Well, here we are...late August! The last few weeks have been filled with lots of rough electrical, some framing projects, and running our gas line to get us ready for some BIG inspections.

Kelsey has been able to keep pulling wire and making up boxes, but the technical things needed to be left to the capable hands of our electrician. Bob came through for us wonderfully in the end and worked both Saturday and Sunday last weekend, then he was with Kelsey until late on Tuesday night to finish everything up for our big inspections this Wednesday (more on that to come)! I had baked him some pumpkin bread as a small way to say thank you, which I think made working until 9:30 pm on a weeknight just a smidge easier. Never underestimate the power of homemade baked goods!

He wants to do everything that Daddy does.

Our neighbor/plumber has been assisting Kelsey in finishing our gas line to the boiler, our range, and our fireplace. He came back on August 17 to finish it up. The gas line isn’t required for a rough plumbing inspection, but we figured it would be nice to get the gas line inspection out of the way while the County’s inspector is on site for the other rough inspections.

Team Orange working on the cast pipe. Our plumber, Dan, is on the left.

In addition to the gas line, Dan (the plumber) and Kelsey got the hose bibs run to the exterior and went through the exterior of the house for the dryer vent and the fans in each bathroom.

Hose bib on the front of the house. Corbin loved these circles!

Cold and hot faucets on the rear of the house. According to some folks on Instagram, we’ll LOVE this feature!

Kelsey has been working on a punch list of little framing projects as well, including fire blocking, finally getting the last pocket door frame installed, and installing our new plates that connect the glulam beams. Kelsey’s dad, Dave, made the aluminum plates for us (Dave is a boatbuilder) and we elected to leave them as the brushed aluminum. Our handrail on the spiral staircase will also have brushed aluminum. So, we like the idea of introducing another metal type and will probably get bar stools that are aluminum too.

We had small black T’s on the glulam, but these BIG aluminum ones are much better scale. And, we love that Dave made them for us!

We installed the final ledger board for the deck. We had one more wire to run for exterior deck lights, so that big board needed to be installed before we could run the wire to the outside. On the exterior, we’ll have some lights on the chimney and then will install lights on the posts around the perimeter of the deck as well. All of Summit County has the requirement for dark sky compliant lights, which is awesome! One of our favorite things about our lot is that at night time we have beautiful sky views.

The whole crew to help place the last ledger board for the deck!

Weekend lunch in the loft. This will eventually be our TV/hangout spot. We plan to build a big comfy bench in front of the two windows.

Kelsey got his hard cast on August 12. He chose the boy’s favorite colors - red for Laird and blue for Corbin! He looks a bit like Captain America to me! He finds the cast highly annoying, but it hasn’t got in his way too much. He’ll need to have the hard cast on for 3-4 weeks and then this broken finger saga should be behind us. Just another chapter in this journey.

There are some big wildfires to the north and the west of us that are causing lots of haze and smoky conditions. August always feels a bit unnerving with wildfire danger at its peak. Back in 2018, our neighborhood had a fire that threatened a bunch of homes. Thankfully, no structures were damaged, but some homes that are at the very top of our road were within a few hundred feet of the fire. We are sending good vibes to the firefighters and fellow Coloradoans in all the affected areas.

Since we were able to wrap up the rough electrical late on Tuesday night and finish the plumbing tasks earlier in the week, Kelsey called in SIX big inspections - fireplace, rough plumbing, rough electrical, rough mechanical, rough framing, and the gas line - for Wednesday.

Saying goodnight to our fearless leader on “inspection eve”

We were feeling like it was the night before a big exam in college, or before a big race. But, Wednesday came and the county’s inspector, Bill, spent quite a bit of time with Kelsey checking things out. In the end, WE PASSED! And, he said “We did good.” Thank you, Bill!

We’ll take those good words! We did have a partial pass on the rough framing. They want to see our spiral staircase and the deck. We also need to install one more window in the loft. According to the code book, we don’t need another window in the loft, but in Summit County where people tend to sleep in every nook and cranny of houses, they have more strict regulations on egress windows. This was not a surprise as Kelsey had talked to the building department a couple of weeks ago to try and figure out a solution. We ordered one more window today. Even with those things still needing to be reviewed, we’re good to keep pressing forward on foam insulation, sound insulation, then drywall! Woot woot!

We celebrated this big milestone with a hike to the Old Dillon Reservoir and our family’s famous Amish Chocolate Cake.

Daddy, Mommy, Laird, Corbin - Fourrrrr Family!

Next week, Laird will start 2nd grade! Our school district has finalized its plans for the upcoming school year. We are grateful for all of the work the district has done to create a plan that works differently for elementary, middle and high school. For the elementary students there is the option for students to be in-person for 4 days per week with Wednesdays as a remote day. There is also the option of fully online. After a successful summer of day camp for Laird and Corbin being at daycare, we feel confident of sending Laird for in-person instruction. After a challenging spring, we know that his social and emotional welfare (and ours too!) is better when he can be with his friends, even if that means being behind a mask. We know this is a big subject of discussion and there doesn’t seem to be a perfect solution for every family. We hope, if you have school age kiddos, that you feel confident with whatever decision you have made for the fall.

What’s coming up next at the 9,290 home?

Install foam insulation and sound insulation before drywall. The foam is on site and we’ll start this over the weekend. We’ll also do sound insulation in the ceiling of the boys’ room, guest room, bathroom, as well as the kitchen wall that divides the master from the great room.
Hang and finish drywall. The drywall will be delivered in about 10 days (to give us enough time to do all the insulation), and then the crew will be ready as soon as we finish the foam and sound insulation.
Install the gray board and batten siding above the glulam beam on the south side. Kelsey has one little section done and it looks great! We’ll shift to some exterior work while the drywallers are on site.
Finish the trim around the windows above our panoramic door. We’ll do this during the drywall install.
Stain cedar for exterior soffit and install (this will be above the glulam beam on the south side, the big overhang on the front). We’ll start with the exterior soffit and have decided to use select knotty cedar. We had looked at pine, but like that cedar is more weather resistant. This has about a two week lead time, so we’re going to get this ordered soon so I can seal it and we can install during the drywall phase.

Now that we’re moving on from these big inspections, it feels like we’ve actually got a shot of reaching our goal of having a certificate of occupancy by November 1.

Keep those good vibes coming! We appreciate you cheering for us each step of the way!

Cheers,

Cory

Here are a few other photos from our project and life during the first three weeks of August.