The electrician walked us through in a very, very thorough, but efficient manner, the electrical layout. \u00a0I came onsite at 7:30am on Monday and he and his team had clearly been onsite for quite awhile as he had put in the rough ins for electrical power every 12′ feet in each room and had marked out locations for switches. \u00a0Also he had identified areas he needed decisions on. Fantastic stuff and we worked through things effectively I hope<\/p>\n
Inside the house, some of the key decisions we made were:<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n We then moved outside<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Miscellaneous<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n A lot of stuff – fortunately he was taking notes on the studs as we went and it was mostly pretty standard stuff. \u00a0Also, I almost forgot – Paul and I discussed that the plans call for a 7 foot garage door – he proposed going to a 7′ 6″ door, and lowering the level of the concrete slab for more clearance and headoom. \u00a0This would also eliminate a concrete ramp up to the garage door. \u00a0This all sounded great to me – less site work and mounding of dirt and gravel, the ramp would crack and break anyway and more room sounds awesome. \u00a0Paul is going to take a machine in and remove some of the gravel from the garage.<\/p>\n Masonry<\/strong><\/p>\n On Thursday morning, I met with the mason, who Paul has worked with extensively and who has done several Rumford Fireplaces. \u00a0The fireplace is a 36″ Superior Clay design, and as you can see in the pictures below is tilted slightly towards the center of the room. \u00a0We decided on a traditional concave grout contour, the fact that the chimney should be square on its self – so it would be at an angle to the room with 90 degree corners. \u00a0We did a last second addition of a bluestone cap on the top of the chimney as an anti-icing attempt (plus it will look good I think – a nice capping horizontal line.<\/p>\n Kitchen & Bath<\/strong><\/p>\n Finally, I went and met with Shelby Brown at Fairview<\/a> – the kitchen designer Paul recommended. \u00a0Finally I remembered someone’s name (but I do have her business card so it is hardly fair – lol).<\/p>\n In in prior post, I noted that we eliminated the overhead ventilation hood – by doing a downdraft cook top and venting under the house. \u00a0That freed up some new thoughts – often a dangerous thing!<\/p>\n I pulled out my copy of Atomic Ranch’s book on mid-century modern interiors<\/a>\u00a0 (ISBN\u00a01423619315) (which as an aside, is a great book. \u00a0 So is their other book and their magazine). \u00a0There is a Eichler remodeled house with a fantastic kitchen in it (Shelby has my copy of the book – a new one is on the way!) – so I can’t give you the page number. \u00a0However it had a few interesting features that I have now blatantly stolen<\/p>\n In their kitchen, same as mine, the island is an eating area, with a stone counter top – to support an extended off the end overhang, there is a drilled I-Beam for counter-lever support and the cabinets have aluminum picture frame faces with a translucent pebbled glass main surface.<\/p>\n We are going to riff on this – I found online aluminum I-Beams at Onlinemetals.com<\/a>\u00a0and they were cheap – so I ordered two 7 foot lengths of 6 inch I-Beams – so we can screw up without having to wait for more delivery. \u00a0We are going to weld on a 1\/4″ aluminum plate to spread the support out and use it to support the countertop weight off the island at the opposite end of the island from the cook top.\u00a0 To provide visual balance, from the living room side, we added one small cabinet that is aluminum with a pebbled glass front. \u00a0The rest of the cabinets are all maple. \u00a0I am sure this is impossible to visualize without a picture, but I am hoping it will look really neat and it should be very functional. \u00a0My Mom pointed out that if you are eating near the cook top, that may not be super nice – so we are placing at the end of the island and the seating clustered around the other end<\/p>\n So – kitchen decisions:<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Bathroom decisions:<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Miscellaneous:<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n To help fund the changes in the kitchen, we decided that I will self provide furniture around the computer\/office.<\/p>\n I will ask Paul to build in the computer desk however – just to have something to use right out of the gate.<\/p>\n Initial layout of the fireplace – which includes a cold air intake and ash dump in the hearth floor into the chimney stack. There is a door into the chimney stack, under the house, for removing ashes. I have never used a fireplace with features like this before – I will need final instructions before using!<\/p><\/div>\n The Rumford Fireplace taking shape. The hearth will be a piece of bluestone. Note the chimney is square but is at an angle in the corner – Deck House designed it this way in order to angle the fire more towards the room instead of just sitting in the corner<\/p><\/div>\n Lots of raw materials! Paul put a temporary beam under the house to help carry the load presented by the materials that will eventually make up the chimney stack<\/p><\/div>\n The view from the entry, across the future kitchen and into the computer\/office area on the left and the living room on the right<\/p><\/div>\n 6″ Aluminum I-Beam for supporting the island counter top via cantilevering. I think we will weld on a 1\/4″ aluminum plate to the top of the I-Beam for greater coverage<\/p><\/div>\n The north side sliding half height windows are in – they are very smooth operating<\/p><\/div>\n The wall of windows along the front of the house. Note the windows down low will open out (they are in the garage drying after being stained). Floor registers on this side of the house for the forced air heating are visible to the left of the insulation – the square cut out. There will be floor mounted power outlets in this area<\/p><\/div>\n The orange PVC piping is the sprinkler system. We are going to paint the exposed portions<\/p><\/div>\n More sprinkler pipe work<\/p><\/div>\n Overhead forced air heating in the bedrooms. Paul, the electrician and I decided that we would have lighting only come from wall outlets – no in ceiling can lights in the bedrooms since the ceiling heights are not super high – the lack of spread makes it not worth while<\/p><\/div>\n Scaffolding and materials for the exterior chimney. Brick, with a top mounted gasketed chimney flue. We decided on the spot to add brick columns and a blue stone top stone over the chimney to try and avoid the flue from icing up in the winter. It should look good as well. Hopefully not too expensive an add!<\/p><\/div>\n\n
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