Once again, I have to apologize for my lack of updates. What’s it been… 3 months? It’s embarrassing how much time I’ve let slip by. I’ve received a number of emails inquiring if we’ve run out of money or if I’ve given up on blogging—Thankfully, I can say it’s neither. Work has become entirely consuming, my wife is now pregnant(!) and in my spare time, I find myself working at the house instead of working on the blog. What can I say, It’s been over a year now and at this point, I’d like this project to be complete. Thankfully, we’re getting close.

Admittedly, the project has taken much longer than anticipated and we have hit a few bumps along the road. As shocking as it sounds though, we’re actually on budget. The biggest challenge has been maintaining momentum with the trades. One delay, and everything slides. Once that happens, it becomes increasingly difficult to realign everyone’s schedule. That, and we had a number of trades just… disappear. Unfinished work and only partially paid. Poof, not to be heard from again. I don’t know if this is common or not, but I’m shocked how difficult it’s been to get these people to finish what they’ve started.

Thankfully, the interior is close to completion and I must admit, everything has come together quite nicely. It’s entirely satisfying to see the images in your mind finally come to life. I particularly like how everything looks at night (although this is a horrible photo). And I was surprised how difficult it was to find light fixtures that we actually liked (and could afford). Regardless, with everything but smallest of finishing touches left to do, the end is in sight. The exterior on the other hand… Well, we still have a ways to go there.

We admittedly dragged our feet making some decisions on the cladding materials and colours. For some reason it wasn’t really a priority and when we did focus, we couldn’t make up our minds. After months of indecision, we decided on a wood siding with a semi-transparent finish, however just before placing the order, I discovered that the finish didn’t come with a warranty… and we’d need to reapply the stain every few years. Yeah, that wasn’t going to happen. So we went back to the drawing board and lost another few months disappeared while we sourced new materials, selected new colours, and negotiated material & installation costs.

Once we decided to start over, we had to reevaluate everything. We looked at various product samples and various colours options. However we needed to be mindful of the brick that had already been installed, ‘cause that wasn’t about to change. In the end, we decided on a wood siding for the majority of the house, with a solid stain instead of the semi-transparent (which means it comes with a healthy warranty). We’ll be using HardiePanel for the soffits and fascias, and HardiePanel for entire south wall. Everything has been ordered and if the weather cooperates, installation will begin next week. Fingers crossed.

Once the cladding is finished, we’ll get started on the landscaping… although I doubt we’ll have enough time to do much before winter. Regardless, we intend to move in only a few weeks from now. They’ll be working on the exterior and everything won’t be 100% complete on the interior, but I think it’s been long enough, no?

If you haven’t seen them already, I upload a slew of photos on my Flickr page. Hopefully that’ll tide you over until I get around to writing the next post. Hopefully it won’t take me another 3 months.

Worry not, I am still alive. Indeed, this is certainly a record for the blog… It’s been well over a month since I posted an update, and for that I must apologize. I usually spent some time on the weekend to update the site, but lately my weekends have been spent running around handling errands for the house. Who would have thought building a house would get in the way of updating a blog about building a house. Shocking, I know.

A lot has happened since my previous post—the brickwork has been completed, trim has been installed, the kitchen has been installed, everything has been painted, etc.—but in the spirit of maintaing focus for each post, I’ll stick to a single topic today. Tiling.

All of our tile was purchased from Saltillo, with the exception of the floor tile in the master bathroom. The hexagon carrara marble (pictured above) was actually purchased months ago when we stumbled upon a 40% off sale at Ciot. At $11/sqft, that was still outside of our budget, but Jess had wanted that style from the beginning… and the steep discount made it a little easier to swallow. So purchase it we did. Beyond the hexagon mosaic floor, we went with a polished Fiorito stone for the shower walls and tub surround. The stone is primarily white, with some grey veining and a hint of brown. The grey matches mosaic floor and a single random-brick carrara inlay that wraps the shower wall at about 4”. The brown touches should really bring everything together as it’ll compliment the walnut vanity that’s being made for us.

We also went with a Nuheat radiant floor heating system… although, can someone explain why Nuheat thought they could use the Coda application icon and nobody would notice? For shame.

Ok, so we definitely splurged a little lot in the master bathroom… so we needed to simplify things just a bit in the shared bathroom. The floor is a white penny tile ($6.75/sqft), and the tub surround is a 4×12 white subway tile ($2.32/sqft). For a little additional character, we added a little single inlay of 1/4 polished bluestone bricks. Now, these suckers cost $17/sqft, but luckily we didn’t need many of them.

