Certificate of Occupancy

We passed the final inspection and received our certificate of occupancy today. Big day!

Deck Railing

The deck railing has been installed. Our friend Dustin Zook of Superior Welding and Fabrication in Iowa City built these monsters. When asked whether we should go with “solid steel”, his response was simply, “Well, it will be stronger.” So, solid steel it was. Little did we know that it would require two more visits by the engineer to approve the extra weight! As PM Jack would say, they’re “bomber”. The quality is top notch – thanks, Dustin!

The extra bracing below was required to keep them from pulling the faceplate off of the framing.

Paint & Trim Finished and Looking Sharp

Kitchen Backsplash

We found some great backsplash for the kitchen. It’s a collection of horizontal glass “sticks”. This was one of the hardest decisions in the entire project. Glad to have found something we both like.

Art Cubby

We weren’t too sure how the art cubby would turn out (we redesigned it about 10 different times) but really like the simple single-shelf version we ended up with. We’re considering adding some paint and perhaps a wooden shelf on the bottom. With the little one on the way, it will probably get some good use!

Siding’s up. Getting closer…

Siding In Progress

They started work on the siding. We really like the contrast of the wood with the black windows.

Basement Deck

We had some family out for a (working) visit last weekend. They delivered the upper deck railing that a friend from Iowa had fabricated, and stayed for a fun weekend of deck building. Digging postholes in the mountains is about as much fun as you can imagine, but the result was well worth it! Many thanks to my dad and Troy for a job well done!

Texture

The texture is complete and ready to be painted once the window staining is done. Matching the stain proved to be a challenge due to the ‘berry’ tones in our cabinetry and the different wood types involved. More on that later…

The roof goes on, but the siding is delayed…

Soffit & Fascia

The roof now has soffit and fascia. Really glad we chose the charcoal color. The roofing and siding material have arrived and next week they’ll begin the installation. Should make for a dramatic difference in appearance in the coming weeks.

Basement Drywall

The basement now has drywall. We can’t believe we actually considered doing this ourselves. Not all that complicated as far as drywall goes, but it clearly requires a level of finesse beyond our capabilities. The rooms all feel smaller – still no regrets in terms of square footage though.

Insulation Complete

The insulation has now been installed. We chose cellulose for the external walls due to its higher R-value and superior noise dampening characteristics. We used standard fiberglass in the internal walls and basement just to save some money. It’s much quieter in the house now…

Fall Hits Ridge Road

Guts!

Framing

The way the pros do it…

…and the way we do it.

Windows!

The windows were installed this week and they look really sharp! One snag — if you look really closely you can see that the Semco guys got the top windows backwards. Good thing it’s clear in our plans. We’re sure they’ll fix it this week and things will keep humming along.

Framing Progress

The upstairs framing is near completion with only a few interior walls remaining.

Our Neighbor Bob

We saw a bobcat at the property today! While driving up to the house, he (she?) ran across the road and stopped to look back at us. Just checking out the soon-to-be neighbors I suppose…

Barn Raising

An action shot of part of the south-facing wall going up.

Subfloor

Deck Braces Installed

Phil Blackford and Phil “Little Phil” Blackford, Jr. fabricated the 38′ x 12′ steel deck braces at their shop, hauled them out in one big piece and here they are swinging into place. One step closer to barbecues with a view!

San Miguel Power

We just received the estimate from San Miguel Power for the utility hookup. <drum_roll>… $5,500. </drum_roll> OUCH!! There is already a junction box on the property, but it doesn’t appear to have a transformer. So, they’re charging us an extra $2,000 for the transformer. Most utilities account for the infrastructure costs through things like delivery charges, a line item in engineering costs to the developer of the subdivision, government subsidization, baked in rates, etc.

Seems to me that if SMPA needs to raise revenue and this is one of a few options, they might promote other benefits in parallel – things like outage notifications, maybe an outage map, etc. . Our new neighbors have also had problems with low voltage (laptops won’t boot without a regulator) so that’s probably going to be another related cost.

