Not an “It is finished!” post
But, at least, a “We have our kitchen back!” post.
Today I handed my punch list to Lou and he sent the cleaning service to make our remodeled space habitable.
The punch list seems epic to me, who has never done a remodel before. And I don’t know when the furnishings for the third floor will arrive, so moving in there has to wait, but still. Cooking! We redid the kitchen, and it became a place where we can cook. Cook food. And then eat it. All in our very own house. It seems amazing.
Not the first time it's been in the niche, but this time it gets to stay.
Until we cook that food, we can store it here:
Ever tried to find a large fridge that doesn't have ice and water through the door?
As much as I missed cooking, what I really missed was having a kitchen sink. This, however, was definitely worth the wait:
Only the finest liquids will be dumped down this sink.
Not every item on the punch list is the result of workflow. The decisions keep coming. Our electrician thinks we should have a black line painted on white switchplates. My middle child and I like the plain black. All opinions are welcome — vote now!
Remodeling allows you to become someone who cares a lot about switchplates. A LOT.
Index to my posts
From oldest to newest:
Building and blogging 9/17/2009
No well, no water service – what do you do? 9/18/2009
Floor plans 9/23/2009
This week at Blizzard Gulch: plumbing, cellar door, lighting 9/27/2009
Where to get good stuff for renovation and log homes 10/1/2009
Basement pitfalls and plans 10/2/2009
Globe finials: an old roof detail you can revive today 10/6/2009
Rough plumbing inspected and approved 10/20/2009
Log set Part 1 10/21/2009
Log set Part 2 plus a log building bibliography 10/23/2009
Useful web links for new old houses and log homes
I’ve got the linoleum loonies 10/28/2009
This week at Blizzard Gulch: snow, mud and stairs 10/31/2009
Old and new stonework in Beulah 11/1/2009
More pictures of our prototype in Idaho 11/11/2009
Hurry-up backfilling 11/17/2009
This week at Blizzard Gulch: grass, snow, mud, stairs and lights 11/17/2009
I’ve got the linoleum loonies
Why does everyone use vinyl flooring instead of linoleum, even though the latter lasts longer and is “greener”? Because vinyl is cheaper? Maybe, but I suspect it has a lot to do with the fact that you can actually go to a store, see it, and buy it! Installers are everywhere in case you don’t want to lay it yourself. I’m finding out this is not the case with linoleum, at least in these parts.
The Colorado Forbo Marmoleum rep gave me the name of a company in Pueblo West that sells Marmoleum. We make a trip out there today to check the place out and, after much driving around, find the address. It’s a little warehouse-type building hidden back off the street in an industrial area. There’s no name whatsoever on the building and the door is forbiddingly steel and windowless. And it’s actually a painting business. Hmm! This doesn’t look right. Looks like it’s just a place where they keep their equipment.
So I call another Forbo telephone number and get the name of another Pueblo dealer. They have a display of Marmoleum Click, a different kind of linoleum tile that we don’t want. No, they can’t get what we want, not even by special order. Why? Because they don’t have a certified installer on their staff. What difference does that make, since we’re going to install it ourselves? Because they don’t, they can’t, they won’t, and they are about ready to get rid of the Click display anyway. And that’s that. Ye gods, how many sales do they lose because they haven’t gotten around to sending someone to the installation class?
Now what? Are we going to have to go to Denver or Colorado Springs to find someone who will sell us this stuff? Or buy it online from heaven-knows-who? In frustration I call the painting company, expecting to get an answering machine at best, and to my complete amazement a nice man answers and says sure, we can get it for you. He will call Forbo to make sure the colors we want are still available and let me know. He acts like he understands what I am talking about.
I should point out that we are nowhere near ready to lay linoleum. So why the rush? Because it’s getting close to the end of the year and very soon Forbo will discontinue some colors. You and I know exactly which ones those will be! They already got rid of Cool Green, a nice 1930s color, in their heavier weight linoleum but I think — and this has to be confirmed — that it’s currently available in a lighter weight material suitable for the upstairs bathroom.
Edit: I waited and waited for the painting company to call back. I had to call them twice before I got any help at all, and it was meager help at that. So in the end I ordered tiles by phone from Building for Health Eco-Center in Carbondale, Colorado. The owner, Cedar Rose Guelberth, was immensely helpful and tracked down everything I wanted. She even contacted Forbo Marmoleum and found out that they do recommend, and have instructions for, the use of their product as a countertop material. I’ll be ordering from Cedar Rose again.
