrong. Jamie made a mess of the face frames and the doors. I had to remove and burn all the doors, and completely re-face frame all the cabinets and paint them myself. In the end they looked great. Now all that was left was to have Billy, my faithful friend and house framer, put together 19 replacement doors for the ones that my cabinet maker butchered.

Billy made short work of 19 doors and I have to say they were stellar examples of cabinetry perfection. I provided him with the maple and he provided me with 19 beautiful doors which fit like gloves. As soon as he had them ready I primed them, drilled 1-3/8" holes for the Blum hinges, and mounted each one in the cabinets. You can see how I positioned each one in the photo below.

One by one the doors went into place. Each one fits so beautifully that I feared something must go terribly wrong to balance such a perfect situation. Nothing did.

We elected to put glass panes in the six doors above and next to the sink. It opens up the kitchen and allows a beautiful view of the wooden interior of the cabinets.

At last, with the doors in place, it was time to paint and put the glass in the six doors. Foam roller and brush in hand I went to work. Once finished I re-mounted the handles/knobs and cleaned up the kitchen. May I present, after far too long, the magnum opus of the F&H Homestead!

This picture looks across the peninsula/breakfast bar towards the sink. Above are two fantastic custom made lights purchased at Privet House in Warren CT. Each of these fixtures (this is one of many models including floor and wall mounted lamps) is made by hand from old factory parts by an artist in Philadelphia. They have a 14 piece, triangle cut mirror interior and we installed Edison clear bulbs on a dimmer to give the perfect light.

A view over across the kitchen to the hob and the hood with fan and lights. The Bosch 800 series microwave and oven are to the right, mounted in a custom made unit with cabinets above and huge roll-out drawer below.

Just to the left and below the oven is a single cabinet door. Inside is a slide out 30 litre kitchen trash bin. You may also note the "feet" on the bottom of the cabinets which give the cabinetry a feel of single piece furniture. There is a kick plate mounted 4" back from the feet under the cabinets which I painted flat jet-black. The kick plate keeps dust and debris from building up way under the cabinets and the black kick plate makes the underside of the cabinets look open.

Above we see the dishwasher with the custom panel in place. I was shocked and a little proud at how well it works and matches the kitchen.

Our farm sink with Rohl tap in place.

A view from the pantry/laundry area in the cross-through looking into the kitchen.

One of our features in the kitchen is the desk/workspace in the corner. Here we get a good view of the desk. On the left is a double door cabinet with dual slide-out 30 litre bins for recycling and returnable cans and bottles.

On the right of the desk are three drawers, the bottom one sized to handle A4/letter-sized hanging folders.

Standing next to the oven and microwave combo and looking at the peninsula we see the drawers and the dishwasher on the far right. The french doors lead out to the porch and to the backyard. An additional door also accesses the porch from the living room which is down the short hall just to the right of the doors above.

Another view of the sink and cabinetry above as well as the sink and Rohl tap below.

All in all we are thrilled with the kitchen. It is a perfect example of old-time craftsmanship and the model of functional cooking space. To celebrate the completion I decided to make my all-out Mexican Chicken Burrito dinner that night...the other half of F&H was kind enough to photograph the results! Mmmmmm mmmmm!

Stay tuned for the finished photos of the lavatory, living room, and back hall/mudroom!

Living room, Kitchen and Big News

2010-03-20T07:43:00.006-04:00

Big Doings at F&H!

Things have been so busy here that it has been hard to get time to keep up. We have a lot of big news to announce soon and also some interior updates. Stay tuned for a post in the next day or two. We are going to feature a report on the performance of our energy efficient selections as well. In the meantime, I have included a photo of the completed living room, sort of an ambience type of photo, from a couple of weeks ago on a cold early March evening. The kitchen is almost done and we are excited to present a sneak peek for that as well. See you soon!

The Master Closet

2010-02-28T06:50:00.022-05:00

The master closet is one of the three main components making up the master suite which occupies the back 60% of livable space on the second floor. In the master bath post directly below this post you will see the floor plan showing the master bath and closet. The two rooms share an interior wall and are set conveniently to each other so that one can walk from the bathroom right into the dressing/closet area without parading around the bedroom au natural after a shower. The location was important of course but we also faced several smaller but key questions about the closet when we planned it, namely:

how big should the closet be?
what should it be constructed from?
what kind of storage should it offer?

The first question is of course depends on how much room you can realistically allocate but also on how much storage space one needs while still allowing the closet to be usable and give freedom of movement. The third question is probably the most important but most overlooked by architects and builders. I know from experience that closet layout and design (arguably most the third most important feature in a house behind kitchen and baths) are neglected or ignored until very late in the design process by many architects and builders. The result tends to be the allocation of a token shelf and clothes rod or calling a "closet designer" into the process. The fact that firms actually design and install closets should be an indicator of how in depth and important a well designed closet can be but when they are called in too late they are forced to work with whatever arbitrary measurements and layout they have been left with.

We were determined to not neglect the closet. We made (as any architect or designer should) a list of requirements before we started building. How many shoes did we want out at once? How much hanging clothing space did we need? Shelves or drawers? Ah! Handbag storage. What about spaces for boxed items, be it shoes or scarves, etc. Who will use the closet and/or require more of the space and how should it be divided so that things don't get mixed together? We laid out of the closet space to give most functional room for walls to accommodate storage space but now we needed to figure out how much of each component would fill the meager 80 square feet of space.

MDF (medium density fiberboard) turned out to be the best material to construct the closet from. We wanted to avoid formica laminated particle board. Too size constrictive and pre-fab looking. Wood would have been nice but with built in depths from 24" to 14" we were way past dimensional lumber options and into serious custom cut lumber or veneered plywood. Plywood is a good option but can be subject to humidity issues as well as de-laminating and warping over time. MDF is a greener product, is solid and strong, very stable and finishes beautifully with an alkyd or latex finish. The first step was to rip cut the MDF into the 8' long pieces at the three required shelf depths: 24" along the wall shared with the bathroom, 18" along the back wall and 15" along the left wall facing wall.

Given the size of the room, early photos showed little. Here, somewhat into the process one can see the three walls from the entrance to the closet. The right is the bathroom wall with 24" deep built-in which will accommodate the 8' long hanging clothes rod. Straight ahead is the 18" deep section for shelves and sliding baskets. To the right is the 15" deep unit for shoes and shoe box storage. Once I had the MDF cut in widths required I could cut it to desired lengths to form partitions and shelves as required.

The photo above shows the 13-1/2" deep shoe shelves which I installed at an 8 degree angle sloping forward for better presentation of the shoes. At the base one can see the 1x6 poplar which makes up the base of the built-in.

Here, from a bit further back in the entrance, the shoe shelves are easier to see. Note the "height gauge" handbag on the shelf at the end. While well intentioned I now think it is advisable not to use one of your spouse's handbags during the construction process.

A view of the right wall (bathroom wall) showing the clothes rod space and the long storage shelf above it.

In the blinding glare of the 4" ceiling can lighting as of yet without their baffles is a good last view of the components of the built-in closet system. To the right is the deep cabinet with five four vertical dividers. At the back the shelf and basket wall not yet completed and on the left the shoe wall. Now it is down to installing the last shelves, "face framing" the front of the partitions (I nailed poplar to the cut edge of all exposed MDF partitions for a nice finished look), nosing for the shelves, installation of baskets and drawers, and lastly, priming and painting with Benjamin Moore alkyd (oil based) primer and White Dove Satin Impervo. The results:

Looking into the closet from the hall, the closet components are all in place. I have installed crown moulding and baseboard at top and bottom to complete the built-in aspect of the shelves. In addition the "eyeball" directional baffles are now in the ceiling cans giving directed and softer light.

In designing the closet we came to some realizations. One, drawers, or at least too many of them, are a bad move. Drawers tend to be too shallow or too deep. One is either unable to get enough into them and still close them or they are too deep and one is forever digging for things they cannot see or remember are there. Shelves and baskets seems the way to go. We elected to go with two divisions (each with four drawers) with hanging brown canvas "drawers", two divisions (each with four baskets) of sliding wire basket-drawers, and the center with shelves. The entire end is allocated to open shelves and sliding baskets.

The shoe shelves allow for 30 pairs of women's shoes on each side or 24 men's shoes on each side with two two shelves at the top of each compartment for boxed shoes.

The hanging rod gives plenty of space for the two of us to keep most of our hanging clothes. A cedar closet in the other room handles "out of season" and "special occasion" clothing. The photo below gives a better view of the basket and drawer spaces.

We are very happy to have the closet functioning now and believe we planned it quite well. I leave you with a final view looking out to the hall at the dressing mirror and the shoe shelves. Stay tuned for living room and library posts due soon!

Master Bathroom Reaches Completion!

2010-02-26T13:12:00.033-05:00

As stated in the our previous post, the interior at the F&H Homestead is really coming along now. Things took a long time and with larger projects, such as getting entire rooms up to speed for painting and completion, there was little to show and it seemed at many points that only I was seeing the changes. That has all changed now as we streak toward completion and each room seems to go from a partially completed space to an actual room in a given day. It is quite exciting to watch and of course it is a pleasure to use each space as we add it to parts of the house thus far completed. It should be noted that the line between interior completion and interior design and layout can be quite fine and it is my commitment not to cross this line as this is the domain of the other half of F&H and will be left to her expertise.

Today it gives me great pleasure to present the master bathroom which, in conjunction with the master closet and bedroom, represent the master suite. This room was one of the last to be started and was one of the most involved as one might expect. Kitchens and bathrooms are important in resale and are where people spend a lot of time. Consequently they also tend to be an involved design and construction process.

Late last year I did a teaser post showing tiles for the master suite.

We selected a grey-white slightly marbled 3"x6" subway tile with non-buffered edges for decks and walls, and an off-white hexagon tile for the floor and the shower floor. Whereas a standard living space has typical appointments such as floors, trim and paint, a bathroom or kitchen is a complicated amalgamation of materials, colors, hardware, and lighting. We studied the concept of a slab of marble for the double vanity top and tub deck but something kept drawing us back to the individual subway tiles. Sure, there was more work when it came to installation but there is something intricate yet subtly decadent about the individual tiles. In the end we stuck with the same tiles for around the room.

The bathroom occupies the back left side of the house and is at the end of a short hallway from the master bedroom. The master closet is entered from the same hallway just before entering the bathroom. I discovered, sadly, that for many reasons, I took few early photos of the master bath before completion began in earnest. I think this may be because it was a small and difficult space to get good photos of when there was little in it. As one can see above, the bathroom is roughly 130 sq. ft. and is appointed with a double vanity (top left above tub--configuration and sizes not determined when this plan was in effect so the space is simply shown with a line) soaking tub, walk-in shower and a toilet in a sectioned off area at the end of the bathroom. Below you will see an early set of photos showing the tub already in place with the tiles going onto the deck. The photo is taken from the door area. Note the empty space on the right side of the half wall where the vanity will be.

Above the edge of the tub deck with the first tiles in place. Below the tiles cut to accommodate the tub filler and trim.

Once we had the tub in place and tiled things slowed down for a month or two while other things were completed around the house. In early December 09 things picked up again and moved forward. First came the tongue and groove wall paneling which I installed around the bathroom to just about 42" high.

The wood panels are capped with a small ledge and a piece of quarter round trim. The tub is out of site in the front left and the vanity cabinet can be seen with tile backer-board on top of it just behind the half wall which separates the tub from the vanity. A closer look also shows the hexagon tiles already in place on the floor.

A view towards the water closet at the end of the bathroom. The wood on the wall is already primed and ready for sanding. Next, the shower walls and vanity top!

Here the walls are being tiled with the same light grey subway tiles. Below, the deck of the vanity. Above, the floor in place over the mudded shower base and the tiles on the walls visible above. Last will be to set the tiles into place working down to the shower floor.

The threshold to the shower in place and the half wall next to it waiting for a marble cap. Next step is to grout and then start getting fixtures in place. We selected our appointments carefully and decided on Kohler for the tub and sinks, Toto for their 1.28 gallon low water Promenade toilet, and Grohe for all of our fixtures and trims. We really liked Kohler's Archer line for the tub and sinks and found their lines in keeping with the house. Grohe is a good German line of fixtures and are well made and reflect that in the price one pays. Lastly, we selected the Bistro line by Restoration Hardware for lights and other accessories. This was a bit of a hard choice to make because Restoration Hardware, once a small specialty retailer with well made US and European products, now makes most of their lights and fixtures in China. This is a disappointment. They still cost the same as when they were made in the US and Europe of course and in the case of water fixtures (taps, shower heads, etc) they are not what they once were as one might expect. However, lights and accessories are still decently made and it is hard not to love Restoration Hardware's style. We now jump forward from tiling to completion photos to show the above referenced appointments.

Here the Archer sinks are set into position for installation. The Restoration Hardware oval pivot Bistro mirrors can be seen already installed on the wall.

One of the three Restoration Hardware Bistro sconces in place flanking the mirrors. Next, the glass for the shower goes in.

For this intricate and exacting process I selected a small local group called Anderson Glassworks located in Warren CT. They have a good reputation and are reasonably priced. I could not have been more pleased with the quality of the 3/8" glass enclosure that they installed. It looks great and doesn't leak a drop. With the glass in place the bathroom is finally done. Behold!

Looking down the hall into the bathroom.

Entering the bathroom on a bright sunny but snowy day outside, the Restoration Hardware pivoting Bistro mirrors with the Bistro sconces flanking them. Directly below is the vanity with the sinks in place.

One of the two Grohe vanity cross handle taps in place on the Kohler Archer sink.

At the end of the bathroom is the Toto Promenade toilet. We are very pleased with this model. It uses only 1.28 gallons per flush and does its work without issue.

Looking from the shower and the door to the room towards the Kohler Archer tub and the Grohe fixtures including a hand-held shower head.

Directly above the tub filler is the Restoration Hardware Bistro Train Rack for towels and robes. It is a perfect solution for storage and convenient access to ones towel after a bath.

Looking back across the bathroom from the water closet at the vanity with the door and shower out of view to the right.

The shower enclosure from the vanities. The Grohe taps are from top to bottom: shower head, shower-to-handheld-diverter, temperature blend valve handle, and the diverter nub with hose to the handheld shower head on the right.

With the master bathroom complete it is off to the next project! The master closet. I can't wait so I have included a couple of teasers below....one of the project under construction and the second of the closet complete and operating. Please stay tuned over the weekend for the next update on the master closet and an update of the living room.

Interior Completion Posts Commence!

2010-02-10T13:45:00.017-05:00

At long last we shall start covering the completion of the interior of the house. It has been a bit of a gap since we posted but since the last posts around the holidays we have been concentrating on the interior. Over the next few weeks we will be paying more close attention to the interior and as each room comes into order we will post on it.

The reality of architecture is that the interior appointments, details, and decor play a large role in the way one absorbs and responds to a space. Architecture schools today, at least a generous majority of them, focus too much on the ethereal and intangible aspects of design. As a theoretical and intellectual exercise, studying greater intent through conceptual design is a good idea but should be supporting study rather than primary focus. It should never take the place of learning the rudiments of basic usable, livable design.

By this I mean the nuts and bolts. Laying out living space that works. This is all but ignored these days by too many architecture schools. It seems strange and illogical that students would not be exposed to the basics of design but sadly it is true. The reality of the building world is that design is far more than the shape of the building. It is about time tested aesthetics, craftsmanship, style, and above all, livable spaces that people respond to on a visceral level. It is the blending of materials and proper deployment of lighting (both natural and artificial) as well as the use of colors and accents which make the shape and layout pop. Failure to follow through on interiors can detract heavily from a strong design idea. With this in mind I shall now start to address interior completions.

We started in the living room. This is actually one of the last rooms I am finishing. I took a great deal of time deciding how the mantel would look so I waited on this room. Plus, it has acted as a store room/cutting room until now. Here we are looking at the fireplace end of the room. I am in the middle of completing the mantel in this photo. Some drywall still remains to be primed, baseboard and crown need to go in as well. Lastly, the floor needs a final coat. I applied two coats of dark raw tung oil early on to protect the floors but in the mean time I have made no effort to protect or cover the floors, allowing drywall compound and saw dust to cover it and things to drop on it as I work. This has yielded a wonderful appearance around the house as the floors have the vintage patina I have been seeking.

The mantel will be the focal point of the living room. I wanted something simple but elegant. Something dignified but not overwhelming. As we used shaker panel doors around the house I felt this might work well on the mantel. However, after constructing the mantel of poplar with shaker panels we agreed that it was too "Frank Lloyd Wright-ish". To rectify this I simply put some low profile trim around the inside of the panels as can be seen above. This had an instant transformative effect and gave us exactly the look we wanted.

I selected a crown molding which was almost identical to the one we used around the house but for sake of scale I got the larger version of the crown molding. To the top I affixed a piece of 5/4" poplar with a bevelled edge similar to our window sills.

Jumping forward here (for the sake of time) here we see the mantel completed, the walls fully painted, the crown and baseboards in and the windows painted. The floor is swept and cleared and ready for finishing. I have left the baseboard unpainted as it will most likely get stain on it as I finish the floors. The baseboard will be the final touch to the room. The fireplace turned out just as I had hoped. It has an elegant appearance but does not look too grand. It is in keeping with the country colonial look we have some dutifully pursued in this project. I found the hammered brass fire tools and three part screen at a local antique dealer. They sit with the fireplace very well.

A view from the other angle, the three part door to the deck outside.

The next morning, the final coat of tung oil being applied. Mastering this takes some time, patience and experimentation. The mixture, tint, clean up and application are a matter of practice. I just about have it at this point. We lucked out, the heart pine gave us the exact look I wanted. I needed a new floor that would look like it has been down for 50 years. The heart pine was a stroke of pure luck. The only thing we did not get was the exact color we wanted. Heart pine is VERY dense wood with tight pores. The first coat I put on soaked in best but I did not have it tinted as dark as I wanted it. subsequent applications soak in less. The floor darkens as you apply more coats but not as much has we hoped. We wanted something a little lighter than what you see in the wet section of floor above. We ended up with lighter floors but at least the patina is there and frankly, it still looks great. Lesson learned on tinting and applying tung oil!

Last phase of floor finishing! This is a messy job but one gets better and better as time goes by. Once the finish is on the floor I let is set for about an hour. The mineral spirits in the mix allow the mixture to go on a bit more fluidly. Tung oil is pretty thick. The stain tint and the tung oil start to solidify on the floor once applied and the spirits evaporate.

