stucco looka gooda

Hi,

Another 3 am post.  You probably think I stay up this late every night.  Partially true, but I have been sleeping in this chair since midnight, I just woke up and remembered to charge my iPhone, which leads to a sync, which leads to the pictures downloading, etc.  Yes, I often do stay up this late anyway, and when I do work, this is child's play.

OK, already rambling...

Stucco guys were there again today in full force.  Maybe a few of you remember WAY back in my original posts about how I obsessed over recessing the windows away from the face of the stucco.  Makes the wall look thick and rugged.  Over the weekend, the stucco crew worked hard and put on the first of 3 coats of stucco.  Here is how it works...

1.  Prep.  Flashing, water proofing, tyvek, building paper, and then the application of the metal lath.  In our case we are using rounded corners, so they put on a rounded wire mesh on the corners.  Here is a pic.

2.  Scratch coat, this coat forms the base layer that grips to the house and metal lath.  They "scratch" it with a notched trowel to make it rough so the next coat will stick to it.  Here are some pics...

3.  Brown coat.  This coat adds more thickness and rigidity to the whole thing.  Our stucco has little bitty fibers in it to give it strength.  In hot weather, they have to be careful to work in the shade so the sun doesn't dry out the mix too fast and prevent a good cure.  Right now, our temps are swinging from about 60 in the night to low 80's, which is pretty good.  The brown coat also defines the texture pretty much of what the final product will look like without the color....brown.    These guys are made out of steel, by the way, and I shocked them the other day when I picked up a trowel and started putting on scratch coat with them.  I stopped after about 5 square feet because I was slowing them down, but they appreciated the effort.  Pictures...

4.  Finish coat.  Normally they would apply the finish coat of color and that would be a uniform color you select from a color chart or color match just like paint.  These finishes are very advanced in terms of their chemical composition, which I think is basically an acrylic polymer mixed with color and sand.  The finish coat is available in different textures, where some have larger sand particles and rough up the surface as they are applied to give different looks, but ours should be fairly smooth, with some trowel marks here and there.  Where ours differs, though, is that they will be "burnishing" in different colors over the top of the original to create a deeper color look.  So the combination of texture and colors leads to a more 3 dimensional look. 

We're not there yet.

House from the front.

 Oh, and inside, the cantera continues to go up.  As of tonight they had 6 interior columns up of the 6, and they were looking good. They are also preparing the base for the cantera hearth in the living room.  A messy task.  I spared you a pic of that.

Personally, I have spent the last few days cleaning up after my trim and cabinet guy.  We spent the entire weekend sanding, all four of us.  Just the little corners of the doors and drawers were sharp.  Pulling nails, mounting the missing door fronts, reworking the pull out trash bins, adding missing hinges,  sanding under the drawer dividers, which were left rough (would snag a sweater or give you a splinter if you pulled the drawer out and it caught you).  In addition, I had to remount the garage/attic door because it was out of square and the bore holes didn't line up, door didn't seal.  Everything had to be cased again, and sorting through boards to be returned to the mill work vendor.  Today, in addition to all that, we went and picked up the copper top vanity  cabinet we had custom built several months ago, and did a little sashay with a light fixture purchase, and bought a light from our local furniture guy to replace a light that a certain brown parcel company just couldn't resist repetitively smashing to bits.

OH, the tile guys brought the travertine tile (12 x 24 inch) that goes into the master shower.  Dang, it was a whole pallet of tile, 260 square feet.  We had already purchased the floor tile for that shower, which is hexagon shaped travertine.   It's gorgeous together, though, and we played with all the grout samples today to select the grout color...  No, I'm not kidding, you have to select that too, there are about 30 to choose from...  The other showers look great, and they also put the concrete in them today that defines the shape of the floor.  The tile guys work from about 7 in the morning, till about 8 at night. 

OK, I'm off to bed.

Cabinets kindof Complete

Ok, here we go....  Have not been posting too many entries lately...  Just been busy out of control. 

Somebody asked me via the comments screen where I got the window.  The company is called AWSCO and I think they are in Ohio.  A google search will get you right there.

Standing in a different spot for a change and took this snap.  It won't look like that much longer because there is 50 tons of rocks now sitting in my front yard waiting for a home.  Rock, meet home.

These are a bit out of order and random...  You will just have to deal with it.  This is a towel pullout just to the right of both of our islands.  Cabinet guy made one but it was sloppy, so this morning I made two new ones.  There is a double ball bearing slide on one side only.  Keeps it straight and easy to move.  I like the ball bearing slides better than I thought I would.  In the kitchen we used the K V soft close slide system.  They are expensive, and I'm not sure my trim guys were careful with all the measurements.  I see tweaking in my future....  Whats new.

