Where's the frackin' pot of gold?!?

The Gods are smiling upon us (well, really more of a colorful frown).

We started this project on St. Patrick's Day and now we appear to be building at the end of a rainbow.  Sadly, our search for a pot of gold (or even de-valued dollars) was fruitless.  At least it's pretty anyway.  The whole event had dozens of people out in the Lafayette Square area.  After a heavy rain the clouds parted in the West and the setting Sun gave us this show.  There were actually two rainbows with a fainter one appearing above the one in the picture.  This photo is with an iPhone, so talk to Steve Jobs if you can't see the second rainbow.

As part of this phase the lot was also given its first grading.  That's not like what a teacher puts on your report card.  Grading in this case is contouring of the land to give it a pleasing and manageable shape.  Our landscaping plan calls for a berm or two and a rain garden so the shape will be complicated.  With two persnickety people (well, one and a half), what else would you expect?

It's a bit hard to tell from the perspective of the picture (even I don't control enough of the Universe to make a rainbow move into the right position) but the backfilling of soil around the foundation has occurred.  The next step is to start framing.  Yea!  This will be a very dramatic step allowing us to see the house really take shape.  The rainy weather has delayed us again, but Jason is planning on starting the framing by the end of the first week in June.  Never know if that will actually happen, but we're hopeful.  Delays are an expected part of a building project of this complexity.  That last sentence sounded like it was written by a sane person, didn't it?  Must be a latent part of my personality.  

Stay tuned, the drama never stops.

Onward and Upward,

Mark, Mark & Isabel

What once was green, is now blue.

Blue foam panel insulation on the outside of the basement.  Just like a baby boy's blanket.

Blue is a good Earth related color.  View the Earth from space and it isn't green.  It's blue.  And now we have a blue house.  The green eco-friendly waterproofing rubber is now covered with blue foam insulation panels.  And yes, we do know the difference between inside and outside.  The blue panels are the FIRST level of insulation.  As we progress there will be spray foam insulation and blown-in cellulose insulation on the inside of the walls.  All of this insulating material should give us an effective R-value (insulation level) of 30-35 which is really good.  Then the soil is backfilled against the blue panels and will itself act as an insulating material.  So the temperature in the lower level (that's basement to all of you non-designers) should be constant and in the range of 65-70 without any heating or cooling for much of the year.

Beneath the bottom edge of the blue panels are three layers.  The lowest layer is small stones, then comes a layer where there is a filter covered drain pipe all around the house that empties into a sump pump (a requirement of the building code) and then the last layer upon which the blue panel rests is another layer of small stones.  All of this layering is meant to allow water to run into the drain pipe and away from the house or under the house into the groundwater reservoir.  This should make for a lower level that is dry even in a season with lots of rain like we've been having.

Since we will eventually finish off the lower level (that's why it's not properly called a basement) we have also decided to install radiant floor heat (which is on the other 2 floors as well) and air conditioning in this area.  The air conditioning is true to that term.  We don't just mean it's cooling the space, it's really conditioning the air by also controlling the humidity and by filtering it.  More to come on the HVAC system in future postings.

Onward and Upward,

Mark, Mark & Isabel