That's a wrap

Thom and Young Brian are setting the flagstones outside the great room doors, and they're not enjoying it much. They enjoy the precision of measuring and cutting wood, not this arbitrary puzzle work..

At what point does the house change owners? Of course, from the git-go the bank has been and will be for a long time, the owner. But, from the moment Thom borrowed the model of the house to study, he has been the owner, but there has been a shift now. The guys are outside, and we are taking control of the inside. We're just awaiting the gas guys to come connect everything, and then we can completely finish the inside cleaning.

We've already taken over the bedroom and my bath, waxing the floors and those areas are now off limits to the workers and their muddy boots. We've even put the blue painting tape across the areas to limit movement.

And, we are now finished with this blog. I find that the closer we get to moving in, the less I want to write, which I think is normal.

The neighborhood open house will be this Saturday, March 20th from 2-4, after which we, we will shut down the public part and live privately.

Thank you for reading about our little retro house.

"Goodnight Mrs. Calabash, wherever you are."

The Case of the Unwaxed floors

We wanted to get the second coat of wax on the bathroom and half of the great room last night, before the workers and inspectors brought in dust and dirt Monday morning. You have to wait 8 hours between coats and we didn't get the first coat on until after lunch. After compline we hung out at a daughter's home watching RAMSEY"S KITCHEN NIGHTMARES because we knew if we went home, we'd never go out again.

Pat carried one of our lamps, for some reason we don't have a good flashlight right now, and as we crept up in the dark to the house, I felt like I was in a Nancy Drew mystery. We had to fumble for the extension cord, but all was well, and we managed to get the second coat of wax on the floors at 10:00pm.

have vacuum will climb

I don't like vacuuming all that much on the ground. Pat loves it so much he'll carry the Kirby anywhere he can.

A Weather forecast

I can confidently predict that the rain which has dogged this entire construction effort will miraculously end in approximately 10 days, at which time we will enter a three year drought. That is the expected arrival of my trees and landscaping plants we ordered yesterday from Mebane Shrubbery.

http://maps.google.com/maps/place?rlz=1C1GGLS_enUS338US339&sourceid=chrome&um=1&ie=UTF-8&q=mebane+shrubbery&fb=1&gl=us&hq=shrubbery&hnear=mebane&cid=16989830156714280727

They say that breaking up is hard to do...

We are really winding down. The only thing left is the final floor manifold in the spare bedroom, and the plumbing inspection before we get the C.O.

Thom is leaving for Columbia next weekend, but before that, he's going to stay around this week and help us with the final cleanup and laying the stones by the sliding doors of the great room. The plumber stops by quite a bit to see how things are progressing, and so did Young Brian's grandfather. There's just not that much doing construction-wise in Burlington, NC.

I think the newspaper is coming by to do an article on the house. We're hoping we get the floor spots rectified before then. Pat applied a coat of Xylene which is the solvent for the sealer. I could smell the fumes from the street and asked Pat how many brain cells he'd lost today while working in the house amongst that chemical. He couldn't remember.

Remakes

I woke up the other day thinking about Lost Horizon and The Philadelphia Story. Both were really good movies, excellent writing, good editing, solid stories done in black and white. They are as interesting to watch now as when they were made.

They were both redone later and both stories were lost in overproduction and techincolor. Lost Horizon, re-deux, was made in 1973. It was painful to sit through, and if my companion hadn't been in love with Liv Ullman, I think we would have walked out.

High Society is the bastardized version of The Philadelphia Story, and not even Grace Kelly's gowns could save that.

I thought about those movies, and the FLW foundation's decision to stop selling his plans for people to build houses and wondered if maybe we've just ended up with another bad remake of a really good movie. I hope not, I don't think so.

We sat on the back steps and watched Thom and Young Brian cut the death wood for the decking. It was so pleasant.

