Now that we're in

We've been happily in our new home for a couple weeks now, still trying to work out new routines to get things back to normal.  I thought I would give an update on what we've been up to

Shades
We finally (today actually) had our blinds installed on the house.  It's amazing how much you miss coverings on your windows until you don't have any.  Steve Spicer came out and did a great job installing 2" faux wood blinds on all our windows, so we now have some privacy.


Home Entertainment:
We finally bought a TV and blu-ray player for our home entertainment system.  We bought a plasma that has the capability of viewing 3D videos along with normal 2D.


Home intranet:
I learned the hard way that Time Warner Cable blocks you from enabling  DHCP on their cable modems.  This is very frustating, but also about as useful as locking your car with the windows down.
I got around it by installing Apple's Airport Extreme wireless router and now I'm up and running.

Ikea:
We needed several furniture pieces to make the house comfortable.  We spent a day at Ikea in Charlotte and bought everything we needed.  After 2 days of assembly we're enjoying it.

GOLD!

THE RESULTS ARE IN, AND OUR HOUSE WON GOLD IN THE PARADE OF HOMES FOR 2010!

We have a lot of people to thank, first and foremost our builder Chris Thompson of PCI Builders in Kernersville, NC.  He not only took a floor plan we found on the internet and turned it into the beautiful house we're going to move into soon, but also gave lots of advice on architectural changes we could do to the house to improve it (must have worked!).

Mark and Suzette Shelton of Shelton Kitchens and Baths did an amazing job helping us design a kitchen within our budget and also installing the kitchen.  This is one of the biggest kitchens we've ever seen and has more storage than we've ever had.

Josh Robertson of Graybrooke construction did an excellent job designing and installing the low voltage wiring I wanted in the house.  He was responsible for running the internet cableing, whole house audio, and home theater system/wiring.  This was an excellent addition to the home that we're very excited about.

There were many other contractors that all did an excellent job.  Chris Thompson has a list of contractors he routinely uses and all of them were top notch. 
The whole process of building a house was an exciting experience, I'm glad we did it.  I'm looking forward now to moving in!!!!

Judge Not Lest Ye Be Judged

The 2010 Triad Parade of Homes has finished the judging for the Parade of Homes.  As a part of the Parade, the next two weekends the public may tour the homes entered in the parade.  If you go to the Parade website you can get a map of the homes to view them, we are home #39.
We will not find out how well the house did until Tuesday, but we do know we won an award for "Best Feature" for the balcony off our master bedroom that overlooks the lake




















We have a few more certifications that reflect how our house was built.  The first is a HERS rating for our home.  A home built to standard is given a rating of 100, anything less than 100 is BETTER than average; or MORE energy efficient.  Our house recieved a HERS rating of 67, so our house is 33% more energy efficient than the average home.

Additionally, our house is a "Certified Green" home.  This certification takes variables into account starting from how much building materials the builder wasted to whether or not we used LED lights or CFL's.  Our house received a "Bronze" award.

Structured Wiring

The structured wiring is complete.  Structured wiring is something I really wanted in the house (and something Shelly rolled her eyes about).  Basically, all of the low voltage wiring in the house (coax, internet cable, telephone, etc) are all run to a central location in the house.  For internet this will allow me to have internet jacks throughout the house, for example there are 2 jacks behind the TV so if I download a movie from the internet it will download faster (not using wireless connections).  I can also stream music, videos, etc from my computer to view on the TV.
Here is what the wiring box looks like:

And I have to admit I had a lot of help.  I found a great contractor that I've known for several years who has a lot of experience with wiring systems like this.  Josh from Graybrooke construction also helped me wire the house for surround sound and whole house audio.  If your thinking of doing something like this you should definitely give Josh a call or visit his website.

Walking photo tour, house near completion

The house is in the final stages of completion, so I thought I would take the time to give you a photo walking tour of the house.  We'll start outside:

Here is the house from the street (notice we have grass already!!).  The yellow rectangles in the yard are seed blankets to placed to keep the grass from washing away.  There are gutter drains at the top of each yellow blanket.

Here is the front door, the door has a 60/40 split.  Shelly and I thought this was a unique feature that added a nice extra touch.  Let's step inside and have a look around:

After you walk inside, you come to the living room.  The fireplace is gas, you can see 2 dark circles in the ceiling these are the recessed speakers for the surround sound system. 

From the living room, the kitchen is too the right.  The decorative posts frame the kitchen nicely.  From this position there is a deck to the left.  We'll have a look at that next...

The decking is a composite material that should last longer and be less maintenance than real wood.  The deck is screened in with a ceiling fan that rotates at an angle (or precesses for all the mri folks).  You can see a little bit of the lake in the right side of the image.  We'll step back inside for a look at the kitchen and dining room

Standing in the kitchen, you can see the door that leads to the deck.  Then obviously you can see the empty space where a table will be one day.

Looking to your left you can see the living room.  The refridgerator cabinet eagerly awaits our fridge.  Next to the fridge we have our microwave built into the cabinets.  In the foreground you can see the handle for the dishwasher.

To the right you can see where the stove will go one day.

Near the kitchen is the guest bath, here's a peak inside:

We'll go up stairs next,  here is the stairwell:

The hall:

Pictures of the master bath:

That's most of the house, I'm tired of writing for now... Maybe I'll add a little more later.

The end is near!

Lots of finishing touches going on now.  Today (9/9/10) the hardwoods are getting their first coat of stain.  As you can see from the pictures below, the columns on the front of the house have been installed and the concrete for the driveway and sidewalk is poured.  The yard is also being graded to get ready to be seeded!
We will be painting the walls and staining the woodwork (columns, mantle, etc) over the next week or so.  It will be hard to stay out of the house after it is finished, but we can't move in until after the Forsyth County fall parade of homes (first 2 weeks of October).  We are tentatively planning on closing near Halloween. 

