What's Happening Now: Late February

As the sun slowly moves higher in the sky, we're working on getting all of the final details wrapped up.

View of the house, with its trim painted with pink primer

Honey Bucket

Since toilets were installed a couple of weeks ago -- and they're functional -- we said good-bye to our old friend, the Honey Bucket.

Propane

A 500-gallon propane tank was brought in and hooked up.

We'll be using propane for the two on-demand hot water heaters and the gas range -- uses where electricity is just not adequate.

(The in-floor warm water is heated by an electric boiler, which does a satisfactory job and gives us the option of using solar and other renewable sources.)

Site Work

Excavator Dave Monsaas worked in the backyard, bringing soil to grade at the back of the house.

He also shaped the slope so, beyond the back patio, we'll have a terrace halfway up the hill.

Outside of the kitchen (in this photo, that's the farthest part of the house), we'll have three or so levels of terraced landscaping.

The retaining walls that we'll be using with the terracing will be important in minimizing erosion of the hillside and keeping streams of mud from flowing down the driveway.

Slate Floor for the "Bug Room"

We thought we'd try laying the slate floor in the Bug Room ourselves.

We started by laying a cement-board base on the plywood subfloor.

We were pleased to have only a few small pieces leftover after we carefully fitted it together -- very little was wasted!

Cement board on the floor of the 'Bug Room'

Exterior Painting

Painters took advantage of the few days of good weather in late February to squeeze in some work. Brown window trim

They primed all of the trim with a bright pink primer. (The neighbors are worried that this will be our final color!)

The painters did manage to get some of the trim painted with its final brown color. It looks great!

Front of the house with pink-primed trim

Trim Work

Work on the trim details continued. There was a lot of work to do, and we think it has finally been completed.

Woodworkers Spencer West, Scott Smith, Eduardo Moran, and others skilfully finished the interior trim on windows and doorways.

They also got all of the baseboard installed, and installed rods and shelves in the closets.

Here, Scott Smith is installing the handrail from the basement to the main floor.

Scott Smith installing handrail on the stairway from the basement to the main floor

The plywood steps on the stairway from the basement to the main floor were replaced with beautiful alder slabs

Wood Finishing

We applied a non-toxic linseed oil-based Danish finish to all of the trim, as well as the alder stairway from the basement.

As the finish soaked in, it turned the blonde raw wood to a beautiful dark honey color.

Handrail and stairway from the basement to the mainfloor with linseed oil-based Danish finish