On May 7th the great room steel beams and rear glass wall steel posts were leveled and bolted in. It’s the first time we got a real view of how the cantilever sections will look.
As for that red Japanese maple — it’s currently in the bedroom. So we’re going to attempt moving it elsewhere on the property.
Here’s three different porcelain tiles we are considering for the two guest baths. Slate, metallic and/or dark crosscut wood.
The master bath will be white porcelain. Haven’t picked a style yet though.
It’s taken a while, but I think I finally cracked the front entrance dilemma.
We have a lot of glass in this house. At this point it’s more than we can afford. So we have to cut something but still keep the integrity of the plan. And ideally, anything we change due to budget should look like we planned it that way all along — not that we tried to take a cheap route.
One such area is the front entrance. Initially slated to be a 25’ foot tall (yes, 25-feet) curtain wall matching the curtain walls in the rear of the house, we decided the curtain wall money should be spent in the rear where the view is — not the front where other less expensive options surely could suffice.
After multiple trips to The Door Jamb, an amazing window/door supplier, we found some oversized windows that might just solve our problems AND look awesome.
Door Jamb has two 5.5’x8’ windows which we would stack vertically over double 8’ wood/glass doors. Together with cross beams, we’d be in the 25’ ballpark. Because the entrance roof is the only section of the house that has a different height, we can adjust it’s height by a matter of a few feet without affecting anything else. The entrance is 10’ wide. So assuming the vertical beams on either side will be at least 8”, we just need to find six tall/skinny side light windows (approx 12-18”x8’) and we are set.!
Our engineer has given it a green light so we’re pretty happy with this idea.
And if for some reason all the windows don’t look like they are matching once installed, we’ll just cover the entire front with thin vertical cedar strips leaving equal openings in front of each glass pane. I’ll post a sketch as I’m sure I lost you on that last one ;)
A year or so before we began our search for a house to renovate in the Catskills, good friends of ours turned us on to the best kept secret in the area — “go to The Door Jamb for your windows and doors and speak to Jeff”, they said.
Boy were they right.
Of all the things that have been painful about getting this house built, walking into the unassuming Door Jamb in Shokan and speaking to Jeff and Justin was not one of them. Talk about a no bullshit, no attitude policy, these guys get it and point you to what you need immediately. No sales job. We have specific needs and they pictured it instantly and found what would work. They follow up by email as they say they will (I even got a call saying they apologized for not calling the same day!) and do what they say they will do without reminders. It only took a week before we were back in the store after our first visit because they had just received a shipment of 7 brand new, still wrapped, 4-pane Anderson windows. Their plan was to split up the windows and sell them separately. Which was perfect for us because we only wanted certain sizes. We put two of the 6’x6’ picture windows and 4 of the tall casement windows on hold immediately (both shown above being split apart).
This is their speciality: all their windows and doors are top brands (mostly Anderson) and are new (still in the wrapping). Some come from construction sites where the orders were wrong. Nothing is pre-owned or worn. And you’re saving about 80% off the retail price. It’s a game changer.
Finally, something enjoyable.
An angry sky over Woodstock.
Our house is in Saugerties, but our mailbox/entrance is in Woodstock. Go figure.
The first steel day: delivery of 60+ pieces of steel to property, a 120 ft crane unloaded and placed 30 of them, final placement and leveling to happen on following day.
After a 6 month delay in construction (to source, design, fabricate, install steel), we are moving again! Over 60 pieces of steel columns and beams arrived Monday. About half of it was lifted temporarily into place by a 120 ft crane. It will be bolted, welded, shimmed and leveled over the next few weeks.
So happy to see this truck carrying over 60 pieces of steel arrive at our house at 6am.
Then at 8am, after the 120 ft crane squeaked up our stone wall lined driveway (with barely an inch to spare) we were in business. Progress!
After a long delay, things are finally happening this week on site. And we see no reason it shouldn’t continue until completion (wishful thinking aside).
Steel is being delivered and installed on Thursday. The site is getting last minute prep work done today and tomorrow to ensure we are ready to go (access holes, general clean up). We are having some driveway stone walls removed so the flatbed trucks can fit up the driveway. Lumber has been ordered so we can begin wood framing by the end of this week. And Steph and I have secured some Anderson windows this past weekend for some of the non-curtainwall glass areas in the house.
Tomorrow I’m buying a chainsaw so we can start nipping at the many trees we have to take down (some of which, once cut and milled, will become stylish yet rustic interior furniture).
It’s good to have action agin. Even looks like the weather is cooperating. Lets build a house!
