Interior update - first two layers of drywall mud going on

On the inside of the house, things are moving along really well. The drywall crew has been busy applying the first two layers of "mud" in all seams and transitions. 

North facing wall. The electrical outlets and boxes that are mounted high are for power and cable/LAN boxes so that all wires needed for the tv, the Roku and the Apple tv will be hidden behind the tv screen. Clever...

The kitchen. The cut-out for the cabinets is sized to fit the Ikea kitchen cabinets that we will be using in the kitchen, the mudroom and the 2nd unit kitchen. The joke of this week is that normal people build a house and do custom kitchen cabinets to fit - we chose to use standard cabinets and build a custom house around them...

Dining and living area downstairs.

Hallway upstairs. To the left is the only area where they haven't begun with the drywall mud yet. They need some more scaffolding to reach that area. Seeing the process of creating a "level 5" smooth wall finish is interesting. First they apply tape and a layer of mud, then another layer of mud, then sanding followed by two more layers of mud with sanding in between. Those guys are true artists with their tools and technique feathering the mud outwards to create a perfectly smooth finish. They have applied two layers so far and the plan is to have the final two layers applied in the next 7-10 days.

Upstairs by the staircase. We love how the builder is creating a shadow gap on the horizontal framing elements by the stair with a metal L-bracket to create a similar look as the gap by the door jambs and the flush baseboards.

Master bedroom.

Exterior update - pool and stucco

Things are moving quickly now. This post will focus on the updates and progress on the exterior. The tile and coping for the pool has been delivered, but the installation hasn't begun quite yet.

The pool company also drained the pool after all the rain we have been getting - so it looks like they are getting ready to finish the pool.

On the outside of the house things are changing as well. The stucco company began applying the first stucco coat (the scratch coat) Friday. It is really fascinating to see how the exterior changes in appearance with the first stucco layer applied.

Stucco crew working on the North facing wall.

A little later Friday on the East facade by the front door.

Stucco being mixed...

A little hard to see with the sun angle, but they were working all day Friday on the front facade.

By Friday evening, the entire front was done.

Garage doors

The plan is to complete the first stucco coat on the entire house by Wednesday of this week - before we get another couple of days with rain. The weather these last 4 or 5 days has been wonderful - sunny and in the low 60s (approx 15-16 Celsius for my European friends).

Mudroom and Pantry wall.

You can probably tell why they call it "the scratch coat"...

Drywall - part three

Another week has gone by and the drywall crew has now moved out of the main house and have hung the garage (see pics later) and started on the second unit.

After the main house drywall was hung we noticed a few things that were corrected this week. In the kitchen we suddenly noticed that some of the LED light cans in the ceiling were slightly off-center and not aligned perfectly with one of the HVAC vents. So we asked them to correct that - it looks great now.

Another thing we noticed was in the mudroom and pantry area. When they hung the ceiling we noticed that the plans called for an 8' ceiling height due to our original plan to use a centralized Zehnder HRV - but now that we have switched to a decentralized Lunos HRV solution, we really didn't need that drop in the ceiling anymore. So after a few quick conversations on options and cost with our GC, we decided to do a change order and have them remove the drywall, bump up the ceiling height to 9' and hang new drywall - all done in a day and SO worth it...

Here are some shots. Downstairs by the floating steel staircase.

A view into the kitchen and dining area:

Here is the main living room

Living room and kitchen area.

Dining area.

The garage:

The beginning of the second unit drywall.

Drywall continued

Good progress! The sheetrock crew has now been working three full days and they are almost done hanging drywall in the main house. Here are some shots from upstairs near the staircase:

Mudroom and pantry:

They are working on the first floor now:

We can now really get a feeling for how the open "void" in the dining area will feel. Nice open and airy feeling.

Here is a sample of what the shadow gap on top of the flush baseboards and around the door frames will look like. The baseboard is a sample to show the height. The two "z-channel" reglets will be "mudded" over so they will disappear into the white walls. 

Drywall time

It's drywall time... long row of vehicles on the street this morning - lots of people hanging drywall.

Library upstairs

Upstairs hallway

Bedrooms

Master bedroom

Walk-in closet

Master Bath

Almost ready for stucco

On the outside the house is not almost completely wrapped in two additional layers: a rain screen and black building paper. That means we have an additional layer of water proofing and will make the house super-duper tight.