I put in some serious late night hours on monday night getting everything clean and today they started work on our flooring. It is a product called Miracote which is a polymer of some sort. This is poured over the gypcrete and becomes the final floor. We tried to choose a color that would look like the most like natural concrete. They are applying three coats total. This will give the interior of the home a nearly finished look. These photos show it as it is drying and the finished product will be much more consistent than what you see here. As you can see we have functional stairs, finally! Stairs are so much better than ladders. For tread material we used o.s.b. that will get a sanding and a heavy varnish. Benchmark came and finished all of the cedar siding and it looks awesome. They also built our front and back porches and the driveway and sidewalks were poured. We are making great progress. We should be almost entirely finished next week and moving in shortly.

I was checking out this Boxhouse designed by Rob Pyatt and noticed it looks like they used a similar rainscreen detail on the exterior of their house. It's interesting to see it with white underneath instead of black. It makes it look very light and clean. I can't say I envy the person that will have to maintain all that wood though. Boxhouse is an award winning University of Colorado College of Architecture & Planning ( research + design + build ) project.

Check out more pictures here.

When we ordered our siding we had to order a whole pallet because we were having it painted at the factory. We knew it was going to be more than we needed, and figured we could find something useful for the excess. This weekend we put it to good use. We put up around 24' of fencing on our side yard using the same detail as we did on our siding. It looks really nice compared to what used to be there, and best of all, it only cost us around $200 in cedar and concrete to do. Once we get the back done, I think it will really change our yard. I'm just trying to figure out the best gate to use so we can still park in our back yard if we need to. Any suggestions?

I thought it might be nice to show some of the details we have been working on lately. We are starting to install light fixtures, switches and outlets. We have selected all of our light fixtures and a few are shown here. It has been hard to make final decisions even on simple things like can-light trim. We are quite happy with our light fixtures in general and feel like we spent the minimum price for lights that we really like. The only fixture we spent more than $100.00 on was the front exterior light and it is our favorite. Shown to the left are some other finish details (click to enlarge). I promised somebody a long time ago that I would show a photo of our window trim detail. There is actually no trim whatsoever but just the metal sheetrock edging that fits in to a small slit in the window jamb. A small bead of caulk will be placed where the window and metal meet. Then the metal edging will be painted the wall color. Also shown is one of the steel brackets that hold our beams together. These were custom fabricated out of a metal similar to the stairs. This will later be varnished to prevent rust. Jacob

We officially closed on our new mortgage last week, and our loan funded yesterday. Even though there is still plenty to do around the house, I guess that sort of marks the project as "completed". I thought I would give a brief recap of costs for those of you who are curious to know how we ended up. As you remember if you have been following from the beginning, we bought our home just over two years for right around $106,000. It was a good deal for a 700 square foot home on .11 acres of land. We almost immediately started tearing it apart. In the first year we ripped half the floor out right down to the floor joists, ripped out a big wall and dropped ceiling, and ripped out the old forced air furnace and installed radiant heating. We easily spent over $10,000 that first year out of pocket. Over the next 6 months we started planning our addition, and doing as much work out of pocket as we could in preparation. Prior to the addition we tore our whole bathroom apart and moved the location of the shower, bathtub, and sink and toilet. Rearranged the bathroom walls, built a vanity with concrete countertop, installed a wall hung toilet, designed built and installed a custom ofuro tub. We also ripped out more walls in the front of the house including one that was load bearing. Moved our electrical panel to a different wall and wired in a updated panel. All these improvement probably cost us anywhere from $5,000 - $10,000. Sorry I don't have better numbers, but it was all out of pocket and we tried not to think about how much money were were dumping into a house that still didn't look all that great.

Our goal with our construction was to add two bedrooms for under $50,000, and we came pretty close. All the bids came in at $60,906. During construction, we did make some last minute changes. We had planned the kitchen remodel as phase two since it was not included in the original bid, and consisted of tearing out all our old cabinetry, moving our plumbing and framing in a $900 sliding door. We ultimately decided that to not add that extra sliding door out into the courtyard crippled the whole design. To afford the cost of that we ended up cutting all the cabinetry in the main hall. That extra $7,000 was quickly absorbed into the kitchen remodel and the unexpected increase cost of the siding labor.

In the end, we came in just a couple thousand over budget. $2,196.78 by our spreadsheet, but the reality is we paid for stuff out of pocket that isn't reflected there. Our loan to buy us out of our construction loan and original mortgage was for $172,000. With a new total square footage of 1,366 that puts it at $125 a square foot for the home and land. Our 600 square foot addition was built for $63,102 which puts it at $105 a square foot.

I estimate that we could probably spend another $5,000 - $10,000 in cabinetry and kitchen remodel before everything is really done inside and at around another $5,000 before all the landscaping is just how we want it. It's just nice to not be on a banks deadline anymore, and to have all the big projects done.

A big thanks to everyone for their encouragement and support, especially our close friends and family that came over and helped out during the last 6 months. We honestly couldn't have done it without you.