A while back, our architect suggested we add a roof deck seeing as we will have an expansive flat roof and an incredible view. We always figured on solar panels eventually being up there, but certainly there is room for both.
Our engineer and architect both though roof decking would also help protect the rubber membrane roof surface and extend it’s life — if installed correctly. So we were sold. Though it is last on the list of things to figure out, this plastic “doughnut” supported wood “tile” system (no drilling into the roof necessary) seems like a good idea. Saw it at the ADHDS in NYC this past weekend. I’ll look into it when I get a chance.
We hit the ADHDS (Architectural Digest Home Design Show) at Pier 55 in NYC this weekend. Steph fell in love with this yet-to-be-released Jenn-Air cooktop. Well at least that’s one appliance decided. About 99 more to go. Next.
After a four month delay, we pick-up construction again in March.
We began construction in August with the partial demo of the property and building out the (many) additional foundations/footings as needed.
But we hit a major snag in early October when our engineer felt we not only needed steel, but a lot of it. Like 50 pieces! Initial steel estimates and bids where stratospheric and unaffordable. So it took two months to find a steel firm that we (a) trusted, (b) felt was offering a fair price and (c) was genuinely interested in the job. Once we decided on Mark & Son, the first on-site measuring happened a few days after Christmas. Then another two months for three rounds of shop drawings (between the architect, engineer and steel team). With final on site measuring happening last Friday, the architect will sign off and steel fabrication begins this week. Once the first delivery of steel is installed, wood framing will begin immediately after.
Just happy to be in forward motion again!
We received the latest refined drawings for the entire house. Pictured here is the elevation for the rear. Pretty close to final. The glass panel sizes will probably change (wider and fewer hopefully) and the black stained cedar siding is horizontal (the vertical natural wood between the…
On the good advice from our GC, we agreed it was a good gamble to drive two and a half hours into the middle of the Catskills (also known as nowhere) to attend a lumber auction. Not sure what I was expecting, but it was what it claims. We walked away with $3000 of lumber that easily would have cost $5k at a retail lumber yard. Not bad.
We have settled on our house exterior being mostly wood siding. Obviously a large portion of the house is glass, and we are hoping to afford a small stone-sided section covering he office. But the remaining 60% will be horizontal ship-lap wood.
We like Cedar, but it may have too many knots. So we are also looking at Cypress. Both are a good value compared to other types, which is important (we need 8000 sq ft). But here again, we are getting better prices from out of state suppliers vs local Catskills vendors.
Above: Cypress (left) and Cedar (right).
We have also decided that the wood will be stained black and natural/reddish-brown in different areas of the house. Both wood types (Cedar and Cypress) will fade to silver (a look we don’t want). So the colors we choose must delay, prevent or hide this effect to minimize our maintenance costs in the future.
The vast majority of the exterior siding will be stained flat black. We looked into Shou-sugi-ban (the Japanese technique of burning wood to produce a unique burnt/black look and longer term survival) but at $5+/sq ft, it’s too costly. So this leaves three options:
An upside of using black, we believe, is that even if the wood slowly fades to silver, the fact that it is covered in some form of black stain will keep that look less noticeable. This should also help minimize the knots in the wood. For our sanity, we plan to have the wood supplier stain both the front and back of the boards (as has been recommended) so we (or our GC) don’t have to.
The natural/brown stained portions of the house is a more difficult decision. First, we are considering the Cypress because the select version has fewer knots and seems to be the best choice from a budget perspective. Choosing the right semi-transparent stain is a challenge when most brands don’t seem to offer sample sizes (do they really expect us to buy a bunch of 1 gallon cans at $50/can just to determine which color we like?). We are also concerned that the graying of the wood will be noticeable.
After a lot of research, it seems Sikkens, TWP and Defy are the best highly rated stain brands. The last two apparently do a better job of holding off the “graying” of the wood. But although we have access to Sikkens at Home Depot, the other two seem to be elusive in New York.
For those interested in more details: the black stained sections will face east, south, and, a small amount, west. But the western sections lose light around 4pm due to the mountains. The natural stained sections will most face north and west (a small amount will face east). Also, it will line the underside of the overhangs. Both colors will also “wrap around” inside the house in a few areas. So the same wood/stain will appear on a few ceilings and walls inside. All sides will be hit with daily moisture (we are on a mountainside). Our feeling is that the positioning of the color/wood will help our goals: the stained sections will get very little direct sun and therefore fade (graying)/darken (moisture) to a lesser degree.
We are doing staining samples now. So stay tuned for photos.
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