Exercising caution, I started a fire in the fireplace before beginning (the mixture is flammable although not highly volatile) and found that the positive pressure created by the fire helped draw air into the room from the rest of the house and vented the evaporating spirits very well. After the mixture set I put on a special old pair of knee pads and don my latex gloves. Two rags in hand the clean up commence. I started at the far side of the room, walking carefully over the slippery finish. My right hand rag is wipe the mixture from the floor and the left rag buffs the wiped floor to take the residue off. This 250 sq. ft (23.22 sq. m) took about six rags to clean up.

With the floor fully wiped clean I now have a finished product. Tung oil comes from a nut and is a natural product. It nourishes the wood and leaves a weather resistant and soft finish. I prefer it to varnish because when it comes time to redo the floors, one lives a light hand sanding and then another coat of oil. Done. As for this floor, it needs about 24 hours to soak up and "dry" a bit. Then I will buff it with a soft cloth and it will be time to finish the baseboards and move in the furniture! The interior appointments will be detailed by the other half of F&H as it develops!

Finished Deck and Completed Exterior

2009-10-29T17:25:00.006-04:00

It has been sometime since we have updated the blog and hopefully we will be on a more regular update schedule. In the last month or two the homestead has been receiving a wide variety of finishing touches and in many cases we feel the scene inside the work zone, while interesting and constantly pushing towards completion, is not really the type of image we wish to present in a post. However, we have been documenting as we go and will be sure to bring things up to date. The interior is getting millwork, trim, floor finishing, wall painting and a great deal of finishing touches. We will certainly provide a sneak peak of some of them.

Recently we received confirmation that Better Homes and Gardens Magazine had linked to Ferret & Hound on their own blog, BetterBlog. We are delighted with this development and welcome visitors from Betterblog to our site. The focus of the link is the end of summer and decks. Ferret & Hound was selected as a link because of work on our deck. Postings about our deck can be found in the posting index along the right side of the page under decks.

The deck and exterior of the house are finally complete. The first phase was the construction was the actual deck surface late last summer. This summer saw completion of the deck railing, stairs and the pergola over one section. It is my pleasure to now provide a pictorial tour of the completed deck including explanation of the components.

As noted in previous posts, we wanted our deck to be a part of the house and to blend as much as possible with the actual building as possible. Too often decks are simply nailed to the side of a house with little consideration for aesthetics. Long spindly legs and naked pressure-treated wood give the impression of a scaffolding around some sort of building project.

In many cases this is a result of lack of imagination and thought colliding with the desire to have exterior living space on a house. Although we had initially wanted to do a large stone terrace, we ended up discovering (for budgetary and functional reasons) that a more traditional deck would work better. We set about its design and paid close attention to make sure it blended into the house and did not overwhelm the actual building it is attached to.

The main section of our deck extends 16' / 4.87 m from the end wall of the living room section of the house. It is just over 14' / 4.26 m wide and stands roughly 3' / 1 m off the gently sloping ground. It features, as a centerpiece, an outdoor fire place which shares a chimney with the living room fireplace directly behind it.

The rest of the deck surface serves merely to "support" the main deck area by providing a means to reach the deck from either the kitchen, using double french doors from the kitchen, or a single french door next to two fixed french panels from the living room.

Because the back of the house faces out over the best views and also faces south, the pergola over the double doors not only serves to break up the facade of the back of the house but provides modest shade and protection from snow and rain for the wood doors into the kitchen. The triple french doors to the living room are protected underneath a cantilever (the master suite is directly above the living room). The deck under the pergola and cantilever is only about 4' / 1.2 m wide and is primarily a means to reach the deck and fireplace or as a landing at the top of the stairs down to the backyard.

The above view shows the deck area from just under the pergola and past the column under the cantilever.

The actual deck area is simple. It is a sitting and relaxing spot perfect for wine and cheese with friends in front of a warm fire.

The area around the fire is small and intimate, not designed for large gathering. The stairs to the backyard are intended to the access to a larger outdoor environment where people can gather. The stairs are intended to blend into the style and mono-entity of the deck. They are wide and sweeping so as to feel like an actual part of the deck itself and to give a grand and sweeping access to the house from the back yard.

Stairs on many decks tend to be purely functional and in the end, uninteresting or even unsightly. Low decks often have one long step that runs the edge of the deck and fades into the deck. Higher decks have an everyday 3' /90 cm wide flight of stairs which tends to look more like a fire escape than a stair to a deck. The stairs to this deck were designed to create a sweeping approach to the house and deck. They act as a gentle way of blending the house into the terrain even though the ground floor level of the house is more than 3' / 1 m above the ground level. In short, the stairs end up being part of the deck and we have noticed, during get-togethers, that people congregate on the stairs, standing and talking or even sitting and talking with others.

The deck its self is in fact high enough to require a railing. Our initial intention was to have the terrain high enough to avoid a railing altogether. But it soon became apparent that the existing slope of the land around the house served well in that it drains rain water and snow around and away from the house. This is very important as it avoids excessive standing water around the foundation. Not wishing to interfere with the natural terrain, we decided accept the deck's height and build a railing. Yet we we not sure how to proceed. Pickets were right out. The photos below show a picket railing and also serve as sterling example of what we wished to avoid in a low profile, well designed deck.

It is not to say that no picket railing can look good. However they just seemed to lack an elegance and an aesthetic language that went with the rest of the house. We considered posts with cable or pipe, an enticing idea.....

...but once again, the aesthetic is wrong even though it can certainly be a handsome and clean cut appearance. Then I got to thinking of a railing type I had known from my summers in Maine. We elected to go with a horizontal rail that would accomplish safety and adhere to code but also work well with the horizontal language of the clapboard siding on the house. An earlier post shows the construction method for the railing from pressure treated wood. After allowing the wood to cure in the sun for a couple of months I primed the railing with alkyd primer and a nice top coat of snow white latex paint. The posts are capped with a simple wood block and bevel-cut piece of cedar.

The overall feeling of the railing feels warm and is reminiscent of a long undulating white-washed country fence. The framed lattice work underneath serves to cover the deck supports and helps make the deck connect to the house and the terrain and become part of one solid unit.

Overall the deck has turned out as well as we could have hoped. It is a lovely addition to the back of the house and really makes the house exterior feel complete. We leave you with some final images including a couple of picture showing the front of the house. Please stay tuned for more updates due very soon!

Much Due Thank Yous

2009-07-24T17:55:00.006-04:00

*****UPDATE*****

Here is the backlink to the Better Blog:

So Long, Summer!

In between our regular updates I felt I wanted to stop and thank all of our loyal followers and those who have dropped by Ferret & Hound in the past. Just a touch over a week ago the F&H website exploded past the 30,000 visitor mark! We are thrilled that so many people have stopped by. We are averaging between 70-100 visits a day which is a huge accomplishment for a small design firm, especially with the site only just coming up on a year old.

We regularly receive feedback from people about some of our more detailed posts and have even seen a couple of our posts mentioned on other blogs and sites. Yesterday we received a tremendous compliment from Better Homes and Gardens Magazine who have expressed interest in linking to our posts on the deck on their Home Improvement Resources page.

Thank you again to all those who have stopped by to see the Homestead and stay tuned! More and better is yet to come as the house nears completion and readies itself to be fitted out on the inside!

Landscaping - The Deck!

2009-07-11T20:12:00.026-04:00

The back of the house is now mostly set and time and mother nature must do the rest. As promised in my last post, here are the photos of the back of the house with things cleaned up (the place looked like a pigsty in the other photos of the back of the house). I am also including a couple of pictures from around front of the Homestead to show the progress the grass and landscaping have made.

The first two sections of railing in place. Given our aversion to tall spindling decks and typical wood decking I wanted to avoid lots of balusters and rails. I elected to design and build a slat rail deck railing.

I started by cutting a base of PT lumber in a 5-1/5" square and lag bolting the 4x4 Douglas fir post to it.

Next I shimmed and leveled the posts to the deck surface.

I used 3-1/2" screws to affix the base of the posts to the deck. It is important to use exterior specific screws for this part of the operation. Galvanized and PT lumber do not mix well. These days one uses stainless steel and plated screws for exterior deck applications. They are not cheap. A 5lb. box runs about $24.00. Here you can see the Douglas fir 4x4 which has been lag-bolted to the PT 5-1/5" x 5-1/2" base screwed down to the deck. The 3-1/2 screws cut through the deck into the PT 2x6 carrying beams. This assures the railing, once tied together with all sections, can support the required load of a person leaning against it.

The next step is to put together the railing components. I selected 1x6 PT boards @ 8' and a ready-cut railing in PT as well. I used a 1x4 PT as a rail stiffener and you can see this screwed to the underside of the railing in the picture. The railing is just to the right of the 4' level. I assembled the components I had cut on out front on the deck where they will be installed.

While I would love to prime the railings with alkyd primer in white I must wait. PT lumber is soggy and wet when it comes from the vendor and needs to cure in the sun at least a month or two before receiving paint or treatment of any type. Here is the latest section of railing in place.

Rounding the bend, one last section to go!

Finally, the deck is about finished. I capped the posts with my very own creation. I used 5/4 lumber to make a 4-1/2" x 4-1/2" top to the post and a chamfered detail on top.

In the next month of so we will paint the railing white and add lattice under the deck to obscure the deck supports. Rain is coming tonight to nourish my grass seed! I leave you now with a few photos showing the property taking shape.

Landscaping--The Second Half

2009-07-10T20:27:00.020-04:00

About three or so weeks ago I featured the final cleaning up of the front of the house. The grass is growing and we have a nice row of privet, boxwood and glass bells planted along the foundation. It has started to look orderly again. The remaining piece of the puzzle was out back.

The backyard in the United States is the "private space" of the residence. It is the traditional garden area with recreation space and room to relax with the house blocking activities from passers-by on the road. Of course back gardens vary a great deal from house to house and with my relative disdain for excessive manicured lawns I wanted a back yard that was suitable for recreation but not overly large. The grounds are all to often over-looked in architecture. This is a pity as the grounds reflect the house. It is very easy to mismatch the two and end up with a disaster.

Our house is located on just over 4 acres of land. There is a lovely little red barn with horse paddock out back and our property line is set back in the woods around the entire property. One of the best parts of the Homestead is that it commands a lovely view of the property out back which we intend to leave fairly natural (except for up around the house). Our master suite, kitchen and living room are positioned to take advantage of the privacy and view across the back three acres of the property. The deck with its outdoor fireplace is the crown jewel of the back gardens. We wanted the area around the house to be tidy and composed but the rest of the property left fairly natural. So, Tuesday was land moving day!

As of last Monday this was the disorganized disaster that met the eye in back of the house. The rock wall is part of the master plan but is not complete and gives little hint to its final place in the yard. Note the large plant covered mound at the head of the wall....this pile of loam had been there since we finished excavation last year. I had become so used to this tumor in our back garden that I had quite forgotten about it. That was at least until I had 13 yards of topsoil dumped next to it (right of the green pile).

The first step was to start moving dirt. Bill used his skid steer to move topsoil from the pile around the area to the right of the wall.

Here is a great deal of the soil place above the wall to create a level surface around the deck area to the wall which will form the confines of the manicured lawn.

Next came time to install the "steps" to the cross through/mudroom door. This beast pushed the skid steer to its limits. Once we had the step in place we returned to moving dirt and I carted wheel barrow load after load of rocks out of the dirt to a pile in front of the wall.

New England soil is really rocky. It was hard going for early settlers here because the ground was not terribly giving. When the Western Reserve (Ohio and the plain states) was opened in the early 1800's many settlers who had grown weary of hard scrabble farming in New England headed west to fight Indians and settle the land which has become known as the bread basket to the world.

We used the last of the dirt in the large pile to sweep down around the rock wall and return the terrain around the barn to a natural landscape. We then smoothed out and filled in the area around the cross through door.

If you look to the right you can see the terrain sloping away and down along the barn.

The final step for Bill was to distribute the loam in the big green pile around the back. You can see the piles dumped in areas around the back of the deck for me to smooth out. This is rich healthy topsoil and makes a nice top layer....once you get all the rock out.

After several more hours of raking and leveling the backyard has begun to look like something. Now missing is the infamous "green pile" at the end of the wall.

The ground is now all level across the back and meets the bottom of the stairs.

As planned, the rock wall now acts as a retaining wall with about 6" of rock showing above the level terrain. Here you can see the backyard seed with grass seed and watered down to let the seed grow. Note the deck legs still visible. The railing goes in next and the lattice under the deck.

The rock wall once again, almost complete. Stephen Kiss finished it today and I am putting in the railing on the deck. Stay tuned for more photos!

The Nursery - Part I 1/2

2009-07-10T10:01:00.002-04:00

Too cool of a free tool not to share... The Design Your Home 3D from My Deco renders your room with "actual" furniture (it's British and all the items are from British stores). It has its limitations, of course, but it makes for a fun way to play with furniture and designing a space without any knowledge of or without rendering software, just to get a feel for layout.

I did Margot's nursery and the result is not bad... The layout is pretty much this, the colour scheme is close (more beige and less yellowy but close), the only difference will of course be the actual furniture and accessories - but not bad, yes?!

The Pergola... or... it didn't rain today

2009-07-07T19:37:00.007-04:00

Today was an exciting day at the Homestead. Frankly, I was torn as to what was more exciting; the fact that we were to install the pergola or the fact that it didn't rain. Well, it did rain a bit but only near 6:00 this evening and only for a short while. True to predicted alterations in weather patterns as a greater part of global warming, this is now our second year in New England of soggy late spring/early summer weather. It is quite strange, really. There are times when the downpours are actually hard to fathom. The rain comes straight down in torrents as one might see in a Costa-Rican rain forest. For the last three weeks we have scarcely seen the sun. Today, finally, after many days of rain and dashing in and out of the garage to paint, we got a sunny day for the moment I have been waiting for! The pergola!

For those of you following along, you will recall the evolution of the back of the house. Here are a couple of run-up shots showing the back of the house.

By late last Fall we had the back of the house framed, covered with vapor barrier and some of the windows in. For those of you who have a keen eye you may notice the two small windows to the right of the chimney on the second floor of the house which have since been swapped out for a large picture window. Note the deck is not even in yet.

An early evening shot from a week or so later with the deck now in place. Note the two windows now removed in the master bedroom with a new rough opening for the picture window.

30 degrees F in late November, one day prior to finishing the siding. Note the large expanse of space from deck level to the eaves.

Mid-spring, the back fully painted and final site work ready to start.

A partial shot with the gutter now in place. You can see that most everything is now done. All that is left is for detail work and the stairs/railings for the porch. Now comes time for the pergola. The problem we ran into was endless rain. At long last we got a short break. I went to work cutting and priming all the pergola components.

My drawings called for a pergola across the back main face of the house. I have always liked pergolas but the point of this one is two-fold. First, the back of the house is our South facing side which receives the brunt of the sun year round. It also is exposed to the elements. While the three doors to the living room (to the left of the column in the drawing above) are sheltered under a cantilever, the two french doors to the kitchen are subjected to heavy abuse from the elements. The pergola, with slats in place on top, will help provide a bit of shade as well as some protection from the rain and show. Secondly, the back facade is fairly tall and wide making it appear a bit imposing. The pergola will serve to cut the space and reduce the impact of all the siding.

From the side you can see the pergola extending past the edge of the 4' wide deck from the kitchen. The pergola is to be supported by two main carrying beams on two 4x4 columns. The design changed a bit as I went to work cutting parts but the concept remained the same for the most part.

The two 2x8 carrying beams cut and fully primed/painted lie on the main section of deck awaiting installation.

Three of the 18 5'-6" / 1.67 m "runners" which will attach butt-end to the house with the tapered cut end extending out over the edge of the deck over where the stairs will be.

Here we can see the two supporting columns in place with the carriages for the stairs starting to go into place.

After helping to lift the carrying beams into place I step back for a photo. Next come the runners which will be attached to a 5/4x6 board on the house which went in when we were putting up the siding in the fall.

The first two runners in place anchor the carrying beams firmly in place. All that is left now are the other 16 runners.

The runners are all in place now and the carriages for the stairs are going in as well. This main stair will corner at the cut in the deck and the last step will meet on a common landing near ground level.

Early evening (yes, it rained again just as we finished putting in the pergola) a great shot of the pergola "corridor" as seen from the living room door. What a great difference! Such a nice framing of the space and a wee bit of shelter as well.

A few days later, the stairs are complete. The site needs work but that will start this Thursday as we begin to move around a bunch of dirt. By then the retaining wall (just out of the photo to the right) should be done. This will allow us to smooth out dirt around the back giving a nice flat area at the base of the stairs for a stone patio with table and chairs. We will lattice the under side of the deck and sides of stairs as well. Once the grass seed is in and the ground is level, the back yard will really come into its own. Stephen Kiss, my stone wall guy and ground's keeping expert is building the wall and will be bush-hogging the back yard late this week.

With the deck and stairs to the right, here is the wall under construction. The ground to the right of the wall will be filled in to about 6" / 15cm below the top of the wall and the ground to the left will be about 18" / 45cm lower. Such a modest load means that this heavy yet non-reinforced typical New England stone wall can shoulder the load of holding up a level back yard.

Here one can get a better feel for the finished height of the wall. The ground will be topped-up on the left side in the photo.

Here is one last shot showing the stairs mostly complete. Barring rain we will be grading the back this Thursday! An update will follow as this will mostly conclude the site work for the house and leave only odds and ends to do on the outside.

The Nursery - Part I - Defining the Big Idea

2009-07-05T05:55:00.002-04:00

I found out that I was pregnant in the same month that we started designing the house. From the begining, I assigned the room above the library as the nursery - it is the smallest of the two bedrooms upstairs and it felt cosier and somehow, just perfect. Margot's room has been one of the most fun to think about and also, at points, one of the hardest. It is also the only room that will have been designed fully to the last detail - the other rooms, although also thought out, will, as it should, evolve with us living in them.

The first main decision for the nursery was the "big idea", theme and colour scheme. Even after we found out we were having a girl, I was adamant about not making the room pink - it is one of my least favourite colours and it gets overused. Besides, I was not sure I wanted a "gender defined" room. I am also not into the bright colour theme for babies' rooms - I know, I know, babies see brighter colours better but I really wanted a calm, peaceful environment, while avoiding the cliche' "shabby chic", or the pink and brown scheme that is just so passe'!

So I looked around for inspiration and found it in a few different places. The first one was the Serena and Lily's catalogue - this room in particular, from the Cameron Collection.

