Above, Cris from Ranserve finished hanging plywood on the walls of what will be the library/dining room — both side walls. Drywall will cover the plywood. Steven will use the plywood backing behind the drywall to support bookshelves.
Look how clean this room is — swept, with no building supplies and brick rubble laid out on the floor!
Kevin Rehberg, apprentice builder, son of Mark, the president of Ranserve, the builder at Emerald Hill — Kevin cleaned up the house after an intense week with framers, plumbers, electricians, HVAC and other teams working in the house, quality-control inspections, and multiple deliveries. The house looks superb. The floors are swept. Lumber is piled neatly. Shattered brick is shoveled out to the boneyard. All the HVAC peel-and-stick trash is gone. This attention to detail should not go unremarked, unrecognized.
The new main gas line is installed into the framing of bedroom 1.
The first three exterior doors were delivered today.
Cris nailed up additional plywood backing at what will be the TV wall in the family room — to support cabinets, shelves and a TV mounted on the wall.
Draw 2. Brett Grinkmeyer, architect, signed off on the work done to date. Steven countersigned and submitted paperwork to Larry at South Star Bank for payment of draw 2 to Ranserve via wire transfer.
Framing and rough-in plumbing. Almost complete.
Flooring. Jacquela and Steven are scheduled to meet Monday to explore flooring options, now that two flooring experts recommend against trying to refinish existing oak floors. This is going to hurt the budget.
Draw 2. Ranserve today delivered by email to the Leons and Brett Grinkmeyer, architect, the paperwork for payment of draw 2. Six figures. No surprise. Ranserve has transformed the house in one month, moving forward from demo. Brett will inspect the work and, if he signs off on it, Steven will confirm the draw and submit it to South Star Bank for payment.
Save the oak floors? 24 hours after a flooring expert advised against trying to refinish the existing oak floor downstairs, Mark, Steven and Jacquela continue to explore options and budgets. Stay tuned.
Monday this week, Ron Dahlke and the framers discovered that the frame of one of the front windows bowed inward. In photo above, it is the second window from right — the first of the three smaller vertical windows that transfer light into the entry hall.
Ron called Sean Miller at Martel Windows & Doors. Sean today dispatched Landon Price, operations manager. Sean reports:
Landon de-glazed the window (removed the glass), straightened the frame, and reinstalled the glass. The glass in most windows is held in to place by 3M glazing tape, basically heavy duty double sided tape. Sometimes in the factory when they set the glass they do not have the frame straighten and the glazing tape and glass hold that un-straight edge. All we did was set it straight. No special care is needed, warranty is not affected. Landon is factory trained and does this sort of thing for a myriad of different reasons on a daily basis.
Albert, working in the ceiling chase, wrenching steel pipe fittings together.
At the right side of the fireplace, Albert from Custom Plumbing chisled out the open chase behind the brick. He removed the old gas line that no longer meets code and installed a new run of steel pipe, working across the family room ceiling, turning the pipe 90 degrees and traveling down the chase.
Looking down into the chase. Rubble at the bottom of the chase, from chiseling out the brick — to be removed before the mason patches the brick.Cris from Ranserve today installed the frames for the pocket doors to bath 3 upstairs, right, and to the laundry room, left.Cris also installed the pocket door frame to the master closet. This is a style of frame that permits the nailing of shelf supports into the plywood sheathing — this will be important in the master closet — unlike the open web of lumber that cannot be nailed at the pocket door frames to the bath 3 and the laundry room.And … Cris, who just does not stop, also nailed into place the frame for the pocket door entry to the master bedroom.With hours to go and power tools to put to work, downstairs, Cris also began hanging the plywood backing that will help support the bookshelves planned for the library.To the left of the fireplace, a new short wall is framed into place, replacing a brick wall and an extension of the brick hearth that were removed several days back by the demo team.
It’s taken about a week but the team from Custom Plumbing is, according to Albert, 24-48 hours away from completing rough-in, mapping and installing the basic lines without making the final connections, getting ready for the plumbing inspector.
Everything has been checked with a level as each joint is glued — it’s meticulous work to ensure proper pitch for waste drainage.
Above, a vertiginous look from below at the pipe runs between the ceiling joists and up the wall of what will be bath 3 upstairs.
Looking up at the ceiling joists above the kitchen to the shower drain line at left, turning 90 degrees, then 90 degrees again at right, traveling straight back to the waste stack in the mudroom wall beyond. The larger pipe fittings at right side of photo will connect the waste stack in the mudroom to the toilet in the master bath.
