de Jong Dream House

The Color of Light

2012-01-28T21:39:00.002-05:00

A lot of attention is currently being drawn to the debate of the switch from incandescent bulbs to more energy efficient lighting types. The type (or color) of light plays second fiddle. Here's our take on both plus what we selected and why. First a bit of background...

Lighting type

The newer type of lights most used and known to people are the CFLs (Compact Fluorescent Lights) better known as the 'swirly' lights. The next big thing is the switch to LED (Light Emitting Diodes) that are even more efficient, have even longer lifespans but are currently a bit too expensive to be the bulb of choice, especially in bulk quantities. There are additional lighting types such as halogen and fluorescent tubes, but for simplicity-sake we'll focus on the now 'run-of-the-mill' CFLs.

There is still a bit of a debate as to how green the CFLs are (versus ye ol Edison bulb) due to some amount of mercury in them making them technically chemical waste. However you have to offset that by the amount of energy saved and the cost of producing that amount. We like the lower utiliy costs and simply include the busted CFLs in the run for disposing empty batteries which your local DIY store will take. Most people reading this blog will frequent those stores often enough that it wouldn't even mean an extra trip...

We are having all CFL bulbs installed except for two locations where we are using LED, the under-cabinet lights in the kitchen and the ceiling fan in the great room. The latter is simply to avoid having to replace bulbs 14 feet in the air... They now come incased in 'regular' shapes as well so you don't have to look at the swirly part if you don't like too. They also come in almost all light colors now. Again, a little bit of background...

Color Temperature

Most people have heard of cool and warm colors. By convention, yellow-red colors (like the flames of a fire) are considered warm, and blue-green colors (like light from an overcast sky) are considered cool. Color temperature is measured in Kelvin (K) temperature.

Confusingly, higher Kelvin temperatures (3600–5500 K) are what we consider cool and lower color temperatures (2700–3000 K) are considered warm. Cool light is preferred for visual tasks because it produces higher contrast than warm light. Warm light is usually preferred for living spaces because it is more flattering to skin tones and clothing.

Temperature	Source
1,700 K	Match flame
1,850 K	Candle flame, sunset/sunrise
2,700–3,300 K	Incandescent light bulb
3,200 K	Studio lamps, photofloods, etc.
3,350 K	Studio "CP" light
4,100–4,150 K	Moonlight
5,000 K	Horizon daylight
5,500–6,000 K	Vertical daylight, electronic flash
6,500 K	Daylight, overcast
6,500–9,300 K	LCD or CRT screen

For our build we've actually selected CFL bulbs that generate a 5000K / Daylight color. It keeps the paint colors chosen for our house relatively similar between the day and night and is preceived as more 'bright' with the same amount of lumes (light intensity, similar to a wattage equivalent). Also, contrary to what you might think, the bright light acutally helps Jen's headache as it provides more contrast. Plus, we like the color... ;-)

Our bulb of choice - simply because of accessibility from a nearby Lowes - is the Utilitech 60-Watt Equivalent Daylight Compact Fluorescent Light Bulb. We buy 'm in a 4-pack so we always have a couple spares. We did the same brand/color with the kitchen flood lights.

Construction Terms (new tab above the posts)

2012-01-28T20:39:00.002-05:00

Today I found a nice glossery of construction terms from HomeBuilderManual.com. Since they allowed re-posting (with credit of course...) I couldn't resist and it can be very helpful at times when you are talking with your Contractor (yes, that term is in there too) or with the Subs... and no, I don't mean the sandwiches... ;-)

You can link from the top of the blog on the tabs or simply click here.

Lighting, LVT and loving our tile.

2012-01-27T23:47:00.000-05:00

Today I had two sick boys with me all day. (Shocking that Niels got sick after sleeping with Typhoid Daniel the last four nights). After Niels got up, we headed to the house so D could sleep in the car and we could watch the progress.

In-Law Suite:

Jim Duffy hung the lights this morning so the tile guys could work on the floor. The bathroom is nice and bright now.

Making progress.

All done!

Artsy shot to show off the subway tile set.

Mudroom:

Another light up. These Maxim Malibu lights were such a good choice. They provide a ton of light and are quite a bargain. We used daylight CFLs and love the bright light they provide.

We found these hooks for our mudroom cubbies at Lowes.

Now to decide between three hooks or two.

Office:

Niels and Jim ooh and ahh over Niels' Dutch light fixture.

Stairs and Hallway:

Our stair lights have been installed. These will be very nice when my vision is wonky.

The upstairs hallway lights are in. These are the three-light version of our ubiquitous Maxim Malibu light.

Laundry Room:

Putting down the luxury vinyl tile: Konecto Exotic Woods Vertical Bamboo (Caramel)

First peek at the floor by the wall.

And the floor with the maple cabinets.

And done. It went really quickly. It's a stick down plank tile.

View from the window.

All three of us were on the floor today. We'll put a tension rod between the closet and cubbies if we need to hang anything.

D's Bathroom:

Jim hanging D's vanity light.

D's bathroom is nice and bright. The vanity is the Urban from Menards.

We used the same Konecto LVT in D's room.

Close up of the LVT with SW Solaria paint and espresso cabinets.

View from the tub area.

Master Bedroom and Bath:

Our ceiling fan is up! This is the Craftmade Fifth Avenue.

Our water closet with SW Sensuous Gray and the newly grouted tile.

Close up of the grouted (but not yet cleaned) tile. The grout color is Natural Grey, and I think it's a great match for the tile.

We really like how the tile surround turned out.

This tile didn't have any matching trim, so the tile guys cut full pieces for trim.

Close up of the tub surround. Love it!

What a great week of progress it has been! What a difference from last Friday! Work will slow down over the weekend--the tile in the foyer and mudroom will get done. Then, on Monday, the frig and oven will get placed, I think our quartz countertop for the kitchen and command center will be installed Monday or Tuesday, along with the River White granite in the in-law suite. Also, to the delight of everyone, the toilets are coming!!

Open House (not ours)

2012-01-27T21:43:00.005-05:00

One of the (many) reasons we chose Charis as our builder is that we were able to see many, many of the homes they built during open houses they hold before the owners move in. They are a small custom builder so they build about 20 houses a year, maybe less. They don't have a big showroom, so often the "office" is a home they've built for a home owner, which they might rent as a model while the owners' house sells. Everybody wins.

As fun as it is to see the completed homes, because everyone can see and appreciate fixtures and finishes, Charis also hosts "dusty shoe" open houses, which take place before the drywall stage. These were really informative for us as we were more concerned about the structural bones of our house then the finishes that can easily be changed or upgraded later.

Last night we visited Charis' newest completed home. A few highlights:

This is the niche design our house had originally. Very nice, but I love the functionality of our bench. Future home owners will be able to choose either, or something else. That's the beauty of a custom builder.

This floor plan is called the Cooper. My mom says it's the perfect floor plan, and the one she would get if she was building with Charis. Builders can design their own plan--like we did--or customize plans that Charis has already built. These open stairs are so pretty with the stone.

More pretty stone on the kitchen bar.

This is the current model of the Jenn Air floor model oven we bought.

I really like the way their tile is finished with this nickel band.

We chose to use fiberglass inserts for our showers, but if we ever upgrade to til, I would love a design like this.

The entry would work well for a wheelchair.

This is the standard style of closet shelving. I like that it's solid shelves, not wire. Our closets will be going be going in this coming week. Ours will have pull out baskets instead of shelves on the bottom half of the tower.

It's interesting to us that as we look at different homes, we focus on whatever decision we're making. Since we are deciding on our mudroom hooks, their cubbies caught our eye.