A woman who grew up in a Usonian said that living there felt like she was on a perpetual vacation. As we sat on the steps, after the guys had left, drinking our wine, snacking on cheese. I had the same feeling as when we're on a boat, watching the water. It's not just the house that I think is good, it is that the house draws us outside on warm spring days. I don't know. I don't think I'll ever know. Is this house going to end up being Bing Crosby when I had hoped for Cary Grant? We shall see.

What Chile had that Haiti didn't

Rebar...it's what keeps the concrete stable during times of great stress. Here's a pic of the rebar soon to be encased in our carport.

The Big Guns

Thom has been pondering our white spots on the floor, Pat has been scraping at them, and I've been using all sorts of solvents from Murphy's Oil soap to WD40 to lighter fluid.

Thom, as usual, thinks before he acts unlike we, the A.D.D. twins. He called in the experts and went to the source, Chandler Concrete, who sent out their engineer. He looked at it and decided to send to Raleigh for the bigshot to come and look at it. This is their product and they are taking our leopard floor seriously.

So, we have abandoned serious floor cleaning and waxing until this gets resolved. We still have tons of work to do, I have to paint the utility shed, and Pat has to climb the high ladder, (which Not So Young Brian attempted to steal when they were clearing out their things-you'd think a minister of the Lord wouldn't even contemplate such chicanery).

And, I can wash down the walls with Murphy's oil soap and clean kitchen cabinets so that as soon as our open house is completed, we can start moving in that night.

Getting toward the End

That bottle of Windex under the FLW art glass indicates that we are in the clean up stage of the project. Thom and the Brians have finished the inside work and have turned their eyes toward the steps that will lead down from the bedroom to the interior courtyard.

The window in the picture is, indeed, square. It is the photographer that is off balance, hence the odd angle.

The fireplace has been set in place with Thom's cabinetry work encasing it, and Pat's sanctuary/head/laundry room is finished. We're getting our concrete slab under the carport today, and once the heating guy is done, we should be facing Thom's final exams which will hopefully end with the passing grade of the Certificate of Occupancy. One glitch in the matrix involves the floor. We have random tiny white spots in the sealant coat. We can't figure out what it is. Chili's which has the same exact floor, put in by the same exact company doesn't have them. We have googled this issue and will try some of their suggestions, which vary from re-applying the sealant to waiting 15 years for the issue to resolve itself. By then our cataracts will be so bad, we won't see it at all.

We will host e a neighborhood open house on March 20th 2-4pm, before we move our stuff in. The story is the house, not my banged up furniture. ( No snacks, we're out of dough)

Plywood

When the Pope-Leighey was built back in the late 30's early 40's plywood was the new kid on the block in terms of construction. FLW made great use of it. He was using a basic sort of plywood, that is seen in the old summer camp cabinetry we remember from our youth. He used it for the kitchen cabinets, the cut out windows and the furniture.

Here is the best link to interior shots of the house and you can see how ubiquitous plywood is therein.

http://www.peterbeers.net/interests/flw_rt/Virginia/Pope_Leighey_03/pope_leighey_03.htm

We're using much more plywood than that. Plywood is encasing our house, both on the outside as well as the in. However, plywood has come into its own, and it can be beautiful. We're using a very pale domestic birch plywood on the interior walls, cherry plywood in the cabinets that Thom and the Brians are building and the brown/black stained cabinets from Ikea are birch (known for it's strength).

The combinations of the wood are beautiful indeed and I believe right in line with what FLW would have liked.

Here's a history of plywood copied from city soup. What about those Pharaohs?

The 1993 Hardwood Plywood Reference Guide, a publication of the Hardwood Plywood & Veneer Association states that, "in 1830, the piano industry became the first North American industry to use plywood. Wood & Wood Products Magazine's Centennial issue (1996) says that, "in 1890, the rotary cutting process was invented," and as a result of mechanization, plywood became increasingly affordable.

In 1929 a pamphlet published by the National Committee on Wood Utilization noted, "Plywood is a modern term describing an old product which did not receive serious technical and economic consideration until its adaptability to airplane and marine consideration was developed during exhaustive tests at the Forest Products Laboratory."

