Nice and trim

December has flown by with a long list of things accomplished. The septic field is complete, and gutters were put on shortly after Christmas. Other than a little exterior paint on the railing and a few other touch ups, the outdoor work is finished until the spring.

Indoors Mickey spent a bunch of time in early December working on the trim for the arched window in the upstairs loft. In order to get the wood to bend so dramatically he glued and clamped a dozen or so slender pieces together. Here is a picture of what it looked like when he was working on it.
This is the finished product; it's hard to imagine how one gets a huge piece of wood to bend, but somehow Mickey pulls it off and manages to make it look easy.
Tons of other trim work has been happening in the house during the last month. The windows, doors, closets, and base of the walls are all trimmed. Most of the baseboard comes from the oak from our lot, and that will be stained. Peter's room shows the finished trim ready for stain and paint.
Mickey has been working on the stairs lately. He began by planing the stair treads that Sawmill John kiln dried for us using oak harvested from our lot. He has been putting those in place along with the posts and railing. This is a view of the stairs from the living room looking at the front entry.
Peter checks out the progress and makes sure the edges are all nice and smooth.
A close up of the arts and crafts style newel post.
Vic finished all of the bathroom and mudroom tile jobs a couple of weeks ago. The master shower has white subway tile and a pinwheel accent to match the floor; the color in the photo is a little off, but the marble threshold matches the counter.
Granite and marble counters were installed in mid December, and we're thrilled with the choices we made. I say this because Sean and I are possibly the most decisive customers the showrooms have ever seen. We spent about 30 minutes picking out tile for the entire house and five minutes at the different showrooms for the two granite stores we used. This sometimes makes me nervous about how it will look when it all comes together, but so far we've come out on top.

The master bath vanity has a beautiful gray marble counter, and the floor has pinwheel tile with dark grout.
The granite in Peter's bathroom has little blue flecks that work well with the paint and tile accents; we lucked out finding it as a remnant, and it's one of the many design elements in the house that ended up working better than we imagined.
The tile accent in Peter's bath is finished and ties in perfectly with the colors in the room.
In the meantime, Sean has had a blast picking out electronics for the house, and he spent an awesome afternoon at Leon with our good buddy Ethan, a co-owner of the company, picking out speakers and talking stereos. Sean and Ethan have really outdone themselves, and we're eagerly awaiting their installation so we can rock out at our next party.

While we had hoped to move in by the end of winter break, we're now looking at late January. This is also the time of final exams, so we'll see how that timing works out. We're lucky to have a very comfortable house to live in and not have to vacate, so we'll happily stay there rather than move into a construction site!

Interiors

With the end of November upon us, we've been making a big push to keep the house moving forward so we can try and meet our goal of moving in over winter break when we'll have two weeks off from school.

Sean and Mickey have been tediously working at the house, and they finished all the porch railings just in time. This fall has been unseasonably warm, so they were able to work on them with temperatures still in the 50s. We got our first decent snow of the season last night, and the guys are glad to have all of the exterior work complete. The front railing still needs paint, but that can wait for a couple more weeks when that crew returns for final interior painting.
Meanwhile, the guys have been focused on interior trim jobs that are Mickey's specialty. All of the doors have been hung, and they're now trimming windows and doors. Each window has nearly 20 pieces of trim to perfectly cut and install, and they have the traditional Craftsman look we've tried to use throughout the design of the house.
The tile in the two upstairs bathrooms is ready for grout, too. The master shower has a band of pinwheel tiles that match the floor of the bathroom.
The Jack and Jill kid's bathroom tile is also nearly finished. Vick will add the coordinating tile band tomorrow to complete it.
Meanwhile, Jesse and Al started work on the drain field Monday. Heavy rains all day Tuesday delayed the project, but hopefully they'll be able to install the rest of the septic field by the end of the week. Several elms had to be removed for the installation, and we were glad that we didn't have to lose any more oak or cherry.

All of our lighting has arrived, and we're anxious to have it installed along with the counters. There are tons of interior trim jobs to work on in the meantime, so Sean and Mickey will keep busy making closets, floor to ceiling book shelves for the library, and a handy bench and storage system for the mudroom.

