I have had a couple questions about some of the detail in our addition, and I though I would take a minute to answer some of them. First off, the wood paneling in the hall.All the panels are made of 3/8" baltic birch plywood. Baltic has a much lighter appearance compared to normal birch, but in my opinion it's worth the extra money. I had a great theory on how to hang it (courtesy of Chris from Gleason Woodworking Studio) and it kind of worked. The idea was to use a keyhole shaped router bit to route out a channel on the back side of all the panels. Then you screw a normal drywall screw into the studs on the wall at the same height. The head of the screw fits just perfect into the fat part of the keyhole and the shaft fits in the skinny part. That allows you to just slip the panels on and they are securely fastened with no exposed nails anywhere.

It probably would have worked flawless if I had bought a slightly thicker panel1/2" or even better 3/4". The problem was with the 3/8" I had to keep it pretty shallow, so they were kind of prone to ripping through. Problem number two is it becomes real hard to slip the panels on unless the wall is dead straight, which of course mine wasn't. I ended up doing a combination of keyhole channels, and nailing them from the front on the edges. For all the joints, I routed out a tiny 1/6" groove half way down on the side. That way when they butt together you get that nice 1/8" deep reveal, which looks a lot nicer than a plain old butt joint. I also held the bottoms of the panes about 3/8" above the finished floor (the concrete) to match all the drywall.

Windows: The casing on the louvers and doorways is 3/4" baltic birch. I left all the raw plywood edges exposed instead of putting edge banding on. It's a lot more honest look, and it makes it a lot easier to do as well. The louvers themselves are made of the same 3/8" baltic birch as the panels. I built the boxes that they go in first, and then just nailed all of them from the outside. That proved a lot more challenging than I thought it would be. Hitting a 3/8" target 500 times in a row just wasn't happening. I had quite a few misses, but in the end they turned out all right.

Drywall: The drywall didn't turn out quite as clean as I had hoped. If we weren't on such a timeline (our due date was yesterday) I would have called them back 3 or 4 more times until it was nice and smooth like I wanted it. The did do a good job on some things though. Instead of baseboard we just floated the finished drywall 3/8" above the finished floor. They used a tear away L bead from trim-tex to finish all the bottoms. See the zoomed in picture above. It ends up leaving a nice clean edge all across the bottom. The look is really nice on the eye, and we'll see if it becomes a cleaning nightmare or not.

Lighting: Besides our fans, and some sconces we still haven't gotten for the hall, most of our lights are 4" eyeballs. We just bought the standard Halo cans, and then some after market eyeball lights to put in them. The good thing about using a very standard can like a 4" Halo, is that you can easily change out the trim anytime in the future. There are some off brand eyeballs that are nice, but they are not standard sized at all, and if they ever died on you for some reason, it would be very hard to replace them.

Since we are planning on only using passive cooling in our house, it was very important for us to have some good ceiling fans. Anyone who has looked for a modern fan knows that The Modern Fan Co. pretty much has the market cornered. We were looking for something clean, simple, and of course affordable. We ended up going with a Cirrus Hugger in white with a light on it. We have had it installed for about a week now, and we absolutely love it. The look matches our room prefect, the light with dimmer offers some nice light, and the fan keeps us snuggling under our down comforter all night long. We purchased it from a local store the Light Spot for $383 each. They are also available from Y-Lighting for about the same price. Available from Y Lighting for $384

Yesterday was the grand opening for Ikea Draper. I had considered taking the day off to get in on some of the early morning madness, but in the end I wasn't quite up to braving the huge crowds. My wife and I did go down there around 5:30 last night though. I was expecting it to be very crazy, but it really wasn't too bad. There were definitely lots of people, but the only time we had to wait a long time was when we were getting our meatballs. It's crazy for us to think that we have an Ikea 15 min away from our house when the closest one used to be 12 hours away.

This is only day six for framing and they are bustin' it out! Today Upright completed all the framing on the second floor. Tomorrow they will build the exterior wall surrounding the stairs. This wall will be almost thirty feet tall. They will be using a crane to put it in place. The north side of the stair space will be windows spanning the entire height of the home. The large opening you see on the first photo is where the steel stairs will be. The stairs will hopefully arrive soon, we find out their status tomorrow. The view from the third floor is actually better than we expected. You can see the mountains quite well.