The word "plywood" which was created in America, received official sanction in dictionaries printed a few years later. That's plywood... veneers on the other hand, dated back to the early Egyptians in the times of the Pharaohs... about 4,000 years ago.

-citysoup.ca

Child Labor Violations

We had to babysit our grandson whilst the parents went to church this morning. (He's under the weather with his allergies)

So, of course, this highly allergic, asthmatic child was dying to go outside while Pat sawed the death wood; I'm assuming so he could better inhale the deadly dust. I wouldn't let him do that, so I made him stay inside with me while I varnished the inner trim around the doors. He then decided to pass the time jumping in the piles of sawdust which were strewn all over the place, so that he could breath those particles while simultaneously ensuring that my varnish would be all lumpy and dirty.

I had two choices, give up or put him to work. I chose the latter and he did a bang up job vacuuming. But his quest for death wasn't over. He had just put a plastic bag over his head when his mother returned. Thankfully, she knows what he is like and didn't yell at me.

Hello Dave

This is the view of our somewhat creepy laundry appliances. Since we can't stand the constant scrutiny, when we walk from the hall to the great room, until we figure out how to hide them, we'll just close the door to that bathroom.

It's hard to say goodbye

We're nearing the end of construction, Thom is moving out his tools, and all the talk has shifted from avoiding mold to getting our certificate of occupation (C.O.) Our daughter, who had Thom and his crew remodel her home, told us she went through Thom detox. They really missed having him around when it was completed. But, he's going on a mission to build outhouses in Columbia in March and we want to move in before we're ninety.

Building a house is almost the most horrific thing a couple can take on. As with raising children, you have no real idea of the final cost, either monetarily or emotionally. And, as with child rearing, you want a final product that is honest and won't nickle and dime you to death right when you go on Social Security.

We were so fortunate to have Thom, the Brians, and his younger fellow, Gabriel build this for us. They are local guys who do good work. We know where they live and they stand behind every screw in every piece of plywood.

When we started talking to Thom about this project, Pat mentioned that it was important for him that all the screws be horizontal to maintain the FLW quality. As the work has progressed, we came to understand that the positioning of the screw heads was not nearly important as the mitered joints, precision joiner work and care in choosing which piece of wood goes where.

This is a quality house from top to bottom. But, banks don't understand quality. They understand and lend money on bathrooms and square footage.

Hence the debacle of the past five years, when the houses got bigger, and I think shoddier, sold for "flipping" purposes and built by illegal workers who had no stake in the long term results. They're just trying to send money back home.

Right now we live in a hundred year old house. It is as solid now as when it was built. Hopefully someone a hundred years from now will have the same apprecation for our little house.

A tiny Lenten miracle

We took delivery of our Sear's appliances today. The delivery people were lovely. And, most impressive. They hand carried the reefer in using a strap upon which they balanced it. As I watched them navigate around the Brians' beautifully mitered corners without touching any of them, I made a note to cover the corners when we move. Our sons in law are lovely, helpful people who work hard for society - one is a high school teacher, the other the District Attorney for our county-good fathers and husbands...but I just don't trust them to not damage my corners.

The stacking laundry is a bit disconcerting though. As one walks down the hallway toward the front door, there are two oculi looking at you. I immediately thought of Hal, in 2001, A Space Odyssey. I hope we don't wake up one morning to find the furniture in charge.

A double dose of guilt

This is the post I almost didn't write because of guilt.

In the picture depicting Brian trimming the shower, you'll note a different wood.

This is the wood we ordered from a company in Florida to use on our steps that lead from our bedroom doors to the terrace. It was the cheapest wood Pat could find that fit our parameters. It had to look good, last without being finished and not overly expensive.