The main floor is primarily hardwood, but the foyer and powder room floor is a beautiful 16×24 filled/honed Travertino. We had considered a number of options but at $9/sqft, the Travertino was a steal in my opinion. It has a warm, cream colour and the complex veining gives it a lot of character.

In the basement, we had toyed with the idea of stained concrete, but in the ended decided to finish the laundry and mechanical rooms with a simple and inexpensive ($3.38/sqft) 12×24 ashgrey tile. It certainly looks better than stained concrete, although the size of the tile made sloping the floors a little difficult.

The basement bathroom has a similar style to the shared bathroom upstairs, with a 1×1 white hexagon mosaic for the floors and a 3×6 white bevelled subway tile for the tub surround. In retrospect though, I’m not sure we’d do the bevelled tile again—It looks great on the wall, but really messy in the corners. The bevel creates uneven gaps where we cut pieces, which are further exacerbated by the grey grout we used. Granted, it’ll be behind a shower curtain in a room that won’t get much use, so it’s not the end of the world.

I must admit, choosing the species of hardwood was actually quite difficult for us. If you haven’t had the luxury of walking into a hardwood store (or looking online for that matter), you’ll quickly discover that there are thousands of options to choose from. For us, we wanted something that was strong, aesthetically pleasing and cost effective.

We were pretty sure we wanted a solid wood that would be finished on-site instead of a pre-finished product, although there was certainly some debate about it. The pre-finished products are usually stronger than their counterparts, but you have to like the particular finish options (which we didn’t). The pre-finished material was obviously more expensive, but the installation costs were cheaper… so comparatively, it was pretty much a wash.

From an aesthetic standpoint, we considered walnut… however it’s neither strong nor cost effective, so we abandoned it pretty quickly. We looked at bamboo as well, which is both strong and sustainable, but neither of us like the look of it. We also considered maple, which is very strong but has a pretty plain grain pattern. We were also warned a few times that maple doesn’t stain particularly well because of its density. It’s obviously workable, but you have to accept the imperfections that may result.

In the end, we went with a 3 1/4” quarter sawn white oak, which was installed on-site and stained a darkish “cappuccino” brown. On the Janka hardness scale, white oak is a 1360, which puts it more or less in the middle of the pack when it comes to general strength.

Quarter sawn refers to the way the material is cut, in which the logs are first cut into quarters before being cut into individual boards. The main benefits being a 50% increase of stability against warping and an improved grain aesthetic (in my opinion at least). From what I understand, this method doesn’t produce any more waste than plain sawing although it’s more labour intensive, which obviously adds to the cost.

I certainly need to make a point of posting more frequently, but I’ve been somewhat busy these past few weeks. I suppose that’s a lame excuse, but I figured “my dog ate it” wouldn’t exactly fly…

It didn’t take much time for the installers to mud, tape and sand all of the seams. I wish I had my camera on hand during a few visits to the house because the guys mudding were walking around on stilts. I’m pretty sure it would have made for a decent photo or two.

With the walls fully prepared, it was time for paint. It’s quite surprising how much larger the spaces feel now that walls are primed – particularly the clerestory, which obviously gets the most amount of light. Of course, the white walls also allow you to easily see the imperfections… which is a good thing because it gives us the opportunity to correct them now.

With a pencil in hand, we walked around the entire house and circled all of the flaws. Anything that needed to be sanded, filled, or repaired in any way was marked for the drywall guys to come back and correct before we start painting. For the most part, everything was in pretty good shape… although the clerestory walls need a little love, which isn’t all that surprising given the difficulties everyone has had working in that space. Apparently it’s a pain in the ass to work in an area 23’ tall. Shocking, I know.

It’s been 222 days since we began construction, and we finally have drywall. I’m actually shocked how quickly everything was installed—The insulation and vapour barrier was delivered on March 21st and subsequently installed on the 31st. Drywall was delivered on April 1st, and installation was completed this afternoon. They still have to mud, tape and sand everything, but for some reason I thought it would take a little more than 3 days to install the boards.

The installer’s efficiency has been quite remarkable and they seem to be leaving very little waste as well. I originally didn’t understand why they’d install 2 boards, skip a spot and then install another 2… but after noticing it in various places around the house, I realized they were leaving the odd sizes until they had leftover pieces that could be cut to fit. I’m also impressed their craftsmanship… These guys clearly understand how to measure and use a router.