These will be the linoleum schemes for the Blizzard Gulch “Ranger Station”. (Sorry for the fuzzy images. I haven’t figured out a way to make them sharp once they’re loaded into the blog post.)
First floor linoleum plan, all in the heavier-weight Marmoleum Dual tile. Moraine (gray) in the bathroom. Checkerboard of Moraine and White Marble (off-white) in the utility room and kitchen, except for a little "rug" of Bleeckerstreet (red) and Butter (soft yellow) in the kitchen.
Second floor linoleum. White Marble and Cool Green (both in the lighter weight Marmoleum MCT tile) in the bathroom.
In the windowless basement half-bath that we recently decided to add, a cheerful checkerboard of Bleeckerstreet and Butter.
Useful web links for new old houses and log homes
When you’re hand-building a period house, with unusual characteristics, in a rural area with wild critters, thinking of adding solar power and trying to incorporate some “green qualities”, you of course poke around on the Internet. It’s amazing how many resources there are!
Smith and Speed Mercantile homestead supplies and tools.
Cut and Dry Wood Chinking chinking with saplings, also restoration.
Formica VirrVarr and Boomerang classic countertop laminate.
Historic Colors of the National Trust for Historic Preservation Valspar paint website.
Brown wall plate screws for those vintage brown bakelite switchplate and outlet covers from eBay.
A History of the Architecture of the USDA Forest Service
Forest Fire Lookout Association
University of Idaho native plant seedlings
Orchardgrass seed (naturalized in Beulah)
Harlequin’s Gardens well-adapted and native plants for Colorado.
Western Native Seed native shrub, wildflower and grass seed for the Rocky Mountains and western Great Plains.
Beulah School for the Natural Sciences webcam
Retro Renovation is an online decorating newsletter for 1940s, 1950s and 1960s homes.
Controlling Nuisance Woodpeckers in New Mexico
American Restoration Tile has period colors, shapes and patterns.
Our custom log builder, Pedersen Logsmiths, has a lot of information about log construction that is useful in the initial planning stages.
PEX tubing: what it is, what it’s used for, its advantages.
Edge trim for laminate countertops: New York Metal
Door and window details in PDF, DWG, and DXF formats. Without the DWG details to import into AutoCAD, I’d have had a much harder time designing the house. Thank you! to Eagle Windows and Simpson Doors.
Working With Linoleum Flooring by This Old House magazine
Discussion of the use of linoleum as a “green” countertop surface.
Another discussion, ditto.
A YouTube scene from Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House
Another YouTube scene from Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House
The Preservation of Historic Log Buildings (National Park Service)
Rent a historic Forest Service cabin, fire lookout or ranger station
When visiting Grand Teton National Park, make reservations at Colter Bay Village, a collection of historic cabins refurbished for vacation rentals. Our bedroom is patterned after one of these cabins.
Cabin 1009 at Colter Bay Village, Grand Teton National Park. We copied the low-pitched roof, the ceiling boards, and the sliding bedroom windows.
Deco to Disco “20th century furnishings for the 21st century”. A shop in Portland, Oregon.
Floors & Other Wonderful Things
The floors planks for the hardwood floors are reclaimed wood from a gym floor that was in a high school in Hilsboro. The floors look a little funny in the place at this time, because they still have all of the gymnasium markings on them. When I walk through the house, I feel as though I should be dribbling a basketball in the house and looking for a hoop to shoot it into. Of course those free throw lines will come off when the floors are sanded. After sanding and finishing, the floors will look like beautiful finished maple.
Reclaimed Maple Floors (dining room)
Reclaimed Maple Floors (Entry)
Reclaimed Maple Floors (Living Room)
I know that bamboo flooring is in vogue these days, but I much prefer reclaimed wood floors. Bamboo still necessitates that it be grown and harvested and processed somewhere and then shipped here. By contrast, using reclaimed wood puts no additional demand on the market for harvesting new resources (bamboo or trees or anything else). It is also readily available locally so there is minimal transport required for it. So, all things considered, I think it is far more sustainable to reuse existing wood, as opposed to growing, harvesting, processing, and shipping new wood for a project like this. In addition to that, reclaimed wood has a story that comes with it. It has been somewhere before, and the story of where it has come from is usually quite interesting. Also, I just really like the way older wood looks.
