September 2020 Building a Home Thread
Happy Building!
Comments (541)
4 years agoRelated Discussions
March 2020 Building a Home
Comments (337)You guys are very kind! Here are the specs/selections for my kitchen stuff: @mtpo - here's what I can gather together on my selections for the kitchen As I mentioned, cabinets are Windsor White shaker cabinets from a company called Koch Cabinets. If you happen to be in central Virginia, our vendor is Chesapeake Bay Cabinet Company. They've been great. The island is that same cabinet maker but in their Driftwood finish. I don't have a good photo of the counter tops yet but they areTechnistone Noble Areti Bianco (white quartz with subtle veins) Sink faucet is Delta Trinsic Pull Down in Arctic Stainless This is the kitchen sink The backsplash tile is called "Par Avon" by Crossville. The color number is HWR05, and obviously we did it in the 3x6 picket shape, but we debated doing the gothic picket shape for a while too. This brochure has all the details. Our local tile vendor in central Virgina is Mosaic Tile Co. Flooring is red oak stained on site with Minwax Weathered Oak. Not water popped, just applied per instructions and a satin poly applied on top. These are the pendants over the island (very dusty in my photo due to construction dust obviously) Wall paint color is Sherwin Williams Eider White. Trim paint is Sherwin Williams Pure White. More photos of kitchen. The ones without the backsplash installed are before counters and before floor staining. I'll post more photos when the backsplash is done and the clutter is off of the counters (should be in the next day or two!)...See MoreApril 2020 Building a Home
Comments (468)NKay I am hoping I’ll get to work at home more in the future and understand that Ethernet is more secure and possibly faster than WIFi. I put Ethernet hook ups in a lot of different rooms so I won’t have long wires laying around as trip hazards. Even though we’ll have a study, I know I’ll want to sit with my computer at the kitchen island so we had wire run there that will come up through a hollow island leg. Make sure Ethernet wiring does not run parellel to electrical wiring (it causes interference). we hard-wired for picture lights where we plan to build bookcases, but since then I found out it wasn’t really necessary to hardwire as so many of the nice fixtures are battery operated now. My builder suggested 2 exhaust fans in several of our bathrooms ... I had him order the new NuTones with the antibacterial UV light/regular light and fan to go near each toilet and a regular exhaust fan/light outside of the shower to prevent humidity build up/mold. Decided to use part of my entry guest coat closet for my main cable box/router. The builder also put some hook ups in around the house to amplify the WiFi throughout the house. Also hooked up special exterior security lights that we can turn on/off from 1st floor and the 2d floor MBR. Hook up for under counter fridge (in case we later want one) in 2d floor laundry room. Hope some of these ideas are useful to you. Know we probably forgot stuff. I forgot wall plug for Dustbuster in the pantry. No matter how much we plan, it’s never enough....See MoreShow Us Your Landscape and Gardens - A Photo Thread - September 2020
Comments (58)Looks like it's time to start October. :-) Deanna - I love 'Alma Potschke' and wish I had planted it sooner. I'm trying to figure a way to add more. I did frame them with a 'Little Lime' Hydrangea and a Hardy Hibiscus which hide the 'bare knees', trying to blend it into the rest of the bed. It is taller than everything else there at this time. I expect both shrubs to grow taller and I have roses that should be taller in later seasons. The larger grass looks great with it and I'm wondering if I should have planted that closer. Any way you use it, it is an enjoyable plant. Vigorous, needs little attention beyond cutting back in spring. Very sturdy. I may try to buy another one looking for a more pink version. As for sedum, I've always grown it. If you are trying to have a low maintenance garden, it's hard to beat sedum. They bloom late, but they look fresh and clean all season and provide a large flower head even when they are green. They stay in one place and gradually spread. Mine will split and flop if they get too large. I've tried putting a peony ring on them to prevent that and it works. But at that point I will usually divide them. This year I experimented. Someone suggested deadheading the sedum to prevent the flopping. So I did that to just one plant. I also was hoping by doing that, to extend the bloom to give the bees a longer time to harvest them. It was a smaller plant anyway and I wasn't expecting it to flop, which it didn't. But I won't deadhead them again. It produces smaller flower heads and I really like the large heads that contrast with so many smaller flowers in my bed. And actually it barely extended the bloom. It bloomed less than a week after those I didn't deadhead. I love the rosy color when they are at their peak, but I don't really enjoy the rusty color they turn after that. But the plant has so many great