The Doors

Rob and I wanted doors at his office that he could shut; if it got too messy and he wanted it "out of sight out of mind" or if he needed privacy or quiet, or just wanted to keep busy grandchildren out if necessary (although that hasn't been a problem yet). 

Even though his office is long enough for the doors to swing in we didn't want them hung that way because they would block access to the video rack.  We didn't want the doors swinging into the family room either because we didn't want to worry about impeding on the pool table area. 

I was hoping we could do pocket doors, but those are more expensive to install and can be troublesome down the road.  We waffled with different ideas for a while and considered going with narrower French Doors so the swing wouldn't be so wide.  While browsing the internet we saw some examples of sliding barn doors and immediately recognized that this was a perfect solution. 

 (Both of these images are from realcarriagedoors.com)

It's a fun way to add character while being practical and useful. 

Check out the gallery of doors at this website

Our builder suggested a company that we could purchase our hardware from, but frankly, it was too boring for us so I hunted down some other options.  Once we had decided on the hardware we were going to use to mount the doors we needed doors.

Rob's brother-in-law, Bryce, is an accomplished woodworker so we asked him if he would consider helping us make some doors.  He was willing but we hadn't even really gotten into working out details when Rob asked if it wasn't possible to purchase existing doors and not worry about the hassle and potential difficulty of building doors from scratch.

I'd been looking at our inspiration images and realized that most of the ones we both liked were not really rustic barn doors but were more clean-lined or vintage style doors.  I'd seen vintage and antique doors listed on KSL Classifieds so I got back on and started looking in earnest.  I found a lot of possibilities but it was tough to find two matching doors that were larger than 24" wide. 

I finally called an antique store in town and asked if they carried doors.  I was delighted to hear that they had quite a few available.  Right out in front of the shop were two matching doors.  We looked them over, checked out all the other doors they had and decided these were our doors. 

The doors came out of a motel from southern Idaho that was being torn down.  Unfortunately, the sales associate couldn't remember the town or the name of the motel and the shop was so busy that she didn't have time to call the seller and ask for the details.  I wish I'd asked her to at least try to find out and get back to us.

 I'm enchanted by the numbers.  We got door number 7 and door number 1 (the 1 is facing the back). 

However, I'm not sure exactly what to do about the numbers.  After the doors are cleaned up I am  going to restain them in a dark espresso as they are quite orange right now.  I'm not sure how much the numbers will be impacted / covered up by the stain, and I was also planning on doing a light sanding before applying the stain so that will affect the numbers too.  I thought about tracing the numbers and then repainting them on, or finding a stencil in a similar style and painting numbers that were more meaninful to us personally.  Or, I could just cover them up.  Or, I could tape off a rectangle around the number and leave the original finish there (but honestly - I think that would not really work).

Wouldn't they look awesome painted in a bold color, like the inspiration picture above?  I'm not sure I could convince Rob to go to that extreme though.

I'd appreciate any suggestions, ideas or experience you have to share, in cleaning the old wood, in staining the new color and especially what to do about those numbers.
 

I suspect the hardware is brass plated and not true brass, but it's still pretty cool looking.  We bought some black ceramic knobs and are going to have the brass knobs on the family room side and the black knobs on the office side (unless I change my mind).  We'll just have to make sure that the door stoppers are mounted at the correct distance from center to stop the doors before the knobs crash into the door frame.

The Foamboard Arrives

June 8

Once we had decided we were going to install radiant heat in the basement we knew we needed to figure out a way to insulate between the earth, the tubing and the concrete slab.  It's important to keep the heat in the house and not have it travel down to heat the earth.  That would not only be a waste of energy it would also be super expensive.  One option for below slab insulation is to use Bubble Foil.  Another option is to lay down Extruded Polystyrene Foam Board (also known as XPS).

Rob and I talked read what information we could find online, asked lots of questions and decided that XPS was the best option for us.  Some installers & suppliers think the bubble foil doesn't really have as good an r value as the XPS, so we would have had to lay down two layers, and that doubles the cost.  Also, by using foam board we'd be able to staple the tube right to the board as opposed to having to lay down a layer of concrete reinforcement (we've heard it called cattle fence and cattle guard, but it's really a type of rebar that is in 6" squares and comes in large flat sheets or large rolls) and then zip tie the tubing to that. 

We researched the price and realized that Home Depot had the best price.  After I worked out a design to utilize the best way to lay out the 8'x4' sheets we went down and ordered 61 sheets.

Rob wanted to haul it to our garage in the back of our little truck.  This would have meant multiple trips from the store to our garage, then multiple trips from our garage to the lot.  I gave him my funny look, which I'm pleased to say he recognized instantly (it's only taken 30 years) so he quickly asked about delivery.  Then I gave him my big smiley face. 

After we rescheduled the delivery once (due to delays getting the foundation started), we tried to reschedule it a second time, but they couldn't fit us in, so we just had it dropped at the lot a couple of days early. Luckily, it was well packaged and protected from the elements and from UV rays. This stuff doesn't like being exposed to the elements so we wanted to leave it wrapped up as long as we could.