Sigh…

Basement Slab Complete

They poured the concrete slab in the basement over the weekend. They did a great job on the finish, which is nice since the plan is to have concrete floors in the basement (with a little stain and sealer, of course).

Toasty Basement Heating

The in-floor heat was installed in the basement. Many more tubes than we had expected, and decided to heat the garage this way as well. Amanda’s feet have never been more excited!

CMU Block

The CMU block for the basement is now complete. It’s much easier to get a feel for the general size of the house now. We were also able to stand on the scaffolding to see what the main floor and deck views will be like – should be a nice drop! Amanda wants to put some climbing holds on the outside basement wall. Pretty sure that’ll have to wait until after inspection…

Week 5 – Footings Complete

The footings are set and just need a bit of time to dry before the CMU block stacking begins. There was a new sense of permanence after the site visit today. Concrete is forever.

Property in Virtual Earth 3D

We digitized our property in Virtual Earth 3D. It’s an amazing tool for visualizing the “lay of the land” and actually quite surprising that there’s even decent imagery in our area.

Modern Fireplaces

Selecting a modern fireplace continues to be very challenging. We have found plenty of European manufacturers with products that we like, but getting them imported to anywhere other than New York is near impossible. You would think the importers in New York would be happy to ship to Colorado, but we’ve met a dead end with every one of them as they keep referring to state fire codes that don’t allow for it… If anyone out there has any suggestions for where to find a modern (read: wide, but short) wood burning fireplace insert, PLEASE send them our way. We’ve already exhausted the options at Stuv, Heatilator, and MetalFire but will keep looking.

Construction Drawings Are Complete

After a handful of tedious revisions, and Liana’s tireless efforts, the plans are finally complete.

Wood Siding

We’ve decided on the wood siding that we’ll be using on the vertically-oriented portions of the upper level. The wood is sourced locally from beetle-kill pine so it’s a renewable resource too!

Setback Variance Approved

Well, it turns out that our property is within the “valley floor” zone of Ouray County which means a minimum setback requirement of 50′ from the property line. The subdivision covenants only require a 25′ setback and we hadn’t thought to check that the covenants might not be compatible with county zoning requirements (the county approved the covenants after all). The site is effectively unbuildable with a 50′ setback due to the seasonal drainage and septic requirements, so we applied for a variance given the environmental impacts of locating the leach field close to the drainage.

After meeting with the board of county commissioners, explaining the hardship we found ourselves in (oh, and handing over a check for $1,000) the variance was approved. The commissioners were very understanding, and even apologized for us having to go through the variance process. All of the commissioners were very professional and clearly take their roles in the community quite seriously. We couldn’t help but smell a bit of relief in their voices when they found out that we weren’t just looking for better views out of our 6,000 sqft vacation home (as are a lot of the folks they run in to!).

Excavation Has Begun

Phil Blackford’s excellent team started doing their excavation magic today. It’s amazing how well those guys can maneuver their equipment on such nasty terrain. They were immediately conscious of the importance of retaining as much existing vegetation as possible, which was a big concern of ours. They also found some “free” backfill material so that should help on costs.

Silver Mountain Design

We’ve selected Liana Schmidt with Silver Mountain Design to be the architect for our home. Seems like every idea we have, Liana has a way to make it better.

Bridger Construction

Selecting a builder can be about as fun as a trip to the dentist. A few that we met came with good referrals but didn’t seem to have an appreciation for our vision – budget-conscious modern-mountain home.

Enter Bridger Construction Services. We found Bridger while reading an article in the Ouray County Watch about a green home they built in Ridgway. We knew after the initial meeting that their approach would be a good fit for us; heavy on management (great fit for our busy schedules) with a special focus on “value engineering” (great for our budget). We’re very excited to be working with Scott, Jack (rockstar project manager), and the rest of their team. Their previous projects, flawless referrals, and down-to-earth approach made the decision an easy one.

Hello Ouray Modern!

Well, we’ve decided to blog the progress on our new home. Brace yourself for some pretty boring posts until we make more progress!