We're putting an ironing board drawer in our laundry room upstairs, and putting a regular ironing board in the in-law suite. But, we might add something like this in the in-law closet at some point.

This is another upgrade take away. Maybe when D is older, we'll put a tub base in his shower and tile the top.

We put off finishing the basement for now (sigh), but seeing their finished basement led us to an inspired hour in our basement today talking about how we might lay it out.

The multi-zone HVAC controller. We have 4 zones, one for each floor with a separate zone for the main-level in-law suite.

We LOVE this idea for our mudroom closet! The little ledge is perfect for putting Niels' laptop bag, D's school bag, our shopping bags, etc. Hopefully it won't be too hard to add this to our closet plan.

Seeing their front step reminded us that we need to put a step in our back porch.

They had the same bath fixtures we'll have from the Moen Eva line.

It was really excited for us to see this house because they were always just a step ahead of us in the process. Which means...we're next!

Tile, Tub and Tricked out Window

2012-01-26T23:54:00.000-05:00

This morning, in addition to the fun of seeing the lights go up, I also got to watch the tile guy draw on the floor as we confirmed the direction and set of our tile in the foyer, mudroom and in-law suite.

This is how we make sure that everyone agrees how the tile should look, no matter who places it.

In the mudroom, the backerboard has the natural grey grout we discussed yesterday.

There are three guys working on tile. This is how we know that everyone is working from the same plan:

We're really happy with how the tub surround turned out. It's hard to see because in the dark, my camera seems to have focused on the dust, but around the tub, they placed a full piece of tile, and then cut smaller pieces of the the tile to make a border.

Last night, Niels and I picked a replacement light for one that broke outside, a fire extinguisher for the pantry (gotta love those home owners insurance deductions), and this frosted glass film for the powder room. Here's Todd, our GC, holding up the film while I check the transparency from the front porch. Since we was wearing a neon yellow shirt, I think that it's safe to say that unless you sit nekkid on the window sill, we've mastered the issue of privacy.

The cork was finished today, and is now covered up to protect it. The tile (and maybe the LVT?) will be done by Monday. Jim will continue to work on lights and electrical. Monday, they'll start putting in appliances and plumbing. We're looking at about two weeks til we get our certificate of occupancy!

Let there be light: installation edition

2012-01-26T23:23:00.004-05:00

Today's visit to the house started off with a nice surprise:

The lights are going up! Jim, our electrician, started hanging pendants above the tiled areas so our crew can see what they are doing.

I LOVE these lights and am so happy we chose these over the other choice.

The chrome shades looks so nice with the gray walls.

Niels' Dutch light, which hung in his Belgian apartment eight years ago, has been unpacked and finally put pack to use. It reminds me of robotic arms, but he loves it and it makes him happy.

I forgot to take a picture of the powder room lights when I was in the house this morning, so I had to take this picture from the front walk. These were my bargain lights: $29 from Tuesday morning.

Jim also hung a bunch of these basic lights in our hallway (the smaller three lights), with larger four light versions in the mudroom, laundry room, and our closet.

We were quite pleased to see how much light we have in our closet. We had originally planned to do a solatube, but this light is about a grand cheaper, and doesn't create a thermal break.

It was fun to see our bedroom fan go up. Not all of the light are working yet, but that will change soon.

Our stair lights always went up today. I'm excited to see what kind of light they gave since we made this decision without ever seeing any stair lights in real life.

Many of the rocker plates were put up today. It's amazing how much more finished they make the house look.

A few electrical hiccups today.

First, in the in-law suite, we noticed that the electrical for the vanity was not quite centered. Jim and Todd were prepared to move the hook up (which would have required digging into the ICF wall), until we realized we could use the vanity we had bought for D's bathroom in the in-law room, and vice versa. No problem!

Second, the electrical for the master vanities was also a bit off. Jim was understandably frustrated, so we're going back through some old pictures to see if we can help find out what happened. These hook ups will need to be moved, but at least it's just drywall.

Third, we found out that our great room ceiling fan won't be coming in til the week of February 6th, which is hopefully the week we get our certificate of occupancy. A bit of nail biter for us because each day we're in the apartment is pricey, but hopefully it will okay. Of course, if we had been on the ball and ordered our lighting sooner, we wouldn't have been in this position. Sue, our designer, gave us a list of lights to buy (we opted to do this on our own to save some money), but we weren't on the ball as we should have been.

Other than that, we talked through the lighting and outlets for under our cabinets and my command center. Our outlets will be placed in a strip under the cabinet instead of flat against the wall to avoid breaking up the tile, and the under cabinet lights will be pucks, not strips because the cabinets are not very wide.

Here come the counter tops.

2012-01-25T18:01:00.000-05:00

I was happy to see the counter installers in the house today. The two guys on the crew are from Serbia, so we had a nice chat about being bi-national in Ohio. I was a little disappointed that my quartz kitchen countertops and in-law bath have to wait until Monday, but since we want to make sure the correct holes get drilled to match the correct fixtures, I've made my peace with the delay.

On the happy news, the counters in D's bathroom, our bathroom and powder room are in! As a review, we choose eased edge profile, 1/8" radius corners, and negative reveals on the undermount sinks. If these terms are foreign to you--and they sure were to us before this process!--click here for pictures and an explanation. We also chose polished finish, which may have been a mistake because it is shiny instead of matte, but it's also easier to maintain and much more common, so we'll see how it goes.

D's Bathroom:

Here's the Venetian Gold granite remnant in D's bathroom. It's a little busy for me, but great for his bathroom.

Here's a close up of the sink. Ignore the camera shadow to the left, it's not dark like that in real life. (This is the negative reveal, meaning you can't see the top of the sink. We like it because gunk can't collect there).

This is a photo of the remnant on the day we selected it.

Master Bedroom:
Here is the Kashmir White in our bathroom. This is the only granite for which that we couldn't use a remnant.

Love the way it looks!

Looks great with the gray wall.

Edge profile.

1/8" radius corner.

Picture with our slab on selection day.

Powder Room:

The White Diamond remnant was a bit of surprise. This is the remnant we saw:

And here it is installed.

Granted, we didn't look at it very long. We saw that it was a whitish remnant in the size we needed. Both the designer and saleswoman told us that this is a higher grade granite, so we picked it.

When we got the granite names a few days later, I saw this White Diamond kitchen and saw how busy it could be:

So I shouldn't be too surprised to see this.

I'm still not sure how this is the same remnant, but it is pretty and looks nice in the powder room. Of course, we love the remnant price. I'm a little concerned that it's too busy for me with my vertigo issues, so I'll double check with Canton Cut Stone. Worse case scenario, on my bad days, if it bothers me, I can use the in-law bathroom downstairs.

Still to come:

River White in the in-law suite. I LOVE this granite. If the remnant would have been bigger, I would have put it in our bathroom.

Citadel Warp (5882) Formica laminate in the laundry room. I really look forward to seeing how this all looks together.

Hanstone Specchio White quartz in the kitchen and command center. I cannot wait to see this in my kitchen!!!

Carrara Marble remnant for my baking center. Oh the wonderful things I will make here!

I was at the house until about noon, so I'm not sure if the laundry room was going to be done today or tomorrow, or when our bathroom and the powder room bath have sinks yet. Stay tuned!

Our cork floors!

2012-01-25T16:06:00.002-05:00

Our son is still sick. It's exhausting for all of us. He isn't sleeping well in his bed, so I've been driving him back and forth to the house so he can sleep in his car seat. He falls asleep almost immediately, and dozes through my runs into the house to check on things.