Fall Color

In the last couple of weeks we've made a lot of progress on the exterior and interior of the house. The front and back porch decking is down, and the rails are being worked on. The furnace and well have been hooked up and are chugging away. Interior paint is up and awaits touch ups closer to the move in date.

Sean and Mickey were busy this week installing the kitchen, bath, and laundry room cabinets. The counters will be measured this week, and installation should take place the last week of November. Here is a view of the kitchen from the dining room.
Aimee and her mom Linda were busy staining wood for the back porch railing and a few other oak pieces that will be used to finish off the porch posts. Sean helped get the staining set up while Peter supervised the work from his Pack n Play.
We have been lucky to have a mild fall, and temperatures today were in the low 60s. Sean made a cozy fire in the fireplace, and Peter was happy to take what will surely be one of many naps alongside it.
The back porch railing with stain that matches the posts.
The front porch railing in the making. Notice the newly stained and finished boot and cap on the post.
Tile work will continue this week, and interior doors will also be delivered. The septic field site is prepped and ready for Jesse to come out soon. It's exciting to check off items on the to-do list that seemed so far away when we broke ground in June, and we look forward to moving in after Christmas.

Lumber Jack Festival

We're about two months away from our move-in goal, and we're feeling the time crunch to get things done quickly. With this in mind, we hatched a scheme to trick our friends into coming out to work on the new house for a day. Thus, the Lumber Jack Festival was born. Feats of strength included setting the massive porch posts, laying the wood floor, and cutting timber to clear space for the septic field. We were lucky enough to have a great crew of turn out -- eight buddies plus Sean, Mickey, and carpenters Roger, and Daniel.

A quick rewind: last weekend Sean and Mickey were able to get the stained cedar up on the back porch ceiling while Roger and Dan worked on the front porch.

Here are Roger, Mickey, and Sean at work on the ceiling of the front porch last Sunday afternoon. The weather has been holding out nicely, and with temperatures in the upper 60s the guys were happy to stay in short sleeves. Notice that Pedro and his crew nearly finished the stone bases for the posts last Saturday, too.

A view of the finished stained cedar ceiling on the back porch.
Sean gets credit for thinking up this creative way to use some of the large timbers that had to come down to build the house. He took them to Sawmill John in Whitmore Lake and had them turned into eight massive porch posts. Tom Grant helped haul them back to 40 Oaks in his trailer one rainy afternoon, and this is what they looked like before Sean stained them.
Here is the result of the first Lumber Jack Festival feat of strength. All eight stained posts were hoisted into place Saturday morning.
Mickey, Roger, and Daniel secure the last porch post on the back of the house.
The second Lumber Jack Festival feat of strength was laying the wood floor throughout much of the first floor. Luckily some of our crafty buddies had experience with this, and we were glad to put Don and Andy to work.

Peter insisted on checking the quality of the new wood boards. Mickey acted as his trusted adviser.
The third Lumber Jack Festival feat of strength was clearing lumber. Bret had a new chain that was begging to eat some wood, so he led the crew cutting and hauling lumber.

Here is Bret working his chainsaw while Joe and Jay haul Trex to the back of the house.
Jay, Brian, and Andy discuss the finer points of Lumber Jack etiquette.
A feast of National Coney dogs, chili, corn bread, chips, and brownies was enjoyed by all the Lumber Jack Festival participants. A big thank you goes to Aimee and Missy for helping to feed the hungry guys.
Finally, here is the trusty crew of Lumber Jacks. We're lucky to have such a talented, helpful bunch of guys to pitch in and help us out. Left to right are Daniel, Andy, Roger, Jay, Brian, Sean, Bret, Mickey, Don, Anthony, and Joe. Missing is Andy T. who scooted out just before lunch.

Holy sheet rock!