This is the towel bar extended.  Holds 3 towels.  The islands our out in space and there was no place for a towel, and I don't like opening a door to get to the towel with wet hands.  This way, the towel is hanging over the first bar and you just grab the bar with the towel over the top of it.

This is the quatrafoil window in the barrel shower again.  Tile guys have been really nice and offer nice little ways to please the eye.  They cut the window surround from 13 inch tiles by hand.  We were going to use a natural stone in the kiddos showers and guest, but decided against it regarding caution with the sealer.  These will look much lighter with the grout (not yet applied).

Bad picture, but looking from the breakfast nook into the kitchen.  We wanted the cabinets to have different heights and depths.  The wood here is knotty alder, and the center island will be painted.

Looking at another angle.  Love the beams... LOVE LOVE LOVE them.

My wife had this idea of using some glass someplace in the kitchen.  The doors come without glass and we have to find some to put in there.  The cabinet on the left is for the double oven, and the one on the right is for a microwave under a 26 inch LED television. 

I was more excited today about this than anything.  After almost two weeks of prep, the stucco guys started the scratch coat today.  They did the chimney and cupola, and then started here at the garage.    As I was leaving tonight the mortar was changing color and already made the house look much better.  The stucco has glass fibers in it to add to the strength.  These guys are mixing this by hand, hauling it by hand, and then putting it on... they were tuckered out.  Only two guys and they did a LOT of work. 

This cabinet is in the Master.  Looks a little victorian for me, but adds a nice touch in there.  There are two big shelves for the bookcase above you can't see very well.  It will be distressed and then painted and glazed.

Just part of the stone they delivered.  It is called Moss Rock, and it's from Oklahoma.  It has moss growing on it because they pick it up in fields on top of the ground, rather than a quarry.  It is also very hard, and of course heavy.  We buy it by the pound.

My wifes vanity and makeup counter.  The corner cabinet will help break things up a bit, and lots of lights and mirrors.  Look carefully at the makeup counter and you can see the copper tubing for the granite heat system...tied into the floor heat, geo thermal, and solar.  Keeps her warm (in theory) and happy. 

Another cabinet that is in the process of getting painted.  Just primer here, and no, it won't be white, but distressed black.  That same stone to the left for that wall where the fireplace is, and the walls are glazed.  Ceiling will be a cream type color (after the Tuscan tradition).

Pantry in the process of getting primed.

Cantera is here.  They started outside, but they have 4 columns up in the main hallway and it is looking FAB.  Note the absense of the square pedistal at the bottom... toe stubber, so we went with a round to start.  Still gets the doric capital on top.

Did I mention I LOVE these beams.  Kitchen here...  Oh, check out the arches... Cabinet arch, hallway arch, and then the little broom closet is an arched, alder door.  The alder doors all look great, and they will get stained.  Everything else (trim) is getting painted either olive or a brown burgendy.

7 of the columns on the back of the house are almost complete.  Just missing the last piece on the top.  They look great.

Two big beams in the top of the master bath.  Dark walnut stain on them.

Beams in the study. 

Trim guys had me feeling sorry for them because the house was hot, so against my better judgement I let them crank open the casement windows.  Well, they screwed this one down too tight and messed up the operator, so now I have to have a new one installed.  grrrrrrrr.  Nobody else gets the option of opening them.  The weather is nice now and they don't need to, so I hid the one crank from everybody else.  They can open the doors and sliding windows.

 

Ok, it's late.  Next post will probably have more completed type photos.  So hang in there.  In the meantime, We have a full time job buying hardware, sinks, fixtures, etc.  That's before all the fires. 

Have a great day.

Late Blog Post

Hello...

Late again so this will be very short...

I have been up half the night trying to figure out exactly how big to make the openings in the kitchen for the built in fridge, and the microwave.  Oh, you think that would be easy...  But the trim guy wants to argue with my paperwork, and I'm not really sure if he is right or not...  1/2 inch too small, I can cut it out, 1/8 inch too big, and I have a problem.  That is on the face of the cabinet, of course, which allows the space right behind to be about an inch larger all around.  I know, why do you care...  grrrrr!

On the up side, this is what I think is approaching the finished product in the office.  In this case, a reeded corner detail, where most of the rest of the house gets "flutes".  Flutes go in, and reeds go out.

They use "pin" nails to put things together, which they shoot with a gun.  I am hoping the painters will have all this invisible.  The darker the stain, the easier to hide stuff.  Not sure we will be dark or light, probably in the middle.  Alder is similar to Cherry in it's grain, I am told.

By the way, this is PM5 moulding on the bottom of this cabinet, which we don't really like.  We instead bought some special order "lip" mold for all these locations, but somehow the PM5 keeps showing up... So, I walked around today and wrote "NO PM5" on all the sketches.  Wonder if that will work... yea..