Last night, Niels and I made a night run to the house so he could see his newly painted office and our appliances, and I got to see the start of our cork floors!

If you've been following along, you know that cork floors was something I've wanted since our dreaming stage. The number one reason I wanted cork is for its sound-proofing quality. We had hardwood in our old house and it was so loud. It made it really hard for us to have friends over (especially the under ten crowd) because the reverberating noise would set my headache on overdrive. In building our forever house, I wanted to have a home where my son could have friends over and be boys without constantly having to shush them. I wanted to have a home where we could have friends over and I could last more than a few hours before having to leave hubby to host without me. Most of all, I wanted to increase the number of good days I have and improve the quality of all of my days.

In addition to being quiet, cork floors are softer than hardwood, which is great for aging knees and backs. Another great choice for a home where we intend to age in place. It's also great for preventing broken dishes if and when they are dropped on the floor. Cork is warmer to the touch that other flooring choices due to its cellular makeup, which is great for bare and stocking footed feet. (No shoes in our house!). From a green perspective, cork is a renewable resource (the cork tree, which does not have to be cut down to harvest its cork), and it contains a anti-microbial substance called suberin. Cork also is resistant to mold, mildew and pests.

To be fair, because cork is soft, it can be scratched, so you have to be careful about dragging furniture--we will be putting felt pads on the bottom of our dining room chairs--and a dance party in stiletto heels is probably not the best idea. We do plan to have another dog, and like with hardwood floors, as long as their nails are trimmed, gouging is not a concern.

Some people are afraid of cork because they think it should be used in wet rooms like bathrooms or kitchens because it would be ruined if the dishwasher exploded or something. The truth is, any floor is likely to need to be replaced if something big like that happens, so that's not a reason for us to avoid cork. In fact, if money were not object, I would have put cork everywhere we cut back and put carpet. Hopefully, over the years, we will be able to upgrade to cork as our carpet wears out.

We bought our cork from Northport Flooring America in Akron. We met with a lot of flooring places, but we were really pleased with the prices Harold gave us, as well as suggestions for getting the look we wanted for a price that fit our allowance. We were also very pleased that they were familiar and experienced in laying cork floors.

To lay the floor, first the subfloor was sanded, swept and vacuumed. This is what happened yesterday. Then, they used this sheeting on top of the subfloor and under the cork planks:

The bottom side of the cork plank looks like what most people think of when they think of cork: cork boards. This provides a second layer of cushion.

The part of the plank that you see actually comes in a ton of different styles and colors. Ours is called Marcas Areia from US Floors and has a grayish wash over it.

We chose floating floors over glue down so we don't have to worry about any fumes or off-gassing.

I just love the way it's turning out.

When I visited the house this morning, the dining room was almost done. The rest of the kitchen and pantry should be done tonight.

Charis will be having an open house before we move in. We're happy to show visitors the beauty of cork floors. We're also very grateful that Charis will be putting extra layers of protection over the floors before we move in!

***update***
We went back tonight and took more pictures of the progress. The dinette is done, and the kitchen is mostly done.

The appliances have arrived!

2012-01-24T17:36:00.002-05:00

It was like Christmas in January at the new house, except without all that pesky snow! Our appliances arrived today from MAS Distribution. We were really happy to find them because we were able to get all twelve appliances for less than Niels' discount at work--and that's saying something! We were also able to upgrade quite a few things simply by buying floor models which were a year or so old.

It takes a big truck to deliver a house full of appliances.

We didn't fill it all up, though.

It's pretty exciting to see everything safe in the house. D is pretty excited about all the great fort-building materials.

In other news, the tile crew was working on the mudroom, and the cork guy was prepping the kitchen and dinette to put the cork floor down. I'm so excited I could burst!

***Post-script***
I was looking forward to going back down tonight to see the cork, but since D lost his dinner, we'll be bathing the child instead. Sigh. Hopefully he's up for a trip tomorrow to see the cork and counter tops go in.

The painting is (mostly) done!

2012-01-23T23:00:00.000-05:00

The painters are finishing up! They'll be back at the end for touch up and to paint the mantle top an espresso brown.

But we were very happy to see the mudroom and in-law suite painted at last.

In Law Suite:

In-Law Suite from the mudroom. The color is Sherwin Williams Oyster Bay.

I found this curtain last night and bought it on a whim because it was a great deal. The in-law suite is going to use the furnishings from our old master bedroom, and we had similar chocolate silk curtains.

The old paint color was a little brighter, but the furnishings will work.

Looking for the new in-law suite into the walk-in closet. The closet is SW Mindful Gray.

In law bathroom in SW Mindful Gray

We were happy to see that our drawers arrived and will be stained when the touch ups are done.

Mudroom:

The mudroom lockers have been stained and the wall is SW Mindful Gray.

The downstairs laundry room is painted SW Oyster Bay. We put in a downstairs laundry room for a few reasons: 1) for our guests to use, especially our in-laws who may stay long term, 2) to have a laundry room on the first floor in case we need to move downstairs at some point, and 3) for convenience with my kitchen linens and eventually D's dirty sports clothes.

First flooring down!

2012-01-23T21:01:00.001-05:00

Our little boy was sick today, so we didn't get to enjoy the 56 degree January day or get to the house in the daytime. But, since the tiling started in our master bedroom, I couldn't wait til tomorrow to see it. (Plus, I needed to confirm the set of the tile). So, off we went.

We don't have a lot of lights working upstairs yet--that will happen Wednesday, I think--so it was a good thing I had my camera or I wouldn't have noticed that our bedroom has turned into a tile store!

Here's a peek at our tile. It's Olympia Tile Monocuttura Reeds in Taupe. We really wanted Emser Strands 12"x24" glazed through body porcelain tile in Olive, but to cut costs, we went with the Olympia ceramic 13"x13"tile. The main difference (other than cost) is that the color of the Emser tile (and Daltile Fabrique is almost exactly the same, and easier to find) has color throughout the tile, and the Olympia tile only has color on the glaze. If the Emser got chipped, the tile would have the same color. If our tile gets chipped, the tile will show a pale gray. We had porcelain tile in our old house, and in five years, we never chipped the tile, so we decided to save money.

Olympia Tile Monocuttura Reeds in Taupe.

The backerboard used by Northport Flooring America is Wonderboard 1/4" Cement backerboard.

And now, some photos - taken in complete darkness:

I love how great the tile looks with the espresso cabinetry.

The room was blocked off, so we couldn't get the light on, but we could see how great it looks. Tim, the tile guy, called me to confirm the set of the tile. We knew we wanted all the tiles facing the same direction (reduces vertigo issues for me), with the lines of tiles pointing from tub to the closet. I wasn't sure about the grout lines, but as we talked about, I'm glad we went with the grout lines going from the water closet/tub to vanity. We really like the way it turned out!

So, they still have a little bit of the water closet and tub surround to set, as well as all the grouting, but it's a great start. It was really exciting for us to see this room tonight because it was the first time a room looked real. This week is going to be the most "house to home-becoming" week with paint finishing, floors going in, counters going in, appliances going in and lights going up.

Time to start packing up the apartment!

The niche is done!

2012-01-22T16:02:00.002-05:00

Our foyer niche bench is done! We are so happy with how it turned out!

Still a little dusty, but done!

The bench is about 18" off the ground (I need to measure). Just the right height to sit and remove your shoes.

Typically, the foyer niches that Charis installs look like this:

Ours was wired for light only because we weren't sure what we wanted to do with it. Our thought was that we would put a bench under it, but we didn't have the clearance. When Todd (our GC) and Chris (our trim carpenter) came up with the idea of making the niche our bench, we were so pleased.