When the fellow delivered it, only then did we learn it was Brazilian Walnut from a 400 year old tree. We have looked upon it with reverence ever since. It is so beautiful that Thom suggested we use some of it to frame the shower and it looks lovely. However, when Pat and I were at our daily visit, immediately my nostrils started hurting and Brian mentioned the sawdust was extremely acidic. My throat hurt and we left. Pat looked it up on the internet and found out that the sawdust from this particular tree can kill you. It must be cut outdoors, you must wear a mask and you must be extremely careful because you can get brown lung disease from it. Nature's revenge.

http://www.woodweb.com/knowledge_base/Working_Safely_with_Ipe.html?printfriendly

Pat was so distressed, he printed this out and ran a copy up to Thom, catching him on the way home.

Brian and I were talking about Ipe, which is the official name, and he asked what Ipe meant, I replied, "death wood," and he countered with "wood of despair," and the final theory is this wood is prevalent in one of Dante's rings of hell.

It is beautiful, but to my mind, barely worth the risk. Now you know what we didn't.

The final frontier

SPACE... is not infinite in a usonian. It is at a premium, which is why our kitchen cabinets have no raised decorative molding, there is no molding on the floors or ceilings, just trim around the windows and doors.

Thom's crew was presented with a problem. How to make the access doors to the radiant heat tubes accessible, and yet not burdened with clumsy, instrusive hinges and latches. They decided to use spring load magnets so that the door will just snap into place and a sharp pop with the knuckles release them again.

A major change, or back to the future

We want to move our fireplace. This is easier than it seems because it doesn't have a chimney. We want to put it at the end of the kitchen cabinets with the side open to the dining room. Yesterday, during our Sunday work, Pat and I moved it. As we sat on our temporary sofa made up of Thom's pile of cement bags, I realised that was exactly where the Pope-Leighey house fireplace is located.

I know in our first drawings of our house, we had it there, can't remember why we moved it,The top pic shows the old location, the bottom the new. Now if Thom will just agree it's do-able...

In other news, Pat was atop the high trellis painting the last bit of the fascia. He didn't relish the work and afterwards commented it looks higher from up there than from down below. I told him it looked pretty high to me.(I was, as usual, on the ground)

And for the final bit, here is the trellis that defines the space between the upper portion of the house to the lower great room.

Here Comes the Sun

A fine day for setting out big sheets of cherry plywood which will become the cabinet on the stairs as well as part of our kitchen. I had to help carry them out so that I could apply the Spar polyeurethane, sand and re-apply. Great day, very sunny and the warmest we've been in months. Not much breeze so no bugs got on them.

Thank goodness, one of the younger men of the crew came by just in time for a quick visit. Pat snagged him to help carry them back inside.

Those are the ugly solar panels atop the roof.

This is a picture of a very pretty corner. Not so young Brian really works at getting just the right combinations of sheets of plywood to make very nice, pretty surprises all over the house. ( of course, you have to love wood to get excited about this sort of thing.)

These pics show the detail that Thom is putting into the doorway. This is lovely joiner work where two doors meet at a corner. It is almost like a column in the house.

This is a detail picture. My memory card on my camera is locked, I can't figure out how to unlock it so I had to use my crummy cell phone. I hope these work out.

It's not a ZUZ ZUZ water softener,

it's a THERMO-MISER water heater/storage system for the ugly solar panels on the roof.

Now, if you had watched Mr. Blandings as I had advised earlier, you would have gotten the reference in the title of this blog.

I am half Finn. Finns are notorious for sitting around watching water. Which is good because the Finnish word for Finland is Suomi (literal translation-"swamp"). I think it is safe to say that as children, a favorite activity for me and my sibs was to sit around the dock in Northern Canada and read. My husband, likes to do things on the water. Our first trip up there, he spent frantically snorkeling, water skiing and other things. I was flabbergasted- all that good reading time wasted on caloric expenditure.

I also like to sit around and look at the various angles in my house. In this house, where we're living now, there is a delightful play of light and shadows created by the stairwell with a window. It is soothing to me.

In the house we're building, I was concerned that it was such a simple design, I would miss that. But now that Thom and the Brians have almost finished the great room with the plywood walls, I can see that there are plenty of angles with light and shadow for me to meditate on. Also, the wood grain in the plywood made me think of my time in Canada watching the water and the variations of the colors therein.