I love the neutral/linen tones, and in particular the colour of the crib, but the beach theme was not appropriate for this house. I kept this image in my files anyway and came back to it over and over. The next inspiration source was my favourite shelter magazine, the Spanish El Mueble. I have been buying this magazine for more than 20 years and my mother still gets it and mails it to me every few months. Last Summer, there was an issue with a special on children's rooms.

Once again, I love the soft tones in all these images and the feeling of peace that they convey. The one below became the fulcral point in defining "the big idea". I loved the beiges together with the rose (as opposed to pink) and the seafoamy blue.

The inclusion of blue was finally decided by a visit to our favourite baby store, Baby Cottons. A few years ago, my husband helped design and managed the contruction of a Baby Cottons store. Ever since, we joked that we decided to have children so that we could buy their clothing... I have often fantasized about having a baby store but the formula has been perfected by Baby Cottons, so I will stick to being a consumer!

Not only is the clothing adorable, but, most importantly, every piece is pima cotton and made in South America. And I can guarantee its outstanding quality - I wash Margot's clothing in the washing machine, and the Baby Cottons clothing remains just as soft and the same size after being washed over and over, just like the day it was bought!

But I digress... The Baby Cottons collection Pets gave me the excuse I needed to stick to the beige, rose, and blue - Pascal is the brown/beige doggie; Colette is the pink bunny; and Gustav, the blue kitty (below is the collection's hanger, with some pieces I knitted for Margot). We also have a few decorative items from the window display of a past Baby Cottons collection that the owner, Alexis, gifted us (it is still boxed but there will be photos of it soon).

So the colour scheme was decided! Beige for the walls; white for the furniture (which will include some DIY projects, more on that in another post); blue for decor and soft furnishings, including a beautiful work made by my good friend Valerie, a framed felted bunny based on the Baby Cottons logo.

Now I just needed the right shade of rose. It has taken me months but I finally found it - in a vintage Laura Ashley fabric in chalky dusty rose, with white, pale blue and linen beige stripes that is coming all the way from England! My mother, the sewing expert in the family, will be making the bedding and a few other accessories!

In the next couple of months, it will all be put together finally! Part II will cover the process, and Part III will bring the final result - ohhh, I can't wait.

Homestead Holiday

2009-07-03T19:47:00.006-04:00

Things are very busy this Independence Day weekend. The Homestead will be taking a giant leap forward in the coming week as the Churchill Brothers' office is closed for the week. A perfect time to push a whole bunch of projects forward. There will be a great deal to report on the coming week, especially as the stairs to the deck out back have been finished and our stone retaining wall is going into place. Nine days is a long time to work and I hope to get maximum bang for each day.

So, we are going to take a brief holiday from reporting on the Homestead today. Over the last 6-8 weeks I have been spending time, off and on, working on a Ferret & Hound project that I am very excited about. Back in February I mentioned that F&H, in addition to several other activities, had taken on a couple design jobs, one of them quite exciting. Naturally I must be somewhat obtuse and discreet as I wish to maintain maximum privacy for my client. However, I can share some of the basics as they pertain to the basics of the design.

I am designing a house that will be built on a very nice and generously sized piece of property here in Connecticut. I am enjoying this project a great deal as my clients are quite affable and have a very well developed taste. They have provided me with a frame work of what they would like and I am developing it. It is a challenging and very substantial project.

Design is hard. Sometimes the most simple-seeming plan blossoms into a complex project when the seemingly workable floor plans are pulled up into exterior elevations. There are countless hours of thought before and while one is actually making the drawings. I have spent a great deal of time developing the project and will meet with my clients this weekend to go over design development and see how they feel about how the project is jumping off. Here are three elevations.

This is the front of the house. My clients have elected to go with a fairly traditional New England type of design but with some unique twists. The house has some subtle Georgian touches but is basically a traditional colonial with an eyebrow second floor (the second floor is only 5' at the sides but incorporates dormers to open the space and let in light. The house lacks symmetry but I am pleasantly surprised and very satisfied with the way the barn (right) balances the house. Below is a view of the front as seen from the left side. Here one can see the barn broadside and begin to understand what I mean by balancing the house.

The "barn" is a three-car garage entered from the back of the property from a long winding driveway. The master suite is above the garage. The main house is connected to the garage on both levels by utility space, making the suite private and secluded.

Below is the back facade, which is still getting some last minute touches but I have included it last to show it in the late states of development. The highlight of the back is the library on the second floor in the middle with a terrace and double french doors.

I may be able to share the floor plans later but I want to keep them under wraps until I am more confident that they are close to what we will follow as the house moves from D&D to Development. It is a fine and well sized house. The big deal will be when I set it onto the site plan and we begin development of the site and driveway. Hope you liked the preview. Stay tuned for more, including big progressions here at the Homestead!

Intro to Tiling: Tiling Gets Under Way at the Homestead

2009-06-16T06:48:00.024-04:00

Neglected to this point has been our other choice of flooring and finishing. I covered our choice of wood flooring around the house and mentioned that the master bathroom and kitchen/cross-through would be tiled but to this point we have not discussed selections and installation at all.

While I first learnt to work with wood, to be honest, the next skill I picked up was tiling and I owe my nerve to dig in to the other half of F&H who grew up amongst ceramics in her "native land" of Portugal. The early days of F&H our efforts were far more focused on cosmetics and refurbishment of apartment/condos. It is actually what sent your humble author back to school for architecture and the reason why Claudia moved towards interior design. We spent a great deal of time working over apartments and rolling them. It was eye opening and a great deal of fun. It was where we discovered the open and yet unfilled niche for "the million dollar house for $500K". We were appalled at what passed for livable and we discovered that a little thought, some hard work, and a modest budget could yield a product worth many times its investment.

At a point in the near future I am going to get the way-back machine out and take us back to a time of 1.2 megapixel digital photos and show a couple earlier projects. But for now we shall discuss tiling.

As I mentioned, I cut my teeth on tiling because the interior design department agreed to show me how to lay out and mark tiles. This left me to figure out tile cutting, mortar/mastic, and grouting. I bought a cheapo Chinese wet saw (which of course did not last well and has now been supplanted by an MK Diamond saw) and we picked out a new tile for the kitchen we were then refurbing.Above is my Diamond wet saw. Made in the US (mostly) and while this is a smaller version, the choice of professionals) It took a bit of practice and it was wet work at first but the floor really impressed me. We laid out a grid on the floor starting in the center and worked to the edges and around objects. Corner and round cuts took time but I got the hang of it.

About 16 projects later we came to this project. Tile selection was slowed and laborious. We wanted just the right tiles. Today we cover the kitchen and guest bathroom. Next comes the master bathroom which I promise will be a treat (I have put a sneak-peek of the tile at the end of this post).

My first step was to put down tile backer board over the plywood sub floor in the kitchen and cross-through into the garage/barn. Backer board is a cement board which is screwed down and provided and rigid and mold resistant surface to apply tiles to, both for walls and floors.

Here is the backer board screwed down to the floor of the kitchen. The blue-grey tiles (with an ever so faint marble of rust in them) are pictured above. The next step was to lay out the grid. This room has a lot of cabinets and corners. In addition, the flooring runs out of the kitchen into the cross-through where it also covers the laundry room and pantry floors. We needed a strong, clean, straight line running from one end to the next.

Skipping a couple of steps for the moment, pictured above in the baseline of tiles running the longest distance of tile in the kitchen. If this line were off it would have horrible consequences visually from this perspective.

Once the line was established I mixed the mortar and we began tiling.

I sweep the mortar with a toothed float to leave a pattern of ridges. To make sure I have time and can reach across the area I tend to do about five to six tiles at a time.

I use these little spacers to maintain an accurate spacing along the floor. It also helps insure that the floor maintains a grid layout. Each tile is set into the mortar and then pressure is applied to set it and position it in relation to the others. The process is repeated across the floor. The corners go more slowly as do the edges. Each tile needs to be custom cut to fit and cut.

The color of the tiles should pick up the counters and the cabinets very well. It provides just the right amount of ceramic in an otherwise wooden room.

Once the floor was complete it set for 24 hours. Once the mortar was hardened it was time to grout. Regrettably I have no pictures of me grouting, only after photos. Suffice to say, grouting takes a touch of practice but is not too hard and the results tend to be very satisfying. Tiling plays funny games with your head. The first few tiles put down make you feel great and you begin to envision the completed floor. Then as you get half completed you feel like it will never end and you notice every single minute thing that might be done incorrectly. Next, as you are on your last tiles (typically the most complicated corners and cuts) you must resist the tendency to rush. Finally, with all the tiles down you feel satisfied but it looks terribly rough and incomplete with all the dark lines between the tiles. That last step, 24 hours later, where the grout goes in, makes all the difference and the floor explodes to life.

With the grout in place the kitchen floor was completed. Sometimes it is hard to get photos of everything and all steps. The upstairs bathroom is an example.

The guest bathroom has a 5'/1.52m Kohler Villager cast iron tub and wood flooring. This is a very simple but clean and elegant basic shower/bath tub. We chose 3"x6"/7.6 x 15.2cm "subway tiles in a sparkling white.

Because the tub is not as long as the wall it is placed on I constructed a seat/ledge at the end and covered it with backer board. To give it just a tweek of accent we decided to skip the stock house step of simply wallpapering the entire shower with white tile and make the seat stand out a touch. We chose a light marble with a nosing in a 6"x6"/15.2 x 15.2 cm size. I debated a solid slab of marble but we agreed that the using an actual tile allowed it to share grout lines with the rest of the surround. We liked that language a bit better. Here are the results. The lighting is not as good as I would have liked as it picks up the glare on the sparkling white tiles. Hope you get a good idea.

Here is the photo of the blend valve in the wall of 3" x "6 subway tiles.

The shower head fitting protruding through the tile above the blend valve.

Once the bathroom is complete with toilet and sink I will be able to get some nice pictures of the room and tub fully cleaned and hopefully have nicer pictures of the tiling. In the meantime, with things running along here I leave you with the master suite tiles. We picked a mosaic for the floor of the bathroom and shower and white marble subway tiles for the shower walls. This should prove interesting!

Tag and Backyard Sale Spoils

2009-06-11T11:11:00.006-04:00

So the sale came and went. Everyone had a great time, sellers sold and customers bought, the shop was busy, and the weekend was a success! I spent most of the time manning the shop so I did not have time for "1st dibs" but on the second day I did have time to go out and do a little shopping of my own.

OK, so I did have first dibs on one piece that is in fact my favourite "purchase". It was going to be a purchase but ended up being an early birthday gift from one of my bosses (Thank you, Suzanne!). It's an heirloom piece, a vanity made in Germany in the 1930's. Hopefully baby Margot will grow to appreciate the good things in life and I will be able to pass it on to her. I have the perfect spot for it in the master suite. Now the quest for the perfect vanity stool begins...!

There was another lamp that I had seen and loved but it sold on the first day. However, I managed to snag this one before someone bought it on Sunday. It's black painted metal and I just love the detail in the base. I have not decided yet where it is going but at this point I am thinking "desk".

And speaking of desk - I eyed this little beauty all weekend. It has some tear and wear but I confess that it was part of its appeal. Right before the end of the sale, I finally broke down and figured that if it was still there, it was because it wanted to go home with me... I was thinking about it for the office/guest room but it has a very delicate look to it - it is not a large desk, so maybe in the library. We will have to see.

I found these fabulous pillows that one of the interior designers was selling and, if you can believe it, they are the perfect match to the print fabric I have and that I will use in the master suite!

Also for the master suite, we purchased this great driftwood full-length mirror. It was a bargain and it will go fantastically in the wall across from the walk-in closet!

The weekend before last we made some purchases as well, at a tag sale in our street. My first find was this rocking chair for Margot's room - it was a true bargain and I love the distressed look. I have the cushions but I will need to re-cover them.

Then I saw this from the corner of my eye - a solid pine chest of drawers. It had my name written all over it - I just love the rusty old pulls too!

Last but not least, this cabinet was another bargain. It is over 100 years old and I have a feeling this was either part of something else, or it's a marriage of sorts. Either way, I liked its quirkiness and I think it will house kitchen linens in the small back hallway, just off the kitchen.

Not bad, eh? Very soon I will be able to post on what goes where, including our furniture that is now in the garage and the attic - oh yes, and I think the basement as well. The move to the main house is imminent (I am so excited I can hardly contain myself) - next post or so, I will share my ideas for the master suite and the nursery and I may need some help with suggestions so stay tuned.

Landscape: Front 90% Complete

2009-06-08T19:02:00.020-04:00

More than anything (well, other than an active bathroom in the main house) I wanted to get the house presentable on the outside. Today pretty much put a nail in that coffin. Yes, there are some details....I plan to plant some Dogwoods along the turn-around area on the driveway and a couple larger trees out near the road....but overall we have the front of the house looking much better. Some carefully placed shrubs and finishing the driveway have made a serious dent.

English Boxwood, Exbury Azalea, and Bailey's Red Twig Dogwood flank the front of the house with Little Princess next to the front steps.

These will take some time to settle in but it has a tremendous way of settling the front of the house. The pictures do not do justice. The grass has begun to sprout as well. Soon the front of the house will be in order.

Last came the driveway where it connects with the street. In Washington, CT the highway department, in part through a town ordinance, requires that the first 8-10 feet of the driveway be impermeable surface. My original plan had been two rows of Belgium block but I needed to add an apron of concrete, asphalt, or masonry. Asphalt was out of the question.....I needed a clever solution.

Shown above the two rows of Belgium block can be seen on the left. I wanted the stone/gravel driveway to butt up against the block but I have to have 10 feet/2.5m of solid surface. So, I dug out a trench behind the block and lined it with sand. So, how to satisfy the town and still get the look of a gravel dive? Suddenly it hit me. I called the ever accommodating Kevin at the Highway Department of Washington and posited my idea. He agreed completely. Time for.....SEGA! The cement mixer arrives at 8:00am.

Without Ron Messina the foundation master here I was responsible for the pour and setting the "rat" slab. A rat slab is a slab of concrete that receives little love. It is not well finished but performs the same. The concrete flowed, I lifted some wire mesh into the mix which had been set in place prior to the pour, and left the surface of the pour rough so as to hold stone on top when it hardened. The wire mesh will help the slab keep from cracking under stress. Above you see the pour in place behind the threshold to the drive.

I left the slab about 2"/5cm below the threshold and let is set with a rough surface.

With the "rat" slab in place I went to work on the 3 yards of gravel I had delivered the same morning. I needed a bit more gravel to level out the drive, fill to the threshold, and fill in some bare spots. By early afternoon the "rat" slab had set and was ready for gravel. I began filling the gap.

You know, shoveling stone sucks. Pardon my language but wow, it is hard labour. I wanted this. I got into this project to suffer through these steps start to finish so that I understand what it means when I casually snap a spline across a site plan to show a 120' long drive. It takes hard work to move stone, comb out top soil, seed, water, and other-wise work the grounds. I have callouses on my hands and my back hurts....and I am in fairly decent shape. Let me tell you, this teaches more than you think. I shoveled loads of stone into a wheel barrow and filled the 100 sq. foot space between the existing drive and the threshold. The "rat" slab was 6" deep meaning I had depth plus the sq. footage to deal with.

Soon I had wheeled the 18 loads of gravel into place.

Much better! But as you can see in the photos there is still a good 3/4 yard of stone to be distributed around the driveway. None the less, the driveway is about 12 hours from seeing traffic. Now I smooth out the ground on each side, plant some grass seed and stand back to see what I have waited 12 months for!

Privet House Revisited

2009-06-05T11:11:00.002-04:00

With a big shopping trip planned to the South of France and Italy at the end of June, Suzanne and Richard decided that it was time to make some room at Privet House for all the fabulous things that will start arriving from Europe in a few weeks - hence the Backyard Sale this weekend. But in the meantime, I thought I would share some of my favourite corners and items in the shop, as it has been a while since I blogged about PH.

We sold one early in the year and now have two more vintage Piaggio Vespas for sale, the black one is 1962 and the white is 1965. They have been fully restored and are ready to go on the road!

This is one of my favourite parts of the shop - vintage books in superb condition, on fashion, design, art and royalty, some of them first editions and hard to find.

How about this elephant skull?!

I love Santa Maria Novella products - my most favourite is without a doubt the handcream - you have to try it to know what I'm talking about!

People spend hours looking at all items in our curiosities cabinet - there is always something new everytime you look!

I have to admit I am very partial to all our linens, which are either French or Belgian - and I love this display that Suzanne did of our teatowels!

Something else we get from France are these uniquely scented candles and the cameo candles - the company, Cire Trudon, has been around since the 1600's and they were the official candlemakers to the court of Versailles. It still belongs to the Trudon family.

Impressive, no? A lot of our antlers date to early last century and come from Bavaria.

This is truly one of my most favourite parts of the shop - our collection of brushes. They are all handmade, most in Germany but also Belgium and South Africa. There is one for every use, from nail brushes, to pot brushes, to cupboard brushes.

Garden tools is one of our most popular sections. I don't garden (so un-anglophile of me, I know!) but I admit, I am tempted - with the landscape work that still needs to be done in our front yard...

Last and foremost, the Lambertson Truex canvas totes, designed by Richard (and John). I have a large and a small, what can I say, I am a fan! This may also be the last opportunity to get one, as LT was just recently purchased by Tiffany's so these will soon become collector's items.

So come visit! And if you're in the area this weekend, do not miss the sale - we will have about eight dealers under one tent, a few antiques dealers from NYC, a few interior designers, Privet House and Vol.1 Antiques.

GreenPoint Clean Energy in the News!!

2009-06-04T14:22:00.005-04:00

GreenPoint Clean Energy was in the news today, in a fabulous article in the Litchfield County Times. Your humble design architect author heads up GreenPoint and we were interviewed early last week. We are extremely excited to be featured in LCT as it reaches a large and progressive audience in Connecticut. You can read the on-line version of the article here, or you can click on the images below to enlarged them.

Landscape and the American House

2009-06-03T06:26:00.000-04:00

The F&H Homestead has stood in the mud and muck of a New England winter and watched as the rock strewn ground sprouted weeds. Standing in front of the house and looking at it, to the left a depression in the terrain formed an impromptu pond everytime the rains comes. The newly installed gutters have helped keep the rain from falling from the eaves and splattering the house but they could do little to make the actual landscape around the house appear less battered.

Construction is a fairly messy business in terms of impact on the site. Between excavating, foundation pouring, framing, roofing and the endless stream of materials being dragged in and out, the grounds need special attention by the time the house is completed. The F&H Homestead is far from complete, but the outside is mostly finished now and we felt, as proper guilt-ridden American homeowners, that we could not leave an unfinished driveway, weed covered, grassless, plantless site much longer. Our street is a "scenic road" as designated by the town and state and while we are entitled to do whatever we choose, a year is long enough. Time to tend to the grounds!