Todd liked it so much that now future Charis home owners will have this option as well.

Fun with Sherwin Williams Color Visualizer

2012-01-22T14:04:00.000-05:00

One of the most challenging aspects in planning for our new house, for me, has been deciding on our colors. It was never a strong point before my TBI, and it's a lot harder and slower now. The Sherwin-Williams Color Visualizer has been a great help. (Other paint companies have their own visualizers, but I've used SW because we knew all along that we would be using their no VOC paint).

You can either use one of their stock photos for different rooms (very helpful when our home was only an idea), or upload your own (much better once the walls are primed). I haven't used the site since we decided on our colors a few weeks ago, but yesterday, Niels and I were in the house at different times and both were struck with the same thought that our great room wasn't quite right.

The hearth is still covered. It's concrete on top, and the bottom will be painted white as well.

The fireplace has been really hard for me to visualize and if you've been following along, you can read about how we've struggled with the design. Our surround inspiration finally came from another Charis home.

We love the clean white lines of the wood and hope that by not using tile, it will sustain a timeless look.

We are really happy with how the fireplace turned out, especially with our electric fireplace insert.

I think the inspiration fireplace works because they have the accent wall to bring out the white. However in our great room, something still seemed off, even with the trim piece we put above the fireplace.

We have white trim in the windows and on the baseboards, but other wood accents are stained espresso, like the stair cap, foyer niche bench, mudroom lockers and of course, the kitchen.

The stair rail is stained espresso with white trim underneath.

It's hard to see in this picture, but the molding of the kitchen cabinets matches the molding of our fireplace.

This picture was obviously taken before painting, but shows how the great room is open into the kitchen.

As Niels and I talked about it last night, we both think the solution to tie everything together is to stain the mantle. This is where the color visualizer helped us decide that the cost of redoing the mantle is worth it.

Mantle as is

Colorized stained mantle.

Fireplace and stair cap as is.

Colorized stained fireplace and stair cap.

Now to tell Todd...

Up next: flooring!

2012-01-21T22:32:00.001-05:00

With the painting winding down, we're coming up on a really busy week. The floors are going in!

The cork floors arrived this past Thursday and I couldn't help but peek. I'm so excited for those soft, quiet floors! When I put them down against the newly painted kitchen floor, D immediately sat down and took off his shoes so he could stand on the planks. He had a huge smile on his face.

In fact, he thought they were so comfortable that he could take a nap on them:

So, so pretty.

Yesterday morning, Todd came over while we were talking to Joe about the command center, and we were able to talk a bit about the flooring. Since all of our non-carpet flooring have linear patterns, we wanted to make sure that we talked about which direction we wanted the flooring to go to minimize any visual issues for me.

For the porcelain tile, we knew we wanted the lines to be perpendicular to the entrances, and all facing the same way. (With this type of tile, often the tiles are set at opposite angles). We also wanted them off set, like subway tiles, not in squares so the grout line doesn't create a visual issue for me. Originally, we wanted 12"x24" tiles to reduce the amount of grout, but we couldn't justify the extra cost.

I wanted the lines of the cork planks to run the same way as the porcelain tiles, but unfortunately, we need them to go the opposite way to get the most support out of the floor joists. (This is why we pay Todd, our GC, the big bucks). Niels pointed out that our cork pattern actually had vertical and horizontal lines, and next the espresso, the less dominant lines actually come out, so it'll all be okay.

We luxury vinyl tile (LVT) for the laundry room and D's bath was easy. We wanted to use the lines of the bamboo to make the rooms look longer.

Our house is going to look so different next weekend! Can't wait!

Winter 2012

2012-01-21T00:29:00.002-05:00

It's been a weird mild winter here in Ohio. Last year we had snow on the ground from Thanksgiving through late March but this year we hardly any bouts of the white stuff. You don't hear us complain though but this week was 57F on one day, 2" of snow the next, 44F the day after, followed by 5F when we woke up this morning and driving through a blizzard on our way home from a party tonight.

It does make for some nice pictures ones the snow settles. Here's the house on Jan 20, 2012:

Hopefully, in three more weeks we get to start moving in... Since we are in the Midwest I wish for a sunny moving day, but snow is more probable... Positive thoughts though ;-)

An early valentine to our cabinet maker.

2012-01-20T15:44:00.001-05:00

There are three things we know we will never regret about building our house:

1. Choosing Charis Homes.

Building (and selling) a home is a stressful process, no matter who builds your home, because the process of making dreams a reality is a pretty tall order. There are a million little things that the average non-home builder doesn't even see or think about, yet he or she has an idea in their mind of what it should do, look like, etc. And, especially in my case, even if you do have an awareness of this thing, you probably don't know the correct terminology to accurately or adequately describe what you want it to do or look like. For us, bringing LOTS of pictures to our discussions has helped immensely, and throughout this whole process, there have only been a few last minute changes, which Charis was quick to remedy or adjust. We know that we are getting a solid, quality, energy-efficient home that we will enjoy for the rest of our lives. If we did it over again, we would choose Charis again. No doubt.

2. Choosing Insulated Concrete Forms (ICF) for our entire house.

We build a two-story house with a full basement. We used ICF forms throughout. It's a little more money, and a lot different than most houses, which use traditional stick framing, but I LOVE the way the house feels. It's solid and cozy...and the flooring isn't even in yet. Best of all, for my brain injury, it's quiet. The other night we were in the house and it was pouring rain outside. We didn't hear a drop until we opened the door. I see many more "good" days for me in my brain. If we did it over again, we'll choose full ICF again.

3. Choosing Joe Yoder as our cabinet maker. Learning about Joe was a very happy surprise in this whole process. Back in July, when we first broke ground, D and I would come to the building site each day to watch the Amish crew build our "lego" house. (D, at 2 and a half, had begun his Lego obsession and an ICF block really DOES look like a lego block...) It was insanely hot that month, so we tried to bring some sort of cool treat for the crew each day. After a few weeks of chatting with the foreman, he asked me who was building our cabinets. At the time, we had planned to put in semi-custom cabinets, but were still thinking through our final layout. He told me that his brother-in-law, who had worked for a cabinet company for about twelve years, was starting his own cabinet company, and maybe we'd want to have him give us a quote.

We were pretty sure we wouldn't be able to afford a custom kitchen, but it's one of those things that if you don't ask, you don't know. We figured that if we found out how much a full customer kitchen would put us over our budget, it would be easier to remind ourselves of why we went with stock cabinets when we were feeling regretful.

Joe doesn't have a store or display area, and as an Amish craftsman, he doesn't have a website or photos either. Instead, he invited us to his home to see his own kitchen, which he built himself in his wood-shop next to his house. On a personal level, we were excited to visit with an Amish family, and we were delighted to discover that Joe's youngest son was the same age as ours. Oh, to have a picture of those boys playing that first day.

Joe's kitchen is stunning. We didn't take pictures, to be respectful, but his wife was kind enough to let me open and close all the cabinets and drawers. It was much more modern than I expected. Not so much in style, but certainly in function. The wood was perfectly smooth and all the joints were flawless. Even considering that he threw in a little extra care and love for his own family's cabinets, we were in love. We tentatively asked for a quote and crossed our fingers.

When the quote came in at just a few hundred over the stock companies, it was a no brainer.

During the process, we returned to Joe's shop a few more times to see our cabinets in the process of construction. That's a fun family memory we never would have gotten with a stock shop.

