The Last Picture Show

The house is 98% complete and we have moved in.  There is lots to do with setting up a new household and a new garden, so we're totally consumed with projects.  One big thing left is to install the solar panels on the roof.  Everything is in place to do so and we meet with the contractor this week.  We will probably wait to see what kind of incentives and financing we can get, but hope to install the panels soon.  The plan is to produce enough electricity to power the whole house and have some left over to provide charging power for an electric car (which we don't have yet because they are freaking expensive).

Thanks for viewing our blog, maybe we'll do it again some time!  Here are a few pictures of the inside before we tarted it up with furniture and pictures.  There's also one picture of the beginnings of our garden.  Enjoy.

Beginnings of the garden.  The structure to the left is the garage and to the right is the conservatory.  The four beds are to be arranged into the veggie garden.  The stone path between the two structures defines two planting beds and in the foreground is part of the rain garden and pond.

The living room with the doors on the left leading out to a walled garden area and the doors in the center of the picture leading to the conservatory.

The doors in the living room that lead out to the conservatory.

A view from the living room into the kitchen.  The conservatory door in the previous pictures is to the left (by the pile of junk).

The guest bathroom on the first floor.

The office, also on the first floor.

The library, also on the first floor and it takes the place of what would ordinarily be a dining room (which we only used at Christmas and Thanksgiving anyway).  The door leads out to the second walled garden area.

The laundry room on the second floor.

The guest bedroom.  The open door leads to the sunporch which interconnects the two bedrooms.

The sunporch between the two second floor bedrooms.

The master bedroom.  The Japanese Shoji screen in the center is a movable double door that leads into the green yoga room (no, ladders are not part of any yoga practice I know of!).

The master bathroom sink area.  The sink is a smooth poured concrete with embedded fossils.  There is another room to the master bath that contains a walk-in shower and a soaking tub.

Still heading onward and upward,

Mark, Mark and Isabel

One week left!

We only have about a week left before we can inhabit Planet Mark.  I know this seems quick, but that's because I haven't been posting for weeks.  The work is finished with some minor touchups and clean up.  Final inspections should take place over the next few days and I was told I could set up a move date for the week after Easter.  Stay tuned for final pictures, including some interior ones.

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Touchdown on Planet Mark

BEFORE

AFTER

Here and There

We're still here in the leased house and our new house is still next door without us in it!  We have gone past quite a few deadlines, so I'm kind of going week by week now.  We have been accomplishing some exterior things as well as finishing the inside.  Here's a review of the recent upadates:

Conservatory (Liberalarium):
Almost finished, the exterior pictures are below (I plan on posting interior pictures when things are finished).  Some electrical and brick pathway work are all that remains.  Then come the plants!

This picture shows the conservatory just before brickwork, you can also see the new soil being brought in for the garden courtyards.  Note that the courtyard walls have had the stucco applied.

This is the conservatory after the brickwork, gutters are the last thing to go up.

This is a view of the front facade, the steps are being finished today.  In a week or two the wrought iron handrails will go up.

A view of the roof line showing the corbels on the entablature (that's the fancy green things on the cream colored cornice).

A view showing part of the front facade and the front wall of the garden courtyards.  In the next few days the shutters will go in the courtyard window openings.  This picture also gives you a good idea of what the land looks like.  We need some green things.

A view of the whole complex, dubbed Planet Mark by our builder.  The fence to the left is Eastern Red Cedar framed in the New England style.

Onward and upward,

Mark, Mark & Isabel

The Petulant Gods

Well another month has passed since I last posted.  Are you frustrated that you haven't seen any progress?  We are actually delighted with the changes occurring.  Most of them are on the inside and are happening in a piecemeal fashion, so that really no one space is finished yet.  Plus to protect those things that are already installed we have cardboard coverings on the floors and countertops.  So pictures won't be very impressive right now.

The construction gods have seen fit to smite us numerous times on this project.  But after having battled the many tentacled bureaucracy beast and the devilish icy snow demons, we feel pretty good about where the project stands.  Certainly we're anxious to move in to a completed home, but it looks like we might move in to a finished inside while the outside structures (parapet wall, conservatory and of course garden area) are still being worked on.  Right now the move-in date is about the first week of March.

To give you an idea of some of the complexities our team has faced, take a look at the the photo below.  It's a view of the panel of pumps and tubing that connects the radiant floor heating system to the geothermal HVAC system.  Scary, huh?