When you stop to think about it, the human need to adjust the environment around them takes a step into the absurd when we begin to work in our own gardens and grounds. It is one thing to clear and make an area conducive to growing crops and to keep the house from becoming to damp and mouldy in the shade. It is another thing altogether to completely manicure and doctor the natural world until we feel it has been whipped and tamed to our satisfaction. Still natural and outdoors but somehow more clean, organized and satisfying, humans love to dress their land.

In the mid-1700's the first true "landscape architect" began his efforts in Britain. Lancelot "Capability" Brown began work as a grounds keeper/gardener in 1740 in Stowe, England. He came to prominence around 1750 when he introduced the concept that would define the English (and later American) notion of landscape and the position of the house therein.

He worked for the extreme wealthy and mastered large tracts of land in the course of his work, taming them and bringing them under the control of man. He cleared areas of forest to open idyllic glens for deer to roam in. He left stands of forest to shield estates from outside eyes but allowed for vast expanses of carefully manicured lawn, often dotted with grazing sheep.

The estates were vast and allowed for plentiful yet non-exhaustive hunting for the lord of the manor. And of course, there were the gardens. Closest to the house, the garden became the symbol of the Englishman's castle. Wealthy, modest or poor, a man's home is his castle and no English home is complete without a wall/fence and a garden of flowers or vegetables growing in back. This is true for the American, often sans fence around the garden. Fences cramp the American psyche, something handed down to us from manifest destiny and the wild frontier. Yet for both sides of the pond, the yard/garden defines the house.

Brown's work at Blenheim Gardens is quintessential mythical landscape architecture. Volumes can be written about landscape and gardens (in fact I slogged through a 30 page paper in graduate school about the American obsession with the lawn) but the above painting pretty much captures it all. Serene, manicured, almost Garden of Eden in appearance, the lawns and garden has come to represent our standard and ideal of the land. Tamed and managed by humans who know best how nature should behave.

There is some good and bad in all of this. What matters now is my take as I needed to figure out how to handle our grounds and gardens. Americans spend terrible amounts of time manicuring their unnatural plots of grass, pouring toxins on them and spending vast amounts of money to pay others to care for them once a week. An uncut lawn in a residential neighborhood draws the scorn and ire of other homeowners and, if nothing is done within a couple of weeks, and intervention. Yes, Americans grow up with the instinct for caring for their lawn as a spider matures and knows how to spin a web. Scott's and other industrial giants spend millions a year to make sure we don't forget the envy our neighbors will feel when they see how green and weed-free our lawn is. Well, this is not the case for the F&H Homestead, well only partially.

This is a country house so we have a partial pass. We are going to half-tame things here. This satisfies my dis-taste for the manicured lawn and overly managed garden but still makes the house look complete. Without further ado, yesterday's exertions and expenses!

Yesterday started with 42 yards of topsoil and 15 yards of crushed stone.

Note the orange line defining the rough perimeter of the driveway.

Bill arrived with his "Bobcat" and started the heavy moving on the driveway.

As Bill worked the large loads, I tailor and handle the grooming. This turned out to a be a ton of work but it was very satisfying.

With the driveway done, we pour topsoil down the slope next to the driveway which I smooth out and sprinkle with grass seed. Next we started the filling of the depression in the front yard and the spreading of clean topsoil. Once we had smoothed and raked the ground, we placed our "colonial" steps in front of the portico.

Bill pushed the large stair into place.

I adjust the large stone as Bill holds up the back.

The smaller first step is selected from several set aside during early excavation.

As Bill finished the last of the grading and packed up to leave, I began setting the walkway in place for the front and side door. Those of you who have read about my re-use of materials may remember the large 2'x2' blue stone squares I set aside when I removed them from the poorly constructed front "porch" on the old house.

Carefully raking the freshly placed topsoil and following a guideline I place the stones.

The front path completed, the ground leveled out, and the grass seed sprinkled across all the bare ground.

With the seed spread, paths in place, driveway spread, I water the seedlings and then step back to survey a huge day's work. This weekend comes the planting in front of the house.

The Entrance Door

2009-06-02T09:39:00.004-04:00

Maybe it's part of being an anglophile - I have always had a thing for entrance doors. All the years I lived in London, I loved walking through Bloomsbury and Holborn, Chelsea and Kensington and looking at the doors - ok, fine, I also loved peeking through the windows, something that all it took was to walk slowly by, due to the English's love of open curtains even with the lights on!

I guess it is also because I am European - have you noticed that, unless one lives in the city, Americans really do not use their front door much? They enter through a mudroom door, or a garage door. In Europe, on the other hand, the main door really is the mainly used door. It should then be no surprise that from day one of the design phase I had wanted a fabulous entrance door, and one to be used (the part of the plan that will make people really use it is not laid out yet, more on that in a different post, about landscaping)!

As an inspiration, we looked at doors from places we had travelled to and that we remembered we liked. Across the ocean, London, of course (the first one being the most famous London door):

And closer to home, Beacon Hill, in Boston (one of my favourite neighbourhoods anywhere):

So what were we really looking for? A solid wood door, good quality hardware and a shiny, thick oil "European-style" finish that would still agree with our New England colonial house.

And that is what we got! The door we picked is a 2" solid Western hemlock door, with the traditional six panels, two small ones on the top and the larger ones on the main part of the door. We decided against glass panelling or glass sidelites, which are better suited for an urban setting rather than our 4-acre horse farm.

Choosing the hardware was easy - it would be Emtek, like all the hardware in the house, in the same oil rubbed bronze finish. Emtek products are of very good quality and their locks are made to specification in California - both always important points to us, quality and non-Asian (especially China) made products.

Finally, we had to choose a paint, the colour and finish. For paint we used Fine Paints of Europe (what else?!) and their special Brilliant Hollandlac Enamel. We did re-think the colour a few times but we ended up using our first choice, a wine red. My husband, who painted the door, said it was the best paint he has ever used. Also the hardest. It is heavy and gooey, it requires extra-care when painting so not to leave drips but it is everything we were hoping - the shiny, painted-fifty-times-over-the-past-100-years kind of look (which, I am afraid, does not show well in the photos but I promise it does in person).

And there she is, in all her glory! It warms my heart every time I drive in the driveway (which, by the way, is being worked on right now, so expect a post very soon!). As you may be able to tell, the entrance/portico is not finished - the door knocker needs to be installed (we are not big on door bells) and the antique french lantern needs to be hung on the ceiling of the portico. But we are close - close enough to brag!

Backyard Sale at Privet House

2009-06-01T01:11:00.000-04:00

Gutters: Copper vs. Wood

2009-05-23T18:37:00.041-04:00

For the last five months I have watched with apprehension and cringed every time we got a heavy snow or rain. No gutters on the house meant everything coming from the sky landed on the roof and poured off to the ground below. Of particular issue was the valley over the back deck which looked a bit like Victoria Falls every time it rained. The water poured off the house, splattering the house with mud and debris. The gutters needed to go on....but the question remained.....copper? It seemed obvious (expensive of course, but obvious) but there was also the option of wood or even galvanized steel. The standard (yuck) "K" white aluminium gutter was out of the question.

What to do?

In early colonial times the first gutters were wooden....cedar works best of course.

Wood gutters need to be treated on a somewhat regular basis (to restore the oils in the wood which keep the wood from rotting) but they function very well. They have been produced in a variety of profiles and sizes over the years and while they are somewhat hard to find, several companies will still custom mill them for homeowners.

The problem is that wood gutters do in fact require a great deal of upkeep. We had them on our summer home on Monhegan Island in Maine and when I put a fresh coat of alkyd paint on them in 1995 they had been on the house nearly 40 years. They do last well but it seems that perhaps something a little more mainstream would work better. Wood gutters are fine if your intend to own the house for some reasonable period of time and don't mind taking care of them. In my case, the gutters need to be more "maintenance free". Steel gutters are great and a fair shake cheaper than copper but they are too stark and industrial. We have them on our offices at Churchill Brothers builders but our office is far more suited for them. Steel gutters just didn't work for the Homestead.

So, we were left with copper gutters. Copper is way beyond beautiful but by no means inexpensive. Copper did not disappoint me in anyway but it is an expensive solution. So I turned to the expertise of an experienced installer recommended to me by the firm where I work. Enter John Kantor of Sunset Seamless Gutters.

John came over to meet with me and carefully looked over the Homestead to access our needs. He has been installing gutters for over 20 years in Connecticut and knows his business well. To be honest, if the Churchill Brothers trust him, he represents honest service and quality. We looked over the house and determined the requirements. We decided on 5"/12.7cm beaded edge copper gutters with copper hanging brackets 18"/45cm apart to hold them to the fascia boards. In New England we get a lot of snow and ice (and rain) so it is important that the gutters be able to handle the demand. I was very pleased with John and we set 11 May as our start date.

John showed up as promised. He began by fastening brackets to the fascia boards of the house.

The above illustration shows copper and wood gutters in place against the fascia board directly below the shingles.

Once the brackets were in place it was time for John to start installation of the copper gutters. Needless to say, I was quite excited and followed each development with baited breathe.

Now, with the gutter off the truck, John began to prepare them for installation.

First he began by "capping" the ends of the gutter with copper half-rounds caps.

After capping the ends and cutting the downspout hole, John set the gutter into the brackets and clipped them in place with brass clips (copper is too soft to handle the stress that the clips must tolerate).

Above is a great view of the soldered downspout flange in place at the end of one of the gutters along the cross-through.

Next, John moved on to the front of the house to secure the gutters.

By late in the day John had prepared all the brackets around the house and hung the front gutters. I had to climb up his ladder (he said it was OK, of course) and get a couple of shots. Forgive me....is this beautiful or what?

Here is a great shot of the downspout flange soldered into place at the end of the gutter. These copper gutters are absolutely putting the crowning touch on our Ecostar Shingles which we selected for roofing material.

Next John moved around back and put in the all-important 90 degree corner in the back of the house which had been a waterfall prior.

Once the corner was soldered together John took it around back and hung it in place.

From here on out it was a matter of finishing touches. The downspouts came next and then the final detail.....how to handle the column at the deck.

The big question for the house became: how do we negotiate the spot where the downspout comes down in back and needs to transition across the facade before shooting down through the deck?

In the older photo above one can see the column in place. The downspout comes down to the edge of the column and then needs to cut back toward the brick chimney.

The initial idea was to use a section of downspout (above) to cut across the fascia board and then go straight down through the deck. This just didn't seem right. The angle was wrong and it seemed forced.

John and I looked for a while and finally we came upon a very elegant solution. This is why John is highly recommended.....he comes up with good solutions. We decided to bring the downspout down from the second eaves to a second gutter, allow the water to wash through the gutter and then spill down a final downspout cut through the deck.

John fastens the mid-level gutter into place.

The "transition" gutter in place, the final downspouts go into place to run the downspouts through the deck to the ground.

A fantastic view of the final product. The second floor eaves sending a beautiful cascade of copper down to the transition gutter.

Standing back to look at the finished product I cannot help but swell my chest with pride. John Kantor did a fantastic job and I cannot help but enthusiastically recommend him to anyone in Connecticut or Massachusetts looking for expert installation of any type of gutter. He can be reached at 860.567.5878 or 203.910.2822 if you want a quote for his efforts.

Wood Floors - Selecting and Installing

2009-05-22T12:50:00.035-04:00

At long last the Homestead is starting to reach the final lap. Sure, there are a lot of small details everywhere which need attending to but the major configurations are out of the way. Painting, grouting, tiling, and trim work....not to mention some significant site work to get landscaping up to snuff. The last peg to be nailed in which got us to this point were the floors. Drywall and priming were huge. The spaces in the house began to look like rooms. But the floors have suddenly made the rooms look like living spaces and that make a huge difference.

From the beginning this house has been designed to accomplish three important goals:

1. To create a $1.25+ million USD house which feels like a $2.0-$2.5 million USD house from its location to its final fittings....satisfying a heavily unsatiated niche.

2. To create a dwelling which reaches for energy efficiency and sustainable construction at every point possible.

3. To remain faithful and loyal to the language of the colonial New England house, both in terms design and materials.

All three of the concepts come into play when we consider the flooring for the house. We at Ferret & Hound raked over hundreds of options for flooring. Tiles for kitchen/cross-through/backhall and wood flooring for everywhere else but the master bathroom which would be completed in a mosaic white hexagon tile. The choices are infinite but the challenge came in weeding out the right option.

Floor Selection Criteria:

Architecture is far from simply laying out space and waxing about design intent and the big idea. It is understanding how to finish what one starts when a space is conceived and built. This means considering room layout, use, traffic flow, and appointments right down to the visual impact of the floor. Selecting a floor will reflect the character of a room/house like a full length mirror. This makes it an important decision. We considered carefully how we wanted the wood floors to act, feel, and finish. The one certain criteria was a darker finish. This could be wood type or just finish. The next facet to solidify was width. Each board needed to be a minimum of 4"/10cm wide. Next, the floor needed a warmth and depth to it, not too perfect, some knots and imperfections. Too perfect and the house would lose the charm of a New England country colonial. With these specifics we began selection of the floors.

Walnut: American Walnut is a dark, beautiful hardwood with a smooth grain.

Walnut seemed perfect but getting it in a grade below premium and clear was almost impossible. Lumber Liquidators had a decent stock of utility grade walnut (some knots, splits, burns and cracks) but it came only in lengths of 1', 2' , and 3'/(all lengths under one meter). The look was perfect but the lengths would look all wrong. The only option was walnut in a "pre"-finished (finished before it was finished?)format with very few knots. This proved to be a deal breaker as we want to treat the floor with tung oil. We need unfinished flooring.

Maple: Maple is a good hardwood with a prominent grain structure and a clean coolness to it. It seems slightly austere when merely clear-coated but can become quite warm in a room when darkened.

We located two probable sources for good utility/rustic grade maple. Unfinished, a 5"/12.5cm plank is moderately expensive, averaging abut $3.89 USD per square foot. We found a great deal on 2000+sq. feet or utility grade for $1.49 USD per square foot. But upon further consideration we ran into a problem. Maple, in a utility grade (which is what we needed to achieve the knotty, rustic grain) was heavily marbled and variated in color from light to dark. This would make for a very un-uniform finish to the floor. With a bit of reluctance we let maple slip away.

We considered bamboo....a nice option as it is considered a plentiful material, but totally wrong in appearance and texture for this house. At once too modern and too clean cut.

Then we hit a stroke of luck. I happened upon a cache of unfinished heart pine. The only concern about using pine tends to be that it is softer than oak, maple, walnut and other hard woods. This is true of southern yellow and northern pine but not for heart pine. Heart pine is dense pine cut from the tight inner part of a pine tree. It is not quite as hard as oak or walnut but is significantly more durable and resistant to mars than other types of pine. Plus, it finishes much more uniformly and by its very nature is knotty. We had a winner!

In all fairness, this unfinished sample does not show the knots but it gives an idea of the grain of the wood. Below is what it looks like with a darker oiled finish.

The heart pine offered a very even solution to the flooring question. With this in mind we ordered 2100 square feet of unfinished 5-1/2"x 5/8" flooring which arrived in nearly 200 bundles. I moved the flooring into each room where it was to be installed and let it acclimatize to the room. Wood is a living, breathing thing even after it is milled. It needs to adjust to the environment where it will be installed. Three weeks is ok, five or more is even better.

With two drawing/design projects underway and a hopping schedule at Churchill Brothers and GreenPoint Clean Energy time was tight but two four-day weekends saw most of the floors go into place.

Work begins in the upstairs hall. Red rosin paper is stapled down to the sub-flooring and then a reference line is snapped with chalk to the floor off the wall on the left side. Then each board is face-nailed down to form the first course. Next, an air compressor staple gun affixes each subsequent course to the one behind it.

Off of the upstairs hallway, the "nursery" (or Bedroom #1) is the first room to receive flooring. The direction of the floors is dictated by the point of entry and the dominant traffic course through the room. The bedroom floor rotates 90 degrees off of the hall floor and runs the width of the room.
Reduction of waste is crucial to me as an architect concerned with resource management. Each board must be nipped at the ends to ensure a flat tight fit to the abutting board. The maximum amount of each board is saved. Average floor waste during installation is 10-15%. Careful attention to cutting and board utilization gave me an overall waste factor of under 4% for the floors. I had enough left over to make a last minute decision to use wood in the guest bathroom instead of tile. The sum total of waste (not including sawdust) from 450 sq. feet of flooring.

A threshold delineates the transition from hallway to each room.

Looking back across the completed master suite. This was nearly 500 sq. feet of space and no small task to complete.

In the downstairs hallway, various lengths awaiting installation.

The pièce de résistance for the floors will be the face-nail finish which will complete the floors with a true genuine flair. Older floors were traditionally pegged down or face-nailed with a hand-forged "cut" nail. In the era of imitation junk from China I was able to track down the Tremont Nail Company in Massachusetts where they still forge their own nails out of solid, quality American steel. They make a wide variety of nails including.....

The wrought head black oxide cut nail. This is a classic nail which used to be manufactured by hand, one at a time by blacksmiths and other metal workers. Today they are cut by machine but still the same cut nail. To clear things up, a cut nail means the nail's ability to "cut" the wood as it slices into the board.

The floors are now complete around the house, the tile flooring is going in. The tiles will be the subject of one of the next posts. Stay tuned!

Drywall and Priming - Space Takes Form

2009-04-04T07:32:00.027-04:00

When you watch a project grow, like with a child or pet, you don't often notice the changes as they get bigger. This has been the case as the homestead has developed over the last few months. However, when the drywall (sheetrock) started to go up and my drywaller, Don Gerre, came to start taping and mudding, things noticably changed, and really fast.

PHOTO 1

Back when the framing was finished we started a great deal of work inside the house and with cold weather things crawled at times. Even the insulation only seemed to move things forward slowly. The whole house felt sort of dark and spindly with an open feel despite the framework of partitions. Only a builder/architect can enjoy this. For those more interested in the finishing touches and interior design, the lure of the house began to dwindle.

The exterior walls throughout the house were now snugly filled with insulation but the interior partitions were still stick walls and I wanted to move quickly so that the interior design half of Ferret & Hound could be re-engaged in planning the final appointments. Within days of starting the drywallers and Don had transformed the house. In a matter of days the house went from a skeleton to clearly definable spaces.