The front door arrived and Mickey and Sean installed it Saturday. We picked a nice six light door with side lights and transom.The door and drywall have really lightened up the interiors, and we're feeling better about the amount of light we're getting on the first floor even with all of the porch overhangs.
The drywall crew started work last Monday, and they made swift progress. By the end of the day Sunday the entire house was finished, and the garage was drywalled Monday. They'll be taping the rest of this week and should be finished in a week or so.
The loft upstairs with a great, high ceilings and tons of light. This may be the best place in the house for house plants.
Lots of out of town buddies stopped by to check out the house on Sunday; we had a great time giving the tour to Sean's brother Matt and good friends Jon and Drew. Uncle John also stopped by to say hello, and we were spoiled with temperatures in the high 70s while hanging out on the back porch.
The rock retaining wall along the garage was built Friday and Saturday. The crew from Margolis was able to use rocks that were harvested from the basement excavation, and it looks better than we imagined. Aimee spent Sunday morning hauling and spreading wood chips to finish it off.
Luckily Peter is the best baby known to man and was happy to hang out in his Pack n' Play while we did some dirty work Sunday morning. Here he is in the basement toasting Sean with his sippy cup.
We were finally able to put most of the Eldons to work at the new house Sunday afternoon. Sean convinced his brother and mom to help stain some cedar that will go up on the porch ceilings.
Mickey and Sean got all of the porch posts up, and Mickey started covering the ones on the back of the house with shingles. Lookin' sharp.

We were so happy to have a beautiful fall day and even happier to have Matt visiting.

This week the drywall will continued to be worked on along with the porch. We've got a ton of materials that are ready to go, like the cabinets, decking, and stone, and we're hoping to get lots of exterior work finished before the weather turns cold.

And Summer turns to Fall

September has been falling by but we've been busy at the new house. We passed the rough inspection last week and the insulation was finished this week. Jesse the excavator is coming Saturday to move several large oak and cherry timbers to Sawmill John's to be milled and kiln dried for use as porch posts and interior trim. In addition, the drywall is being installed next week, and a pump and water tank will be hooked up to the well, so we'll have water in the house.

After the drywall goes up, we'll be able to install the hardwood flooring and tile. For the porch, we picked out Trex decking that Mickey would like to get in before the weather turns too cold. We're trying our best to pick out a ton of things we still need to decide on like tile, interior paint colors, lighting, and carpet.

Mickey constructed porch posts over the weekend, put in a rough set of steps, and added a construction door with lock.
This is the 600 pound tub that Sean and a dedicated group of guys got upstairs and into the master bath a couple weeks ago. Our engineer buddy Don was the mastermind behind the project, and Jonathan, Anthony, and Mickey all pitched in to move the massive cast iron beast.
Insulation in one of the bedrooms. Not sexy but certainly important.
Sean and Peter sit on the new steps in the garage.

Labor Day

At the end of the 1894 Pullman Strike, when over 125,000 railroad workers went on strike in protest of low wages and poor working conditions, President Grover Cleveland made Labor Day a federal holiday as a tribute to the workers. Thirteen of the striking workers were killed by the United States military during the strike; Labor Day is a celebration of their memory.

This year, the work that men and women do, particularly men and women who work in the building and construction trades, seems much more tangible to Aimee and to me. The excavators, the masons, the concrete block contractors, the carpenters, the plumbers, the electricians, the heating and cooling whizzes, the insulators, the painters, the roofers...these guys are helping to build the kitchen we will eat in, the fireplace we will gather around on cold winter days, the porches we will laze on in the humidity and heat of August, the home we will make a life in.

Just this last week, Eddie, the roofer, finished his job just in time for some big storms that rolled through southeastern Michigan. Thousands lost power, roofs caved in, basements flooded. But not at 40 Oaks. It was the first time that no water leaked into the house, sparing us work and worry. And it was thanks to Eddie.

The past week was also spent prepping the basement and garage so concrete can be poured as soon as those permits, delayed by the holiday weekend, come through. I removed debris that had been accumulating, Jesse delivered sand, Joe leveled the spaces and covered them in plastic, and Aimee, Peter, and I spent an evening taping the seams.



Mickey and I spent all of Labor Day working on odds and ends around the house. We built the raised hearth for the fireplace along with many other things that needed to be finished.
In addition, John, the electrician, and his son, Jeff, have been hard at work. There are wires running all through the house now, and it's getting close to being ready for insulation and drywall.
This week the basement and garage should be poured and the guts of the house--plumbing, electric, heating and cooling, low voltage--are just about done.

It's work we've done with a whole lot of help. Work done by friends, by family, by real professionals, and all of it done by people who know that work is what makes the world go around. So this week, we celebrate the workers who have helped raise our house. It's not just for Aimee and me, it's for Peter, too. We just hope he grows up in a world where work, the kind that fills the lines in your palms with grit, is still something that people value.