With the popularity of green design increasing, it is becoming easier to find environmentally conscious products that look good. Take for example this Swissmar Bamboo 2 Bowl Dip Set, which is not only eco friendly, but chic too. This aprox. 12" x 10" serving tray has two porcelain bowls inset on the side, and is balanced out by a cut out section to hold whatever it is you plan on dipping. At only $27 for a cutting board and two bowls, the price is just as friendly on your wallet as the bamboo is on the environment. Available at Kitchenzing for $27.

There is a new trend in design that is less modern, and more luxury. Many of the traditional modern designers have followed this trend and are incorporating more lavish prints and colors in their textiles. Echo Design is right on board with the rest of them with their Modern Paisley Pillow. This classic black pillow features a single embroidered paisley crest on the front. Part of the Modern Paisley bedding set, pillows are available in either 18" square or 15" x 24" and are priced at $40. Available at Echo Design for $40.

I took two days off earlier this week to work on some of the finish carpentry. There is a lot of it in our house, which will be nice in the end, but right now it is very time consuming. I managed to get all the birch paneling done in the hall, as well as all the casing on the bedroom doors. The louvered windows are what took the most time. They really complete the rooms though, and will be great to have when we get the skylights installed. The idea is that when the skylights in the hall are open it will draw air from the courtyard windows, through the room and out the skylights. It should provide for some great passive cooling. So far the temperature in our house has been great as long as we open all the windows at night, and close them in the morning.

A lot has happened in the last few days. Today was especially busy. The two large living room walls went up via a crane today. It was pretty awesome to see and luckily they did it while I had a break from work. They also installed some of the major beams today as well. At this point most of the first floor framing is complete. They will start framing the second floor tomorrow and it only gets faster from here. The largest wall will come after the stairs are complete it is a 30 foot wall that will be on the west side of the stair unit. This is a very satisfying part of the process, we are finally starting to see our home take it's beautiful form. -Jacob

Modern baby goods is a hot new market, but there have been surprisingly few new players. True Modern is the new kid on the block, and they are doing their best to shake up the market a little with their affordable modern baby furniture. Founded by Edgar Blazona of prefab fame, True Modern has a solid history of modern design that fits the common budget. For example the Changing Table Dresser shown to the right is only $699. Reminiscent of Blu Dot this simple furniture is a great deal, it features simple lines and birch veneers with accent colors to spice things up a little. Besides their furniture line, they also have bedding which is similarly affordable.

Available from True Modern for $699.

My poor wife has been wanting to nest for the past couple of months, but it has been virtually impossible. Now that the nursery is basically done, she can finally start nesting. She has been washing, folding, and organizing all the baby clothes, and getting everything ready for the new kid-o. We didn't realize just how much clothes we had until we started organizing it. People have been so generous with their gifts, and loaning that we have plenty of goodies to keep the little bean covered. There will be lots more update about our nursery coming up. Stay tuned!

Saturday we called on family and friends to help us out a little with some painting. We had a great turnout, and got an amazing amount of work done. We managed to prime all the walls, and get at least two coats of Glidden Evermore Semi-Gloss on the walls. The bedroom and nursery got three coats, and late Saturday night we were able to set up our bed, and sleep in our new room. We used pure white base 1 paint everywhere, and I love the way it looks. The Glidden Evermore is a low VOC paint, and it was great to work with. It's available at home depot for $20 a gallon. We bought it in the 5 Gallon buckets, and between primer and finish paint went through almost 18 gallons of paint in one day. A big thanks to everyone who showed up and made it possible, you are all amazing!

I have always loved the look of the commercial style kitchen faucets. Up until now there weren't a whole lot of affordable choices. We were pretty set on getting the Ikea HJUVIK for $249 even though we weren't absolutely in love with the look of it. That was before I came across this Pegasus Faucet at Home Depot. The K300 Series faucet is the same price, and looks a lot better. I installed ours last week, and so far we are absolutely in love with it.

Available at Home Depot for $247.

For the past several days the drywallers have been taping and mudding our entire house. It is unbelievable what a mess those guys can make. The first day my wife and I came home at the same time, and we were both in a state of complete shock. It looked like a bunch of monkeys had just finished a mud throwing fight in our house. We had covered some things prior to them coming, but there was still drywall mud on our bed, all over the floors, on our new countertop in the kitchen. Pretty much everywhere. Despite the mess, and the fact that we have basically been homeless for the last three days, things are going well. They should finish today or tomorrow with the whole house, and then we can start putting it back together and painting. This should be the last time there are strangers in our house.