PHOTO 2

A view from the backhall just outside the living room and looking into the kitchen.

PHOTO 3

Looking from the front hall across the temp stairs to the living room entrance (back right) and the backhall entrance to the kitchen (back left).

PHOTO 4

A coat of primer being applied, a view of the living room and back hall from the kitchen.

PHOTO 5

From the back hall under the main stair landing, looking forward to the coat closet (left of door). The library entrance is right behind the coat closet with the dining room on the right out of view. The first door on the left is the lavatory. The living room door is just behind me and to the left.

PHOTO 6

Standing in the center of the now primed kitchen, the door to the cross-through where the laundry room and pantry are is center right. The doorway to the left leads into the dining room.

PHOTO 7

Another view from the kitchen, near the cross-through doorway and looking back to the back hall and the french doors leading to the back deck and fireplace.

PHOTO 8

A view of the library with the original stone fireplace on the right.

PHOTO 9

A straight on view of the library fireplace.

PHOTO 10

This last photo takes us back to the very first picture you saw in this posting. Turning 90 degrees to the right from the first photo which looks through the stair hall into the kitchen through the framed walls, we are standing in the living room looking at the fireplace. The outdoor fireplace backs this particular firebox. You will also notice interior doors stacked against the triple french doors on the left. In the middle of the room are some of the kitchen cabinets which are now being installed by my brilliant cabinet builder, Jamie Maitland.

Jamie has begun work on the kitchen which is truly going to be the showplace of the house. Jamie is based in Morris CT and, for as those of you who have seen the earlier posts about the kitchen know, is a true old world craftsman. He has built a magnificent kitchen for us from scratch. This will be the subject of the next few posts. In the meantime, we leave interior drywalling and I leave you with a couple of teasers of Jamie's amazing work in the kitchen................STAY TUNED!!

Basement - Carving out extra living space!

2009-04-03T07:08:00.007-04:00

When we first began renovations on the Homestead (aka "The Pit"), we knew we were going to be constrained at times by the existing footprint of the house. Whilst we intended to add foundation and enlarge the house, the 24'x36' (7.3m x 10.9m) footprint would dictate certain paramenters in the new house that could not be altered. We will see this in more detail in future posts as the house is now sheetrocked, taped and mudded....and half primed. However, the basement proved early on that it would be a challenge to design and plan for several reasons.

Let us look at the original footprint below. As you can see, the darker lines indicate the add-on foundation and to the left, cut off (not part of this discussion) is the new cross-through and barn/garage foundation.

If you click on the image above you can see it in larger form and in more detail. What was clear immediately was that we would have a decent amount of basement space. What was not clear was what would be available for use, and, as it is essentially divided in two areas (old and new and connected by only a 42" (1.06m) opening at the top left of the picture. There are a couple of reasons why planning the basement was nearly impossible until it was mostly completed. First, a foremost, the original foundation, like the rest of the house, was done on the cheap. The slab floor sits 7'-3" (2.2m) below the top of the foundation wall. Hence, the floor joist for the first floor, which are 2x8 dimensional lumber (given the span that they run, a 2x8 is fine but a more thoughtful architect or builder would use a minimum of a 2x10 or 2x12 simply to reduce flex in the floor and to allow more "plenum" space in which to run ducts, wires, and plumbing) sit only 7'-4-1/2" (2.24m) above the slab allowing usable, but low headroom. As we are re-building an existing house, the new mechanical systems from plumbing to electricity to heating/cooling needed to start in the basement and be run about the house. Until many of these systems were in we had no way to determine exactly what space would be usable.

Once the furnace, instant hot water heater, duct work, plumbing and electrical had been put in we started to survey the basement. It was clear much of what I had wanted to do (a large open room in the existing section) was not going to happen. To add complication to the entire issue is the fact that a triple "sistered" 2x10 runs across the full length of the basement as a support beam on which the floor joists meet in the middle, thereby shortening the span which the must bear weight. This can be seen in the picture above. There are three lolly columns holding it upo which effectively break the large area in half. So be it, such is existing construction. So, after a great deal of thought I formulated a plan. Here is how the plan evolved.

The above drawing is more diagramatic than architectural but I created it this way to show the breakup of space. The dark lines with hatching in them show the 2x4 partition walls I built in to break up the space. Clicking on the image will enlarge it for more detail. The furnace ended up rotate 90 degrees and placed along side the stairs. Because of this, and considering the columns and beam running across the center I decided to leave the un-shaded sections "unconditioned", meaning no sheetrock or finished floor. The pink shaded areas are to be sheetrocked and have insultation along the outer walls. The ceiling is finished and there is recessed lighting. The purple areas are "conditioned" (meaning they have wall insultion or insulation above in the floor joists) but are dedicated to mechanical/storage and remain unfinished with only basic ceramic ceiling bulb holders and unfinished walls.

As you can see here, I have built a stud wall down the length of the main room in the existing foundation. I am standing in the TV room at the foot of the stairs looking into the storage and furnace/HVAC room. As you can see the storage came first and wall second.

Turning just a touch, the framed walls of the TV room with sheetrocked now stacked against it. This is reclaimed 2x4 lumber from demolision that now frames these foundation walls and will be filled with insultation.

From the same point but now looking just to the left of the stairs, I am stand in the newly created "doorway" into the utility/workroom space. Note the insulated wall to my left in the picture. This is the pump/tank room where the water heater is. Note the duct hanging in the background. This is the hazard of renovation and 2x8 floor joists. It was going to mean a lot of soffiting and framing to enclose this duct so I decided against it, leaving the space as utility space.

Taken from the same spot as all the rest but now turning to face away from the stairs. This closet came into being as the duct needed to be hidden in order to make the TV room space feel finished and comfortable. The closet does not appear in the diagram above but is in the lower left corner of the TV room against the pump/water heater room.

Another view into the utility room with the door to the pump/water heater room on the left.

Looking now from the utility room into the TV room, and stepping back a day or so, you humble design architect can be seen prepping for the installation of the closet we saw in the previous photo. The stairs are to left and the pump room to the right.

From the same place, a touch further back, the closet is done (note the sheetrock on and one piece to be cut out which is still across the door opening) As you can also see.....MY WORKROOM!!! I built this up fast as a new repository for my tools and cabinet making. Behind the stud wall on the left are the stairs.

Oh, a workroom at long last!

Now we venture through the opening in the existing foundation into the new foundation. This is where the gym will be.

Standing in the utility/workroom and looking through the opening in the foundation to the new section, the studwall has been built for the lavatory/worksink room. This will be insulated wall along the foundation but unfinished space. The unfinished hall is to the right.

Stepping into the new foundation and turning right (from the last photo) we see down the unconditioned hall to the workout room/gym. This will be a great selling point to the house I believe. I have already framed the entire room out, including a great deal of soffits to enclose plumbing and ducts which I simply had to work around. The room is equipped with phone and cable as well as four recessed lights. It will be, like the TV area in the existing section, sheetrocked completely and the exterior walls insulated. This room will house free weights, a treadmill, stair stepper and another cardio machine to be determined.

Entering the gym you can see the extensive soffiting required to enclose the drain pipe and the duct work along the back wall.

Looking to the left upon entering the gym, the cable hook up is in the center of the wall (where the wire hangs down) and you can see the base of the double fireplace chimney behind the stud wall.

A closer look at the elaborate soffit work required in the gym room.

A final view of the gym, turning around in the middle of the room, with my back facing the wall with the cable hook up, a view of the entrance door to the gym. Note the wall of the existing foundation and the stain where the dirt used to be when this was the exterior wall of the house.

The basement has been a lot of work but will yield a storage area, a work room, a lavatory with a work sink, and a gym, and a nice 12'x25' room for watching movies or just "recreating". Planning a basement means being willing to work around a lot of complications and being willing to accept the fact that some square footage will be lost. In architecture school, among the millions of things they fail to teach you is the fact that sometimes space cannot be planned and then when you can plan, some space cannot be used. Overall I have carved 500 square feet (46.45 m2) of conditioned living space out of my basement and I am very pleased with this. It will add to my resale and offer great informal lounging space.

Ferret & Hound Grows + Progress

2009-03-25T09:20:00.008-04:00

For any of you out there who are still even tuning in, at long last a small update. Things are extremely busy in Northwest CT. Ferret & Hound Architectural Design and Consulting has added a young designer in January and as she is only ten weeks old she is still in training and requires a great deal of supervision :-) In addition, Ferret & Hound recently landed a large scale building project which will take a large amount of time and effort for both the architect and interior designer. More details will follow but suffice it to say the project is 3500+ square feet of conditioned space on 11 acres of handsome CT land and will be a great project. In addition Ferret & Hound is handling two other small renovations and details will be forth-coming.

In the meantime, work has continued on the Money Pit.....uh, the Homestead. For those of you who tuned in and saw the completion of the exterior siding back in December, you may well have noticed that the snow flying left a few bare, unprimed areas on the house. This has since been rectified and the house is fully primed and ready for exterior final coat. In addition the columns and portico have been refined.

As you can see, the portico and the house are fully primed and ready for a final coat. The corner of the house near the chimney got a coat of primer over the last weekend.

The interior of the house is sheetrocked, taped, and mudded. It is ready for a coat of interior primer. In addition, I have been quite busy perfecting my framing skills in the basement, carving out additional square footage in the house. The existing structure of the house and the addition of modern and useful plumbing/heating/and electric posed unusual promblems for creating space in the basement. I am about ready to dedicate an entire post to the basement as it is a great deal of fun from a creativity/building standpoint.

Sorry for the delay. Will try and set more time for updates but in addition to the many tasks at hand and the newest member of our team, the lead "design architect" at Ferret & Hound is proud to announce his new and rapidly expanding role with Churchill Brothers Builders of Sharon, Connecticut. Churchill Brothers enjoys a fantastic reputation as one of Connecticut's high end design and construction firms. Your humble blogger is now the in-house design architect and is heading up GreenPoint Systems, a sustainable energy company owned by the Churchill Brothers. The website is under construction but is up and running. We specialize in Geothermal heating and cooling, solar electricity, solar hot water and wind energy. There are a great number of highly unique projects underway and shall be detailed in further posts. Thanks for staying tuned!

Tankless Water Heaters

2009-01-18T15:03:00.014-05:00

The Navien 240 Comes On-Line!

With winter holding an icy grip on the Northeast and the Ferret and Hound Homestead, progress on the house has been slow. With holidays and a slew of work coming in things have progressed slowly. Electric and Plumbing inspections should be taking place soon and that will make it time for insulation, drywall, and stairs. All of these will be quite exciting. First, the insulation will allow the heat to come on. With drywall up, the house will start to look like a house. For now the house is more like a meat locker than a house inside and I admit I have been less than keen on working in there when it is 10F / -12C. But soon things will be starting up again and the house will have heat.

In the meantime, as noted before we are in the apartment over our garage.

Cozy, very comfortable, and perfectly acceptable for the time being. It is 700sq.ft/65 sq. M and composed on an entry hall leading into a kitchenette area and then a main room which acts as our living room and bedroom. There is a dining area just past the kitchenette which is situated in the large dormer looking out across the back of our land. In addition there is a rather spacious bathroom with combo-washer/dryer. It will become the guest/in-laws apartment ultimately but for now it is home. However, for us to move in a month or so ago we needed basic comforts such as water, electricity and heat---ahead of the main house being ready. We got all of them in place but the hot water was a different story. Sit down boys and girls....it is story time.

In the United States we tend to aschew new and different. Fact is fact. In Korea, Japan, and most of Europe (many parts of S. America as well) the concept of a tankless/on-demand water heater is fairly well accepted. What is more, they are fairly well established and now fine tuned technology to everyone except the general population of America who is just now showing signs of accepting this "suspicious" new idea. Most of American homes are equipped with one or more 40 gallon/150+ liter tank kept full of hot water heated by gas or electricity. As you can imagine, this is not efficient at all. The tankless/instant hot water heater is slowly gaining popularity in the US thanks in no small part to our Big Oil Government and their energy policies as well as the rude smack in the face we received last summer as petrol prices spiked and oil breached $148 USD per barrel (dragging the price of pretty much all other types of fuel up with them). Basically, a tankless water heater is just that---tankless. The unit, normally gas fired (sometimes electric) is mounted on a wall (preferably in the basement on the foundation wall). A water pipe, from the house supply (either a well or municipal supply) is attached to the unit delivering cold water to the heater. When hot water is requested, water flows through the heater triggering a flow switch that ignites the heater. The cold water from the supply flows into the unit and passes through a firing chamber where it loops through copper piping. The tubing is arranged like the coils on the back of a refrigerator so that it goes up and down several times in a small area where the copper pipe is fast-fired by gas flames. The temperature rises rapidly and the hot water exits the unit and is piped through the building to the open tap. When the tap is shut off, the unit shuts down. Hence, on-demand, tankless water heater.

Ultimately it costs FAR less to heat only the water one needs when one needs it. Sounds great right? Yet even my very experienced plumber (who is very anal and very good) had shied away from installing one since they came out. For one reason, as I would find out, learning about tankless heaters takes time. For another reason, as noted before, in general, Americans are slow to grasp onto new and foreign concepts. So began our odyssey.

From the very beginning we has been determined to have a tankless water heater. Yet selecting the correct unit is very complicated. Despite a great deal of research we had a very hard time determining how to select a tankless water heater and which one would meet our needs. It is far more involved than one might think. No one place seemed to have all the information, most failed to answer basic questions, and in many cases one does not even know what questions need to be asked. So, I could either put the selection in the hands of an "expert" who would no doubt charge me 3 times what the unit would cost if I found it and had it installed on my own, or I could figure it out myself. For better or worse I chose the latter. Welcome to BUYING AND INSTALLING A TANKLESS WATER HEATER 101.

I have compiled a list for the beginner. Having sought a site like this in vain, it is my pleasure, ney, obligation to assist those willing to look for the answers.

SELECTING A TANKLESS HEATER

To select a water heater you must first figure your demand. It is not really that hard but you will hear all sorts of alleged experts tell you how to do it....most of them trying to sell you into the next bigger unit. Here is how you do it.

Add up your showers/baths, taps and appliances. Count a bathroom with a sink and shower as one shower. Most showers and taps mandate flow not to exceed 2.5 gallons a minute. So do most taps. Be realistic. If you are in the shower you will rarely ever be using the sink at the same time, unless you have only one bathroom in which case you count the tap (in case your wife is washing up while you shower) because you won't have another shower running at the same time. Also, it is unlikely that a four bed/four bath house will have everyone showering at once while doing laundry, running the dishwasher and washing up after a meal at the sink. Try to seriously consider the most fixtures that will ever be demanding water at once.

EX: The main house in my project has two full baths, a dishwasher, washing machine, a kitchen sink, and two lavatories (there is also a kitchenette, washer/dryer combo, and bathroom in the in-laws apartment but we will leave these out for simplicity sake). So, let us add this up. 2 showers, a kitchen tap, two lavatory taps, a dishwasher, and a washing machine. Now, many dishwashers make their own hot water....so I leave that out. Also, I am going to realistically assume that the maximum demand will be two showers at once and someone using a sink. That is three fixtures. 2.5 gallons per minute (we will reduce this to 2.2 gallons to account for pressure loss in the piping on the way to the tap) multiplied by 3 fixtures gives me 6.6 gallons per minute. Now, to be on the safe side, figuring that perhaps someone occasionally might wash their hands or start our washing machine exactly when my calculated 6.6 gallons are being demanded, I will add an extra gallon to the total taking me to roughly 7.5 gallons per minute at peak demand. This is subject to variables of course....if you are eco-conscious you may use less water than others so use your best judgement when guessing max consumption all at once.

Step 2....determine your "DELTA". Quite simply, this means you need to figure out how many degrees you need to raise the water temperature from the cold water feed to make it "hot" when it comes out of your tap. This is important! VERY important! Why? For two reasons. First, I found many manufacturers love telling you that their unit makes 9.6 gallons per minute! Uh huh....if you live in Florida where the water temperature can be anywhere from 70F/21C to 76F/24C and you want to heat it to 115F/46C. What you must look at is the tankless water heater's ability to heat YOUR demand from the temperature of the ground water where YOU live. This is where I started to realize that selecting a unit was fraught with details.

EX: In Connecticut and parts of New England, ground water temperature (especially from a well) is about 50-55F/10-12.5C year round. Raising that temperature to hot water is no simple task and you need a good heater capable of the task. Also, many manufactures show a delta chart (various rises in temperature) to 115F/46C. In fact, most people like at least 120F/48.8C and many like it even hotter. Use 120F to be safe. This is my DELTA.....Ground water at 50F and I want 120F water.....that is a 70F DELTA (rise in temperature). Compare that to the manufacturer who tells you their unit produces 9.6 gallons and you will find that it is from 70F to 115F which is a Delta of 45F. BIG DIFFERENCE! Once you get over a needing more than a 55F temperature increase, most units fall off fast and can't produce that you want. Upon further review, the manufacturer who claimed their unit could make 9.6 gallons per minute at a 45F delta saw their unit's capability drop to 4.2 gallons per minute for a 70F Delta like mine. That would have been a huge mistake! Make sure you know what your water temperature is....most municipalities have this information or the building department should know. KNOW YOUR DELTA!

Step 3: Indoor versus outdoor units and venting. Don't even think about installing outdoors unless you live where it rarely goes below freezing. Even then, make sure if you select an outdoor unit, that is has a freeze protection system just in case the temperature dips down unexpectedly. Indoor is the way to go for most people living in temperate climates....and if you install indoors....be ready to VENT!

Venting is important and in many cases it is not a bad idea (or an expensive option) to bring in outside combustion air for the unit to use when it fires your water. IMPORTANT DETAIL ABOUT VENTING! One thing you will not find out (or think to ask about) until it is too late, is what your unit requires to vent. Most units require (as do local building codes) the use of expensive stainless steel vent pipe. Stainless vent pipe comes in ready-determined lengths and one may not vent further than 25'/7.62m from the unit to where the pipes dumps the vented combustion air.....plus, you must add 5'/1.52m to the run for every 90 degree turn the pipe makes. Location of the unit is important here. Plus, you may need to go through the foundation wall (core drilling if remodelling and a sleeve if you are pouring a new foundation). Plan ahead.

Step 4: Efficiency. Basically this is a measurement of just how efficiently the heater uses each therm/BTU of gas to heat each gallon of water. There are units available all over the board in terms of their efficiency. Some in the low 60's all the way up to 98%. Even the least efficient is probably better than the traditional tank heater but still, if you are going this far....don't cop out at the last minute to save a few dollars upfront. You will spend that many times over to buy more fuel to heat the water of the life of the heater.