That being said, I think that under the desk area here PM5 is actually appropriate, because it provides support for the lip around the edge of the desk.  You never know when they will "revisit" a cabinet and add stuff.  It is a total mystery.  One thing for sure, their joints are all very tight.

From left to right, shelves, door, shelves, door, shelves.  Bottom is drawers over doors or file cabinets on the outside walls.  Bookcase at the end of the desk. 

Laundry room cabinets.  We actually drew sketches of all the cabinets in the entire house and planned out exactly what would go in each spot.  With all this room, believe it or not, we actually will have most of these things occupied with something.  With the extra space left over, we can buy things on sale (my wife says "saving money buying shit").  Well, I shouldn't have said that, but it's true.  She is very thrifty.  Me not so much.

Window sill, thick sucker.  The outside stucco lath going up.  That will make it even thicker...

Can't remember if I put this pic out before, but it is a "head knocker" cabinet above the guest toilet.  The doors are made from plywood and moulding.  That is the "correct" moulding at the bottom of this cabinet. 

Outside...  Work on the stucco lath.  This thing is almost ready for stucco. 

OK, job jar is getting full again, so tomorrow is a full day.  Trying to get a bunch of little stuff done so I can start the mechanical plumbing, the centralite panel hookup low voltage, and about 1000 other little jobs. 

Cat just bit me on the foot.  4 am, and he comes to get me to bring me to bed.  I will comply.

Goodnight.

Trim and Cabinets Update

A friend of my sister sent a comment that mentioned I was semi-OCD... Funny, but trust me there is NO "semi" in my OCD.  Whats more, my wife is possibly worse.  Sometimes we aren't obsessive about things as individuals, but it almost never happens when at least one of us is not obsessing... It is a tiring lifestyle...

Anyway, thanks for the nice comments, and I hope everyone is enjoying finally seeing something besides wires and studs.

I think the last time I posted was during drywall.  Since then we have hired a trim carpenter who is doing the cabinets, trim, mounting and installing doors, etc. 

We have a unique thing down here in Texas.  For some reason these guys love to build everything on site.  There are pros and cons, but to say that things are custom is an understatement.  You can obsess over every little detail as it happens, and it has been killing me.  I guess I care way more than I should.  One of the big problems is that the cabinets are not "finished", so your painter actually is the one who comes in and stains and lacquers everything as well as paint those things that get painted. 

Paint grade cabinets turn out to be quite a bit cheaper because of material costs, so we are sticking with Alder or Knotty Alder (not too naughty, I told my supplier ;-) for the kitchen, kitchen office, study, and master bath. 

The process (in our case) consists of

1.  Buying thousands of dollars of doors and wood components (furniture plywood, trim, mouldings, wood).
2.  Installing the doors.
3.  Going room by room, cabinet by cabinet, and having the trim guy draw (on the wall normally) with a #2 wooden pencil a 3D sketch of the proposed cabinet.  This takes a long time, as you discover you thought you knew what you wanted, until you are standing there in the "hot seat".

Anyway, we are about 2 weeks into what looks to be a 4 week process (hmmm).  I am also having this guy cut cedar beams in to corbels, and installing the wooden ceiling on the porch area out back. 

I may post some of the pictures of the sketch, versus the actual cabinet.  Almost always things change around a little bit, and of course.....that drives us CRAZY. 

Bottom line is that they are doing a good job, and using a LOT of plywood.  By a lot, I mean close to 300 sheets so far.  Most of it is Baltic Birch, and cost about 30 dollars a sheet, but about 1/4 of that is clear Alder, more like $80 dollars a sheet.  Last thing you want to hear over by the table saw is "whoops".  There also seems to be a pretty constant ratio of material cost to sawdust generation.

OK, I know... Pictures.

Here is a sketch of what we start with.  You can see some layout lines on the walls...

And Presto!  Eric, the young man, after about 6 hours of work, produces this.  Using nothing more than a table saw, pencil, pin nailer, level, and a tape measure.  It isn't done yet, as it will get decorative reed molding in the edges where you see it is not finished, as well as a rounded front where most people would have a desk drawer, as well as finish molding all over everything, and then some crown molding on top.  A note on the subject of desk height...we originally were going to make all the desk cabinets 32 inches high, and found it was WAY too high for our liking.  Most store bought desks are more like 29, but will have a drawer under them.  We settled on 30 inches with no drawer and it feels perfect.

This, by the way, is our study.  A double sided desk, one side will have the computer with the monitor suspended in space above the desk by our ergotron articulating mount, and a wireless keyboard and mouse.  The other side will be ready for the laptop, so we can both surf together or separate.  The opposite side of this room is actually a little miniature theatre.  We just turn a couple small chairs towards the screen, dim the lights, and a full theatre awaits.  Otherwise, we can use the office while watching TV, a more likely scenario.