The truck arrives with our XPS.

The first stack was easy to get off the truck.  The second stack took a little more maneuvering with the fork lift.  The top two bundles actually looked like they were more likely to tip off when we were there in person.  But the driver knew just what to do to keep everything balanced.

Noah and Grandpa get a kick out of watching the forklift.

61 sheets of XPS (and our VERY CROOKED porta potty)

We were very glad the foam board was well bundled as we had a pretty good windstorm move through and one of the smaller bundles ended up in the road.  It also made it easier for the crew to move out of the way when they brought the big gravel trucks in.

Kudos to Home Depot.  The employees we worked with for this specific order were great.  The customer service rep in the special order department answered every question we had and was super helpful and friendly.  The driver was pleasant and professional and skilled with his forklift. 

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June 7
The forms were removed from the foundation walls this morning and the concrete continues to cure.  They put a black waterproof material on the exterior walls of all of our living spaces where they would be covered by earth.  It was interesting to look into the garage and see the waterproofing on the inside of the garage wall (the outside of the family room).

The plumbers came in and started on the underground plumbing.  They started on Thursday and finished sometime early Friday morning.

We thought it was hilarious that the plumbers used duct tape to hold this large pipe in place. 

This pipe provides access to the backflow preventer, and once the gravel was placed, the duct tape wasn't necessary anymore.

Rob walked around the basement for a while trying to figure out what all the pipes were for and how they related to the floor plan.  Some were completely obvious (the basement bathroom drains), some we will figure out as the plumbers start working on the main floor and we can actually follow them up through the walls.

June 8
All of the underground plumbing was finished and passed inspection.  That means they are ready to throw the gravel and then we will be able to start on our work in the basement.

Does it look like a house yet?

Progress after a Week of Waiting

The first week of our build went quickly.  They dug the hole, got the forms up for the footings and poured them.

Then we waited. And waited. And waited.

We went to the lot every day and the only changes we noticed were the chalk lines that showed up.  One day our floorplan showed up laminated.  Since the original one that's been up there is looking worse for the wear due to weather exposure, we think the lamination is a good idea.

Rob was getting impatient so he finally asked Jesse to call with an updated schedule and a reason for the delay.  Apparently, the BIG rain we had (? do you remember that BIG rain ?  we remember a brief storm move through...) slowed down the concrete work on other jobs which then impacted our job.

But we finally got the text saying our foundation forms were going in so we headed up the hill to see.

I am fascinated to see how the details fit together.  Because our house is built on a slope the footings were at different levels in the ground.  I was wondering how they would accomodate for the change of levels and this picture shows a good example of the foundation stepping down.  It was fun to see this little hole between the backyard and the garage, but I hope they do a good job filling it in.

This is just a good overall view from the back of the house showing all the parts and pieces that need to be organized and kept track of.

Out of this chaos will come a strong foundation.

We didn't actually see this truck work but it has a crane which is used for lifting the metal "baskets" in and out of the hole.  You can see the "baskets" in the image above - they hold the pieces that are used in creating the foundation forms.  I'm sure there is an official name for them, but all the subs were gone by the time we got there.

My gratuitous large truck picture.

We Have Footings

Thursday, May 24
We went up to the lot this afternoon to meet Jesse, our build supervisor.  He seems like he will be a nice guy to work with and reassured us that our presence was always welcome on the site, as was our input. 

When we got there the footing forms were all in place and the pumper truck showed up and got situated for the first concrete pour.   It was pretty impressive to watch the pipe extend from the truck. There was just a minute where the truck bucked a little bit and Jesse said he'd been on a job where the ground was too soft and the driver hadn't set his bracing properly and when the crane and pipe extended out in front of the truck the balance and weight were off and the truck tipped over.  That would have been crazy to see and I'm glad the driver today did everything correctly.

The forms were ready and the pumper truck was ready and in place so we just needed to wait for the concrete trucks to show up. 

We only stayed to watch them pour the first few feet of footings.  The driver of the pumper truck wore a remote control unit around his neck and controlled the flow of concrete and even moved the crane with the joystick controls on the box.  See kids, playing video games can prove helpful in your job as an adult! 

We came back after running to Home Depot to order 61 sheets of extruded polystyrene boards that we will be laying down in a week and a half.  Luckily, HD will deliver them right to the lot for us so we don't have to figure out how to transport them and where to store them.  We'd love a little help laying down the foam boards (and getting them cut to fit around the plumbing and monolithic footings) and then getting our pex tubing laid down and fastened to the boards.  As of right now we are shooting for Tuesday, June 5th through Thursday, June 7th.  Those days are a little flexible depending on weather and subs.  We are already about a day and a half behind the "original schedule", but what happens on a spreadsheet doesn't always translate perfectly to real life.