attributes, that I can live with that, especially at a time of year when the season is winding down. As for the alyssum, in areas where I want to have a lot of alyssum, I don't mulch. And I used about 4 packets of seed about four years ago and I got a LOT of reseeding every year until this spring. I think the dry winter with no snow cover may have been the reason. But I'm planning on getting some packets of seed now and just scatter them where I want them this fall. I think I will wait until it is too cold for them to sprout. Another experiment. I don't see why they shouldn't sprout next spring, since they naturally drop seed that sprouts for me in the spring any way. Great observation about the pots. I love solid color pots too because as you said they are a better complement to the plants. Sometimes a little texture. Sue's blue pots are great. Love the very saturated blue colors. Since they are ceramic I imagine they all have to be brought inside for the winter? I would have a ton more pots like that if they could stay in place all year. I have a few, but I've also been buying more weather resistant that can stay out all season....See MoreSeptember 2020, The Ides of September
Comments (47)I am so far behind that I'll never catch up. I stayed busy towards the end of the week, baking multiple batches of desert from scratch for the luncheon following Chris' funeral and burial, and had to make two birthday cakes for Aurora...because, apparently, in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic it is advised to put the birthday candles on a small cake or cupcake for the birthday child, and let them blow out those candles while having a separate cake for people to eat---a cake no one has breathed all over apparently. So, her birthday candle cake was a small confetti cake with pale pink frosting and her official birthday cake was a hot pink colored vanilla cake with sparkly hot pink sprinkles on top of hot pink vanilla frosting from a can. (The candle cake frosting was a buttercream made from scratch though.) am, quite honestly, sick of the kitchen now and don't intend to cook anything today. Either we'll go out to eat or eat cold sandwiches because I'm officially on kitchen strike. After spending a couple of days in the kitchen baking, I don't even want to eat any baked goods myself. : ) Larry, I have had stored sweet potatoes last up to 18 months in the upstairs spare bedroom, and had some like yours that I just let sprout and grow all winter, and then I took slips from them for spring planting. It is amazing how long a well-cured sweet potato can last when stored indoors. Larry, I think the furnace parts of the HVAC system are harder to repair than the AC air compressor type parts. Tim can fix a lot on the AC himself but has to call the repair guy when the heater needs repair. Nancy, It was such a hard week. I am not sure if anything prepares us for losing someone we love who is younger than we are---it feels unnatural. I know you understand that yourself. This summer we've seen two friends in our own age group, one a wee bit older than us and one a wee bit younger pass away rather suddenly and unexpectedly and I found it much harder to bear than when we lose someone a generation ahead of us. I hope you are feeling better and less melancholy. One of the hard parts about aging (and I know it is a privilege to live long enough to acknowledge that we are getting older....) is that we increasingly lose everyone in our age group and older than our age group--first, perhaps, our grandparents and their generation, then our parents and their generation, and then we start losing cousins, siblings and contemporaries from our school days. Perhaps this is why we increasingly find ourselves turning peculiar and talking more and more to our cats and dogs, or to the garden critters like hummingbirds and butterflies, who are great listeners but cannot carry on much of a conversation with us themselves. (grin) Some friends who used to live here in our neighborhood but who moved down to the DFW metro area about 13 or 14 years ago, stopped by our house after the funeral yesterday and we were sitting around the dining table trying to run through a list of all the local friends and neighbors who had died just in the last year or two and it was an alarmingly long list. We've gained new neighbors and friends, of course, but the newer ones tend to be more in Chris' and Jana's age group, or younger, and not so much in ours. I don't understand how Tim and I have gone from being the newest transplants and pretty much the youngest adults in our neighborhood to being among the oldest. It seemed like it happened so quickly, although of course it has been longer than two decades, because we bought our land here in 1997 and moved here in 1999. I wish I could slow down time, or wave a wand and bring back all of our marvelous old neighbors who were so kind to us and so helpful when we moved here and were attempting to turn a fallow cow pasture and accompanying woodland area into a home, garden and yard. I miss chatting with them all. My greenhouse is only a hoophouse, and an unheated