For the most part we’ve used 1/2” drywall throughout, although we have 5/8” type X board along the south wall (which is close to the lot line) and Durock cement board around the tubs and shower.

All in all, I’m quite happy with how everything looks so far. I was certain that the rooms would all feel smaller once the drywall was installed, but thankfully that’s not the case.

I’ve posted a number of photos here.

Our ICF foundation has 2 5/8” of foam on the exterior, which created a minor aesthetic challenge for us. To ensure everything was flush once we added the cladding, we needed to strap the exterior walls out to compensate. The ideal solution would have been a continuous layer of rigid foam (for complete thermal break), however our contractor was concerned about the weight of the siding and insisted on a different approach. Instead, we’ve installed strapping at 16” on center, with rigid foam in between. We’ll then be adding a layer of plywood and wrapping everything in Tyvek. This should provide more than enough stability to affix the siding correctly.

Speaking of which, we really need to finalize our approach here. We’ve been leaning towards fir siding that’s stained with Sansin, but we’ve also been considering a pre-painted solution, such as Gemthane, Maibec, or Cape Cod. Aesthetically, we want to ensure the grain pattern/texture is still visible and we’re planning on a darker colour (probably dark brown). I’m favouring the stain because I love the style it’ll deliver, but I’m fearful of how well it will weather. Sansin promises a 25 year warranty if the stain in applied according to their directions, but still… I’m not 100% sold on it. Regardless, I think a wood siding will compliment the modern design by giving it a warmer, more traditional feel.

Beyond the wood siding, we’re planing on natural cedar soffits They’ll run along the bottom of the various overhangs, and I think they’ll really pop against the darker siding. Similarly, we’ve selected a “sandy” coloured brick for the front, which has a bit of brown and a bit of orange it. All in all, I think everything will tie together nicely.

At least that’s the plan.

I suppose I could have come up with a slightly less cliched headline, but whatever… our stairs were installed yesterday and I’m pretty excited.

We went with white oak for the treads, which will eventually be stained a dark brown (at least that’s the game plan at the moment). My wife and I had contemplated walnut as we both love the woodgrain and colour, but the cost difference was far too great to really justify it. Walnut is also a softer hardwood (how’s that for an oxymoron?), which we weren’t particularly fond of either.

The railing was originally going to be metal and glass, but we feared the result would be too “cold” and unfriendly… so we went with wood and glass instead. The plan was to have zero spindles, but we couldn’t get a single piece of glass long enough. So we’ll have at least one spindle that’ll be used solely to hide the seam between glass panels. The glass itself will be inset into a grove that runs along the top of the stringer and the bottom of the railing… which should allow us to avoid any glass-mounting hardware. Nice and clean.

All in all, I’m quite happy with them so far – although it’s actually a little difficult to fully appreciate them as they’re currently protected with plastic and temporary wood treads. I suppose the only thing I wish we had done differently was open risers. That would have allowed for a nice clear line-of-sight through the middle of the house. The wife disagreed though, and I couldn’t exactly argue against the safety of our future children (which is really why we went and did all of this, right?) You can’t win them all I guess.

What’s the saying… happy wife, happy life? Wait, that’s a cliche too.

When it comes to insulating a roof, there aren’t many options… and in the case of a flat roof, the options are even fewer. A traditionally pitched roof has a large ventilated space that sits between the insulation (typically cellulose or fiberglass) and the top of the roof. With a flat roof, there obviously isn’t room for the same ventilated space and you’re forced to take a slightly different approach. While it is possible to install a ventilated option, we opted to make the entire roof cavity airtight with R40 worth of BASF Walltite.

According to their website, Walltite is “is a polyurethane insulation/air barrier system intended for institutional, commercial, industrial and residential use. It provides a gap-free, airtight, monolithic envelope of low permeability that adheres tenaciously to virtually all surfaces, smooth or irregular.”

There are actually 2 kinds of polyurethane spray foam; Open-cell (or 1/2 pound), expands to about 150 times its original volume, however it is not considered a vapor barrier and only R3.6 per inch. This means you need a lot of it to achieve the R-Value you desire, plus you need to then install and tape 6 mil plastic as the vapor barrier. Closed-cell (or 2 pound) expands to about 40 times its original volume, is considered a vapor barrier and is about R5.5 per inch.

On the day of installation (which has to be above -10°C), a crew of sprayers arrived at the house, covered everything that wasn’t being sprayed and promptly filled every void with the bright blue foam. Apparently this stuff doesn’t come off once it’s applied and the last thing we wanted was blue stains on your newly-installed windows.