So, there is your first lesson completed. It is not that hard to select a unit but when you don't know where to start and what to ask....well, the task can be complicated and you are bound to get surprises along the way. For instance, few sites/retailers/wholesalers bother to tell the average buyer that they need to buy a venting kit until late in the sale. It is assumed you know. However, you may well not and let me assure you, that $849USD heater you just chose is going to need about $125.00 to $250.00 in venting kit PLUS whatever you may need to do to get it through your foundation. So, what did I choose? Well, it took a long time and we had a couple of issues along the way but asking enough questions and spending enough time gets you to the right place......

May I please present, the NAVIEN 240!

After sifting through Bosch, Rannai, Takagi, Rheem, Noritz I discovered the crème de la crème of TANKLESS HOT WATER HEATERS!!! Navien Tankless. This one took a little longer to find as they are only recently building their presence in the US. Yet they are by far and away one of the best. They top the chart at a stunning 98% efficiency and they pack a wallop in terms of their ability to handle load. It is built in South Korea and while I try to avoid most all product from China, Malaysia, etc (for quality and environmental reasons mostly) Japan and South Korea have built a good reputation for producing quality products. The Navien is a good example.

In addition, they did a good example of presenting each units ability to handle water demands at respective temperatures. As you can see, the Navien 24o can produce 7.9 gallons per minute working with my ground water temperature of 55F. That is EXCELLENT. The comparable Takagi wasn't even close and is only 92% efficient.

The site made selection very easy by laying out each units capabilities at a variety of different temperatures. Reviews for this product are very good and I can vouch for that. This thing packs a punch and delivers endless hot water. ALSO, and this is a HUGE selling point, the Navien uses Schedule 40 3"/7.62cm PVC piping to vent which is MUCH less expensive to buy, can be cut to desired length, and allows a total vent run of 100" instead of 25' with stainless steel. SOLD! It took a long time to get this selection made, to have my apprehensive plumber hook it up, and to finally have hot water flowing but flow it does! We love this thing. It's estimated operating cost in liquid propane per year is $175.00 USD. That is nothing for a three bedroom house. It is so far under the cost of a typical tank water heater that this unit will pay for itself within three years. After that it is a money in your pocket each year and a gold star for being eco-conscious.

The Noritz is also a good option and Takagi has a good reputation in terms of reliability so I would not turn anyone away from them. I have left pricing out of this post but if you have questions about pricing, I am happy to offer advice as best I can. Suffice it to say, the Navien was not cheap but it was also surprisingly competitive with the competition.

A Snowy Follow-up

2008-12-20T14:26:00.008-05:00

So winter has come to New England and Connecticut. Global warming and the altered weather it has brought dictates that this beautiful snow will most likely melt to mush and mud when the temperature again climbs and dumps late December rains. Gone are the winters of month upon month snow coverage. On a selfish note this makes finishing my driveway a touch easier.

On a greater note I miss the real winters of regular snow and frozen lakes without the spastic temperature vacillations and record setting squalls. At least for today I peer out my window on a pretty scape of snow covered hills and a true New England winter scene. It is even nicer as it covers the battered and disturbed ground around the house which waits for warmer months for grading and seeding. Just 12 short hours after the house was finished this was the scene here in CT.

Sealing the house...at long last!

2008-12-19T16:44:00.000-05:00

Just as the snow begins to fly, the last board goes into place.

At long last, after months of construction and hardwork, countless lost days to rain and other complications, the final board went into place this morning at 11:57 EST. Art, standing on a plank 5 meters up on the back of the house beneath a grey and forboading sky, took the final cedar clapboard from Bill down below and nailed it into place. It was a welcome moment and none to soon. The weatherman has been warning of a large snow storm crawling across towards the coast from Cleveland and Chicago and we took full advantage of the last moments of warmth to get the house buttoned up. Snow was expected today around noon and it came almost on the dot. We have been able to work only about three days out of the last two weeks including yesterday and this morning. Our work has focused on the remaining facade requiring cladding which was around the back of the house. The bad weather has been a bit of a blessing on one hand because I am flooded with projects right now. Nonetheless....I want this house closed!

Mid-last week Bill and I work alone (as Art recovers from a nasty cold). On the back of the house I size a clapboard to go into place on the exterior of the kitchen next to the deck and "cross-through".

By the end of the day we had a good portion of the reachable back done. Art and Bill came back this past Monday with Bill's son Jimmy. We got a big chunk of the back done including up the back with the chimney and the side wall of the master suite.

By the end of Monday I had scampered up the ladder (and used the bucket lift thanks to Bill) to reach the peaks and apply a good coat of primer to the eaves, fascia, and any other spots needed. The house really seems to be taking shape!

Thursday, the penultament day of exterior work! Art and I spent the day on the plank and pump jacks working across the upper back over the kitchen. The little windows are the hall of the master suite and the master bathroom. A harbinger of the weather to come hangs in the roof valley (note the ice overhanging the eaves where the roof valley meets). We managed to get all but a small section of the back done.....Friday's task.

08:55 Friday morning. Art works his way slowly up the side of the kitchen towards the master bathroom window. The sky showed a grey and dull pallor of the coming snow.

Bill, working just below Art, hands a clapboard up to Art on the plank.

Almost......

Almost.............................
Uh....uhhhh....almost..........

There we go.....................WELL DONE!!!!!!

Wow, the house is done! Some priming needs to be done and there is tons of interior work to do but at long last the house is ready for winter. A round-a-bout seems in order as we close this chapter.

The barn! Ah, all that is left is the cladding along the foundation.....Spring....where art thou? (note the "Mr. Slim" Mitsubishi "split" box at the lower right of the garage/barn......the little guy is chugging away and providing warm, dry heat to our apartment above)

Our horse barn.......snow is coming!

Our barn/garage. Note the barn lights. ANP specials. Making these lights, right here in the USA, for almost 100 years.....still going strong.

Around the right side (the "service side" of the house) we see the Amana heat pump in place awaiting start up in the next couple of weeks.

So, the house is closed. Now we can begin interior completion. And it is just in time. Now comes the snow and warm fires :-) See you all soon and a happy Christmas to you all.

Quick Long Overdue Update

2008-12-17T11:11:00.004-05:00

The reason for the long silence here at Ferret & Hound is that we finally moved in to the apartment above the garage. The move was not so smooth but things are now, slowly, falling into place. The weather has delayed certain things we wanted done before the first heavy rains and snows, but alas, it has been difficult, as you may all be aware if you've been reading the news on the weather in New England. It has not been as bad as New Hampshire or Massachussets but we're right up on northwestern part of CT and not too far from the border.

My husband has also taken on a couple design and drafting projects in the area and there is really no time to be everywhere at the same time! However, this past week, the siding went almost all up and the house is ready to be sealed for the winter. We will then work on the interior until Spring. All we need now are a couple of days of not too much cold, no rain or snow... yep... wishful thinking?! Cross your fingers...

The post that follows was written a couple of weeks back but still an important update. The cedar siding was going up and as we reached the front of the house it came time to put up the portico. We had been putting this "little ornament" off as long as possible. We had seen several styles and sort of knew what we wanted but we wanted to get it just right. After all, although heavily inspired by colonial houses, we are also aiming at cleaner, straighter lines (for instance, no shutters) and the portico needed to reflect that.

Construction of the Portico

2008-12-17T10:01:00.004-05:00

First, we needed to drop sonotubes (cardboard tubes into which one pours concrete) to act as piers to support the portico deck and without running water this made making cement quite a chore. Once the tubes were in and poured things went quickly. We needed to get the portico in place before we could finish the siding and skirt boards along the bottom of the house.

The portico serves to shelter the entrance, break the facade of the house, and transition the occupant or visitor up to ground level in the house. Above is the deck in place in front of the house. One can see the sonotubes (yellow posts) under the portico with the cement column protruding from the top and supporting the deck. The deck is 5/4" mahogany which is both very presentable and a good treated surface for a deck.

Yup, it was a touch cold that day. Art blows on his hands and he moves into position to frame the portico. The pillars are actual pillars, not poly-molded decorations. It is a Douglas Fir 6x6 column with simple capital and base. They will be sanded, caulked, primed and painted to that they have a pleasant and smooth appearance.

Art applying some final details. We actually have removed the clapboards from the gable section in the portico, as when we looked at them, they seemed too much for our taste. They will be plain vertical boards.

Update, Dec 17, 08: Here are the more recent images, taken this morning. Still not finished, but now the house has a "face", wouldn't you agree?!

Christmas, Carolyne Roehm and a Vintage Piaggio Vespa @ Privet House

2008-11-25T05:55:00.000-05:00

Carolyne Roehm will be at Privet House signing copies of her gorgeous new book, a Passion for Blue and White, on Saturday December 6, between 3 and 6 pm!

We will also be open late that day for Christmas shopping - we will have a special display of Blue and White gifts and homeware, along with Christmas ornaments and other fabulous gifts for everyone and everyone's pet!

And you have to come check out our newest item for sale: a fully restored vintage 1965 Piaggio Vespa - 150 cc, manual shift, 70 to 80 mpg and it runs beautifully! Isn't she gorgeous?!

Privet House

4 Cornwall Road

Warren, Connecticut

info(at)privethouse(dot)com

Come see us, we are only 90 minutes from Manhattan and 2 hours from Boston!

Sealing the Envelope - Cedar Clapboards

2008-11-20T14:33:00.021-05:00

The doldrums somewhat behind us, we now focus on getting the house closed. And none too soon either. Days and days of rain this summer and fall really put us behind schedule and now the temperatures are falling fast. The last couple of days have been downright frigid with temperatures barely scraping 32F/0C during the middle of the day. At very least it has been dry and we are thankful for that. We are focusing on two objectives at this point. One, we need to get the apartment over the garage completed and two, we are sealing the envelope of the house.

For the exterior of the house we chose to go with the ever traditional cladding of cedar clapboard. I did a great deal of shopping around for clapboards. We need nearly 9000 linear feet/2743.2 linear meters of 6"/15.2cm wide cedar clapboard to side the house. That is just over 1.7 miles/2.74km of siding boards laid end to end. As we intend to paint the house white (traditional New England Colonial scheme) we could have gone with ready-primed cedar siding but that runs at a nearly 60% premium to clear unprimed siding. So we decided on unprimed siding that I would prime myself and paint afterwards.

Here are the two lifts of unprimed clapboards stacked after delivery

There was one thing that was bothering me and led me to our ultimate decision on the siding we selected. These days there are way too many houses clad in vinyl siding. Vinyl siding gives me hives much as do asphalt shingles. First, vinyl never lasts and ultimately chalks from the sun and needs replacement. Secondly, it looks really awful, especially the overlapping seams. I make no bones about having an opinion and in this case especially. Vinyl apes the look of wood and is synthetic which makes it terribly vulgar in my opinion. Synthetics can have environmental benefits but at the same time need to be vetted carefully. This was of great concern to me when I selected EcoStar Shakes for the roof as well as the Timbertech decking. When it came to the siding there was never really a debate. It needed to be wood. But what type?

Many houses I have drawn, especially while working for a local architect here in Connecticut, have been clad in clear cedar. It looks very neat and clean.......but almost too clean. Something always bothered me about clear siding. I could never put my finger on it until I started shopping for clapboards. Then it hit me. Clear cedar is beautiful and of course cedar is a wonderful material for resisting rot. But when it is painted it looks almost too perfect. It is smooth and without much variation. Realizing this I decided to do some homework. I went to visit some older colonial houses in Litchfield (very near where we live). Something struck me upon looking at these older houses. The siding was worn and vintage of course, but it was more than that. It had a grain to it, a sort of natural look because it had been milled in a time when it was not cut as perfectly as today. What is more, from a distance it could not be mistaken for vinyl siding as modern clear clapboards might be. This made up my mind at once. I began my research.

After some research I discovered a source based out of Vancouver Canada that sells direct from its mill instead of through a supplier or local lumber yard. They carry cedar "bevel" siding which is a clapboard. It is premium which is considered a step below clear siding because it has knots and imperfections. This is of course what I wanted and as luck would have it (for once) what I wanted was actually a bit cheaper!

In addition to having knots and a touch of texture here and there, these clapboards are almost 1/2"/1.27cm at the thickest part (many clapboards are 3/8"/.96cm) giving them just a tiny bit more meaty feeling to them. They are much closer to traditional "oldschool" clapboards.

I was delighted with them. A "lift" of these clapboards (480 pieces at 12'/3.65m each) costs about $3160.00 USD plus about $500.00 shipping. I needed two lifts of these to get me around the 9000LF mark. A substantial saving over ordering clapboards out here! They were delivered about three weeks after ordering and we began putting them up.

Here are the first clapboards going up along the right side of the house. They look so handsome it seems almost a shame to paint them. Bill is very good at putting up clapboards and is very fussy. In college I owned a painting business and we painted lots of houses. We always caulked where clapboards met the edge boards and windows. Not Bill's clapboards! He cuts them tight and perfect. 1/16" of a inch is considered unacceptable. They meet flush and perfect.....no caulking these guys!

The right side done, the weather growing too cold for latex paint, I take advantage of the scaffolding to apply a good solid coat of Benjamin Moore Alkyd (oil based) primer to seal the siding for the winter. I selected this primer for its ability to block tannin bleed from the knots in the wood as well as to protect and treat the wood. The pictures just don't do justice....the siding came out exactly as I had hoped. It is clean and traditional with just a hint of grain to it. It is siding with personality to it.

Scaffolding down, side primed and ready for a coat of paint in the spring. On to the front and other side!

Doldrums Continued

2008-11-04T22:01:00.000-05:00

This week has seen us emerge from two weeks of behind the scenes developments and modest difficulties. Starting last Friday we began to close the house up for good and begin the completions on the exterior. We swapped a couple of windows from the master bedroom to the attic to give more light to a great room upstairs and added a large picture window to the master bedroom. The two smaller windows in the master had looked good in drawings but the more we looked the more we realized we were missing a chance to give the master a commanding view of the back 3 acres. We are very pleased with the result. Now the trim and siding are going up. Here are some of the developments.

Here are some of the cedar clapboards that I have primed ahead of installation. The rest are in the foreground still in bundles.

Bill and Art install the final window, our late addition of a large picture window in the master bedroom.

Fascia and sofits in place in the back of the house.

The overhang over the entrance to the living room with the tongue and groove ceiling in place. Note the spots for the lights which are already wired in.

The final accent to the back deck: the corner column in place and primed.

The cedar clapboards going up on the right side of the house.

The Doldrums

2008-11-03T17:35:00.001-05:00

There comes a time in every significantly sized construction job when time seems to stand still. The last two weeks have been the doldrums and finally we saw a puff of wind gently billow the sails today. The HVAC/Plumbers/Electricians/Insulators have been coming and going and it seems there is a question at every turn which requires my attention. The frustrating thing is that so much takes place but little shows in the big picture. Add to this to the fact that my carpenters were away on another job for 10 days and a wicked electrical conduit trench learning experience and you have the doldrums.

One of the chief reasons that I chose to actively participate in this building process - Building a house, whether for a client or one's self, is a huge undertaking. I can draw a house, I earned my Masters in Architecture and learned architectural theory, but being able to actually participate in the process is an educational experience which too few architects receive. It also gives me a chance to carry out tasks and truly understand what they entail. This leaves room for error but I am happier to make errors now, on my own house, and carry my experience on to my clients so that they receive a far smoother completion to their project.

Let us take a tour through the last two weeks. First off, the electrical trench. When we purchased the property back in April the electric/phone/cable service to the house was delivered by a long drooping wire travelling 100+ feet/30.4 m+ from the utility pole across the road from our property.

Having wires slung from the road represents an unacceptable option. Putting the wires underground gets them out of view. However, to do this we needed to get the wires across the road so that they could go underground. Washington, CT does not allow residents to dig up the road to trench wires. One can burrow under the road (quite expensive) or have another utility pole placed on our side of the road and run the wires over the road and then down underground to the house. CL&P (our local utility) charges about $425.00 USD for a new utility pole as apposed to the $4000.00 USD that two contractors wanted to burrow under the road with a "mole". While a post in front of the house is not ideal, it is certainly better than overhead wires.

Now, to get the power from the road to the house we need to take the power underground through schedule 40 electrical conduit which is buried about 30"/ .75m under finished grade. This requires a trench, sand, and lots of schedule 40 electrical conduit. I chose to undertake this project on my own. It was a mixed experience but I must say that it was HUGELY educational despite what turned out to be several complication. First, we hired a small excavator and my foundation/excavating buddy Ron Messina of Messina Foundations came to help me operate the machine. Huey the beast looks on in the foreground.

In the picture above you will note the box on the corner of the house where the power enters the house. We are working our way across the front yard.

The next step after getting the trench dug was to place 3"/7.62 cm schedule 40 pipe for the electrical line on one side of the trench and two 2"/5 cm schedule 40 pipe on the other side for the cable/internet and phone line. The 3" electrical pipe and the 2" cable and phone pipes must be separated by a minimum of 12"/30.5 cm apart to avoid static interference. Once in the trench the pipes are covered by sand to protect them from puncture by large rocks in the back fill.

Above one can see the pipes in place but not yet set in place and buried. Before the trench can be fully buried it must be inspected by CL&P and the town. This is where everything went wrong.

I finished the pipes and sand on Friday. Saturday was rain. Here is the trench on Monday.

The trench filled, aided by water which poured off the road and into our waiting trench. The soil eroded and slid into the pit, filling and sinking the pipe under water. To make matters worse, it turns out that there are two schedule 40 pipes. One is for plumbing - the one in the trench above, and the one I am most familiar with - and one is a grey color for electrical conduit. I know that now. I didn't before. Suffice it to say, 300'/91.45 m of schedule 40 plumbing pipe had to be removed from the trench, washed and then sold off to my plumber. Next, after a visit from the CL&P inspector (who was very nice and very helpful) I determined I would need to dig out the trench again, order more sand, and then purchase 300' of electrical schedule 40 pipe to bury in the freshly re-dug trench.

The second run went far better. The down side: I had to dig the trench out by hand. Not a simple task but good exercise and very satisfying to finish.

Taking breaks from digging, I assembled the 10'/3.04 m sections of pipe outside of the trench on the driveway. Take it from me, don't try to do this in a trench.

Your humble blogger/architect/general contractor connecting schedule 40 conduit.