Joe Yoder with our prep island. (photographed with permission)

We knew we wanted to do all base drawers (except under the sink and corner) with full extension and soft close on everything. All in all, not only did we get the best cabinets possible, (please click if you haven't seen our kitchen cabinets) but we were able to add options I wouldn't have even considered, like a touch-operated recycling center, three drawers under the cooktop, cubbies to the side of the cooktop for my wines and oils, a storage shelf under the prep island, storage trays above the ovens, utensil dividers, and more.

Joe was really easy to work with. He understood what we were trying to do and why, and helped us think through our layout and functionality. In fact, it was his idea to add the wine cubbies instead of using a basic filler. We were very pleased with his standard quality, and blown away by his upgrades. The subs who were in the house after Joe have raved to us about the quality. These are people who see cabinets day in and day out. In fact, one of our painters today said that in ten years, he's never seen cabinets that were stained and sanded on top, where no one but the painter ever looks.

In addition to the kitchen cabinets, we had Joe do a few other projects.

Master Bedroom Built-In:

This is a great example of how Joe came up with solutions for us. Originally, the plan called for a linen closet in the water closet. Now, we have four deep drawers and three shelves right behind the vanity. (Still waiting for the hardware to arrive).

Laundry Room Cubbies:

I saw a picture on Pinterest with cubbies for laundry basket. I thought that would be a good way to organize our laundry. We did four even though we are a family of three, so the extra one could be used for upstairs linens, or even as a future doggie bed for a future four-footed family member.

This is what he came up with:

I love how substantial the shelves look with the extra piece that covers the front edge. The depth of the cubbies matches the depth of our stacked washer and dryer.

View from the laundry room door. Since I'm short, I didn't have any use for upper cabinets. However, I do have the flexibility to hang a tension rod between the linen closet (with door open, to the left, and cubbies) to hang clothes if I want.

Close up of the super smooth edge of the shelf. You usually see a little lip here, but everything Joe did for us is perfectly flat and smooth.

Another view of the craftsmanship.

Baking Center:

I love to bake and I usually knead my own dough. Due to my short height, this usually requires me to be on my tippy toes to get the force I need. We solved that issue by installing a baking center.

Originally, the plan was for the baking center to be a bit wider, to accommodate a wheelchair, but when I found out that Canton Cut Stone had a remnant of marble that was just a smidge smaller, we made the decision to go with it. Our kitchen still fits a wheel chair in the command center, which you'll see below.

The marble will be installed on the 25th.

The advantage to the open sides is that my little sous chef (and a friend) can help make cookies!

This counter is JUST right.

Command Center:

Joe originally installed command center a few weeks ago. It's maple in a espresso shaker style like the kitchen cabinets.

All the drawers are full extension and soft close. The dry erase board is also magnetic.

This section of cubbies and open shelves will go above the dry erase/magnetic board after the counter is placed. The cubbies will actually be on the bottom.

On either side of the dry erase/magnetic board will sit these tall cabinets with doors to hide my binders.

Surprise! It's a built in pencil drawer!

Built in cabinet for shredder with outlet in the wall behind the drawer.

It looks fantastic! It will be a great hub of home organization. However...it was a little low when we tried to fit a chair under it. I felt a bit sick. We called Joe and he said, "No problem. Let's make it right." So today, he got back to work.

Off goes the middle section.

Attaching the blockers.

The blockers added about 4 inches. Much better.

He had to adjust the outlet cutout.

And cut around the newly painted baseboards

Much better!

He'll go back to his shop to make the baseboard and stain it. By the time the counter is on, he'll be ready to add the baseboard when he puts the cabinets and shelves up.

Other Adjustments:

We really appreciate Joe not making us feel like idiots when we made mistakes or late changes. For example. Joe made our cabinets according to our appliance specifications. Then we changed the appliances because of the great deals we found at MAS. Fortunately, the only issue was with our double oven, which need a little more height. So Joe cut the lip off the frame so the ovens can go in on Tuesday, and then he'll retrofit at the same time he finished the command center.

Overall, we are beyond thrilled with Joe's work. If we did it again, we would find a way to hire Joe to do all our wood work. For those of you interested in having Joe do some work for you - and we know a few already did so - here is his contact information:

Joe Yoder Cabinet

7690 Hoy Road

Fredricksburg, OH 44627

P: (330) 763-0269

F: (330) 695-2126

Email-to-Fax: yodercabinet@pcfreemail.com

Cold Day, Warm House

2012-01-20T15:41:00.000-05:00

Know what makes me happy about this picture?

In addition to being a sweet moment with my boy, this picture makes me happy because we are sitting in the HUGE window sill of our dinette. Outside this morning, the temperature was 12 degrees. The temperature on the window sill? About as warm and toasty as the rest of the house. Generally, big windows mean big heat loss. Niels and I marveled at how warm it was there. We actually were sitting there awhile before it occurred to us that we should be freezing our bottoms off! I am tickled pink by how tight and toasty the insulated concrete forms make our home. If you need more proof, check out our first utility bill.

Since receiving the first bills for our almost-done home, we have had a little bit more sealing. For example, here is the heavy duty insulating...tape. It's a nice upgrade from the open hole we had before, and cuts down on the draftiness in the foyer. We look forward to our permanent lock going in soon! :-)

Another outward sign of the inner difference of our full ICF home is that the snow on our room is still on our roof. This means that we aren't losing a ton of heat through our room. The part of the roofline, as seen through D's room, is above the dining room which has that huge window, a sliding door and a large transom window. In theory, if any room in the house lost heat, it would be that one. We are pleased.

One last just-for-fun shot. One of things that first caught our eye about four years ago in a Charis home was the deep window sills. At the time, I knew nothing about construction. I just thought they looked pretty and it would be fun someday for the baby in my belly to crawl on them. Today I got to see my three-year-old "baby" play on the ICF sill on the coldest day of the season, and he was perfectly warm. I am so happy to move HOME!

Painting...Almost Done

2012-01-20T14:57:00.000-05:00

One more full work day for the paint crew! All that's left is the office stripe, mudroom and in-law suite (bedroom, closet and bath) paint and mudroom locker stain.

Here's a look at what they've done over the last two weeks. I should mention that all of the paint below has no VOCs. No paint smell, and healthy, too!

UPSTAIRS:

D's Room: Sherwin Williams Scanda (Blue) and Solaria (Yellow)

Guest Bedroom: Sherwin Williams Dovetail (Dark Gray)

Master Bedroom: Sherwin Williams Sensuous Gray (Plum)

Master Bathoom: Sherwin Williams Dovetail (main bath), Sensuous Gray (Water Closet) and Mindful Gray (Closet).

D's Bathroom: Sherwin Williams Solaria

Upstairs Hallway: Sherwin Williams Mindful Gray

Upstairs Laundry Room: Sherwin Williams Oyster Bay

Stairwell and Great Room: Sherwin Williams Mindful Gray

Kitchen, Command Center, Pantry and Dinette: Sherwin Williams Oyster Bay

View of kitchen from the great room. Dinette to the right. Command center to the left.

Dinette

View of kitchen from dinette. Arch to mud room to the far left. Command center on left.
Panty door on right. Great room on far right.

Command center. After the counter is placed, the rest of the cabinets will be added:
tall cabinets on both sides, with a book shelf and cubbies on top.

I'm so happy with how the wall matches my backsplash glass tile.

Close up of backsplash.

Pantry. I will use temporary shelves for the first few months to confirm the layout, then our kitchen cabinet maker will custom build the shelves this summer.

View of the kitchen into the great room.

Entry and Foyer: Sherwin Williams Mindful Gray and Sensuous Gray (only in niche)

Powder Room: Sherwin Williams Solaria.

Niels' Office: Sherwin Williams Dovetail (below) and Mindful Gray (above). Still to be added: a chair rail stripe of Sherwin Williams Pure White (same as baseboards).

