Woodstove and Insulation

The next thing that took us quite a bit of time trying to figure out was where could we put a wood burning stove.  We visited a friend that has one, and we loved it.

  At first we thought we could build a wall in our "grand banquet hall" and put it caty-cornered against the newly built wall.  See the L shape piece of wood above.  That would be the wall.  And we would have had room behind it to hide some wood.  Plus it hides the door.  Once we laid it out, I didn't like it at all.  

 I didn't like that it was taking up an entire quarter of the room.  I wouldn't have room for a buffet and I would have very little wall space left in that room.  For such a big room it has very little wall space.  We even moved card tables around trying to figure out a furniture layout to see if we could get it to work.  Nope. 

 So then we decided to put it in this corner of the room.  Complete opposite corner.  We wouldn't be using that corner for anything anyway.  So it would be perfect IF we could put some of the chimney inside the attic and have it exit the roof at the peak.  No can do.  The pitch of the roof, hence the pitch of the attic, wasn't in alignment with the ratio  we could angle the chimney.  Code is that the chimney has to go a couple of feet above the roofline.  So we would have about a 12 foot chimney sticking out of the front of our house, with brackets holding it up, if we were to put the woodstove in this corner.  So, we had an expert come out.  After spending an hour with us he determined the best thing we can do is go back to a wood burning furnace and put it in the garage, where the roof pitch is perfect for a chimney.  No stove for us.  I'm over it because if you look in the middle picture above the room next to the big room has a fireplace in it.  And I think that needs to be the focal point of both rooms. 

 So we got busy again.  Insulating.  The downstairs mudroom and bathroom is insulated.

 And so is the attic.  We started with this which was awkward because of the angles.

Note to self.  Do not raise up.  There are nails poking through the roof and they will hurt your head.  I have a hat on because it was cold.

 After all of the attic vents (blue things)  were stapled, we set to insulating.  There is very little room in this area so Dave would cut and I would lay the insulation down.

 I had to walk (crawl) across these boards that he installed so we would be able to get to that section of the attic.

 Then we both got to work on the bigger section of the attic and ta daaaah!

 It's almost finished.  We had about 50 rolls of insulation and ran out! 

 We have been putting insulation down in one direction, then rolling it across in another direction to create an R value of 50.  The R value of the insulation is 25.  This house is on a hill and it's windy out here so we have tried to insulate very well.

We had an extremely windy day yesterday, and there weren't any breezes coming in the house, so that's great!

Cindy

Upstairs Bathroom and Breezeway Floor

 This is the floor in the breezeway.  It's just a room off of the garage that joins the garage to the house.  I decided to try to stain it, with cement stain, like I did my garden girl statue.

It looks pretty good compared to a plain cement floor. 

 You can see a lot of the strokes from the cement.  And we think they sealed it.  Cement stain doesn't really work unless it has not been sealed. 

 

Dave put a door up to the breezeway, which helps seal the house from the garage.

Time out for a little romance...

 

 So, we were talking about how much the upstairs bathroom complicates things.  He has told me that many times, but I never understood what he meant.  Then he explained.  All of the bathroom plumbing need to connect to each other.  The basement bathroom and main level bathroom are aligned, but the upstairs bathroom is over our bedroom.  So, the plumbing will need to slope enough to, "get a turd to the septic and not get stuck."  I'm pretty sure he was saying that in laymans terms, but I got it.  So I suggested we move the bathroom over to the attic and align it with the other bathrooms.  Which he thought was brilliant....I tried to draw a diagram to help explain.

See where the top left of the diagram says attic...that's where we were going to move the bathroom.  Then it would be directly over the bathroom on the main level.  Then we were going to move the bathroom wall to the room that actually says Bathroom, and make it a bedroom, and make the front bedroom a sitting room.  It all worked out....in theory.

 Here is an old pic of our house....I couldn't find a new one.  So what we are talking about is the right hand side of the upstairs. 

 So we got to work.

 I helped pull wire.....

 

Dave was on the other side of the wall, on the main level, handing wire up to me and I was pulling it through those "wire boxes" (I don't know the correct term for them) and tightening them down.

Then we carried up the sub floor.  Which was heavy.

And while he did some other work, I screwed down the sub floor.

And we both finished up

Then we brought the tub and toilet into the new bathroom area and guess what....we do not like it!  There goes our theory!

It just doesn't look right and the attic walls slope so it doesn't give us as much room as we would have liked.  So, we are back to the original design and guess what....there is going to be one big closet upstairs!!!

Cindy

Cleaning, wiring, venting (no I'm not mad!)

 So....this is where I was extracting honey this year.  My own little section of the garage.

That was FULL of stuff from ourother house....from when we moved.  We can't put it in the area where we are living, and it was in the way in the house now, because we are building.  So in the last couple of months, we have been moving everything out of the garage, and into the pole barn.  And we did get rid of some things.  I showed you in THIS POST that Mom & Dad came over and helped me get started.

