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!!