We had the stair treads and risers cut and fit today. They are going to look good.
Posted in bamboo, Biolime, DIY homebulding, glass awnings, green building, Lighting, SIPS construction, Solar, Uncategorized on December 2, 2012| Leave a Comment »
Posted in bamboo, Biolime, DIY homebulding, glass awnings, green building, Lighting, Resources, SIPS construction, Solar, Uncategorized on September 9, 2012| 3 Comments »
Well, it has been a prodigiously long time since I updated any pictures and much has happened. Once the plastering was completed and the front door set, we took a little break and spent a month in France! We visited friends and relatives and bicycled all over the Loire Valley and in the south of France. It was fantastic to get away from work although I didn’t know how much we needed a break. We rode along the Loire river through small villages on the way to Chenonceau and all the stress seemed to melt away. Oh, and did I mention that if you ride every day….then you can eat everything in sight! Which is pretty much what we did.
When we returned, it was right back to work on the house. We set all the cabinets in the kitchen, laundry room and bathrooms…
One thing we have always enjoyed are glass awnings. When I was growing up, many of the art deco buildings in Pasadena had glass awnings with the wired safety glass in them. On my first trip to France I was thrilled to see so many glass awnings and swore if I ever got the chance to build one I would. I was able to find some trick hardware from CR Laurance for a modern awning and we powder coated our roof panel lifting plates and attached them to the wall as anchor points. We had to use 9/16″ safety glass and it was tricky to get it up and in place, but we are really happy with the results.
We also installed all the cabinets in the bathrooms and the fixtures:
Floating cabinets and a vessel sink from China. The sink was a gift from Ariane’s good friend Marie who did a ceramics artist in residency there.
Ariane and I are now busy laying the floors upstairs.
Almost finished with the master bedroom Most all of the electrical outlets are functional, all but a few of the lights are installed, and the sound system is working so we can listen to music in each room.
A wall sconce made by Barry Frantz looks terrific.
We continue to plod along every day, trying to get out of our trailer before Christmas!
Posted in Biolime, DIY homebulding, green building, SIPS construction, Solar on April 17, 2012| Leave a Comment »
It has been another long time since the last post because most of what we have been doing is drudgery. We installed all the interior sheetrock, and taped and mudded it before the plasterers could come in. We figured it was a lot less expensive to fill gaps with tape and mud than with plaster…. it took about 15 boxes of mud. We then restained the floor with some more black, and last week we sealed and lacquered the floor.
I also got to turn to some finish work. We found some cool looking vent covers for the dryer and the ceiling fan in the laundry room and I installed those.
dryer vent on the left. the cat door needed a cover so I made some out of aluminum sheet and installed them on the cat doors.
While I have been doing this, Ariane has been oiling the cabinet doors with tung oil. We took some of the doors to the glass company for inserting glass and they should be back this week.
We did not like the look of the vents for the central vac system and I was able to adapt a diffuser from Seiho Co. to cover the exhaust vents instead and keep up the semi-industrial look of the structure.
Most of the exterior lights have been installed so the outside is getting finished. The plasterers have started on the inside and the plaster is looking good!
Felipe and Luis plastering the office!
Felipe did not have experience working with Biolime, but he was able to get familiar with the product very quickly. He has done a terrific job on the stucco and now on the plaster as well.
We will soon be setting the cabinets and installing the fixtures. yeah!