The garage ceiling was sprayed to R30, including the main HVAC stack and ductwork that runs along the inside wall. The floors of the exterior overhangs were both sprayed to R40, while the joist ends were sprayed to R30. We also sprayed all of the steel posts to ensure a thermal break was achieved.

In an ideal world, we would have sprayed everything… however, our pocketbook disagreed ever so slightly. In the end, we settled on a compromise of sorts and went for a mix of Walltite, Roxul and 2” of rigid exterior foam.

Most of the electrical has been run throughout the house, although we’re not quite finished yet. The city is coming this week to connect the meter, and the panel hasn’t been installed yet… but everything else is looking pretty good.

While we had outlined an electrical plan very early on, you really need to walk around the site to get a good sense of where the lights and switches should be placed. I’d say we followed the plan relatively closely, although we definitely made a few changes.

For the most part, we’ve used low-voltage MR16 recessed lights throughout the house. While we haven’t purchased them yet, the goal is to use LED lights wherever possible… although I continue to read mixed reviews of the technology (which has me a little wary of purchasing them for the entire house). Are LED lights really ready for general consumption? I certainly like the benefits of LED technology, I just don’t want to invest in a bunch if they don’t really work.

I’ve watched enough Holmes on Homes to know that moisture is a bad thing, so we also invested in high-quality Panasonic Whisper Green vents for the laundry and bathrooms. These things weren’t exactly cheap, but I think they were a solid investment. God help me if I discover mould in the future.

From a networking standpoint, we’ve run cat-6 (internet), coaxial (cable) and cat-3 (phone) throughout the house, all of which terminates in the mechanical room. The cat-6 will be connected to a gigabit switch, along with a modem/router to create a fully networked house. Of course, I’ll also connect a few Airport Express extenders to ensure we’ve got wireless coverage as well.

As I mentioned in my previous post, we have a few electronically-operated windows in the clerestory. While the control unit is still incredibly ugly, I discovered that you can actually control both windows with a single unit… which means we have 50% less ugly to deal with. I also picked up a remote control for the system, which happens to have an integrated thermometer in it. This means we can automatically open the windows and vent the heat should the clerestory reach a certain temperature. Coupled with the integrated rain sensor, hopefully the system will take care of itself in the summer (if only technology was actually this intelligent). I’m sure I’ll tinkering with it after 2 months.

In what I expect will be an ongoing series of cost-related posts, today we’re going to a closer look at the windows we selected and their associated costs.

We have a total of 35 windows in the house, plus one sidelight next to the front door and two french doors in the kitchen. All of the windows (including the french doors) are Marvin Integrity, with the exception of the clerestory windows, which are higher quality Marvin windows.

To be honest, I’m not entirely sure how the Marvin windows differ (other than price), but as I mentioned previously, the Integrity windows have pultruded fiberglass exterior frames, wood interiors, dual sealed insulating glass with an Argon gas fill, and a Low E II coating (which means they’re all Energy Star rated). From an energy-saving standpoint, I would have preferred something like the triple glazed Thermotech fiberglass windows, however we simply couldn’t afford the added costs. We evaluated a number of products, but from cost to performance standpoint, the Integrity windows are hard to beat.

Given the amount of sun exposure and potential heat gain, we felt it was important to have 2 operable windows in the clerestory. The windows sit on opposite sides of the clerestory, which will allow for thermal-venting and cross-ventilation. However, this proved easier said than done, as the standard Integrity windows require a pole-crank to open and close them… which isn’t exactly practical, what with them being 23’ off the ground. If we wanted power-operated windows, we had to upgrade to the pricier Marvin models.

For the price difference, I’m a little disappointed in the controller unit. I was under the impression it was going to be some sort of proprietary Marvin-specific device, but it’s actually something that can apparently be retrofitted to any number of awning windows. I have to wonder if it would worked with the Integrity windows as well?

The Sentry II, consists of 2 components: A wall mounted control panel and a motor unit that simply connects to the existing crank mechanism on the window. The motor unit is a little clunky, but it doesn’t even remotely compare to the horrifically-ugly control panel. I’m at a loss for where to put it in the house… I certainly don’t want to put to in plain view where I’ll have to look at it everyday. You’ll have to take my word, ‘cause I just did a quick Google search and I can’t seem to find a photo of it (which doesn’t surprise me… I wouldn’t exactly show it off either).

All in all, we definitely spent more on the windows than we had originally anticipated, but I’m quite happy with the final result.

Grand total: $28,525.25