In the book, Sarah Plain and Tall, a woman from New England journeys to the plains to care for some children. She mentions that the plains are very like the sea. At first glance they don't look like much, but after much studying, she learns the colors of them and takes her paints out to capture them on paper.

Our plywood is like that. I think that wood, water and the plains hold a fascination for some people. And it's not just me. I was carrying in some boards for Pat to build an indoor trellis, and Young Brian, looked at it and asked reverently, "O, is that cherry?"

Acknowledgement

FINALLY! Thom put up his sign. We thought he was embarrassed to be associated with this project, but really, he only has one sign. He is no salesman, he is a builder.

Baby it's cold outside

Yes, it is still cold, and our house, although warmer than it was, now that the insulation is in, is still cold. The wonderful double insulated glass that will keep our southern house cool in the summer is no good on days like this. There is no radiant heat pouring in that would make a cat want to curl up and nap. Even Trixie would have a hard time with it.

Wright or wrong?

I don't know. This is an old debate. And something we've been discussing for the past couple of years.

A friend sent this link.

http://www.preservationnation.org/magazine/story-of-the-week/2009/the-wright-way.html

We like the house, it suited the site and we changed the design to suit our needs.

The hidden costs of solar panels

They are ugly as sin.

Stinky Clothes

I look out on my backyard, see the remnants of last week's snows and am grateful'm not living in Perry, Ohio because then this scene could be anytime between St. Patrick's and Mother's Day...

However, the fact that the snow is still here after all this time (in Alamance County-snows have the same lifetime as hollywood marriages) means that it has been cold.. cold enough to run the kerosene heater while Pat and I worked on finishing up the cabinetry, cleaning up and varnishing. This means our clothes smell like kerosene. Not exactly up there with Chanel #5. It reminds me of when I used to visit Pat on the ships when he was in the Navy. Even the coffee had that distinct flavor of diesel.

That funny looking ship is USS SUMTER LST 1181, Pat's first duty station after he was commissioned. I think it is now a part of the Chinese Navy.

Good Work(s)

I was in the spare room varnishing the high clerestory window trim when I noticed Romans3:23/6:23 written in pencil on the framework.

Thom and his crew are very religious. They don't talk about their faith, but you know. Most high holy people I've met don't talk about it, they live it. And, they emanate such goodness, that Pat and I act better than we are when we are around them. The most recent evidence of this is that Pat managed to get the entire kitchen assembled in their presence and not a single F-bomb was dropped; no mean feat for a sailor. (He's also very aware that his work is not up to their standards.)

This crew believes in Good Works, and in good work, as C.S. Lewis explains in one of his many books. Mr. Lewis tells us if we're going to do anything, whether it be our own job or for charity, do the best we can do. I know we are paying for Thom and the Brians' skill and hard work, but they are doing their best work possible because they cannot do less, and we are the beneficiaries.

.

Faith discussions take place all over the world in many workplaces. U2 played Raleigh last fall. I read in the N&O that Bono claimed they were really pretty boring guys. They mainly just sat around every morning and read their Bibles

Our rector retired last week and we want to have a house blessing. Fortuitously, Not So Young Brian, is also a minister. He has told us he would "be honored" to bless this house he has built.

When I saw the verse on the framing, I was tickled. We will be living in a home with little blessings inscribed in the walls.

Here's a perfect example of their good work, this mitered edge joining the plywood walls at the corner is sharp enough to cut paper.

Still married

We have just about completed the IKEA kitchen cabinetry and I only contemplated divorce and/or murder two or three times. Whether that is due to the good engineering of the designers or we're just too dang old and tired ; I don't know.

The tile guy is prepping the shower and needed running water. I thought that event happened after the shower is completed.

It helps to open the tiny packages

We were so frustrated because we thought that IKEA sent the wrong door to the Kitchen high cabinet. But, then we found a small package that had all the information needed to complete this particular item. I was so upset because IKEA is geared toward getting it right the first time, not correcting mistakes. I was not looking forward to going to Charlotte to correct this perceived error.