OK, I know... more pictures.  This one is the office, so you don't get confused.

About half of our doors are Knotty Alder.  And unlike most doors, these are 1 3/4 inches thick rather than the usual 1 3/8 inches (even our painted doors are 1 3/4 inches thick and solid).  They look great, feel great, and the extra thickness is pretty inexpensive.  This one has not yet been cased, but they basically put the door casing around, and nail the door jamb on one side to the casing, and the other side to the framing, and that holds things in place pretty sell.  On the hinge side, they put extra long screws through the hinges to attach the door to the actual framing, and not the jamb.

Further away looking at this door, which is only 1 1/2 feet wide, yet 8 feet tall.  We thought it might look goofy, but it is actually really cute.  It's a linen closet off the powder bath hallway.

Early stages of a 42 inch vanity cabinet in my son's room.  Note that the drawer blank normally below the sink is missing... Where is it??  Look at the bottom.  They just flip the design to get that drawer back.  You can even make this drawer into a step for little kids so they don't have to use a stool, but my kiddos are growing fast and already tall...  Oh, the bottom kick space is also framed in at an angle from the sides, a more finished look. 

Our window stools (or a sill, as I had always called it) are very simple.  Many of you will just die when you find out we plan on painting this AND the wooden window above.  But it will look great.

This is the backpack area...  The very top space will have 4 doors across there, and just below that is where the kids stage lunches, backpacks, etc.  3 drawers in the bottom below the seating area for shoes, etc.  What you can't see in this picture is just opposite is the kitchen office desk, which is also Alder, and quite nice. 

In the Living Room, these are 3 really super thick shelves above a shallow cabinet, and will be distressed and then painted a with a rustic, weathered black (I think, but I'm not the keeper of the "paint spreadsheet" so it's hard to keep track).

This is my vanity, sink will be fairly close to the tall cabinet.  I was happy to get lots of drawers, and my wife has this exact same thing across the street, but hers also has another lower makeup vanity.  For my side, I had them make the cabinet 37 inches tall rather than 36, it's subtle, but better for me.  Certainly an advantage of having them make the cabinets to your specs.

We love how the kids rec room cabinets are turning out.  The pattern above basically is shelves, doors, shelves, doors, etc.  30 inches tall, the peninsula between them is storage shelves for games and toys, and at the end of that is lower shelves to keep video games and DVDs, etc.   I am standing in their TV area, which is a full blown surround system and fairly large TV.  Keep in mind, and each individual desk is way nicer than any desk I have ever had....  Rotten kids.  OH, we did make a change to plans on this one... They face AWAY from each other, rather than next to each other.  Keeps them from sibling battles maybe a little better.  Each has space for a computer system in the lower corners, and a network printer will most likely sit between them over by the wall.  I ran 16 Ethernet cables in here hoping that even a blind squirrel sometimes finds a nut.  Now, we are thinking of switching the whole family over to Apple...  And that would most likely be wireless...  Will see.

We are calling this the "butler's pantry", just screwing around, but it seemed a good place to have a few bottles of wine.  Doors above.  This is just around the corner from the kitchen, but actually sits in the family room.  It was supposed to be painted, but they used Alder, so we may stain it now...

Wife hasn't seen these yet, but today somebody put some crown molding on top of the cabinets on top of the toilets...  Texas French, I would say, which means I am not sure if I like it.  Will let the boss decide tomorrow when she is on site...

Almost forgot this one...  We have always had a cat, and love them.  Our current cat is never content to be on either side of a closed door, so here is our solution.  We want the kids doors closed when they are sleeping, but the cat gets stuck on one side or the other and then raises hell.  So, we are putting "Cat Holes" in 3 walk in closets (kids and ours) as well as one to the equipment room (litter box and dishes).  You can't see through them, because they turn once through the wall.  I hope the cat fits (9 inches tall and 7 inches wide). 

Oh, the baseboards are about 8 inches tall, this one isn't complete, but gets a little bull nose ledge piece on top.  My wife didn't want what they usually do ( a PM5 moulding over a board) because there are too many lines to catch dust and dirt, and they are a bugger to clean.  Our outlets are in the baseboards too.

Rear porch ceiling going in.  This is tongue and groove bead board, but we are putting it on upside down, so there are less lines.  It will be stained.

Loving the dark brown soffits.  Today I actually put the last piece of flashing on a window, and did a little dance.  I just have some tidy work to do with two garage door frames, and the flashing is complete.  Garage doors come Friday. 

Very soon, you will no longer be looking at a foam house, and will start to see stucco and stone...   We are excited...

I do so love this tile roof...

Have a great week...