one at that, and I don't even use it as much as I thought I would. We built it mainly to give me a way to grow on transplants outside in it in late winter and early spring after they outgrow the light shelf, so it was going to be an intermediate step between indoor seedlings and transplants going into the ground, but I have used it some years to overwinter zone 8 plants in pots, particularly brugmansias and citrus trees, and even to attempt to grow some garden crops in winter. What I learned from that was that my hoophouse could be used to grow cool-season crops like lettuce and other greens in winter if I used shadecloth and opened all the doors and vents daily to keep it from building up too much heat and inducing cool weather plants to bolt, or I could overwinter tomato and pepper plants in pots by letting it get pretty hot during the day time....but I couldn't do both things at the same time, obviously. If I keep the pepper and tomato plants happy and somewhat productive in winter (fruit size remains small and very slow growing in the greenhouse in winter and it isn't really worth the effort) then the lettuce burns up and vice versa with keeping it cold enough for lettuce which kills off the tomatoes and peppers at night. It needs a new plastic cover and I'm toying with the idea of not getting it one. Maybe we'll move it to the garden, which would involve talking it apart and moving one piece at a time through the garden gate, and cover it with something and using it more in there. I've stared at it and its wind-shredded plastic all summer trying to decide what to do with it this fall, and cannot make up my mind. I'm going to have to decide one way or another though. Larry, Going to sleep every time you sit down sounds like a nice goal. I feel like I could take a nap or two daily and maybe then be more energetic for the rest of the day if I did that. I remember when my dad used to come in from work and sit down in his recliner and nod off while mom was getting dinner on the table, and he was only in his 40s or 50s then. Even a brief little cat nap seemed to revive his flagging energy. Hard work wears out a body at any age, though I do think it wears me out more easily as I get older. I am sure you have found the same to be true. Amy, I generally don't like handling any caterpillars bare-handed, but can tolerate picking the broccoli worms off the plants bare-handed when they are small. I hate those things and they are so destructive to seedlings. I hope you can find replacement plants. HU, Technically you can eat Austrian winter peas, and I might do it if it were a matter of life or death, but the peas get tough and fibrous while very young, so if you want to eat them, eat them while they are small like baby peas. Don't expect them to be all tender and tasty like sugar snap peas though. Larry, I find fall planting so challenging in our climate. It seems like it is too hot and the soil is too dry (or, if it has been raining, too soggy wet) to plant in August and sometimes September and to get a good stand of seedlings, and then the day length is getting too short by the time the conditions moderate and plants finally sprout. I think my last really outstanding fall garden was way back in 2012, although I may have had a half-decent one in 2016. More and more, I am so tired of the heat that I don't want to deal with a fall garden at all, although a lot of that is because of the timber rattlers that come out of the woodland adjacent to the garden to plague me. Then, when the weather cools off in October and I think a fall garden would be nice, it is too late to plant much of anything down here except garlic and spinach. Amy, I found Autumn Joy and several other sedums at Lowe's last fall, but all of them were exhausted and half-dead summer plants that hadn't sold....and which clearly hadn't been watered enough and were barely clinging to life. None of them were new plants for fall sales. I bought them off the clearance/almost-dead-plant rack with just a glimmer of life visible in them and planted them anyway, cutting back all the dead parts pretty hard, and now they look great after being in the ground for about a year. Jennifer, This death hurt so much....and not just for us but for a huge number of people. Firefighters from the D-FW metro who had worked with him at various fires, mostly but not all from his three decades as a professional firefighter with the Lewisville TX FD, came to his funeral in droves. Various professional fire departments provided personnel to perform the traditional firefighter funeral tasks, and even an honor guard from D-FW Airport's fire department, where Chris' son works with our son, took part in the ceremony. A man as active and seemingly healthy as him just shouldn't be gone so soon, and that is a widely-shared feeling here. He had just barely turned 60 and seemed to be very healthy until Covid-19 hit him. I hate Covid-19 and hate that it took his life prematurely. His youngest grandchild, still an infant, won't even have first-hand memories of him and I totally hate that fact. I social distanced and stayed home with the grandkids (and though I hated missing his funeral, I have no regrets there because I am so prone to respiratory illnesses) but Tim estimated there were about 1,000 people in attendance. Social distancing was not being practiced, though his family masked up and arranged the services to allow as much social distancing as possible. They could not force people to comply with proper distancing though. Tim did say that virtually everybody present was wearing a mask, which is a shock because you don't see a lot of folks masked up here in our county in general. We've never had a funeral here that big, and it had to be held at the football stadium because no building in town was large enough to contain it, and the family and funeral home did a great job of planning for a large crowd with lots of help from the fire departments and emergency management personnel. Parts of the procession and services were live-streamed and I could watch it at home while helping the girls blow up balloons and decorate for Aurora's birthday party. For a 6-year-old she was extraordinary in accepting that the birthday celebration she was having later in the day was not at all the one we originally planned and she never complained on e, and she told me she thought Capt. Kirk was "a handsome man" and said yesterday that she wished she had known him herself. I'm also grateful to our many friends who took photos and videos and posted them as it enabled me to see as much of it as possible. Now, we all take a deep breath and carry on, and try to support and encourage his family as much as we can while they grieve and adjust to their new reality. For the garden area you feel is underperforming, how about a soil test? Perhaps one nutrient or another is out of kilter there and a soil test would show that. I am looking at my increasingly shaded garden, built beginning in 1999 about 15' from a woodland that now has grown out to its fence, and thinking we need to move the whole thing. I hate this, but it will become inevitable at some point unless we cut down a bunch of gigantic trees, which we'll never do. They are too big to cut down at this point without spending thousands of dollars per tree to pay someone else to do it. I really blame the almost 80" of rain we got in 2015 for this, because that heavy rainfall caused the woodland to explode in growth and suddenly a woodland that was some distance away from the garden was practically in the garden, seemingly overnight. I've been fighting a losing battle to keep the woodland out of the garden ever since then. In some future year, and not too far in the future, we should build a new raised bed garden closer to the house and further from the woodland, but I hate the thought of starting over. Even if we laboriously moved the current beds one wheelbarrow load of soil at a time so we don't lose all the great soil we've spent two decades building, which is what I'd prefer to do, I cannot image starting over in a completely new garden location. So, maybe we'll cut off the northern edge of the garden and let the woods have that back, and try to keep a much smaller garden going in the remaining raised beds in sunnier areas. Already, the front garden is only about 1/4 the size it once was, so I don't feel like we can surrender much more to the encroaching woodland. The woodland growth is so relentless though that it will win in the end. I keep daydreaming about a very selective tornado coming through, missing the house and garden, and taking out the acre of woodland next to the garden, but that is a silly pipedream that's never going to happen. Enjoy the showers and the lead-up to the wedding, and I hope your son returns from Portland healthy and happy. I understand why you aren't happy about him going there. That place is such a hot spot of activity lately. My sister is looking at yet another wedding I guess. Her stepdaughter got married in a beautiful vineyard wedding last month, and then on Friday night, her daughter became engaged to her long-time boyfriend. Love is in the air...apparently. Oh Jen, your poor friend and his fingers! My heart aches when I think of the pain and shock he must have endured. I wish him speedy healing and successful rehabilitation. A part of me agrees with Cliff, but I also agree with you. If woodworking is so vitally important to your friend, the kids won't even be able to make him give it up...nor should they. Perhaps they can help him review his work and ensure safety measures are in place. It often is when folks here have to give up farming or ranching that they quickly decline and then die. I believe being able to maintain their interests, livelihood and regular routines are what keep them going as they age into their 80s and 90s. Fred used to say we'd never see him give up his activities because the alternative was to just sit on the porch until you die. He had to cut back on his farming, ranching and gardening in his 90s, but his nephew and son did a great deal of it for him and around him and kept him mentally engaged in the process long after he no longer could physically engage in much of anything. Farmgardener, Thanks for