With prefab houses failing to deliver to those who are looking for affordable modern architecture shipping containers have stepped up. People have been talking about it for a while. I used to anxiously read over at fab prefab in the shipping container section waiting for someone to actually build. It seemed like lots of people talked, but very few were actually doing anything. Luckily times are changing. This six pack from Atlanta Georgia has recently gone up and is looking good. Not the best container design I've seen (it lacks a little creativity) but the build price is rumored to be around $75 sq/ft, which is awesome. Head on over to Materialicious to read more about it. Check out a video here.

We finished most of the painting a couple of weeks ago. We decided to do it all ourselves to try to save some serious cash. We figure we probably saved somewhere between $5,000-8,000. We did spend a good 12 days at least trying to bust it all out. I figure I logged about 150 painting hours. We still have the rest of the stair tower to paint (too tall to reach without stairs). Many thanks to everyone for the help. A special thank you to Stephanie and Kenner for the great color advice, we are very happy with all of the colors. Now we have varnishing the windows to look forward to. Jacob

For those of you looking for design inspiration for your modern or midcentury modern abode, I would encourage you to attend the 2007 Eichler Homes Tour to benefit the Hospice by the Bay. This two day event is hosted in Marin County California (which is located just north of San Francisco) and will feature over 20 post-and-beam, midcentury ranch homes built by Joseph Eichler. This annual event for charity is a great opportunity to see a variety of different Eichler floorplans and also get some inspirational ideas for updating or remodeling your modern home. Marin Eichler Tour Dates are as follows: Saturday, Sept 15, 10am - 4pm Sunday, Sept 16, 10am - 4pm

Tickets are priced at $50/one day or $80 for both the Saturday & Sunday Tour. This event has been an overwhelming success the last few years, with attendees coming from around the country (and the Bay Area) for this great charity event. Hopefully you can make a San Francisco vacation out of it and take in some great mid-century modern residential architecture! Tickets for this special event have recently gone on sale and can be purchased online.

Via Marin Modern Real Estate Blog

Many of you have been asking for more pics, so I put a short slideshow together. I should be uploading one with music and better quality soon. I updated the video, and it's a lot better. Just click on the picture to start playing it. For a reference, the first shots with the maple door are the back of our house. Our house looks almost exactly the same from the front. In the courtyard area was the only place where we put new siding on the old house. As you can see from the pictures, we still need to redo the fascia and soffit.

Enjoy!

Our rainscreen siding has been a slow and tedious process. So far we are almost 4 days into it, and we are probably about 3/4 of the way done. Thanks to family and friends, we were able to get a bunch of it done this last Friday and Saturday. We hope it will all be done by today, or Tuesday. I have to admit though, that despite all the hard work, it's worth it. The look it gives the house is very distinct, and it really sets the tone for the whole addition. For those who have asked about some of the details, read on for a short explanation of exactly what we are doing and why.

The concept of a rainscreen is not a new one, although it has been utilized much more frequently in modern architecture in recent years. The basic idea is that you start with your exterior surface, and then add your waterproof layer. In our case we wrapped the whole house in Tyvec, and followed that with a layer of 15 pound building paper. We just used the building paper as a layer to black the house out, and not so much for it's waterproofing. To that layer you nail furring strips that will hold your final cladding away from the house. We used 1/2" pressure treated plywood that was ripped into 2/1/2" strips and then painted black. For our project we mounted the furring strip every 16" so we would be screwing into studs. Remember your furring strip layout will determine you screw pattern and your joints. Last you attach your cladding. I have seen some beautiful Ipe rainscreens, but since we were on a budget we went with hardie board. We actually used a 7 1/4" Hardie lap siding mounted with a 1/4" reveal between them. To make our reveals consistent we ripped down some 1/4 masonite to set between the siding as we mounted them. We found the best thing for cutting the Hardie siding was a pair of power sheers. Lastly for screws, we used a #10 pan head self tapping stainless steel screws with a square drive head. They were 1 1/2" in length. We got them online from McFeelys for about $450 for 4,000. Thats a lot of details, but hopefully that answers some questions for some of you. There haven't really been a lot of rainscreen applications that I know of that have been around for 15-20 years, so how it holds up is still to be seen.

More info about rainscreens here and here.

After a couple of delays we finally started putting up the siding yesterday. We ended up going with a dark grey called Iron Grey, and I absolutely love it. I was a little worried that it would be too "drama", but I think it's going to work out just fine. Benchmark Renovation is doing the rainscreen with the help of Bob who usually does aluminum siding. Despite the slow start, things are pretty much going the way they should. The pressure is on to get the house finished since the six months for our construction loan is up. We made our last draw to cover the cost of the siding yesterday, and now we have 10 days to refinance everything. That means that we need to get our home appraised again so obviously it needs to be finished.

Bob the siding guy .

