One Year In and The End is in Sight!

We have been so busy, I had to bypass the posting on the plastering process…which is probably ok as it was a long and difficult process. More so for the plasterers, as we were all operating on some bad information and they had to figure a lot of things out as they went. I cannot say how much we appreciate all the good work done by  Felipe Landin and his crew,  Luis and Marcelo, of Mission Plastering. Great work and attention to detail and we highly recommend them.

Marcelo and Luis

Hallway

Living room

We installed copper backsplashes and then the kitchen cabinets. Pacific Heating of Morro Bay made all the backsplashes. Green Goods of San Luis Obispo made the cabinets and they did an excellent job, excellent quality.

Island cabinets

the tape is where the hood will mount on the backsplash

A few more drawers and doors to set and then the countertops!

And finally some really good news!  Our front door finally arrived and we made quick work of getting it in. Now the house is completely closed, and Felipe will stucco it this week!

building a house requires a daily infusion of red wine!

Milano door installed and ready for the stucco.

The door will look good from the inside

Entry door, and an art piece by Christina McPhee.

We cleaned up the floors upstairs and now you can see what the bathroom is going to look like:

Much of the electrical finish and plumbing has been completed. The utility room is completed and so has the laundry room. So we are left with setting bathroom cabinets and fixtures, stairs, upstairs flooring and  the decks.  Just a brief update, but we are getting it done.

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Half-wrapped!

Things are starting to speed up now!  The plumbing is all done and the electricity will be done soon. This involves about a million decisions on lights, plugs, switches, and generally trying to figure out all the potential future needs and installations…..yikes. Ariane has been up to the task on the lighting and is handling that crucial aspect. Meanwhile, we set the ledgers for the upper and lower decks and started running the metal roofing panels. The plasterer Felipe is barreling through and has the first story wrapped in paper and wire for stucco. He will be back Monday with a crew to set all the scaffolding for getting the whole thing wrapped… a huge undertaking. I have a crew coming on Monday to help us with the roofing and we should have that done next week, then the whole thing will be completely waterproof….yeah!

So here are some updated pictures:

East side wrapping

South side , with first roof panels installed!

The roofing should go fast, each panel is 38″ wide and after overlapping, you cover a 3′ by whatever length the roof is with one piece…sweet!  Metal roofs are great, they do not have the thermal mass of shingles or tiles which radiate  heat back into the structure, so you stay cooler in summer, warmer in winter. Plus with baked on finish the metal roof lasts 40 yrs. The underlayment is special too as it is also rated for 40 yrs, unlike felt paper which is about 15. So you end up with a pretty maintenance free roof for a  long time.

You lay the roof panels on so the overlap faces away from the main direction of rain and bad weather. In our case that is from the northwest, so all the overlaps face east.

The installation of electricity and plumbing is unique for these structures as well, here are some details.

You have to block out areas where plumbing goes like this. The red spray paint marks the electrical chases. To pull wire or move it through the chases, you can make a 4" hole and then feed wire.

Fire sprinkler riser.....

Here you can see a switch box and the circle cut for feeding wire to a light outlet..

Here are some random photos of the interior space:

Ariane, James and I built the stairs!...no more ladders!

Office with clerestory windows.

Upstairs bedroom.

Hallway, and light cans

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