The tubing and pumps needed to circulate water through the radiant floor system.  

After some clean up, this system gets hooked into the geothermal HVAC system.

The other dramatic thing that happened recently was the pouring of the concrete into the forms put up to define the garden courtyards we mentioned earlier.  The machine in the photos below has a long boom that extended across the yard to fill the forms. 

These two photos show the extendable boom that pumped concrete into the garden courtyard wall forms.

After the forms were removed, the result was the raw concrete walls.  Impressive looking, but not yet finished.  The last three major steps to complete these courtyard walls is to cover the whole thing in stucco, install shutters on the 3 front windows and put wooden frames into the doorways (there won't be any doors, just a nice framed structure).  As time moves on we will add plants, pathways and other features to the courtyards.  They have already been wired up for electricity.

A view from the front of the walled garden courtyard.  The retaining wall out front will get completed and soil will be put in.  Shutters will be added to the window cutouts.

This is a shot of the walled garden courtyards.  The picture above is a picture of the right hand, front wall in this picture.

This perspective gives a view of the house, courtyards and the liberalarium (conservatory!)

Onward and upward,

Mark, Mark and Isabel

The Liberalarium and other news

Now that the midterm elections are over with, we dread the creeping conservatism that is bound to take over the country.  Thus we are renaming our conservatory to now be called the liberalarium!  This name is more befitting for a household of bleeding heart, tree-hugging, animal whispering, left wingers.  So it's not a greenhouse, an orangerie or a conservatory; it's a liberalarium!

On to other news.  The interior is shaping up nicely, but we are holding off posting pictures since the work is proceeding on several fronts and no one room is completely finished.  Stay tuned.

The conservatory liberalarium! is now wired for electricity (as are the garden walls) and it has the southern skylights installed.

The skylights being installed on the liberalarium.

Trim and tile work are proceeding well and there is a lot of both.  Here's a picture of Isabel enjoying a dog toy on the tile being used for the shower floors:

Isabel on the shower floor tiles.  They must be pretty comfortable.

We also had three celebrations over the last few weeks.  Jason had a birthday, Scott had his birthday and of course we had a Christmas surprise one morning.  Here are the pictures (sadly there isn't one from Scott's party, but he's young enough to have many more):

Happy birthday for Jason (sorry he's blurry)

The Stylecraft crew the morning after a visit from Santa Claus.  

Back row:  Bruce, Sergey, Scott

Seated in front:  Jason

Jason's blurry again (hmmmmm, makes him seem kind of shady!)

Onward and upward,
Mark, Mark & Isabel

Planet Mark and Project Updates

Jason, the builder, now calls our project "Planet Mark" in reference to the complex of structures associated with the main house.  Here's a view illustrating what he's talking about:

The main house, garden walls, conservatory, pond, rain garden and garage of Planet Mark.

Here are some pictures to update you on the project's progress:

The conservatory walls.

The conservatory with its roof.  Yes, that's the darkest conservatory you may have seen, but the glass skylights 

still need to be put in.  Wait and see.

The pond and rain garden area.  The wooden structures are the supports for the plank walkways.  The pond hasn't been filled in this picture.

Another view of Planet Mark.

Onward and Upward,
Mark, Mark & Isabel

The Great Wall of Dolman

A couple of years ago we visited China and walked up a long section of the Great Wall.  Here's what it was like:

The Great Wall of China.  You get a Hero card if you make it to the top of this section.

And here's the kind of thing you see along the way:

A formal garden near the Great Wall of China.

Well we don't have the enforced labor of thousands of Chinese nor do we have several hundred years, but we are building two walled gardens as part of our project.  The idea is that they will form two courtyards off the south side of the house.  One comes off of the living room and the other comes off of the library.

Here's the first picture, I will chronicle the building of these walls as they progress:

View from front of the garden wall forms before concrete is poured.  The chalk lines 

are 3 shuttered windows that will be put in after the concrete is poured.

View from the roof next door showing the two walled garden rooms that will be created 

when the concrete is poured.  The one toward the street will be the English cottage garden 

and the other one will be the more structured eating area.

And yes, we know they can only be 6 feet high according to the historic code.  Give us some time to finish them and finish grading the land.  I think the results will be quite pleasing.  The courtyard room off the library is going to be an informal English garden and the one off of the living room will be a more structured area for outdoor eating.

Onward and upward,

Mark, Mark & Isabel