The first sand being dumped (by hand) into the trench to bury the pipe. The CL&P inspector gave me the go-ahead to bury 90% of the pipe leaving only three spots open for he and the town to see the pipe buried properly.

The termination of the trench and pipes at the house where they meet the meter box.

The red warning tape in place to warn future diggers of high voltage lines below.

The last step, prior to back-filling the trench, was to suck the string through the pipe so that the utility companies can then pull their wires through the pipes. This was actually fun. It involved tying twine to a small plastic shopping bag, feeding it into one end of the pipe, and then sucking it through with a vacuum cleaner.

It took about 3 seconds for the vacuum to suck the bag with the string through 100' of pipe. It was a satisfying way to conclude my underground electrical conduit odyssey. Lastly to complete was the final burial and back-fill of the trench.

Bill works the skid-steer across the front of the house filling the trench. Last we will have to attach the pipes to the new pole which as yet to go in. But the major work is done. This project has been a huge lesson. More doldrums stories to come soon.

Bathrooms Fixtures

2008-10-20T13:21:00.007-04:00

The time has come to start detailing the interior fixtures at the Homestead, from lighting, to kitchen and bathrooms. Usually, in a client's project, specifying fixtures would have been done at an earlier stage (somewhere after deciding on the final house design and starting to get trade quotes), but with just my husband and I doing the design, the purchasing and managing the construction, we got a little behind.

Also, being our house, we knew what we wanted, so the search took only a week or so - with a client the process would normally take longer, between deciding a style, visiting showrooms, getting prices and making presentation boards for the client's final approval. It is important to bear in mind, as well, that depending on what you choose, there may be a 2- to 4-week delivery period, if not longer.

Bathroom Fixtures

We have five bathrooms in total, all with different requirements. In the In-Laws apartment above the garage there is a small bathroom with a shower. In the main house, there is a small lavatory in the basement; a lavatory on the ground floor; a full bathroom on the second floor (that will be shared by the two bedrooms in the front of the house); and, finally, the master suite bath which includes a double-sink vanity, a whirpool tub and a separate shower.

Although different, there were some consistencies in the bathrooms that we wanted throughout:

None of the fixtures are made in China (a petpeeve of ours that we take very seriously in everythig that we purchase, from clothing to the nails that hold our house together, mostly for environmental reasons - a post on sourcing materials not made in Asia is in the works).

All sanitary fixtures (toilets, sinks, tubs) will be white ceramic, and all water fixtures will be either polished chrome or satin nickel.

All water fixtures will meet Water Sense standards:

- Toilet tanks will discharge 1.28 gallons of water per flush, and no more.

- Shower heads will discharge 2.5 gallons of water per minute, and no more.

- Sink faucets will discharge 2.2 gpm or, in the case of the master bath, 1.5 gpm.

As you may have figured out by now, energy and water conservation is extremely important to us. I have done extensive research on sustainable building products and have worked in million-dollar architectural projects in NYC that made it to the pilot program for LEED-Homes. Sustainability should not mean lesser quality nor less efficiency in use. With this said, all fixtures that we have specified are top of the line and we have made sure that their water flow does not compromise in any way their purpose (particularly important, as you can imagine, in toilets).

We are aware that going green is not an inexpensive choice - most "green" and good quality products come with a price premium. However, the long-term savings, in energy and water consumption, is definitely worth the investment. Sure, there are cheaper low-flow toilets and shower heads but their reviews are so bad, that you do need to shop around - something I am quite good at! So what fixtures met our criteria?

Toilets

For toilets, we have picked two different Toto models. The Eco Promenade will be in the master bath and the guest lavatory. It has more traditional lines that go well with the style we want for these bathrooms. The Eco Drake has a more modern cut and will be in the basement lavatory, the guest bathroom and the in-laws bathroom.

Now, you may be wondering why have we not chosen dual flush toilets? In fact, this was our first choice - I am European and dual flush toilets are almost the norm anywhere in Europe. There are five makers of dual flush toilets that obey USA specifications: Toto, Kohler, and, one of my favourite bathroom fixture makers, Duravit - but the dual flush toilets are all extremely modern in design - pretty cool, but not for the look we're trying to achieve in this house. The other two makers are Caroma and Gerber. Caroma has the better reviews of the two but aesthetically just seems a bit weird to me. Gerber is, honestly, really cheap looking - yes, it is also the cheapest dual flush you can find and its reviews are conflicting!

Under federal law in the United States, toilets must not exceed 1.6 gallons (6 litres) of water per flush. High efficiency toilets (HETs) go beyond the standard and use less than 1.3 gallons per flush (a 20% savings over conventional 1.6 gpf toilets). Thus, the alternative was high efficiency toilets and of those there are plenty to choose from, just look for the WaterSense logo. This certification is given by independent laboratory testing and meets rigorous criteria for both performance and efficiency.

Faucets

Faucets are very tricky to choose. Many are made in China. Yes, even the very expensive top-of-the-line. Kohler, which has a mid-high-end line, is an example. To guarantee a well crafted faucet, you do need to spend some time looking around. Our first choice is for now a little too expensive for this project, but you have ever held a fantastic, heavy, gorgeous faucet in your hands, it most likely was a Lefroy Brooks. On the other hand, there are plenty of good brands, affordable, made in Europe, North or South America. We chose Grohe (pieces made in Germany, Canada and Brazil) for the master bathroom and the guest lavatory; and Moen (not all, but several made in the USA) for the other three bathrooms.

For the shower heads and tub fillers, we picked the matching sets for each bathroom. I am all in favour of handheld shower heads so all showers will have a diverting valve that will allow you to choose between the fixed shower head and the handheld. Both bathtubs (master bath and guest bath) have handhelds next to the fillers.

We purposedely chose not to have those wonderfully looking rainshowers that although fantastic for resale and highly luxurious, are also a waste of water. Each head meets the minimum of 2.5 gpm, but I have seen showers with six body sprays plus the overhead. That is almost 20 gallons of water per minute! If you take a short 5-minute shower, that is 100 gallons of water per shower. I will leave you to continue this calculation... at one shower a day, 30 days a month, etc...!

Decks and Composite Decks

2008-10-18T12:17:00.028-04:00

Exterior Accents Going Into Place

With the exterior of the house sealed (95%) we are now turning to completion of exterior details. The siding and end boards need to go on and so do the sofit and facia trim. The part I have been excited about is the deck!

Now, under normal circumstances, I am not a traditional "deck" enthusiast. Americans love to BBQ and entertain outdoors, and for good reason. Being able to walk out onto a livable space outside your home is very satisfying and allows us to keep the comforts we so covet in our houses while enjoying the outdoors. However, the typical "American home owner's deck" has grown from a small platform or terrace out back to massive wooden structures of all sizes, heights, and complexity. In my humble opinion, things tend to get a little out of hand and frankly, walking around the back of a house, especially one built on a slope which drops away as you go from the front to the back of the house, to find a huge deck sprawling out from the house on 30 spindly pressure treated 4x4 posts in highly undesirable. It screams sub-division stock house. Here is an example.

Everyone has their own taste and far be in from me to tell people how it should be. The problem is, and this is what a real architect should be concerned with, too often, especially with developers, function (and cost) take a huge priority over form. I think about houses, layout, construction and the intimate details. The average homeowner, making their living at something else and not skilled in design, tends to know no better and accepts what they are used to seeing. This is why we get decks like the one above. Sure, it provides outdoor entertainment options.....but it fails on so many levels to provide that space elegantly. The photo above is a house I looked at in Goshen, CT. It is on a beautiful piece of land and the back deck could have been one for Architectural Digest if the owner had put thought into it. Here is another such visual eye-sore.

So what does one do? Well, at first we had agreed that we wanted a stone terrace in back flanking our outdoor fireplace. However, this would have required an investment to the property which would potentially price it out of its location. So we were left to consider the options. After some thought I struck upon the concept of a low level deck which would perform two functions in tandem. First, it would wrap the back of the house, protruding 4' / 1.3 m from the house to allow one to enter and exit the house from the french doors in the kitchen and living room. By keeping the deck tucked close to the house it avoids the jutting out effect that I so wish to avoid. The low level of the deck also helps add a utilitarian or accent finish to the deck instead of a large living space extending out from the back of the house. Second, instead of steps down to a ground level patio, I decided to continue the deck out around the fireplace. Let me illustrate with photos from the construction.

Jumping forward a bit, here we see the narrow deck which I initially conceived for the house. It allows entrance and egress from the house from the kitchen (right) and the living room (center). The section of the deck from the living room is covered by the cantilevered master suite above. Eventually the section of deck in front of the kitchen will be covered by a pergola.....more on this later. As originally planned, the deck would end at the edge of the house on the left of the living room. Three steps down would land on the blue stone patio. However, when we set aside the stone terrace concept, we felt that something more needed to be done. So, we raised the firebox of the outside chimney and I decided to extend the deck out and around. At no point is the deck more than 32" / 82cm high. This avoids the code requirement of a railing around the deck which I wanted to avoid at all cost. More importantly it got us away from "spindly leg syndrome". Here is the drawing.

I have cut part of the floor plan off but you can see how the deck is deployed. The narrower deck leads into the main deck which allows access to the fireplace. I am pleased with the result. We have a low deck (we will be grading up to the deck a bit so the photos do not reflect the deck height accurately yet) which is a nice compromise between a large sprawling deck and the stone terrace which we ruled out.

Early during installation. Art and I work while Bill cuts. I have just finished the joist hangers along the house wall where the ledger board is fastened into the house.

The carrying beams and frame work on the 1' / 30.5cm 4x4 posts for the main deck in front of the fireplace.

Nearing completion Friday afternoon. I am in the process of screwing down the last five planks across the end of the main deck.

As evening falls my wife arrives and we break in the outdoor fireplace with the first fire. As you can see we have been anxious to get this deck done.....note the chairs already brought out to sit on and the grill to the left.

There is some work to do and some clean-up but its time for a couple of beers and a few moments to relax in the 48 F / 10 C evening air with a beer and a roaring fire looking out over the back 3 acres. This is what it is all about.

Composite Decking

Now, with all this talk of decks, let us take a moment to talk materials. Most decks are completed with wood. Pressure treated is recommended as it resists rot, fire, and bugs. However, pressure treated wood is carcinogenic and when it weathers it can split and crack. It resists stains and preservatives as well. Another option is cedar, either red or white. Cedar has wonderful oils in it that provide many of the same benefits of pressure treated wood (PT) but one can maintain cedar with oils and treatment and it is not filled with chemical preservatives. Cedar prices at roughly USD 1.90 a per 12" / 30.5 cm for a 5/4" x 5.5" board. A nice option for sure. The third option is composite decking.

Composites are environmentally friendly deck planks made from recycled plastics and other resins. They are VERY durable and last a long time with little or no maintenance. They require no cutting of forests and are therefore considered a sustainable material. In addition they tend to resist burning and they do not rot or serve as a main course for termites. Many people are more familiar with these composites under their trade names. Trex is a commonly known composite decking which, as one of the first, has achieved a sort of "Coca-Cola/Band-Aid" brand name reputation in the market. Timbertech and EverGrain are two other options as is Azek Decking. My personal favorite is either Azek or Timbertech. They are well made, solid, and have a nice visual appearance. I have shopped them all and based on recommendations and reading I prefer these two. Trex tends to be a bit "spongy" and requires joists at 12" intervals whereas Azek and Timbertech can normally span 16"-20"+. Both offer traditional top fastened screws or the "hidden" fastener system where the planks are fastened down with clips on the side of the plank. I personally like the traditional method as I think of a deck as a deck, not a finished floor.

Cost and Precautions With Composites

Composite decking is not an inexpensive option and the details (railings and handrails) are where things start to add up fast. Deck planking ranges from about $2.10 - $2.90 per linear foot. In many cases this is twice the cost of a pressure treated wood deck and 50% more than cedar. The payoff, as with many green/sustainable materials is over the long haul. These decks, if built correctly can last 30-50 years. My focus is on sustainable and energy conscious design. For me the composite decking was a serious option from the beginning. A word of caution. Dark color composite decking is not a perfected product! They look great in photos and at the beginning when installed but none of the manufacturers has come up with pigmentation which can tolerate the UV beating that decks take. Dark colors fade within a couple of years. I recommend staying with lighter colors. In our case this worked out great. We wanted a light grey which works with the house concept. Here are some last photos of the deck going in.

Privet House

2008-10-17T08:18:00.006-04:00

As I mentioned here before, I work for Privet House, a fabulous emporium of home goods, antiques and curiosities, in Litchfield County, Connecticut. The shop opened in early May and it has been so insanely busy that there has been no time to set up a website yet.

The website will happen at some point next year, but until then, I will post here about press coverage and upcoming events at the shop. Some of these include jewellery demonstrations, a book signing, and Christmas shopping evenings for all the fantastic items we will be receiving, from ornaments, scarves, throws, to new Cire Trudon candles and even a vintage 1965 Piaggio Vespa, restored to showroom perfection!

Just keep checking the blog for dates - there is now a button on the side bar for all the posts on Privet House ! In the meantime, here are some images of our beautiful shop! If you have any questions, do not hesitate to contact us or, better still, come visit us - and don't forget to visit our other shop as well, Vol.1 Antiques!

What a Difference a Day Makes

2008-10-15T22:02:00.022-04:00

Big Doings In One Day

A great deal has happened in the last three days. In fact, I have truly come to understand why a GC (general contractor/building supervisor) is not only valuable but well worth the money. Managing trades all at once, juggling expenses and fielding unexpected issues on site and minimizing down time is a huge and exhausting amount of work. Daily I watch dedicated and hard working people toil at the Homestead. Bill and Art work forward diligently. I am truly fortunate to have someone like Bill handling framing and basic construction. I have learned more in this one job than I have in years of summer jobs and all of graduate school. My plumbers, HVAC and electrician teams are working each day. Sometimes I find myself wandering about from one issue to another, running errands, helping to build, saw, carry and interpret plans. I feel worn out and tired but guilty because I see people working around me and I feel like my scattered and sporadic efforts don't add up. But in fact the weight of managing deliveries, logistics, and all of the trades takes a heavy toll and I am on site from 8:00 in the morning until far after the trades leave, cleaning up and trying to make sure as much as possible will be ready to start the next day.

With this in mind I feel all the more excited about the progress we have made. Monday and Tuesday this week have made a visual difference from the road that dwarfs all others to this point. Have a look.

The doors to the garage are finally in place. Fully painted, I added the hand-forged hinges to the door. Had the doors been traditional, as is an option, the hinges would be the same as those created in 1789 with the doors swinging open to let in horses or a carriage. Our doors have electric openers and the hinges are for show. I have to admit, pushing a button in the rain beats getting out and swinging two doors open.

Late last week, Bill and Art work to complete the final section of the roof. Later in the day I found myself at work with Bill.

Shortly before a fair share of beers all around, Art and Bill work towards the final row of EcoStar shingles. The cap is the final step.

Friday was the end of the roof. It was Monday and Tuesday of this week that made the major change. See if you can spot the difference between the final photos below and the house before....I added a few "self-inflicted" change orders to the job.

Monday morning.......just before work commenced.....note the remnants of Friday's celebration on the siding in the foreground.

Monday evening.

We had a small change as you can see. The master bedroom is getting and expensive but very justified picture window and the attic space, far too big to be left with only one small window at each end, receives the displaced windows from downstairs. A huge difference.

Then the big day....Tuesday!

Note the upper left gable of the house and Bill moving across the front of the house post-tyvek (house wrap) completion.

Expecting the next window!

The bottom windows go in!

The front door submitting to Bill and Art's persuasion.

Surveying Tuesday's labor's........remember what this looked like on Monday morning.......

Do you Remember?!!

2008-10-08T07:47:00.001-04:00

Steven left very early to the site this morning as pace at the Homestead has picked up fast fast this week, as we are nearing our move to the property before the end of October, and as different phases come to an end simultaneously.

In the next few days, all windows will have been installed, both roofs (barn/garage and main house) will have been completed, exterior doors will be in place and the exterior of the main house will be ready for the imminent arrival of the cedar clapboard. In the interior, after our framing passed inspection with an A+ last week, HVAC techs, plumbers and electricians are arriving on site today to start installation.

Looking at the photos we have taken recently, it ocurred to me that I hardly remember the house that was there before. Hmm, I figure it's time for a visual recap!

Last April, we started with this...

Can you believe that??!! About four weeks later, we had this...

A few more weeks, and it started growing...

Less than a month ago, we had this...

And yesterday we had this...

Here are close-ups of the back, which is the side that was more ahead yesterday:

We still have a couple more months to go but now that it has taken its full shape, we cannot believe we designed this house from scratch and how amazing it is turning out! The next month will see another major development, with the exterior being finalised. After that, we will move on to the interior - floors, kitchen and bathrooms, appliances, fixtures, painting, built-ins, etc etc. So stay tuned...!

Housing Update

2008-10-06T17:55:00.000-04:00

The Twins are Completed!

Tahir and Adam have finished their masterpiece chimneys and I have to say, while I am having a great time working/watching as the house goes up, the chimneys are my special guys. I love them. A&T Masonry is everything I could have hoped for and I am happy to endorse them 100% if you are looking for masonry in the Connecticut area. Today we will start with the chimneys and then move on to see what else is happening at the Homestead.

First, some close ups of my flagship chimney. The double barrel beauty which handles the indoor outdoor fireplace. This is a true piece of work. As you see the pictures you will also note that Bill and Art have been at work putting in the EcoStar shingles on the roof. I will go into that part next.

Climbing to the peak of the house roof I catch a nice shot of the back chimney, fully completed, firmly seated near the peak of the dormer roof. Note the copper flashing. Copper has skyrocketed in value and made this detail expensive but worth it. Copper is really durable, timeless, and very elegant. It strikes a beautiful contrast to the EcoStar shingles that have thus far been installed by Bill and Art.

Note the exceptional detail with which Tahir and Adam capped the chimney.

Another view from a touch back on the peak......I love that chimney.

Meanwhile, the second born of the two chimneys, the little brother, is carefully doted on by the ever detail-minded Adam who cleans the flu stack as the second chimney nears completion.

15' / 4.2m below, Tahir works on the transition where the chimney breaks in. The blue stone is being cut and applied to the ledge. Here is how this happens.

First......

Here is the first piece of stone in place. Note on the left that a nice bed of cement has been troweled to accept the next stone. Now.....

This wet mortar is troweled onto the back of the next piece of blue stone like butter on bread. When pushed into the bed of mortar already in place, the two types will fuses together to ensure a long lasting placement. Then......

Tahir lays the "buttered" stone into place.