While all of this progress has been happening on the inside, there has also been some more detail work done to the outside. The front columns are wrapped and detailed. All that remains is the railings. The porch decking has also been laid down, and it looks phenomenal. Unfortunately, I don’t have a good picture of it right now, because it is covered to protect it from the elements until it gets a treatment. The reason it looks so amazing is because it is also reclaimed wood. Specifically, it is wood that was salvaged from the garage that used to stand on the lot when we bought it. Rather than just tear the garage down and scrap it, we decided to keep as much wood out of it as possible for reuse in the house, and the decking was a perfect application for this. The planks are fairly wide and have a rich grain to them, as only old wood can. I’ll be sure to get a photo of that as soon as I can. In the meantime, I suggest checking in to the builder’s web site for more updated pictures: http://www.bridgecityinc.com/
Front
Front Porch Details
Log Set Part 2 plus a log building bibliography
Let’s continue with the log set. Back to Part 1
In reality it took several days of work to get all the logs up. Don’t let this post lead to you to believe it was all done in a day!
This particular style of log construction is called “round log chink style” or “saddle notch”. Chinking between the logs, which I’ll post about another time, fills the spaces between logs and allows for the taper and bumpiness of hand-peeled logs. There are attractive qualities about Swedish cope or “chinkless” construction that we considered. So, too, with square-hewn logs with dovetailed corners as well as the massive logs typical of Alaskan log buildings. Hewn logs are as typical of the early West as are round logs, and historically there were many hybrids and uncommon or regional methods of construction. These days you can have anything, including adobe/log combinations. At one point we even considered a log/straw-bale combination but that turned out to be too complicated. It was the log ranger station in Stanley, Idaho (which I talk about in my first post here) that finally settled the question of what style our log house would be.
You can learn more about styles of log construction at Pedersen Logsmiths and at the websites of other log builders. Various notches are pictured and described at Jeff’s website.
Okay, on with the show!
Think of how Lincoln Logs go together. Of the first course of logs, some have to be half logs, split in half lengthwise. Otherwise, you'd end up with a gap between logs and floor. Well, to be technical, this is the subfloor, painted for weather protection. The finish floor is a future operation, but if you look close you can see a 3/4 inch plywood rim that holds the logs above the subfloor by the thickness of the finish floor boards.
Where logs end without being notched together with other logs, such as at door and window openings, the log ends are held in place with vertical rebar and small plywood spacers. Here one of our helpers cuts plywood into 3-inch squares for the spacers.
Another helper cuts slabs of fiberglass insulation to place in the saddle notches (where logs cross).
Saddle notches are half-round-shaped cuts that allow logs to overlap. Here we have two courses of logs plus a half log. Eventually the half log will be trimmed out at the doorway. Notice how much redder the subfloor has become. The porch decking is so filthy it looks like the logs are sitting in dirt.
Here's where the big living room window will go. You can see the notches where the ceiling beams will fit in.
Jack Ferguson's boys spent all day balancing on the highest logs, guiding their dad as he lowered logs into place with the crane. Here it's a ceiling beam.
An early snow left the ground muddy. I've gone over the house several times trying to remove the red clay mud that got tracked all over but I bet I will never find it all.
Jeff Pedersen, our log guy, is as fearless as the Ferguson boys. And as muddy.
Jeff Pedersen had his hands full coordinating the crew of firefighters, neighbors, crane, and teenage boys. He is the best, no doubt about it. We found him by doing an Internet search for log builders. There was something about what he says on his website (www.pedersenlogsmiths.com) that we really related to, and a special visit to his log yard in Challis, Idaho, confirmed our choice. Jeff does perhaps a half-dozen houses and restorations per year. One of his early projects is featured in a book called Hands On Log Homes: Cabins Built on Dreams by Cindy and Art Thiede.
The big ceiling beams, which came from Canada, are supported by several log posts and one metal post.
One of the Ferguson boys keeps himself occupied.
Jeff sharpens his chainsaw.