Here is our garage now!  Thanks for helping Mom & Dad!

That little pile of stuff on the right hand side is no longer there.  That is stuff that went into my camper.

And now we are back in the house.  Dave has finished the laundry room.  This vent from the dryer to the outside was a bit of artwork to figure out.  The vent goes from the laundry room,

 through the attic,

(Look how he built brackets out of scrap wood to hold the vent in place.  Brilliant. )

in the mudroom, and through the wall to the outside. 

And he built a wall around these vents which I will show you later.

And this is the foyer.  This is the door guests will use when they come into our house.  It actually faces the back yard, but because the driveway goes up and around, it would be awkward for people to walk around the front of the house.  I'll go up in a helicopter or a bi-plane some day and take pictures so you'll know what I'm talking about.  NOT!  You'll just have to visit!

This is standing in the entrance door looking into the grand banquet hall.  Notice....we have electricity.

We now have electricity in the entire main level except the bathroom.   So you can walk from the basement, to the garage, without a flashlight!!!!  YAY!

He has done some more work on the house, but electrical wires start to all look the same after awhile. Our goal is to get the entire main level closed off from the upstairs so that we can keep it a little warmer this winter and continue building.  We have discussed some HUGE changes that just maybe the architect could have suggested from the very beginning....I'll 'splain all of those to you later.

Cindy

Big Honkin' Kitchen Post!

Total Kitchen Post!
In the last few months we have been working, off and on, on the kitchen upstairs.  I was very excited for this, because right now I have a one by two foot piece of counter space.  The top of my coffee pot and the top of my stove also double as counter space.  And I love to bake.  So this is an important room for me.
Our house sits on a hill....hence....The House on Hilltop Farm.  We have tried to make sure the house is tightly sealed since it is on a hill, and it seems to be windy a lot up on that hill.

Here, I am sealing all of the joints in the OSB.  I did the same thing in our living area, aka, Great Banquet Hall.

We also insulated all of the walls in the kitchen

I think this will be my Halloween outfit this year!  You HAVE to wear this when insulating, no matter how hot it is.  And don't bother with make-up because it will just rub off on the mask, if you don't sweat it off.  It's an ugly job...but someone's gotta do it!

 We put OSB on the kitchen ceiling

And we insulated the attic above the kitchen. 

 Which is nerve-wracking for me, because you have to walk these planks to get to the attic kitchen area!

In the end, we put insulation (R value 25) one way, then rolled it the other way.  Which makes an R value of 50.  Hopefully the kitchen will be toasty in the winter and cool in the summer.

 

 As you can see I'm going to have a lot of lights in the kitchen.  One thing we realized by living here, is the kitchen is dark.  On the outside of the South side of the kitchen is a porch, and the other window is on the North side.  So, not much natural light comes into the kitchen.

The good thing is the south row of lights are on a separate switch than the north row of lights.  And the two lights in the middle are not lights at all.  They are ceiling fans.  We use these faux' lights to  make sure the electrical is done correctly, kind of a test, before we close it all up.  Much easier to correct mistakes before the walls are up!
 Here's the thing about building. 
You have to think through....how are you going to decorate....how are you going to do the walls....what lights you are going to turn on when you walk into the room.....just about anything from the beginning to the end.  I know I've said this before, but it is just mind boggling to me.  This window below looks out over the patio, and the kitchen sink is going under it.  I decided that we would put "mdf" on the walls.  It's a plastic-type bead-board looking material.  It needs support.  Hence, the osb on this wall.  Support for the mdf.   We also have to think where the fridge, stove, cabinets, what the cabinet height, sink height, etc. is going to be so all of the wiring can be finished before the walls go up. 

 

The wiring includes all of the outlets, which also need to be thought out.  Where will the microwave go, the coffee pot, crock pot, etc.  Will I have appliances in the pantries like I do now.  Sometimes I think we spend as much time thinking things through as we do, doing the actual work.  The wiring is in the attic.  And the wiring was actually finished before we closed the kitchen ceiling up with osb.

 We spent a huge amount of time discussing pantries.  I even had some friends help me out.  In the beginning, on the left of this window (that is on the north side of the house) we were going to put a wood stove.

 Which would make the right side of the window the only area for a pantry.  I did not want a walk in pantry because it was too big.  It felt like a room inside a room.  So, I opted out of the wood stove, we made two pantries on either side of the window, we lowered the ceiling and turned this area into a cozy little breakfast nook.

 It's been hard to get a picture of the whole wall, and the lighting through the window messes with my camera.  You get the idea though from these two pictures.

So that's the kitchen!
  Last week My Shug hurt his foot, again.  He is in another cast.  It's a very thin cast and he, fortunately, did not hurt his Achilles tendon.  He did, however, hurt the same foot he had surgery on.  So, I decided to bring dinner upstairs last week, to save him some steps.  We had a nice little dinner in our cozy little breakfast nook.  I can not wait to move upstairs.  Have I ever said that before?????

 Cindy