In spite of the holiday (July 24th is Pioneer Day in Utah), we had 6 trades on site! Today we had Questar Gas, Pella Windows, Inline Plumbing, Benchmark Renovation, Timberline Doors and Michelle and I continued painting. We spent most of the day masking and priming and joined up with family later for festivities. Questar came to run a new gas line. They tried to run the new line inside the old but with no success. They eventually just replaced the whole thing. Pella came to replace some of the standard glass in the stairwell with tempered. It was surprising to see how simple they made it all look. Timberline Doors delivered the rest of the doors today so we will finally get our front door installed soon. We have been nervous about rain getting in and damaging the sheetrock. It will be nice to get the house one step closer to being sealed up. Chris from Benchmark also worked on closing up a few gaps on the exterior as well. Tomorrow all that orange pex will be covered with concrete. -Jacob

For any locals looking for a house, make sure you check out this one. Owned by Mike of Struck Design this home is a great example of how you can take a traditional Sugarhouse Bungalow and put a modern twist on it. I have always loved homes with exposed brick wall inside like this one. There is just something about them that connects them to their roots. Mike and his wife have done a beautiful job on this home. It is for sale by owner, and the asking price is $286,900 which considering the location is a pretty good price. Check out more pictures and all the details here.

Sheetrock work began a few days ago. This is usually the mid-point in home construction. Since we have very little finish work required, i.e. no window or door trim, we feel like we are well past the mid-point. Sheetrock will wrap up tomorrow and preliminary steel posts for the stairs will be installed later this week. Doors were installed just before sheetrock. Garth found an awesome set of interior doors at a great price, less than $200.00 each! The remainder of the radiant system will be installed and the gypcrete floors will all be done by the end of next.It took some time and negotiation but we finally have a solid game plan for the stairs (thanks to Kenner for the coordination). We are going with a clear varnish on the steel instead of paint. We chose square tubes and stainless steel cable for the railings. Greg with Premier Metal Works is constructing the stairs and rooftop railings. For anyone wondering we chose the Kohler Purist series faucets for the upper floor bathrooms. For the first floor powder room we chose a "Vattern" compact cabinet/sink/faucet combo from Ikea.

The siding installation on our house is going to be quite a bit different than what most people in the area are used to doing. Because of that we have had a hard time getting anyone lined up to do it. I had several people come over to quote the job, and then never heard from them again. Luckily we were able to get Benchmark Renovation back over here as they have experience with a rainscreen siding installation. The siding was supposed to be here by now, but there were some problems with the shipment. Hopefully it will get here soon. More details coming soon.

After some furious decision making we came up with a stucco color that we are very happy with. With a lot of help from Stephanie & Kenner we all decided that "Red Oxide" would be the color of choice. We had to deviate from the standard catalog colors and choose a color from regular paint chips. We are glad we didn't settle for mediocrity on this one. The stucco catalogs seem to only have varying versions of beige. We also decided on a "fine" texture which was executed well in our opinion. We also have some more stair hardware installed and drywall is well underway. Also If anyone out there knows of any good kitchen and bath faucets please share. -jacob

It's been a long time since the last update and a lot has happened. I have been working furiously trying to complete the rough electrical for an inspection today. I have also been preparing the cedar siding for installation by dipping it in deck stain. We are using a product that is guaranteed to last five years. We should get a few years on top of that because we are dipping it and therefore covering all four sides. This is all to prevent me having to get on a ladder in a few years and reseal it. Premier Metal Works came and installed some preliminary stair parts in the crawl space. Dave and his company, Inline Plumbing, have completed the rough plumbing as well. Everything seems to be on target for a September move in!

-Jacob

With big walls come big windows. Today the stair windows were installed. We have been anxious to see these get done. They started installing windows on monday but the rain caused a serious delay. These are a very dramatic element of the design and it's exciting to see them come to life. The stair windows span the entire height of the building and provide beautiful light to the whole house. We decided to go with Pella Pro-Line windows. Garth recommended them and he worked with the sales rep. to get us a good price. They are efficient and beautiful windows and a large portion of our budget was spent on them. We originally thought we could use a salvaged aluminum window but found that the supply was not as plentiful as we had originally been told. These are also a much more energy efficient window than aluminum. We would have preferred the look of aluminum but Pella's color options were quite limited. The roofing material showed up today and should be installed on monday.

Sorry for the delay, this has been a very busy week. Framing wrapped up a last week. They were able to get it all done on schedule as they promised. The only mistake they made was to put the master bath window in the wrong spot. They will come soon to correct it. The shape of the home is just as we expected and there have been no major surprises going from two dimensional to three. We are very happy with Kenner and Stephanie's design and we have no regrets. My father-in-law and my brother-in-law and I managed to get most of the wire pulled and all of the boxes and can lights installed. I just need to finish wiring the third floor. The plumbers came last week and have already completed almost all of the rough plumbing. This will be a big one, we have window installation, some exterior material, more plumbing and electrical work all taking place.

The big walls are up! Today the largest walls of our home were erected. This is a milestone for us. These walls are about 28 feet tall and they give a good idea of the height of the house. The only remaining framing is on the third floor and that should wrap up this week. My father in law and I are going to begin electrical work on Friday and hope to get most of it done over the long weekend. We expect plumbing, electrical and windows to be installed within about two weeks. If we can keep up the pace we should be done well ahead of schedule. Garth, Kenner and Stephanie are all doing a great job of keeping everything on schedule. -Jacob