In the main part of the house, the first floor logs and ceiling beams are in place. There will be two courses of wall logs above this, to form a kneewall in the second floor. The house is actually a story and a half, not two full stories.
I must have fizzled out about the time the gable assemblies were hoisted into place because I have no pictures of that. At any rate, they got there and now they are pinned together by purlins (roof beams). Someone has begun laying the tongue-and-groove boards that form both the ceiling for the first floor and the floor for the upstairs rooms. These, too, are now red with mud.
My watching and snoozing post, a storage container converted temporarily into a bedroom.
Firefighters can do anything, including laying floor boards.
Joseph, Truck of Many Colors, is a major contributor to the house.
Porch posts. The porch is tied to the house by an extra-long wall log.
With the porch posts in place all our crew (with the exception of Jeff, who had window and door bucks to install, and Jack, who would be needed in a day or two when the roof panels were installed) departed and the thrill of the log set was over. It was a grand time, made even more so by all the people who gave up a day (or two or three) of their time to help us and to share the work and excitement. Thanks to them, this will always be a house built with love.
Sometime I’ll tell you about the time when a bunch of folks came to help John install the floor joists under the subfloor. They kept us on schedule to get the logs raised and the house more-or-less dried in before the winter of 2008-2009.
A LOG BUILDING BIBLIOGRAPHY
These are the books that helped form our taste in log homes. For books that are out of print, check eBay and ABE Books.
Building with Logs: Western Log Construction in Context. Jennifer Eastman Attebery. University of Idaho Press 1998. 0-89301-208-4
Hands-On Log Homes: Cabins Built on Dreams. Cindy and Art Thiede. Gibbs-Smith 1998. 0-87905-80 5-6
Rocky Mountain Home: Spirited Western Hideaways. Elizabeth Clair Flood. Gibbs-Smith 1996. 0-87905-704-1
The Mountain West: Interpreting the Folk Landscape. Terry G. Jordan, Jon T. Kilpinen, Charles F. Gritzner. The Johns Hopkins University Press 1997. 0-8018-5431-8
Uncle Sam’s Cabins: A Visitor’s Guide to Historic U.S. Forest Service Ranger Stations of the West. Les Joslin. Wilderness Associates 1995. 0-9647167-1-2
Welcome to 1915 Bungalow Remodel!
A few years ago, we bought a one-story 1915 bungalow. The modest two-bed one-bath home had a well-kept interior and wonderfully landscaped yard. As if the beautifully updated kitchen and bath, hardwood floors, box-beam and coved ceilings, original built-ins and arbor were not enough, the real selling point of the home was the full, unfinished basement. At 1500 sf, the original home was a little small for us, but we could easily double the area by finishing the basement.
After a couple of years of hemming and hawing, I finally completed the drawings and specifications for the basement project. Although it’s true that working full-time designing and remodeling my clients’ homes did leave little time at the end of the day to work on our own project, the real reason for the delay is that architects make the worst clients. I somehow felt compelled to run through all possible design and finish options. I could not stop even as the contractors were bidding. Design is a never-ending process.
The project is now getting underway, and we are all very excited. Please join us as we remodel our bungalow!
Tune in next time for waterproofing the basement!
Log Set Part 1
Raising the logs is the one aspect of log house building that everyone wants to see and participate in. (After that they disappear.) So, here are some pictures of our log raising in October 2008. At that time I was too sick to do much more than watch, take a few pictures, and sleep. Much of what went on I missed or don’t remember.
The ten-inch wall logs came from standing dead timber in Idaho and the larger beams came from standing dead timber in Canada. At the arid Challis, Idaho log yard of Pedersen Logsmiths the logs dried further while other jobs were completed. Jeff Pedersen predicted that there would be little or no settling of the logs after the house was built. A year later, we’ve detected barely any settling. (This is not always the case.)
Our logs lie in Jeff Pederson's Challis, Idaho log yard.
When our turn came, Jeff and his crew hand-peeled the logs, notched them, and constructed the shell according to blueprints from Trent Roman of Northwest Planning and Design. Each log was numbered according to which wall it belonged to and its orientation.
I know from first-hand experience how much work is involving in peeling logs.
Challis, Idaho: Seven rounds of logs are built and you can tell where the windows and doors will be. This picture by Jeff Pedersen was our first view of our future home.
Then the whole thing was disassembled and loaded onto two flatbed trailers. The trucks headed out to Colorado, about a two-day trip. Jeff loaded his pickup with tools, following the trucks.
Meanwhile, John had rounded up friends and firefighter buddies to help at the logset. For me, he set up a cozy bed in a storage building near the action so I could retreat when I got tired but still be able to hear and watch what was going on. A local crane operator was hired and he brought his family of teenage boys. A house was rented for Jeff, who would spend nearly a week supervising and doing detailed fitting work. We were all ready and excited when the trucks pulled in with the logs.
It's a house! The first truckload of logs pulls onto our street.
Volunteer helpers took turns directing Jack Ferguson (operating the crane) and slinging logs in groups to be unloaded into piles.
Bill and Tom guide the crane and put slings under the logs.
Jack Ferguson at the crane controls. We were extremely fortunate to have a local crane available rather than hiring one from Pueblo, thirty miles away.
The gables arrived partially assembled.
Each wall of the house is tagged with a different color slip, numbered according to its place in the wall.
Logs everywhere. You could hardly move around.
Here comes the first log, the beginning of the wall between the main part of the house and the master bedroom "cabin addition". There is no doorway opening in this log. Until Jeff cuts it out later, when the wall is stabilized, everyone steps over it. That's paint, salvaged from a local paint store's mis-mixed stash, on the subfloor. It's intended to help protect the plywood from weather.
Jeff Pedersen brought this apparatus for lifting logs with the crane.
Rough plumbing inspected and approved
Our log house, with its limits on where plumbing lines can be run and its tendency to settle over time, has been a challenge and a learning experience for Troy Taulman, a recently-ordained master plumber. It’s also been uncomfortable. How he wished for an apprentice when he had to slither into the narrow space under the shed dormer’s roof, where we had decided to put the waste vent.
The things a plumber has to do! That white material is a cross-section of the structural insulated panels (SIPs) that provide 12 inches of foam insulation as well as the roof structure itself.
At least it doesn't have cobwebs yet!
Today Doug from the Regional Building Department came to inspect the rough plumbing. An affable guy, he told stories from his own plumbing career and gave Troy tips for future work. Only a couple of minor things needed correction. A couple of drain pipes containing slip joints (to allow for possible log settling) needed some blocking to make sure they’d slip down straight. The two-way cleanout located just outside the house needed to be replaced with double one-way cleanouts or eliminated in favor of cleanouts already installed inside the house. No big deal, these are easy fixes.
Doug (left) and Troy.
Although Troy didn’t get the “atta boy” he wanted from Doug, just an “okay!”, I could tell by Doug’s cheerfulness that he likes Troy and thinks he’s doing a good job. Best of all, he signed off on the work. He’ll be back another day when we get the hot water heat put in.
Those people and their cameras! Doug grins as he signs off on the rough plumbing. The permit is kept in one of those real estate "take one" boxes while a set of plans is stored in the capped blue pipe.
The final 10 percent
“The first 90 percent of a project takes the 90 percent of the time, and the final 10 percent of the project takes the other 90 percent” — apologies to the person who said this first, because I can’t find a citation and therefore can’t give you the credit you deserve for describing our remodel so neatly.
We’ve been so close to done for (what seems like) so long that I no longer have any idea what to say when people ask when I think we’ll be done. Even when I run through the list of things of things that are left on the remodeling side, I start thinking about the interior design elements that are yet to come, and the point at which I sink into a comfy chair and gaze contentedly at the Magnolia shade seems very far away.
That said, tile is providing more joy than pain these days. We have a backsplash. Or two, depending on how you think about it:
The brown paper looks a lot like the butcher block underneath. OK, a little.
The stove went in a while ago, but it came out again so Orlando could work his magic :
Wood, paper, stainless, plastic, lizard, Spock . . . .
I keep heading into the kitchen to admire the backsplash, one tile at a time.
Waiting for grout, once again.
Unfortunately, Orlando’s magic did not extend to getting all the tiles right side up. I caught some of them, but a few hours after he left, I saw that the garlic was upside down, with a clove floating at the top of the tile. I tried to pry it off, but astonishingly, that didn’t work. Then I moved on to figuring there was nothing I could do about it right then. I am confident it can be fixed, and I am confident that I am not the person to fix it.
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