Above — the boneyard in the driveway continues to grow. It’s astounding how much old wood has been carved out Emerald Hill’s skeleton — undersized, termite weakened, insufficient for the house that Emerald Hill is becoming.
Potential garage addition. Ron and Steve met with architect Brett Grinkmeyer to begin planning a potential third garage bay; Jadin will be driving soon and Steven’s tablesaw needs a home.
Stairway. Ron and Brett continued separately to review design plans for the stairway. Ron plans to demo the existing stairs next week, building new to code.
Structured wiring. Steven met with a candidate to install structured wiring — phone, network, AV, alarm, etc.
Save the oak floors? Ron and Steven met with a flooring expert. We might not be able to save and refinish the existing oak floors. More info to come.
HVAC. Kyle from Elite Heating & Air Conditioning inspected the install to date by his team. Steven took the opportunity to ask about adding a third duct into the Great Room — the combination of the family room and kitchen. Kyle advises against — it will compromise airflow elsewhere in the house, and the additional airflow will not be needed. Steven opts to have Ron expand the vertical chase in the laundry room on the second floor, to make it easier to install this potential duct run more easily, if we discover it is needed while we live in the house.
Foam insulation. Mark Rehberg and Ron Dahlke from Ranserve advise Steven it will cost $400 additional to insulate the entire exterior envelope of the house with expanding foam, instead of blown in, not just the attic. Steven knows from insulating Sea Eagle View with foam 11 years ago that this is the smarter route. Steven approves the additional cost. Ranserve will deliver change order.
The range hood. Jacquela and Steven choose the final appliance, a Zephyr Brisas range hood. Kristin at Harway updates the paperwork. Jacquela and Steven to review. Steven sends specs to Ron for HVAC team to frame in ducting at kitchen wall.
Today, the framers cut away the closet in the garage that housed the original water heater. In turn, that illuminated the copper pipes that were connected to that old water heater. The additional light revealed years of calcium and other chemical deposits lining the copper, constricting water flow inside the 3/4-inch pipe down to about 1/4-inch. See the white chalky deposits lining the copper pipe in the photo at top of this post. This again proves correct the guidance from Barry at Custom Plumbing — take out all the old lines and put in new.At the start of the day, the first delivery of pocket doors arrived.Ron Dahlke, left, and Mark Rehberg, president, Ranserve, at Ron’s Mission Control workstation in the garage.The doorway to the mudroom from the garage, framed in place.Cris from Ranserve mixes concrete to patch the floor of bath 2 where the plumbers jackhammered to run new pipes.The new windows in what will be Jadin’s bedroom are tacked into place and test fitted.Cris nailed blocking into the wall of the master bath, to support the medcine cabinets, shelving, vanity and plumbing.The dryer duct box is tacked into position.The north wall and part of the east wall are now sided with Hardieboard.And the framing team is nailing up Hardieboard on the south exterior wall, working in the shade, traveling around the house as the sun moves, avoiding the heat exposure. It’s 100 degrees — hotter on the roof.Installation of the HVAC flex duct continues.Above the kitchen, the long flex duct run to the mudroom is now relocated out of the lower roof and into the ceiling above the kitchen — bringing it into the insulated envelope of the house.By end of day, three of the just-delivered pocket doors are now installed, one at each end of the pantry hall, one between the kitchen and mudroom. Albert from Custom Plumbing contemplates where to install gas pipes in the ceiling of the kitchen from his perch on a ladder.
Barry and Albert from Custom Plumbing asked if we’re running gas to an outdoor grill? Yes. Gas to the fireplace? Yes. Gas to the cooktop? No. Gas to the dryer? No. They decide to locate a T fitting in the attic, and to cap one branch of the T, to give the next owner of Emerald Hill the ability to remodel more gas fixtures into the house.
Cris from Ranserve stepped into the master bath with Steven to design the wall framing and blocking needed for medicine cabinets, shelves and the vanity. It took 20 minutes to test various approaches, using scrap lumber to mock up the furniture. Then we opened up the shipping box with the medicine cabinet and, with help from Ron, quickly determined that the medicine cabinet must be surface mounted; it cannot be inset into the wall. Why? It comes with a nifty motion sensor to switch on and off the built-in LED lighting. So … we threw out the idea of framing a double wall of studs, since the medicine cabinets will “float” on the wall above the vanity.
Steven met with Renee from Prosource to select tile to cover the front porch, inside the front entry behind the front door, and as a floor-height hearth in front of the fireplace. Jadin helped to select a porcelain tile that looks like poured concrete with a little color running through it as if they are mineral deposits. That adds “life” to the illusion. Now Renee has to price it …