understanding so well. Our friend mentored literally hundreds if not thousands of younger firefighters over the decades, and it was the most wonderful thing to see so many of them come here for his services and to comfort the family. Some people kept looking at all the fire apparatus and firefighters from a widespread area of Texas and scratching their heads and wondering what they were doing here in this tiny Oklahoma community, but those of us who knew how much he meant to those he mentored and taught understood exactly why all those folks came both from near and far. It now is the responsibility of all those younger firefighters to teach and mentor just like Chris Kirk and Jesse Kirk did for so many decades. No one ever thought we'd lose them both just 13 or 14 months apart, but if there is any comfort in this whole thing, it is that Chris is reunited with his father and mother in Heaven. We do have many accomplished firefighters and emergency management people here in our county who are extremely dedicated to continuing the work that he and his dad performed for decades, training and mentoring younger, newer firefighters and working to maintain unity between all departments and all personnel. That is their legacy that lives on behind them. There are so many virus cases here now that it is getting scary. Our daughter in law said this week that her hospital has 8 Covid patients currently, which is a lot for such a small hospital, and she is somewhat concerned by the rising number of patients. Down here along the river, we kept caseloads and hospitalizations low for months and were so pleased with that, but all that ended a couple of months ago and it has been increasingly bad ever since then. Since the virus spreads asymptomatically, literally any person with whom we interact could be carrying it, and that is what is of great concern. We always wear masks out in public, but I hate wearing one because it makes me feel so claustrophobic, so even if we go to the store, I rush through the experience and just hurry to get what we need and get out of the store so I can take off that mask. Leisurely shopping is a thing of the past. (Tim should enjoy this because the less time I spend shopping, the less money I spend. lol.) Friday night, Aurora said she really wants to go to Red Lobster (we took the girls there earlier in the summer before the virus case load began rising so much again) and eat crab whenever we can safely do to. It cracked me up, as she was munching on chicken strips at Cracker Barrel at the time, and crab seems like a rather exotic thing for a 6 year old to be craving. As far as I know, she hasn't eaten crab except for a bite or two that Tim gave her from his plate the last time we were at Red Lobster, but she must have liked it. She also gravely informed her she'd never eat shrimp because she is allergic to it (but we aren't sure she actually is allergic). Maybe one day we can take her to Red Lobster again once it seems safe to do so. Amy, I hope Ron is okay and is not still reacting to the flu shot. Dawn...See MoreRelated Professionals
Hockessin Architects & Building Designers · South Elgin Architects & Building Designers · Lincolnia Home Builders · Bonita Home Builders · Kaysville Home Builders · McKeesport Home Builders · Montebello Home Builders · South Farmingdale Home Builders · Four Corners General Contractors · Anderson General Contractors · Elyria General Contractors · Fairview General Contractors · Marinette General Contractors · Selma General Contractors · Solon General Contractors- 4 years ago
4 years ago@Keepthefaith MIGirl I have tried posting and did get some helpful suggestions. The hardest part is that I know we need to make compromises but the pros suggest things that just aren't possible like moving windows and doors. We want the space beautiful and functional so we will probably hire a kitchen designer. I have something that seems like a reasonable layout.
I forgot to take pictures the last time we were there but here are some pictures. One is looking into the kitchen and the smaller room is looking from the kitchen into the family room. The kitchen on this plan is not the one we plan to use.
- 4 years agolast modified: 4 years ago
@Tanya Shelly looks gorgeous! Everyone gets their own bathroom, it seems well planned out. The kitchen looks pretty nice in the plan is there something specific that you are needing or that you don't like?
Guess I messed around with it some. I think it would look neat for the fridge to oppose the range hood and make that window the center. You could put some beautiful uppers or floating shelves on either side of it. The red oval could be double ovens or a coffee station or something. I also made the island larger and more centered and twisted the dining table 90 degrees. Your working triangle is tighter and not crossing a major entryway into the home. I love having my fridge close to our dining table, it makes it easier to serve drinks. When we bring groceries in they get dropped off on the island first and then distributed to their specific locations anyway so it's not much farther from the garage.