And with this, we are finished with IKEA, I think, until after we move in.

Even Young Brian, who is turning 30 tomorrow, was interested in this cabinetry. And this is my favorite piece along with a small bathroom shelf, that we've bought from the Swedes.

too busy to write

We are at the house assembling cabinets. It is "a puzzlement" to quote the King of Siam. All those parts do make sense eventually. We spent a half hour looking for a bag of screws only to find that the upper hinges don't require them, even though there are holes.

The cabinets are marvels of engineering and also a testament to global trade. The shelves are from American, the hinges Austria, the screws China, the Canadians I think made the drawers....

I spent the afternoon matching doors to cabinets and we had a fight in front of Thom and crew over the high cabinet, while they had their Mountain dew and donut break.

Thom sided with me, not so young Brian sided with Pat. There's a reason Thom is the boss, he chose wisely.

Thom's t-shirt

We were over at the house assembling the 5,243,230, and 1/2 IKEA pieces that will eventually comprise our kitchen when I noticed this.

How to visit IKEA

Wait until the entire state is blanketed in snow on a weekday. It was the first of four trips where I didn't get claustrophobic before the requisite three hour time spent there ended. It doesn't matter how crowded or sparse the store, it still takes three hours. We don't know why.

It was really nice sitting in the deserted cafe drinking coffee and sharing a sticky bun. Surrounded by the Scandinavian furnishings while looking over the snow covered parking lot, it really felt like we were in airport from the 60s. A lot classier than we are. (for you must remember this, only rich people flew back then and they dressed to the nines to do so.)

We STILL don't have closet doors. This was a second trip to get the wardrobe doors and we finally found out why they don't stock that many. Most people just buy the closet systems and put them in existing closets.

We will have a place to put our clothes, we just will have to make sure we keep them tidy since they will be on display.

The bottom line

FLW on basements:

A house should-ordinarily-not have a basement. In spite of everything you may do, a basement is a noisome, gaseous damp place .From it come damp atmospheres and unhealthful conditions. Because people rarely go there- and certainly not to live there- it is almost always sure to be an ugly place. The family tendency is to throw things into it, leave them there and forget them. It usually becomes- as it became when I began to build- a great furtive underground for the house in order to enable the occupants to live in it disreputably. Also, so many good housewives, even their lords and masters, used to tumble downstairs into the basement and go on insurance for some time, if not make it all immediately collectible.

-THE NATURAL HOUSE

We have had basements and have NOT had basements. Although we did use it as a junk room, we've also used it as a safe place to learn to roller skate, a quiet place to watch tv, an artists's studio, a workshop and at one time a horse or two made it in there to have it's mane trimmed. I like basements as a safe refuge against storms, and have never purposely fallen down the stairs in order to collect insurance.

He was spot on about the gas though, if you think about Radon. Basements are a good place to stick the stuff that makes up the physical plant for a house. Water heaters, pipes, extra fridges and freezers. In our usionion, we needed a large storage tank for the solar heated water, and so opted to build a small shed, which will also serve as a nice privacy barrier so we can have our morning coffee and not be on display before we've had a chance to comb our hair.

For storm safety, I think the best place will be to cower in the corner between the fridge and the steps

SNOW!

I was hoping for a shot we could use on Christmas Cards next year, but alas, construction vehicles ruined it!

This is no big deal to the Yankees, but down here, news of seven inches of snow ranks just below news of the Second Coming.

FINISHED with the indoor painting anyhoo

And thank goodness because our two day snow has arrived.

Here's Pat atop his new WERNER ladder. We went ahead and put two coats of finish paint on as long as the walls aren't finished. It only took about 5 hours to do that and of course, we spent the evening recuperating.

The lower picture is of a new code requirement that sort of makes sense. Whenever there is a wire near by where someone could conceivably hit it with a nail, the electricians put these metal plates on top of it. There are the square metal plates, and to the side you can see the rectangular metal plate where the wire goes through the 2x6.