A House In A Field
The story of a house. In a field. And how it gets there.
This made our day.
“I grew up on Porter’s Landing. I was troubled when your lot was for sale that it would go to a developer that would sub-divide it, and effectively overwhelm a historic neighborhood with McMansions. Great kudos to you for preserving the field and building a compatible dwelling. My mother mentioned your blog. Welcome to the neighborhood!”
“Pink isn’t just a color, it’s an attitude!” – Miley Cyrus
Despite our indeterminate “Well, it used to be October, but now it’ll be later” move-in status*, the big decisions are piling up like snow on the side of the road.
This week, it was color. We spent another afternoon with Krista, her giant box of paint chips, tile and wood samples. Technically, we’re still a couple of weeks away from needing to give these to the painters, but it’s good to get them out of the way.
A few caveats. Some of these are “big” colors. The “Zurich White” that you see below will be on the walls, cabinets and ceilings. The “Modern Gray” just to its left will be used on trim and woodwork.
Others, like the “Recycled Glass” chip that you see not once, but twice because our co-editor-doesn’t-know-how-to-work-a-scanner-and-is-a-giant-doofus will be used to accent the big pantry barn doors in the kitchen.
And a few of these choices are — in Krista’s words — just being used to “tell another color how to behave.” The black of the “Mount Etna” below will be a “pop color” in a room next to where we’ll use that “Slate Tile” on a wall. Without Mount Etna nearby, the Slate Tile goes too blue. But when Mt Etna hovers a few feet away, Slate Tile stays a nice gray / blue tone.
I suppose this makes Mount Etna the “bully” of our colors. A subject which, as we all know, makes our friend Miley very sad.
* Oh yes, there’s definitely going to be a post about the scientific phenomena known as “being on schedule, but being late.” Yes, indeed….
Spray foam math.
Operation Insulation is moving along nicely. Lots of light tan walls. Tight is right. A very noticeable change in the “feeling” within the house. (Already much quieter.)
It’s also giving us yet another opportunity to appreciate how points of view around simple subjects can sometimes differ.
For example, let’s say — hypothetically — that a contract specifies : “Wood Framed Roof Assembly: 8” high-density closed-cell spray foam urethane insulation (R-49 minimum).”
One point of view might be 8″ equals 8″. 7″ + 1″. Carl Yastrzemski’s jersey. The number of maids-a-milking. Trying from another perspective, there are 12″ rafters in the roof. That’s an 11 1/2″ nominal width. After spray foaming, you might expect to see 3 1/2″ of rafter sticking out. And that conveniently equals the width of a 2×4.
The other point of view might be that 8″ is really equal to 6 3/4″. Apparently when done correctly, 6 3/4″ of spray foam is equal to R-49. Toss in that it seals the house much better and it’s far better than R-49 of fiberglass.
One definition. Two very different points of view.
Math is funny that way.
The roof over the entry is also the floor of the upstairs bath.
Bulkhead entry.
Roof rafters on the 2nd floor.
We’ll definitely need this…
Our discovery last summer led to this map this summer.
The color of a blushing firetruck.
Board & batten is here. Should start to see it go up on Monday.
8″ in the ceiling, 4″ in the walls…
One of the very first decisions we made in the planning of Dash Landing was to focus on windows and insulation. There are lots of ways to lower an energy footprint, but the best investment starts with the basics.
We ended up with Andersen “A-Series” for the windows. Double vs. triple glazed, but a great reputation in terms of performance and longevity.
And the interior insulation work started today. Closed-cell spray foam — 8″ in the ceiling bays and 4″ on the walls. We’ll then do our first blower door test. Our second blower door test will happen after sheetrock.
Given the significance of the building envelope in the geothermal calculation, we’re erring on the “better safe than sorry” side of the equation.
Because the idea of a $800 annual heating bill for an average Maine winter warms our hearts…
That’s a big trailer. Drives two complete foaming set-ups. Also needs to be “recharged” every day. Should be interesting to watch go up & down the driveway.
A portion of the roof over the walkway is under the 2nd floor bathroom.
That’s a big pump….
2nd floor bedroom
We might not know much…
…but we do know that you’re looking at the backsplash in our new kitchen.
It’s our one year anniversary. (And yes, it feels much longer to us, too.)
Can you believe we’ve been doing this nonsense for a year?
On August 1st of last year — as both a long-term memory aid and as an exercise in stress management — we started writing about our adventures in real estate. In the beginning, it was only accessible to our kids and parents. (A notion that many of you think should be revisited.) But we opened it up to the public with this post a few months later and never looked back.
In the 151 posts that have followed, we’ve name checked Damien Hirst, Britney Spears, Snoop Dogg and Michael Chabon among others. We’ve mocked Central Maine Power and Fairpoint with such gusto that we’ve often wondered if the next email was coming from their respective attorneys. (Which was different than the local bank whose attorney DID call.) We’ve embarrassed our children on many wonderful occasions. And we’ve barely warmed up.
Mindless trivia from our first year :
We’ve had readers from 35 countries. Sure, the USA has the majority of visits (U-S-A! U-S-A!), but we’ve got regular traffic from Sweden (Nate’s nice parents), Japan (Steve’s office) and there seems to be someone from Jamaica who checks in nearly every day. We can’t even begin to explain the other 31 countries.
- For the SEO nerds among us, people are finding their way to the site in the craziest ways. MOST of the traffic is some variation of “direct load.” They type “A House in A Field” into their browser or some variation of that phrase. But here are some of the other phrases that readers have typed to get here :
- “The house in the field lower mast landing Freeport” The analogy would be typing “I just saw a McDonalds” into your phone as you drove by…
- “Dasha drivay” Welcome to the blog, Dasha Gaiazova. (We name dropped her during the great Driveway Debate and she must have been following up.)
- “Train wreck strip club.” Our personal favorite. Might be the name of our new band.
- “Giant worksheets knockers.” Second favorite.
- “What is this ugly pine” Google works in mysterious ways.
While the content might be thin (or — according to our co-editor “moronic and childish”), here are the Top 5 articles from the past year :
- House Plans – #1 with a bullet
- “Who Wants To Live On Flying Point Road” – Also our favorite. Didn’t work. But still our favorite.
- The article that can’t be named about the bank that can’t be named. (See paragraph #3 above)
- Construction Schedule — Which, ironically, is the only true fiction on the blog.
- “Almost like this, but definitely different.” Unexpected, but totally get it. More pictures, fewer words, less sass.
The bad news? We have at least three months of this silliness left to go. Tomorrow effectively begins the “next phase” of Dash Landing. We’ll bring in the insulators followed by the long, slow dance known as “finish work.”
God help us all…
A House In A Field 