Last of the Lights

2012-01-19T00:43:00.002-05:00

Tonight, Niels and I are going to purchase the last of the lights for the house. One of our projects for the weekend is to go through and move all the lights, fans and mirrors from the garage to the appropriate room. This might normally be done by the builder, but we bought most of our own lights to save money, so we're the ones who know where everything goes!

Here's a little lighting preview.

Front Porch and Garage Exterior Lights:

Portfolio Aged Bronze Outdoor Wall Light from Lowes (6). We chose these lanterns because the prairie grid matches the design of our windows. These have been installed for a while. They might be a little on the small side for our house, but we like them. We did notice that the one to the right of our front door is cracked, so we'll have to figure out what happened with that.

Foyer and Hallway:

The first light to catch my eye for the foyer and hallway was the Portfolio 17"W Chrome Pendant Light with Chrome Shade from Lowes. I really liked the modern look of the mesh design over the pendant, and thought the silver would look nice with the gray paint in the foyer.

But then we saw the Portfolio 3-Light Painted Champagne Flush Mount, also from Lowes.

One big consideration for us in choosing lights is the brightness and amount of light they give. My eyesight has been in decline, so the more light, the better. My practical husband convinced me that the three light was better functionally the pretty two light, but when we went to pick up two lights tonight, not only was Lowes out of stock, but they didn't even have an signage for it. I found this especially odd because the Lowes by our apartment had two of the lights earlier in the afternoon. Since we really didn't want to be driving around all night, we opted for financial functionality, and chose my original favorite and saved a bit of money.

Niels' Office:

No photo for this one yet. We're repurposing a light fixture that Niels brought over with him from his house in Belgium. As you can imagine, it's modern Euro design. I'll let you wait with bated breath.

Great Room:

Our main consideration for our great room light was the ability to use LED lights, so we shouldn't ever have to figure out how to get up 14.5 feet to change the bulbs. (LED lights last about 50,000 hours). We wanted a ceiling fan to circulate air, and we wanted one with a light kit. We have fantastic natural light in our great room, so we'll only use the light at night. We purchased the Craftmade Midora 56" Chrome Ceiling Fan with Grill from Lighting By Design in Canton. Their website is pretty challenging to navigate if you're looking for a specific light, so we linked to a different site above. However, if you're in the area, Kelly at Lighting by Design is very helpful and we were happy to work with her. (Funny aside, after we chose this fan, we realized we took a picture of an oil-rubbed bronze version of this fan at another Charis home over a year ago. Guess it stuck with us!)

Dinette:
This was the first light we bought. I feel in love with it after seeing it on an episode of HGTV's "Bang for Your Buck." I had to negotiate hard with Niels, but once he saw it in person, it was a done deal. It's the West Elm Large Rectangle Hanging Capiz Pendant.

One of my favorite home decor bloggers has the same fixture in her gray dining room. I am so excited to see it go up, although our dinette will be green, not gray as we were thinking when we bought the light.

Kitchen:
The original plan was for three can lights. Since our cabinets are dark we opted to increase to nine so it wouldn't be do dark. It definitely isn't! It may be overkill, but at the time we made the decision, I had a raging headache (that took three months and three days intensive treatment with my neuro to break up) and my vision was at a low point. I don't regret the change.

We also have two cans in the command center, which is hidden in an alcove to the right in the picture above.

Under the cabinets and in the two frosted glass cabinets, we chose Kichler Design Pro Black 3.5W LED Disc Lights, aka puck lights from Lighting by Design. We wanted LED lights that would be bright and cool, and really wanted to avoid florescent lights which can trigger my vertigo--not a good idea when I have a knife in my hand! Once we chose the type of light, we need to decide between strips and pucks. We chose the small round puck lights primarily because there were quite a bit cheaper. Also, the wiring is a lot easier (read: cheaper) with the puck light. We chose black to blend in with our cabinet. Because our cabinets are not very wide, so I think the pucks will be sufficient. If we had longer expanses of cabinet, we might have splurged on the strips.

They'll look a bit like this:

Over the outer island, we chose three ET2 Fizz pendants. We found these at Whitmer's Lighting and they are really, REALLY cool. They look like solid blocks of glass with bubbles in them. There are also straight lines that are similar to the lines in the glass of the backsplash. The catalog photo really doesn't do it justice:

Here are a few of Niels' artistic shots:

Pantry/Mudroom/Master Closet/In-Law Closet/Laundry Room/Upstairs Hallway

For these utilities areas, we decided to go with a bright yet economical flush mount light from Lighting by Design. The Maxim Malibu is a popular choice with Charis homes. We chose it after seeing in the last Charis model. We bought five large four-bulb lights for the small rooms and closets. We bought three medium three-bulb lights for the hallway.

In Law Suite and "Paris" Bedrooms:
As we get to the end and the bills are coming in hand over fist, we decided to look for some bargains. We found two Casablanca Claremont 50" ceiling fans in Brushed Nickel at Tuesday Morning. They are nice basic fans with high reviews. They came with remotes and we got a great deal. I'll talk more about Tuesday Morning in a minute.

In-Law Bathroom:
We found the Urban four-light vanity light at Menards. There isn't a window in the in-law bathroom, so we wanted to make sure there was a lot of light.

Back Porch:

Our covered back porch will have two outdoor ceiling fans. Other than being usable outside, we just needed fans with light kits. We opted for the Allen + Roth Seagrass fan below because it was in stock and we liked the style better than the other options.

D's Bedroom:

Our three-year-old boy is all about planes, trains in automobile. We found this airplane blade set several months ago and quickly bought it.

We didn't realize we had to buy a specific fan until just recently. We thought he had buy a white fan, but in a happy surprise, we found out that Home Depot had the Hunter Ashlyn fan in brushed nickel.

D's Bathroom:

I discovered Tuesday Morning when I was staging our old house last year. I found lot of bargains on housewares and would browse there occasionally to get ideas for the new house and projects. Usually, I don't see the items on the upper shelves because I'm just not that tall. But, a few months ago, something caught my eye, and I realized that they often have larger housewares and appliances on the upper shelves. I found D's bathroom vanity there. A four- light silver vanity for $30. SOLD!

Powder Room:

In fact, I actually found two vanity fixtures that day. The other one only had three lights, so we decided that since D's bathroom doesn't have a window, he'd get the four light, and the well-lit powder room would get the three light vanity, which was only $20!

Master Bedroom:
Niels picked out our ceiling fan at Whitmer's Lighting. It's a Craftmade 5th Avenue. We chose it because of its modern look. It doesn't have a lot of light, but we don't really need a lot of light in our bedroom, and Niels deserved to be able to pick one of the lights! (I like it, too!)

Master Bathroom:

We picked out our bathroom vanity lights on a rare date when my mom was visiting. Yep, we went to Whitmer lighting for our first year in a year. We love the ET2 collection and thought this vanity from the Bloc collection was really cool. We actually bought two of the two-light version since our bathroom has a ton of natural light.

Whew! That's it! We also have a door bell and some lights on the stairs, but for the most part, these are all the lights in our finished level. We'll need to get something basic for our unfinished basement, but that's a decision for another day.

Utilities Report: January 2012

2012-01-18T08:41:00.002-05:00

As we move closer to our move-in date, Niels and I have been thinking about new post ideas that relate to our earth-friendly, energy-efficient, universally-designed home. Our hope with this blog, in addition to reminding us how we came to the decisions and selections we did, is that our posts provide valuable information to others who are considering their own home building project.

This week we received our utility bills, and we are quite pleased. One of several advantages of insulated concrete form (ICF) walls is that they have a high R-value, which means that the temperature stays more consistent than in a stick-built house.

To provide some practical evidence, we will share our monthly utilities on the blog.

As a bit of background, our previous house was a two-story colonial built with traditional stick construction in 2003. With the finished basement, it was 2,582 square feet. We had an energy audit last summer and the report showed that we had a very tight house, which means we didn't have a lot of heat loss because our windows were well sealed. In fact, we were told not to do anything else because then we'd need mechanical ventilation. We were already using all CFL bulbs, so the only changes we made were to add aerators to the faucets. So, in summary, we had an above-average energy efficient house according the the expert.

Our new house has 2,885 square feet of (almost) finished living area (first and second floor). The unfinished basement is 1,700 square foot, for a total of 4,585 square feet. We have four heating and cooling zones, which gives us the ability to keep unused area cooler (or warmer, depending on the season). Of course, our house is still under construction, so we aren't using any appliances, and only a few of our lights are hooked up. Also, our house isn't completely sealed yet so we still have a few holes were cold air is getting in, the zones are not set up yet, and our front door and garage doors are open quite a bit as the crews are going in and out.

That said, here's the first month's comparison.

In January of 2010, our Dominion (gas) bill was $168.65 for 17. 6 MCF (old house).
In January of 2011, our Dominion (gas) bill was $90.93 for 12. 1 MCF (new house).

Since the vast majority of our gas bill is for heating and cooling, we were very happy with this initial look at savings due to the ICF construction.

In January of 2010, our Ohio Edison (electric) bill was $135.27 (old house).
In January of 2011, our Ohio Edison (electric) bill was $20.81 for 135 kilowatts (new house).

Unfortunately, since we moved, we can't get the kilowatt usage for last year. Obviously, we expect our bill to go up once we get lights, appliances, etc., but I highly doubt it will be anywhere near $135.

January Totals:
Old house: $168.65 + $135.27 = $303.92
New house: $90.93 + $20.69 = $111.62
total savings: $192.30!

Granted, this is not an apples to apples comparison since the old house was smaller and the new house isn't complete, but in terms of our utility budget, this is a huge difference! And hopefully, gives those curious about the impact of full ICF construction some real-world information.

And we've hit 20,000 'hits'...

2012-01-16T15:43:00.001-05:00

Today we've reached the 20,000 'hits' milestone. We never thought we'd hit anywhere near that number and are glad we are serving a need. We realize some part of this number is artificial due to some spam-referrers but still it continues to amaze us to see the amount of traffic we are seeing.

Glad to be of service!

It's beginning to look a lot like home! Painting continues

2012-01-16T14:24:00.003-05:00

When I drove up to the house around noon today, I didn't see any cars and was bummed thinking the crew had the day off. I popped in anyway to check and was so happy to see that they have made create progress upstairs!

Fourth Bedroom, aka the Paris Room.

This will likely be our TV room until the basement is finished. In our previous house, we had a China room with souvenirs from my trip to China, just before we got engaged. Since then, Paris has become a special place to us, since that is where Niels proposed to me. So now we have a place to put our Paris photos.

The shade is Sherwin-Williams Dovetail (7018).

View from the door.

View from the window. On my monitor, this looks more like the true color.

The Laundry Room:

This is Sherwin-Williams Oyster Bay (6206).

View from the door.

View from the window.

Contrast with natural maple cabinets. This is the closest to true color.

D's Bath:

I saw this beacon of yellow from the stairs and knew that painting was getting done. It looks really bright in over the tub, but it's not this bright in real life. But even if it was, it's D's favorite color. I'm sure that will change at some point in the next fifteen years, and we'll do something different.

The color is Sherwin Williams Solaria (6688).

View from the door

View from the tub. This is a better representation. It looks a little bumblebee-ish with the espresso cabinents, but we have some cool bamboo flooring going in, so that, along with the granite should help it out.

D's Bedroom:

This was started last week, but now the second coat of blue (Scanda 6529). You can also get a peek into his Solaria yellow closet. Since D is three, we didn't limit him to our muted grays!

Master Bathroom:

I thought I understood that the master bedroom was next after D's room was started last week. Instead, it's the only room upstairs untouched (other than the hallway). However, the crew started on the master bath before taking their lunch break. This will be Dovetail, the same gray as the Paris room. The water closet, which you can see in the back, will be done in Sensuous Gray (7081), which is a grayish-plum, as will our master bedroom. The closet, which is off the left, will be Mindful Gray (7016), which is a lighter gray.

The upstairs should be finished this afternoon, and then the crew starts on the main level. So exciting!

I saw Todd driving by on my way out and we talked a bit about what's coming up. The painters should be done early next week. The flooring will start late this week. We are going to have appliances delivered into the great room next Wednesday. Joe is coming with the last of his trim pieces, and to raise the command center this Thursday. Over the weekend, Niels and I will move all the light fixtures to the rooms where they should be hung. This means our main goal for the week is to pick out the last couple ceiling fans! We're also ordering the in-law sink now that we know where we should have it delivered, and next week we'll meet with Todd to talk about what we have going where for those. So happy to see the end is near!

Electronics overview

2012-01-14T23:25:00.001-05:00

As mentioned in the 'since money is an object' post here is an overview of the dream house electronics vision. Here we go.

Wired Network: One of the standard features of Charis Homes is phone lines to almost every room. Since we no longer have a landline we've changed that from standard phone lines to CAT6 ethernet cable. This means hard-wired Gigabit speeds in most rooms. All these cables will come together in 2 main switches (supporting power-over-ethernet) in the basement.
Wireless Network: We're using a 3-pack of Wireless Access Points, one on each floor connected through the before mentioned ethernet using the same cable for power as well (power-over-ethernet). This will give a generous wireless coverage throughout the house on every floor.
Internet: Not sure yet if we'll stay with TimeWarnerCable or if we'll switch to AT&T U-Verse. In any case the signal will be routed to a hardware firewall before being distributed to the two switches.
TV signal: More than likely we'll retain DirecTV. My wife is an avid Football fan from Minnesota so that kind of settles that part. We'll use their Whole-House DVR function (wired) and their Nomad device for wireless signal distribution. Using the Nomad allowed us to save some money on not cabling the 2nd floor.
Digital Storage: With our digital camera being one of the heaviest used devices in our household we have to make sure we got some good storage and retrieval for those digital photo albums. We'll be using a Home Server approach with Network-accessible storage. Add some (non-cloud) backup goodies due to the shear amount of pictures we take to keep the FUBARs away.
Home Automation: See first line... 'money is an object'... so, integrated home automation is out.
Alarm system: Yup... that definitely IS in the budget... ;-)

Primed for Painting

2012-01-14T22:34:00.002-05:00

We drove down to the house today so Niels could see the paint progress. There were a few people visiting with Todd, our GC, so it was fun to show them around and answer questions and explain why we've done what we have. Joe's cabinets were a big hit!

In the last two days, a lot of staining and clear coating got done.

The foyer niche bench:

Close up with the beautiful grain

Big pictures view

Stair Hand Rail and Kitchen Trim:

In-Law Suite Vanity:

Pantry Door:

Mudroom Locker Shelves and Tub Surround Panels:

Stair Rail:

All that's left for staining is the mudroom lockers and in-law vanity drawers, which are currently at the carpenter's shop. Hopefully, they'll arrive on Monday to be done.

My mom reminded me that the most time-consuming part of painting is the prep work. So for the first few days, the crew did a lot of caulking, hole filling, smoothing, and taping. Then, they moved on to the trim. We went with Sherwin Williams Pure White for our trim. It's a nice bright white.

Pure white snow and Pure white sill.

Nice deep ICF sill under a nice warm Low-E window.

And now, the best part: COLOR! As part of our contract, we had an allowance for six Sherwin Colors, plus a trim color. In addition to the Pure White trim, we chose Oyster Bay (a grayish-green), Dovetail (a dark gray), Mindful Gray (a light gray), Sensuous Gray (a plumish gray), and for our son, Scanda (boyish blue) and Solaria (yellow). All of our paint is zero-VOC for clean, healthy air quality.

We ended the week on a high note, with the first room painted. Here's our son's Scanda blue bedroom with Solaria yellow closet. Our son just turned three. The nook to the right will be his super special secret hiding place, with a little help of a curtain and rod. When he's a bit older, we'll turn it into an indoor tree house, and when he's a lot older, it will be a desk area.

This is the view of his room from the closet looking out.

By next weekend, most of the paint should be done, and possibly some of the porcelain tile and luxury vinyl tile (LVT). The flooring is ready for us at Northport Flooring America, but we want to make sure it isn't painted! Our appliances are also ready for us at MAS. Most of our fixtures have arrived, but we'll pick out the last choices this weekend. Joe Yoder will be back on the 19th (five days) to raise the command center desk a little bit and deliver the last of his trim work (the laundry cubbies, mudroom locker door, and baking center support).

We're at the point where everything is the last thing, so Todd has quite the dance card to arrange. He'll be working on a schedule soon. We're still hoping to be in by Valentine's Day. Our corporate housing apartment is pricey and we're getting antsy to be in our new home!

Getting Organized with Pinterest

2012-01-13T18:08:00.001-05:00

It's a snowy day here in Ohio, so no trip to the new house this morning. And since Niels accidentally took our son's coat to work with him in his car, the boy and I are staying inside doing our projects. D is three and loves to do his projects, whether coloring, playing with letters, baking with me or anything that else that we can come up with together.

We get a lot of ideas from Pinterest, not only for things for the two of us to do together, but also for cooking, organizing, and of course, getting ideas for the new house. If you aren't familiar with Pinterest yet, think of it as a online filing cabinet or cork board to file or "pin" all the wonderful things you find on your favorite blogs and websites so you can find them again easily. In other words, is a collection of images on topics of interest to you with clickable links to the original source. Depending on how the original pinner described a pin, it can also include the price or other information.

Before Pinterest, if I saw something I liked on Houzz or Garden Web or any other site, I would download the picture to a folder on my computer. I might name the file to give a little detail, but I could never find the original photo again, or remember where an item was for sale, or find the original link or post. The brilliance of Pinterest is that you can put a little bookmark on the top of your browser so you can easily save any image you'd like, and Pinterest automatically remembers where you found it.

So, for example, if you were looking at ceiling fans online, you'd do your regular search. In this case, I'm at Lowes.com. If you find a fan you like and want to save it, you just click on the bookmarklet. It's a little goofy with Chrome, but on Firefox and Explorer, the bookmarklet has the Pinterest logo.

Once you click on it, a pop up will come up that looks like this.

There's a gray box that comes up over each image if you hover over it that says, "Pin this." When you click on the gray box, another pop up comes up, like this:

This is where you use the drop down menu to determine which board you want the image to be saved in. I have board for each room of our house, for "culinary creations," for each person, etc. In this example, since we haven't made all of our lighting decisions (but really need to!), I have all the lights we're considering in one folder. After we make a purchase, I "repin" a duplicate copy into the corresponding room folder.

Under the drop down menu, you can describe the pin. In case of items we may purchase, I like to include the official name of the item, the price and where it can be found (even though the link will take me to the site. This way I can know without the additional click). Anytime you use a dollar sign, Pinterest will put a banner over the item with the amount so you can see it right away. Sometimes, if I'm on my game, I also include model numbers and the purpose for which I'm considering an item--which room it might go in, for example.

You can share your pins on Facebook, if you want, but most people don't because Pinterest is highly addictive and that would be annoying to have a steady stream of pins on your friends' facebook feeds...especially if they aren't on Pinterest. So you click the red Pin It button and it's saved.

You'll then get a fading pop up that confirms your pin to your specified board.

If you go to that board, you can see all of the images you have pins on that board at a glance. You used to be able to scroll through each image with your arrow key, but they did away with that for some reason on the last upgrade. Not a fan of that change. However, you can still click on any image from the gallery and see it enlarged.

Pinterest has been a great help as we've waded through all the selection decisions in building the house. Since I am at home all day with our son, I have more freedom to browse and research. Before Pinterest, I would send Niels a bunch of emails, or print of a lot of pages for him to go through when he came home. Now, we just look through the gallery together and can immediately spot trends to get a better idea of what we want.

Pinterest is also a great resource if you're just getting started and don't know what site to search. Keeping with the ceiling fan theme, I can use the search function at the top of the main page and type in "Ceiling fan." A new gallery will come up with images that have been tagged with "ceiling fan" or use those terms in the description.

From there, I can look at any image that catches my eye, and can access the original source. Other pinners can like and make comments, which can be helpful as you are making decisions as well.

Each pinner has a home page with all their boards. You can arrange these in any order you want.

I've had several people ask me how to use Pinterest, and how I use it to organize our build (and home). It helped to think of the various categories for which I draw ideas. I have many, MANY boards (58) and the moment, but these are the ones that relate to building our dream house:

Room by Room

kitchen
pantry
dinette
great room
mudroom
foyer
office
in-law suite
master bedroom and bath
D's room (our toddler son)
guest room
bathrooms
laundry room
command center
exercise room
basement
landscaping ideas

Selections

fireplace
lighting
paint
flooring
counters
universal design

General

dream house. This was the original board for house things, that quickly got more precisely defined. It still holds ideas and images that relate to the whole house, things that haven't re-ordered, and really cool ideas that we aren't doing but are fun to drool over
home decor ideas. This is generally things that would be bought, not made.
going green. Do it yourself cleaners and ideas to reduce, reuse and recycle
projects, tips and organization. This board needs to be divided as well. Currently, it includes DIY projects for the home, simple solutions, unique uses for ordinary things and ideas for a clean and decluttered life.
Uppercase Living. I'm a big fan of word art, so I created a place to put my ideas.
Big Bad Lowes Buy
Big Bad Ikea Trip

One of the reasons for Pinterest's popular is the ease and flexibility of use. In addition to looking at items on your board, you can also go back and look at everything you pinned in one gallery. Just in case, hypothetically speaking, you forgot where you pinned something, but you just KNOW that you did.

In you have a blog, it's kind of fun to see what things other people pin by doing a search of your blog name:

But I think the most popular way to use Pinterest is to just browse. Since you can follow friends you know (like Facebook newsfeeds) and people you don't, but who interest you (like Twitter), and see what they are pinning. You can follow specific boards or every board, so you can customize what you want to see.

Pinterest is technically still in Beta, but it's easy to get an invite if you know someone who's on it (like me). There are still a few bugs, but it is an absolute godsend for keeping ideas organized for your house, planning meals, planning a wedding, dreaming up a wardrobe, or hairstyle, or travel, finding learning and play ideas for your kids, finding inspiration for your workouts, your goals, your life. In this down economy, Pinterest is a fantastic place to learn to do it yourself, make it yourself, or reuse it for something else. It's brilliant. I've pulled up my boards when talking to our GC and subs, when talking to vendors and store clerks, when explaining to friends and family what I'm looking for/hoping for/planning for. It's a brain injured girl's best friend. (Other than her hubby and son, of course!