Seeing the forms and concrete laid out like this really help us get a feel for the house.  Of course, it helps that I've been designing the hydronic heating plan on Visio and Rob's been designing the wiring plan so we both have the floorplan pretty well memorized. 

I LOVE seeing our trees peeking into the picture.  I LOVE that we have trees!

What can I say?  It's wet concrete.  It's our house.  It's inevitable.  This will be under the front door for ever.  After I drew it in, Rob started getting second thoughts about ruining the integrity of the finish so I smoothed it over a little with my finger.

Here we are standing at the footings to the front door of our house.  The garage wall is the long wall to the right in the picture.  All of these footings are going to support our house and keep it stable and safe.

Jesse said they will let the footings cure for a couple of days and then get the forms in for the foundation.  I'm excited to see those go in because then it will really start to look like a house.
We have a dumpster parked right in front of our lot.  Literally.  I hope I don't have to spend too much time going around cleaning up after the subs.  Today we found a beer can, the crust of someone's sandwich and this uneaten lunch. 

The Dig

Visionary Homes  staked out the house on Monday, May 21 and started the dig on Tuesday, May 22.  We were flying back from Florida, so Grandma and Granddad H went up to get a couple of quick pictures for us.  By the time we got home it was close to 11pm so we went up to the lot first thing Wednesday morning.

This was the view we saw as we entered the subdivision.  That's our hole and our dirt!  If you look at the top of the picture you can see the sunlight moving towards the mountains.  We were there about 7:30 am.  We didn't feel like it was dark up there, but you can see we actually were in the morning shadow.

They started later in the day on Tuesday than they had originally planned so they didn't quite get the hole finished.  Here Rob is standing at the back corner of the single car garage.

This image gives you a pretty good idea of the slope on our lot.  The front corner (near the backhoe) will be the guest bedroom and bathroom.  This lot really will provide a very nice walk-out basement for us.  The deepest edge of the hole will be the tv wall and sitting area for the family room. 

 

Here Rob is standing in the sitting area of the basement family room at the back of the house.  You get a really good feel for the slope here.  We weren't sure why there were different levels of soil dug out.  I guess we'll understand better when we go back to see the footings poured.

This is a good shot of the hole.  We are standing at the northeast corner of the house.  I've added a very simplified layout so you can get a feel for the flow of rooms.  The family room is in the bottom corner closest to where I was standing to take the picture.  There will be one bedroom and a small laundry in between the office and the south bedroom (thanks to Brian for the idea of adding a laundry to our basement).

Granddad sent a text saying we had good topsoil.  I was excited to see for myself.  From walking the lot before the dig, I was afraid it would be super rocky.  I'm going to have to watch closely to make sure they don't cart too much of this good stuff away.  Our builder was saying he might push some of it over to the neighboring lot to our west.

Hydronic Heating 101

I've been spending a lot of my time working on the hydronic heating plan for the basement (and I haven’t even started looking at the main floor layout yet). I feel like I'm taking a self-taught remedial course and wish I had just a little more concrete information available to me.  Luckily, Ray gave us a thorough heat-loss calc so I can figure out how much tubing to run in each room and each zone.

We have to insulate under the slab. I can’t find an answer as to which is the best way to go - extruded polystyrene foam boards or bubble foil bubble?  The boards are easy to tie the PEX tubes down to, but can shift during the concrete pour which would created in a weaker floor.  The bubble is super easy to lay down exactly where it is needed and simplifies the concrete pour, but we’d have to lay down rebar on top of it and tie the PEX down with zip ties which would then have to be cut and cleaned up so the ends don’t float around in the finished floor (and it appears to be more expensive).

IF we go with the foam boards where do we rent or borrow a staple gun so we can easily tie the tubes to the boards? And how do we cut them? Rob wants to use a hot wire knife. We don't have one. We can use a razor knife, but that way is very messy and dulls the blades quickly.

We have to make sure we don’t put insulation where there are going to be monolithic footings.  I am pretty sure I have those dimensions on our floor plan so I can adjust the insulation and tubing layout but what does that do to the concrete pour?  And how do I get the PEX where it needs to go while avoiding those footings?

Do we heat the closets or not?  Do we insulate under the storage areas?  How do I keep the little hallway where all the tubes come in and out of the boiler room from overheating?  What if I read the dimensions wrong and run the tubes under the wall instead of under the door?  Do we have to do a pressure test for leaks?  If so, How?!?  Rob is finding all kinds of clever little "helps" online, but each of them adds to the bottom line so we have to determine how necessary they really are.

Everything I've read says this is one of the easiest DIY projects to undertake so why am I stressing so much about this?  Why isn't there more specific information available for the beginning DIYer so I can have these questions answered?

We are meeting with our GC next week to review our layout and  because we have to be ready to go install as soon as the rough plumbing is finished and the gravel is compacted. 

So, Here is our first plea for help.  If you are available and willing we can use help laying out insulation and PEX tubing sometime in the next couple of weeks.  Let me know.  We will feed and hydrate you and give you our unending thanks and gratitude.