4 years agolast modified: 4 years ago- 4 years ago
@M t Is it an exterior issue, where it would not look good from the outside if you moved the window?
If it was me, I'd make the toilet space 4' to be able to add a built in in to the wall for the bath side. You can display pretty soaps etc. We used a bit of closet space behind the tub when we did our renovation a few years back. I want to incorporate a similar one into our new build.
- 4 years ago
- 4 years ago
@ K H and @Kat
I really like the suggestions. I had not thought of moving the refrigerator but it is definitely an option. This is what I came up with when I played around a bit.
- 4 years agolast modified: 4 years ago
- 4 years ago
- 4 years agolast modified: 4 years ago
@M R
Here are some examples of a window in between, these don't turn the corner but I think you do have room to, since most vanities are 18-21" depth and I drew those in at 24" so you have more room then it shows. I didn't account for how tall you window is though and what the header height is but here are some options that you could use in between the vanities if your window is taller or shorter. Like a makeup counter or window seat! Here is one turning the corner also but with a mirror instead of a window and has the corner linen
- 4 years ago
Lurking here while waiting for our building permit to pop loose from the City :)
@ M R came across this shower tub pic and thought of you. Maybe something similar would work with a freestanding tub? Sketched out a potential layout and found space for a 24” linen cabinet (bonus!).
- 4 years ago
- 4 years ago
Laundry room help. Posted on the design and laundry room board but figured I’d ask here as well. Any ideas to make this space more functional.
One lady suggested moving washer and dryer to the right wall as you come in and centering sink under window.
I like this idea but need to make sure I get a bench in there for sitting down and tying shoes and hanging jackets above.
Any other thoughts here?
- 4 years agolast modified: 4 years ago
- 4 years agolast modified: 4 years ago
- 4 years agolast modified: 4 years ago
- 4 years ago
- 4 years ago
@Kat I should just message you so we don't swamp the thread but I love helping with house design. I really need to quit posting on here as we just got our final grading on our land so we are at the end of our build. Finally got our first mortgage bill in the mail so it is official we are done with the big stuff and now we have to finish our forever home projects such as putting in shelving, wainscoting, finishing the basement etc.... Our only room completely done is my daughter's rooms! still need backsplash in the kitchen and shelves in the pantry but that is our next completion on the list. Inspiration pic for your laundry
Grant - Farmhouse Main Floor Remodel · More InfoInstead of a fridge you would put a stacked laundry basket shelving.
- 4 years ago
4 years agolast modified: 4 years ago- 4 years agolast modified: 4 years ago
- 4 years agolast modified: 4 years ago
@Kat I didn’t want to stack either and I wanted a sink under the window too. Turns out our sliding window was the perfect opportunity to offset the sink so I wouldn’t be looking at the center bar of the window you may want to consider that too. Here is my laundry room still in progress for our bench and coat hooks I would love to put a cabinet surround around it still but not sure when that will happen. I’ll try to get a pic of the offset sink so you can see it looks pretty good. My laundry is 10x8. @N Kay and @Trish Walter you are both so kind! :) @Trish Walter did you get your laundry figured out? I think yours is similar to Kats
- 4 years agolast modified: 4 years ago
- 4 years ago
@Kat yes it is. The tall cabinet next to the washer is not easy to access but I had it made deeper 15" then the typical 12" so it makes it a little easier. I keep our poisons and a few medicines in that cabinet up high because our 3 kids can't get to it :) Our laundry room also ended up a bit narrower after framing. I'm not 100% sure what happened but during concrete and framing I ended up with a larger closet and a narrower laundry room, so I'm not complaining it worked out. Like I said I shifted the sink to the left last minute so I would have room for the sorting hamper and so I wouldn't have to look at the middle bar of the window.
Good luck Kat, I would have liked to face the cabinets out so they would be more accessible but I wanted to run shelving etc... into them. Next summer I'll get something like this on that wall with the horse and cow planters. But for now I'm just going to put in a simple bench with a 1x4 and hooks.