Tahir thumps the stone with a rubber mallet to settle it into place.

Once the stone has set for an hour or so, Tahir smooths the grout and wipes the stones down. Elegance......pure elegance. Nothing closes a brick chimney like a course of bluestone. Last but not least.....

Tahir and Adam lay the final piece of bluestone in place over the shoulder of the fireplace. The next day the scaffolding comes down and we go into the library to complete the hearth which will sit where the previous abomination was.

A look from the back at the chimneys in place, completed, but with the scaffolding still erected on the left.

The tasteless and disreputable former owner had commissioned a horrible marble-topped hearth for this rustic chimney. With the budget already squeezing at the seams I sat down and thought out a simple yet appealing way to finish the interior hearth which would not break the bank. Here is the result:

THE CEREMONIAL FIRST FIRE!!!!!!

Hotel Silver @ Privet House

2008-10-03T13:51:00.005-04:00

4 Cornwall Road, Warren, Connecticut 06750

Thursday through Monday, 11 AM to 5 PM

I know this is a tad last minute, but if you can make it, it will be definitely worth it! The Autumn is here, the leaves have turned, and Ginger Kilbane will be presenting the stunning newest collection from Europe, from Hotel Silver. Well, not to mention that you will get to see Privet House! (We're less than two hours away from Manhattan, and less than three from Boston). This is the first of several events leading up to Christmas - watch this space for news and come see us!

HVAC Part II

2008-09-27T18:05:00.007-04:00

Our Secondary Unit: The Mitsubishi "split" or "Mr. Slim"

Earlier on I talked a bit about our HVAC systems. Our main house will utilize a 4 ton (12.000BTU(British Thermal Unit) per hour per "ton" of cooling ability making a 4 ton unit equivalent to a 48.000BTU cooling unit) Carrier Hybrid Heat Pump which is one of the most efficient and interesting units on the market. You can read about that unit in a previous post called HVAC Part I.

Our barn/garage has been designed with a conditioned "in-laws" apartment on the second floor and will naturally require heating and cooling. Because this living/extra bedroom space will not be used on a regular basis, it was important to me to make sure it was a completely separate zone for heating and cooling from the rest of the building. This saved us over-sizing the main unit to push air all the way through the cross through and up into the barn/garage apartment. Allowing the apartment to have its own zone also allowed the option of a unique and separate unit just for that part of the house. Nobody wants a window air conditioner and traditional baseboard heating is terribly inefficient and expensive. The natural solution was the Mitsubishi Split System .

This highly unique and VERY efficient option has been around for years but has seen an explosion of advances and popularity in recent years. The largest obstacle some have with these systems is the wall mounted fan box which provides hot and cool air to the space. Many people have become more used to these slim wall mounted boxes but Mitsubishi has also made huge strides in finding alternative ways to deliver the air into the space. There are ceiling mounted boxes which blow through a vent in the ceiling like a normal ducted system as well as units that can be mounted behind the wall or in a "radiator" style cabinet. There are a great number of options. The wall box did not bother us for this relaxed and informal space so we went with it.

So what are the benefits of this unit? Well, first off, they are extremely efficient and small. The word "split" refers to the fact that the air delivery is handled in one place and freon/heating lines (not really heating but heat in reverse--like a heat pump) connect the box unit, through the wall, to the outside where a slim fan box/condenser is mounted along the side of the building. There is no need for a central blower to push air through ducts to the space to be heated/cooled. Many of these units have an extremely efficient SEER rating of 16 and 18. Minimum in the USA is 13. Higher is better as you can see. SEER stands for Seasonal Energy Efficiency Ratio. This is basically a measurement for the number of BTU's required to power the unit over a given period of time. Allow me to get technical for a moment. This may be of limited interest unless you would like to learn how to calculate annual heating costs.

Let us look at my heating scenario. This will show you how I can compare costs from unit to unit to heat and cool a space. Take the apartment. We are cooling roughly 4500 cubic feet of space (130.25 cubic meters). We will require a 16.000BTU system to handle this area. Now, to figure my annual cost I compute as follows: 1000 hours of cooling/heating time....ie. 8 hours per day for 125 days during a year.

16.000BTU/Hour x 1000Hours = 16.000.000 BTU per year

As my SEER rating is 16.000 we then figure:

16.000.000BTU / 16 BTU Watt Hour = 1.000.000 Watt Hours

So I have determined that my unit will require roughly 1.000.000 watt hours per 1000 hours of service. So how do I figure the annual cost. Simple:

unit size, BTU/h × hours per year, h × power cost, $/kW·h ÷ SEER, BTU/W·h ÷ 1000 W/kW

OR IN MY CASE

16.000 BTU/hour x 1000hours x .13cents per kW/hour / 16 BTU/watt hour / 1000watts/kW = $130USD per year.

OK, so I hope you are still with me. The main issue here is that each 1000 hours this unit runs, I spend $130.00 USD @ .13 cents per kilowatt hour (the cost of the power that I buy from the grid). NOT BAD! Pretty nice.

In addition, the coolest (pardon the pun) part about the Mitsubishi split systems is their "intelligence". They have brains. The unit can sense the temperature in the room and react according to need. It can direct heat or cooling where needed by sensing hot or cold spots. Also, even though the US standard for measuring SEER is rigid (ie. the unit is rated a peak performance.....16 SEER rating) these units rarely spend much time at peak power. They sense the temperature and humidity of the room and adjust their output accordingly. It is impossible to measure all the SEER speeds so the peak is used for ratings. However, when the Mitsubishi split system gets the room to desired temperature, it scales back. Most of the time it could be operating at a SEER level as high as 20-24! That's really efficient! Also, I recommend these units because they have the ability to draw down the "wet bulb" temperature of the space. That is, they remove humidity which is a main factor in a room feeling either hot or cold. Less water in the air means a more comfortable environment.

I hope you stayed with me through this. The bottom line: The Mitsubishi Split system is a very unique, highly efficient and evolving system and a very wise choice to consider if you are looking at HVAC replacement or upgrade. In addition, they may well qualify for rebates as part of your local governments "green" environmental programs. If you have specific questions, please feel free to ask. I left a lot out but hope I covered the basics.

The Twin Chimneys Part II

2008-09-26T18:16:00.002-04:00

Back Chimney Completed!

The term "twin" is probably not correct as the two chimneys are quite different but they are born at roughly the same time and are meant to play with each other so the term stands. This being said, my masonry team finished the back chimney this week as I took some time off. The results are stunning. I admit, I am the proud parent but none the less. Tahir and Adam do very nice work and to top this off they have very good feel for the language of their materials. They offered very unique and usable ideas at several points along the way, especially when we discovered things we had not expected. Surprises always occur with any sort of renovation. We will get into that later as we had one with the front chimney.

At any rate, while I was gone this week Tahir and Adam executed the crowning jewel on our back fireplace. We had been searching for a suitable way to finish the chimney. A slab of stone on legs at the top was one option, but it lacked a certain je ne sais quoi. We considered chimney pots.....oooohhhhhh how we would have loved that! But chimney pots are complicated for two reasons. First, this house is mostly designed based on colonial homes, which were by their very nature simple. In addition, our house is in the country and for that reason it should not be adorned with too many accents and decor. Colonials (as in the people) were utilitarian in many senses (many of them Puritans) and most living in the countryside were farmers and people of modest means. Chimney pots are more common in a town setting. We considered going with simple pots....

......but they all seemed too big in place. So we searched for another option. A local masonry supply store had three on site which they would release for a really good price.....well, at least $415.00 USD is a pretty good price when you consider they are $695.00 each. But that one looked like this.....

......................too ornate.....beautiful.......but too ornate. I am an Anglophile. I love this pot but it is NOT colonial in any way. So I reluctanly decided that chimney pots should wait for another project. These work better with a more formal house with slate roof and ornate details. Instead Tahir and I began discussing chimney cap options. We batted around brick ideas. Nothing seemed exciting or likey to work. So Tahir played around a bit and suggested two brick stacks on top of the chimney rotated 45 degrees to the chimney. We looked at it. It had promise. I suggested that the two stacks were a good idea but to add a sense of decorum to them they should be seperated. Here is the result. I love it. Its elegant but it is still simple enough to sit atop a colonial chimney.

I find myself wishing I had more photos of this but it has been raining all day. I got as many photos as I could. In the next few days you will see this chimney in contact with broader pictures of the back of the house. I also will take a trip up in the bucket lift to get some close-ups of the top. The back chimney is now completed. I can't wait to get the deck built around it so that we can have the first fire!

Another Rain Update

2008-09-26T09:17:00.027-04:00

Yet another weather system has thrown a would-be hurricane at the Northeast leaving the Litchfield Hills soaked and muddy today. After taking a few days away for some needed rest and relaxation we arrived back to CT last night and went to inspect three days of work at the site. We were disapointed to discover absolutely nothing had been done to our raised-seam roof on the barn/garage and cross-through. A two day job has stretched into its third week now. So far this contractor has been the only major disapointment.

The good news is that the back chimney is done and the trim is on the house. Shingles for the roof begin on Monday. In the meantime I will leave you all with a holiday-delayed update which I hope will be followed by wet yet up-to-date photos later today.

First, the Chimney Updates! Tahir and Adam roll along toward perfection and a very pleased architect/designer watches happily from the ground (most of the time....I love getting up amongst the action with the StoneDudes!).

Tahir and Adam strip all the stone away from the existing fireplace. It turns out the stone was so poorly applied that there was no saving it.

The first bricks which will make the new chimney go into place.

After some discussion we decided to raise the left hip on the chimney and give it a more gradual sweep into the final rise. The hip will be covered with Belgian Bluestone.

Meanwhile, the back chimney receives flashing where it meets the sloping roof and work continues up towards completion

Standing just to the right of the existing chimney (that's where I am standing to take this photo), one sees Tahir working high atop the new chimney in the back making it ready to receive its "cap" (that is our little pride and joy....more to come!)

The final preparations for the cap as Tahir and Adam fill the top of the chimney! More on this in the afternoon! (yes, I am up there with them)!!!

The framing plows ahead. Here and there you will see the two rural Connecticut wanna-be-ghetto youth (they are not but they think and dress as if they were) of Seamless Metal Roofing in Thomaston CT making a snail's progress on what should be a 3 day (if your are being generous) job. I will not devote too much attention to the barn/garage roof until it is actually done....if that ever happens.

CHECK BACK WITHIN 24 HOURS FOR UPDATES!!!

Country Très Chic

2008-09-19T09:19:00.007-04:00

The October issue of Elle Decor has a great article on a house that I have had the pleasure of having been in. It belongs to two fantastic men, one of them happens to be my boss! It's the country house, up here in our corner of Connecticut, of John Truex and Richard Lambertson. Together, they are the super-talented designers for, yes you guessed it, Lambertson Truex. Richard also co-owns with Suzanne Cassano the shop I work for, Privet House and that has also had press attention in Elle Decor, Travel & Leisure and 1st Dibs.

Not only are John and Richard the sweetest people, they are fabulous hosts as well! At parties, guests circulate through most of the ground floor of the house, from the entrance, through the living room, into the library and through the dining room to the kitchen.

Richard gave my husband and I a tour of the house the first time we were there. The private areas include the joint office (where all the LT magic happens!), the master suite and the master bath.

The absolutely beautiful grounds were designed by Michael Trapp.

Needless to say, the house is absolutely fantastic, and it reflects very well John and Richard's personality, mostly the latter's, who buys, with Suzanne, for Privet House, with the same keen eye! The article is so worth reading, not just for details on the images but also to get to know John and Richard a little bit better - so if you can get your hands on a copy of the magazine, please do!

Barn Update

2008-09-14T07:45:00.026-04:00

Finally, somewhere out of the incessant rain.

The last week has seen some rapid changes at the homestead. The barn/garage is almost complete (from the outside) and we now have a place 95% rain protected to store windows and other building supplies. In addition, we can now begin completion of the garage space for the upstairs apartment which will one day become the "in-laws" apartment.

The last touches required are the garage doors (under construction off site) and the standing seam metal roof (due Monday barring rain). Up until now the tar paper on the roof (roofing felt) has been keeping the interior of the barn dry. Here is the fruit of last week's labour.

Early in the week the front of the barn nears completion

After a some fussing and arranging, with the front of the barn completed, the cupola is strapped in and ready for the ride to the peak

Through the access hole high at the peak, a view of the cupola approaching its final home

Making the final adjustments to center and bed the cupola, Art and Jim signal to Bill who is operating the crane far below

The cupola in place with the building inspector verifying grading heights in the foreground

With the barn/garage ready for its roof, Bill, Art and Jim turn their attention to the cross-through to the house (externally framed to the right of the barn)which will contain the mudroom, laundry, and pantry. This shoulder to the house will receive a raised seam roof like the barn and clapboard siding like the house, making it a smooth and articulate visual transition from the barn to the house.

The cross-through is at two levels. The barn/garage sits nearly 26"/66cm below the finished floor of the actual house. Rather than make this transition to abruptly with four stairs descending to the garage slab, the occupant will cross four subtle and intentional thresholds to reach the garage. Each threshold will serve to demark space in the dwelling by dividing the spaces into five separate events. This lends a sense of intent and organization to the spaces. I believe, contrary to many architects today, that one of the greatest requirements of our profession is to create space that conforms to the user's needs but also subtly shapes one's sense of the space (today, far too much attention is focused on creating shocking and exciting spaces that garner glory and attention at the expense of creating truly comfortable and usable space). By doing this, the occupants needs for order are perfectly balanced. The floor plan below will help me elaborate on this point.

The above floor plan shows the transition from space 1 (the kitchen) to space 5 (the garage slab). Obviously life is full of transitions and no doubt you could find hundreds in any given house. However, some are more important than others and this is one I gave careful consideration to. Some houses open straight into a garage, often with three stairs right out side of the door from the kitchen or back hallway. I wanted a scheme which was more organized, one which allows the occupant to transition smoothly from space to space and to be able mentally to adjust to each space and use them (ie. as a laundry area or mudroom). The journey starts in the kitchen, the heart or nucleus of our life in the house, into a service area of the kitchen (associated with the kitchen but secondary), then down two steps into the mudroom(the informal arrival point of the house within eye shot of the heart of the house), then into the stair hall/garage access(visually and physically separated from the heart of the house by the informal access area to both), and finally into the garage. In the end, if my plan has been executed well, the occupant will most likely be aware of my intent only on a subconscious level as they use the space and something about it will just "work".

With this elaborate sidetrack explained, I will continue with the progress on the barn and cross-through.

With the cross-through closed and ready for its roof, we turned to the windows which arrived on Friday. These represent nearly 10% of my budget for the house and were a carefully thought out choice. That is a subject for another post but suffice to say, we selected Marvin Ultimate Clad windows which are, in my opinion, one of the best stock windows available on the market before one begins looking at custom built windows. Here are the results of the the first four in place in the barn.

Marvin Windows are extremely energy efficient, so much so that they are not taxed in Connecticut as part of the tax break program for green/energy efficient building. In a later post about these windows I will show all of the prep steps to install a window but here you can see Art positioning a large casement between two awning windows. Caulking was a huge issue here and I insisted on being present on the lift to apply the caulk to make sure our windows do not leak and are well sealed against air penetration.

The windows in, trim and siding painted, all that remains is for the roof to be installed Monday and the garage doors in two weeks. Sometime later on I will be cladding the foundation in stone but that will have to wait until the house is closed up.

The Twin Chimneys

2008-09-06T09:53:00.020-04:00

The Back Chimney Begins!

About two Mondays ago Tahir and Adam or A&T Masonry arrived on site to get things kicked off with the main fireplace for the house. By completely blind luck I nailed a bull's-eye with my foundation and masonry guys. Both were shots in the dark and both are the best I could ask for. They take tremendous pride in their work and they are very good at their craft. They do not as of yet have a website but they can be reached at 860.350.0505 for a punctual and extremely professional quote.

Adam (left) and Tahir (right) arrive and prepare to mix mortar for the base of the chimney. We met Tahir in New Milford to pick stone and brick and he arranged their delivery to the site.

For those of you who follow the blog and remember the foundation work, you will recognize the shape of this space as the bump out at the end of the sitting room. Tahir and Adam first build a mesh reinforced net of #4 rebar and then create a cement slab 2'/61cm into the room and out to the edge of the wall. The ceramic rectangle in the center is the shoot for ash to be swept down into a box in the basement. Ulitmately the entire chimney structure will rely on this base.

With the new fresh slab dried and inspected, Tahir and Adam begin to build the interior firebox. These bricks differ from exterior building bricks. They have been heated to very high temperatures to "temper" them to withstand the heat of a wood fire. Each brick must be submerged in water prior to being added to the wall. They are so porous that they soak the water out of the mortar if they are not wetted first.

The firebox completed. Note the hole in the middle-bottom of the firebox which leads to the ash box in the basement.
Within a few days Tahir and Adam had built the second firebox back-to-back with the interior firebox (the outside firebox is 16"/40.5cm above the interior firebox). The opening in the framed wall is closed with CMU's (concrete masonry units) and the brick veneer starts up from the ledge created by the foundation wall.

The chimney flanks in twice left, right, and front as it rises. The ledge created by the step back will be covered by a piece of blue stone at a 45 degree angle (this will be evident later when they install the details). Here is a nice view of the exterior firebox. The bottom of the box is a row of brick with its face end out and the top is a soldier course. Now, this is where a good craftsmen like Tahir and Adam stand above someone knocking out chimneys as fast as they can with crews of six. The row of soldier bricks across the top stand on a steel lintel (steel angle) which looks like a metal L. If they were just to set the bricks on the angle one would stand in front of the box and see the steel underneath the brick. However, Tahir and Adam notch out the underside of the brick so that a lip of brick hangs down covering the steel angle. Its a small touch but ten little details add up to an exceptional and breathtaking final product.

Here is a good view of the L,R,F flank made as the chimney narrows on the way towards the top. These will be capped with blue stone. The chimney flanks one final time before reaching the summit but only on the left and right. My drawing below shows this in more detail. The chimney is progressing well. Soon we will stop while we wait for the roof on the main house to be framed. In the meantime Tahir and Adam will concentrate on my secondary disaster...uh...chimney on the side of the house. The gentleman who owned the house before me was less than reputable, to put things nicely, and the stone veneer is so poorly applied that it must all come off. This changes things a bit which I will go into at a later date. Needless to say it is costing me a nice chuck to fix his mistakes and we will be losing the stone bottom-brick topped chimney we were so excited about. But we bend and twist and in the end frequently it is these small things that have a great and unexpected result.