Graphic Design and print seem to be one of the big trends for the year. I have to admit, that even though this Linen Partridge Pillow from Urban Outfitters is a little quirky, but I really like it. This 18" x 18" pillow has a solid red back and a geometric print front with an overlay of a partridge and branches. Perhaps one of the best thing about the pillow is that at $26 it is not outrageously priced. It seems rare to find a good modern pillow these days for less than $50. Urban Outfitters has always done a great job of balancing price and style. Available from Urban Outfitters for $26.

There is this funny point in a remodel where everything goes from being unfinished to almost ready to paint. Saturday our little two man crew of drywallers finished up the rest of the hanging. It's crazy because it almost looks like a house now. They will be mudding and taping this week, and hopefully next weekend we can start painting. There will be no base boards in the addition, so there won't be much else to do inside besides some of the finish carpentry, and cabinetry. This week will be a white dusty nightmare, but at least there is a light at the end of the tunnel.

I am loving these new pillows from Three Sheets. Just like their great wall prints, these decorative pillows are hand printed on 100% linen. This 12" x 20" pillow will run you about $68, which isn't a bad deal when you consider it is hand printed. To make the deal even sweeter, it includes a 90/10 feather down insert for all sorts of squishy goodness. Available in dark robin, light russet, light walnut, and marigold. Available from Elsewares for $68.

The big trucks are starting to arrive. The footings were poured late last week and have had enough time to cure. They will be pouring the rest of the foundation and the fireplace wall in one pour. The foundation pour was delayed because we were trying to determine the best way to build the fireplace wall that Kenner and Stephanie of Architectural Nexus designed. It's a 24" thick wall that extends up to the bottom of the second floor. It's a bit difficult to construct but will be beautiful in the end and it gives us a surface in our living room besides sheetrock. We really like the idea of having an exterior material as an interior wall. We ordered Pella windows on friday, they are beautiful wood clad windows, no vinyl here! They will be here in about three weeks and will be ready to install by then according to Benchmark. Thursday we'll have an update on framing. -Jacob-

Three weeks ago we started ripping our kitchen apart in preparation for putting in our sliding glass door. Two weeks ago we had a huge hole cut in the wall, and our last door installed. Last week we received a big shipment from Ikea, and this weekend I finally had time to put some of it in the kitchen. We didn't want to order too much from Ikea, since they will be opening soon here in Utah, but we also were going crazy with our kitchen half ripped apart. I had thought about building some cabinets, but in lieu of time we just ordered them from Ikea. We ended up getting the SORBO doors, and I really like the look of them.

After putting them together, I decided Ikea has the affordable modern kitchen cabinet market pegged. The quality is good, the price is great, and so is the look. We also installed some TUNDRA laminate flooring. The counter top is a NUMERAR birch butcher block. We cut a whole in it and put in a stainless steel undermount sink to go with it. It ended up turning our really nice.

Speaking of houses, I love this house from Sparkability. OK, so its basically just a big white cardboard box, and you could probably make something just as cool for a whole lot less money ($45- ouch). What I do love about it is that someone realized that sometimes the box is more fun than the toy, so they are just selling the box. House is extra sturdy, and made of recycled carboard. House is white, so it's up to you to decorate it the way you like. I would love to see pics of some homemade modern cardboard houses. If anyone has any, or is up to the challenge of getting a refrigerator box and making one, send them my way. I'll post them here for everyone to see!

Available from Sparkability for $45. (or make your own for free :) )

While Utah is no meca for modern design, we have seen a slow trend moving that direction in recent years. Something must be happening for Ikea to decide to build here. Besides my own project, I have quietly watched as other modern design projects pop up around the Salt Lake Valley. I have often wondered what their stories are and if they are as affordable as ours. Luckily this week Jacob, another Utah modernist, got in contact with me to share his modern infill project. It's called Lucy Ave, and it's a great story. Jacob was gracious enough to join the Grassrootsmodern team, and blog about his adventure. As his project evolves, you can track it by clicking on the Lucy Ave tag to the right. Welcome to the team Jacob and family!