Mudroom and laundry sink · More Info - 4 years ago
- 4 years ago
- 4 years ago
4 years agolast modified: 4 years agoKH - I have a hamper like yours. ;)
I love the black iron shelf hangers. Where did you find them?My laundry layout has changed 3 times since our plan went to print. Here is the latest drawing I presented to my cabinet designer. My room is a tad over 7 x 9. The tan is my hamper.
- 4 years ago
- 4 years agolast modified: 4 years ago
- 4 years ago
- 4 years ago
- 4 years ago
Oh my, @Rebekah Gibbs, those counters are breath taking!
Seems like everyone is making great progress this month! I don't know about you all, but the weather has been magnificent!
I haven't been able to even look or think about Houzz or house building because I've been so SICK about our standing seam metal roof. It looks horrible. It has thousands of dimples in it from plastic fasteners showing through underneath. It was an error on our general contractor's part, but the roofing company is also accepting some blame because they should have never started the project knowing that the plastic fastener system underneath would show through. Our general contractor has been phenomenal, but he has limited experience with standing seam. He subbed it out to a reputable roofing company. How this happened, between the two of them... is just beyond my comprehension. Our builder is on site most of the time, but he only checked in with the roofers they day they started, and hadn't been back. My husband and I work long days, so we weren't exactly monitoring this either. Without further ado, here is our current roof:
Look at it! Just look! HOW did SOMEONE not look at this turd and say, "This looks like hell. We'd better stop." The buck stops with the general contractor, I know. But God bless! My husband and I could PUKE. My husband is large German man. He can really take a lot of stress, but you should have seen this guy come apart. I'm pretty sure he cried tears.
At first, our builder was very defensive and claimed he had no idea this would be an issue. He assumed that he would be 100% responsible for this and he was understandably very upset as well. Maybe he is 100% responsible. But wouldn't a decent roofing company, (with a great track record and 48 years in the business) STOP this project? It wasn't too late to say, "hey, general contractor, you need to pull these fasteners off." Isn't this just common sense or do we not have common sense any more?
At first, the roofing foreman was like, "Well, it's black and black shows everything. It'll look better after it's not so shiny." They played it off and wanted us to accept it! Our builder didn't exactly get after the roofing company because he knew he was to blame and he's on the hook! Luckily the owner of the roofing company accepted some blame for the installation issues, because there are a few other problems besides the dimples. Both our builder and the roofing company are splitting the cost of all new material (24 gauge instead of 26 gauge) and labor. Builder will pop off every single plastic fastener and hammer down the staples. Husband and I are so relieved, yet skittish moving forward. Apparently the roofing company says they have NEVER installed a black standing seam metal roof, and they will never do so again after seeing how "finicky" black metal is. But they have done tons of standing seam metal roofs in other colors. I did NOT know that! So the moral of the story is.... ask to see samples of work before committing! - 4 years ago
- 4 years ago
Thanks Tanya Shelly! I put it here, about midway between the range and the sink, in the island. The kitchen is 21 ft in length so I didn’t want it all the way on one end or the other.
- 4 years ago
4 years ago- 4 years ago
@lynnheins, I am so sorry about your roof! Gosh, that sucks!
We are having a roof issue, too, that the builder says is a non-issue. It only shows for a brief period of the day when the sun is at a certain position....
His response was, “It comes from the sun hitting it on just the right angle and shows up any tiny bit of irregularity on the sheathing. It seems it happens more with unfinished areas as the temp change makes it condensate more when the sun hits the top side and the bottom is still cold. I’m not sure there is anything we can do with it but we will look at it.” Ugh. - 4 years agolast modified: 4 years ago
Windows, roof and plumbing work this week. It is exciting to see things start to come together. Now to finalize the siding color. We are considering Certainteed Granite Gray (possibly too similar to next door) or Charcoal Gray (worried too dark)
- 4 years ago
- 4 years ago
4 years agoWe have been working on the interior rock walls here, I lay out the puzzle of rocks, outside on a slab of plywood, hubby then comes over to fit them better by trimming, then we mark them on the back and bring them in to put onto the cement board. Will be changing out the white switces/outlets to a polished nickle ones.
- 4 years ago
- 4 years ago
- 4 years ago
4 years ago
Rebekah Gibbs