Kitchen!!

Mark Shelton of Shelton Kitchens and Baths has done an outstanding job with our kitchen (see below).  The granite looks amazing and the cabinets are perfect.  We also made a last minute change with the wall tile in the kitchen. Shelly had a sudden burst of inspiration to use subway tile with a decorative piece above the stove.  Enjoy the pictures!!

And finally, our builder and trim carpenter have talked us out of keeping the fireplace mantle from our old house and creating a new mantle for the new house.  This new mantle reflects some of the architectural details from the posts in other parts of the house.  This mantle also has about 3 different types of wood, so when it is stained it should really look good!!

What's been going on...

There has been a lot of small things going on since the last update.  The exterior of the house now has all the vinyl, the balcony has the Trex flooring laid, the rock columns in the front are up and the decorative support pieces are in place on the dormers.  See the pictures below:

But more importantly the cabinets are being installed this week.  There will be cabinets going in the kitchen, bathrooms and the craft room.  I was tempted to post photos of the cabinets without the granite tops in place, but decided to wait until the granite is installed.  Instead I want to give a big thank you to Mark Shelton of Shelton Kitchens and Bath for getting the cabinets installed so quickly.  Nearly all the cabinets were in place the first day, and the second day all the handles were installed.  That seemed very fast (and accurate, all the cabinets were level horizontally and vertically).  Here is Shelton's contact information in case you need cabinet work:

Little more style

Time to update on a few of the more exciting that have been going on with the house.  As you can see from the pictures below, we have some of the decorative columns installed.  There are 2 as you walk in the foyer from the front door and 2 that will frame out the kitchen counter.  Next to the front door you can see the newel post and rail leading to the upstairs.
You can also see from these pictures the tile and hardwood floors that are in. Going in soon will be the kitchen cabinets (next week)!!

We're Back!

It's been a while since I've posted.  Things have been crazy, the house is moving quickly and of course June/July is when the hospitals get new Fellows (don't go to a teaching hospital unless you have too) so I've been busy at work.
But the outside of the house is almost finished (see photo below) and we are getting flooring installed in the house.  The lower level will be all hardwood and tile and the upper level will be mostly wood, tile in the bathrooms (and laundry room) and the bedrooms and office are still undecided. 
Since the office has no windows we are pricing the cost of a solar tube to let in some outside light. And we are trying to work it out to use LED lights in our recessed can lighting.  LED lights will last for ever (ok, not forever but a really, really long time).  They also put out nearly no heat, so it will help keep the house cool in the summer.  I really hope this works out, I think this will be a very nice thing to incorporate in the house.
I also am having "structured wiring" in this house.  Basically, I will have internet cabling run to a central location so I will have internet ports throughout the house.  This will help me with my entertainment center to download movies off the internet, as well as many other (admittedly geeky) things.

Roof and Windows

As you can see we now have a roof over our heads as well as windows!  Things feel like they are moving very fast now, everyday there is something new that is immediately obvious.  I'm going to show a few of the advanced building techniques the "green" and "energy star" builders use that may be a little different than average construction.

If you click on this image and view it full size.  You will notice there is caulk everywhere!  On the wall at the floor on the 2x4's beside the window, everywhere.  This will help "seal" the house so it looses less heating and air.  And of course to be 'green' it is an environmentally safer caulk that uses fewer caustic chemicals.

If you look at the corner in this picture, you may notice one of the 2x4's appears to be turned funny.  This is done by design.  By doing this, when they install the insulation they can tuck a full thickness sheet of insulation all the way into the corner.  This will also help insulate the house better

In this picture, it looks like one of the walls of my house have been attached to a ladder.  While this looks a little odd, this is again done to allow the insulators to be able to place a full thickness sheet of insulation behind the ladder.  One more thing that will be a little different in my house since it will be a 'green' and 'energy star certified' home is there will be no plumbing in the exterior walls.  This is done so the insulation can be installed with it's full thickness and not sandwiched behind any pipes (causing a bit of a decrease in the insulation ability to insulate).  All these steps may seem small or petty by themselves, but when you begin to add up all these little things you end up with a more energy efficient home and lower heating and cooling bills.





One last detail I almost forgot.  Even in the headers around the house you can see instead of using OSB in between the boards, he uses real insulation.  Again, by itself there's probably not any difference; but combined with many other of the things he does it adds up to a noticeable difference.

So you can see building a "green" home doesn't mean we are using manure, red clay and hay; but just better building techniques that may cost a little more in the short term, but long term will save us money.

So come down and see us sometime on Lot 21.  And if you have questions about building a green home, give Chris a call.  I'm sure he'd be happy to talk to you.

We have walls

It hasn't been long, but we already have walls!  In the upcoming posts I'll try to highlight the advanced building techniques my builder uses to build a more energy efficient home.
One thing I was surprised by is that I have 3 steel I-beams supporting the second floor.  This should definitely make for a firm support system.
More to come, I'll post more this weekend.

Foundation Looks Complete

I just figured out my cell phone does panaramic shots, so here are the last updates until I return from the cold city of Stockholm.  Below is a view of my lot from one side to the other:

Next is a side view of the house.  The opening in the wall will be the entrance to the crawl space.  On the opposite side of the house is where the garage will be.  To the right of the crawl space entrance is the foundation for the front porch:

The final picture is a picture I took while standing on the back wall of the house where the back porch will be.  I took this picture because this will most likely be the view we will have from the back of our house.  We're both very excited, its a nice quiet lake.  Enjoy: