August and early September have been focused on trying to get the 9,290 home closer to being weathered in. The nights are getting cooler and per usual, we’re racing against the clock before we have to shovel snow again. No really, the high peaks had a dusting yesterday morning!

Mom and Dad arrived on Labor Day weekend and will be in town until early October. We’re excited to have some extra help both at the job site and at home. Thanks, Mom and Dad!

It’s good to have a bit of fun now and then :-)

The temporary power has been an ongoing saga with Xcel and its contractors in Summit County. We passed our second inspection on August 8. We passed our first inspection in January, 2019. If you want to know why we had to have a second inspection let’s go have a beer and Kelsey will tell you all about it. Right now it is too painful to rehash. Ok, back to August...Xcel said that within seven days the final hook up would be in place. Well, seven days came and went and after lots of calls and emails, we figured out that somehow Xcel had our wrong address which pushed us further down the list. Then, once they got that figured out, the contractor who was assigned to do the hookup, said that the remaining wire we had left to hook up was too short. However, all we had to do was remove one of the attachments at the pole and poof - hooked up to the transformer. This is a family blog, so we’ll save the expletives...but, let me assure you that Kelsey can curse like a sailor when appropriate. After this wild saga, we finally got temporary power on August 31. Yay! It’s much more pleasant to work at the house without the generator humming along, and we can direct the money we were spending on the gas toward something fun, like paint.

The face of relief that we finally have temporary power!

While we were dealing with the temporary power debacle, we got started with sanding and sealing the glulam beams on August 17. The glulams will be exposed to both the interior and exterior of the home, so this was an important task. We used an orbital sander and 120 grit sandpaper and many hours to get them smooth and ready for polyurethane. We ended up doing three coats of urethane which frankly, took forever and required lots of time crawling up and down from the scaffolding. They do look awesome after three coats, but we’d like them to have a bit more shine, so we’ll probably do another coat or two. But, for now, they are protected from the weather and looking pretty!

Construction site yoga (aka glulam sanding)

View from the scaffolding during the many hours of sanding. You can see Lake Dillon in the distance.

Our cousin, Luke Hodgkin, arrived to help on August 18 and stayed with us a full week. Luke is at the tail end of his summer break from the University of Windsor. Luke’s dad, Dan, came to help us out at the end of May when we were installing the loft floor joists and sheathing, which was definitely a 2-person job. When Luke was in town, he and Kelsey were working on the roof let-ins. These are the 2x12 boards that the eventual fascia board will connect with and cover the foam from the SIP panels. Another prime example of a 2-person job. Luke also helped with a bunch of other tasks, including getting the Tyvek started. Thanks again, Luke! It was great to have you. See you during ski season!

Thanks for coming, Luke! It was great to have you for the week!

Working on the roof let-ins on the north wall. You can see the finished end by the far ladder and the area that was being covered in the foreground.

Luke and Kelsey starting the Tyvek on the west wall.

The first batch of windows was ordered on August 20. Kelsey’s friend and former colleague at Skinner Middle School, James Duran, is also a glazier. He hooked us up by coming to measure all of the windows (and refusing any sort of payment) and then connecting us directly with a window supplier. James, we are so thankful for your expertise and kindness! We’ll be using Andersen (naturally) Series 100 windows with low-E glass and black frames. I’ve been dreaming about black framed windows ever since we finalized our design. The first batch of windows will include all of the windows on the west, north and east walls - including the three windows in the loft. The windows will take about a month to come in, so we’re expecting delivery in late September.

August 22 was a fun day! Our sweet Laird Bear started first grade! He’s growing up before our eyes. Our mountain boy is obsessed with riding his bike and started playing soccer too. He’s kind, smart and curious.

The day before school started, we took Laird on an adventure to ride at Keystone Resort. This guy rode from the top of the mountain to the bottom!

Later in the day on August 22, our structural engineer, Chris Schult from Anthem Structural Engineers came to review all of the framing, SIP panels, and tie-downs (big pieces of metal hooking the walls to the foundation). Chris gave us the go-ahead on our work and provided a letter to the building department with his professional seal of approval that the house is structurally sound. Whew. The next day, the inspector from the county arrived and we passed, which is always a relief.

An example of one of the hold-down straps.

We’ve been sending good vibes to the universe that somehow we’d find a way to offload our leftover fill dirt. As a reminder, we had to do a ton of over excavation and have huge dirt piles (mountains, if you ask the boys) on the north and west sides of the house. Thankfully, our neighbor up the hill, Carl, needed some fill dirt to create his patio. Kelsey lined up a dump truck operator and our excavator, Bill, came back to load it. Carl took about 25 loads of our dirt. He needed it, we got rid of some of the pile. Win-win for everyone! While Bill was onsite, we also made more progress toward a final grade and finished the driveway and installed a small retaining wall at the southeast corner of the house.

Hanging out on the new retaining wall. Our excavator, Bill, provided all of the rock and the crushed shale for free for our project. Thanks, Bill! You’ve been amazing to work with.

Getting closer to a legit driveway and inching toward final grade.

We had been going and back forth the type of siding that we wanted to use on the exterior. When we originally started on the project, we had in mind to do majority cedar siding. We had a few quotes but quickly found out that there is a wide variety of options with cedar and no surprise here, we liked the most expensive variety, aka clear cedar. To make a long story short, we’ll be using board and batten siding and our coveted clear cedar for a few accent spots and the entire entryway. The board and batten siding was delivered at the end of August and we got started painting on Labor Day weekend.

Lots of painting to do! And, this isn’t even half of it!

We chose the color with the star. We’re using Valspar Duramax paint from Lowe’s. The paint color is called Muted Ebony.

Before we can start installing the siding, we needed to install the corrugated metal to skirt the lower part of the house and cover the foam insulation and then the flashing to direct water away from the house. We got the corrugated metal from Breckenridge Building Center and our flashing was made by Buffalo Mountain Metals in Silverthorne. Andy at Buffalo Mountain Metals will also be supplying our metal roof. We got the roof ordered on September 9 and we expect it to arrive in late September, early October.

Corrugated metal and the flashing going in.

Lots of progress in a lot of different categories! In the next couple of months, we will continue to see lots of visible progress, which is helpful. At this point of the project Kelsey and I are both feeling like we’re at mile 72 of a 100 mile bike ride. The point that you’re making progress for sure, but the end feels really far away still.

What’s coming up next?

Water tap (we finished this earlier this week - more on that in the next post!)
Sewer tap (should be happening next Thursday)
Order the Panoramic Door (done this morning! - more on that soon too)
Order the window wall
Install the first round of windows
Install soffit, fascia board and siding (board and batten + cedar)
Install the metal roof
Interior wall framing
Rough plumbing
Rough electric
Radiant floor
Pour the concrete floor on the main level

Thanks, as always for your kind words and support!

Have an awesome weekend!

Cory