THE UNDER-DECK ROOM: GETTING THERE

THINGS HAVE MOVED ALONG SOMEWHAT, these last two weeks.

I have finished off the dry-wall and ceiling, work that was well along last posting.  The dry wall is now properly painted, primer-sealer and final coat.  The ceiling is a little off-white (Beach Sand), the same color as will be the wood trim around the doors and the windows.  The walls are the same color as in the upper bedroom on the western walls (Grass Cloth).  I am very pleased with the overall congruence and I hope you will be also.  The brown panel is one of my spare doors; placed on a couple of saw benches, it made an excellent work surface for the dry-wall work.

Now the problem is what color to finish off the foundation walls.  These are cinder block (Besser block, if you are in Australia).  Here in the US, a foundation wall sits on the footing and is usually the walling for the basement.  Basements are ubiquitous here in the North-East, and very common elsewhere.  They are mandatory in NY to ensure the footings are below the frost line, set at 48 inches below the grade (topsoil). As my house has no basement the lower level is half-buried by a berm to ensure this.  To keep to the theme of having earthy colors within the house, I had thought to paint these some shade of red (Frank Lloyd Wright would be so pleased with this!).  However, I have decided to wait until the tiling is complete so as to gauge the overall congruence.  Tiling will be underway this week.

With the drywall work is completed, I decided to have a look at the thermostat, thinking that it could not be 'rocket science' to hook up.  Just two wires, one red the other white and look...on the back of the unit that had been up in the kitchen area, these wires were still attached.  So the thermostat was a 'no brainer', as we say.  Outside, the ambient temperature was 39 deg. F.  In the potting room it was 52 degrees (not bad, so far as heat gain goes, given an over-clouded day and rain beginning to fall).  With 60 degrees F selected, it took just over an hour to get to this goal.  Very pleasing indeed and how nice to feel the floor warming as I planned the tile work, laying out tiles on the floor to check the pattern and proper placement.  The concrete floor holds quite a deal of heat, not to mention the water in the radiant heat looping buried within it and two hours after turning off the heat, the room has lost only two degrees.  I had been dreading that this might turn out to be a expensive mistake but all is well!

In my idle moments I have continued preparing for the lawn repair, carting soil about in my new wheel barrow, filling holes made by the earth moving plant tracks, leveling out boggy ground, and raking soil to and fro.  By very great luck I had all this work completed just yesterday so that today's rains, which bid to continue for a day or so more, have arrived just as I would like (did make use of the ten day forecast, I confess).  When this has passed along later in the week I am hoping for warmer weather to do the seeding, finally making use of the seed and the bale of straw still in the trunk of my car.

Other good news is that my 10 baby  trees arrived from the Arbor Day Foundation and have been tucked away in a sheltered area in the lee of my neighbor's wooden fence.  I am hoping for word of my half-dozen blueberry bushes ordered three weeks back.

So there you have it.  Tiling the next few days and some depiction of further progress in a week or two.  There will still be some work on trim around the windows but this will involve setting up for preparing and rabbeting the required stock.  I will be using two by fours from the earlier demolition as my source.  This work will enable me to complete the trim for the floating floor in the upper bedroom.

Of course, with the weather warming, there is the deck to be treated.  Does work ever end?

"THE HOUSE" UPDATE

IT HAS BEEN SOMEWHAT OF A SLOG, seemingly work, work, and more work, these last few months.  The main focus has been fitting out the remodeled bedroom.  After much consultation,  Torchlight became the main color, assisted by Grass Mat on the remaining wall, extending into the closets.  Then I cleared everything out to lay the floating floor, a simpatico Tacoma Oak.  This left the trim, finally selecting Crushed Orange.  To several visitors, this was a little startling and one commented, "Robert, you do have to sleep in this room?"  I have moved in, so far as sleeping is concerned and here is a picture of the bedroom end. 

From the outset, I wanted to bring the colors of the outside world into this room, as well as the sense of sunlight.  If you have been to Australia, you will know that there is a lot of red shades there, especially the red earth, so it also reminds me of my original home land.  It turns out that, for me anyway, this is a wonderful room to go to sleep in and especially in which to awake.  The morning sun shines through the eastern windows, steadily filling the room with golden light.  Later, the French doors take over admitting the light, so there are subtle shifts in color all through the day.

So far the house has managed to import heat quite well.  On a day when the temperature is in the mid 40s (F), the furnace rarely starts up.  Later, before next Winter, I will have to pay attention to nocturnal heat loss.  As you may divine from the photo, I run baseboard hot water heaters but revised the furnace somewhat (more of that another time).

With the promise of an early Spring, I ramped up work on the potting (come sun) room putting in insulation in walls, where possible (there is a lot of glass) and ceiling space, then putting up dry wall for the ceiling and on walls.  Today, this Easter Monday, I managed to complete all this work and have now to do the taping and plaster work, which I have just begun.  There were some tricky bits here and there but I am very pleased with my work so far.  What will remain are painting walls and ceiling, fitting the two dome lights to the ceiling, and then tiling the floor.  Somewhere along the way, we will turn on and test the radiant heat loop in the floor (when Ray,the heater man, returns from Florida).  This is a separate zone with a thermostat in the potting room. However, with the insulation and dry-walling, the room is importing heat quite well, running at about 15 degrees (F) above the outside temperature this afternoon.  Again, with all that fenestration, nocturnal heat loss will be a challenge.  Another picture for you, above.


As the weather warms and the days lengthen, the garden calls so my time outside is increasing.  I am preparing the ground ruined by the earth-movers (digging the hole for the potting room) for reseeding. I am pursuing the principles of permaculture (check Wikipedia) and plan for lots of trees, shrubs, and the like.  I have plenty of room!  My first ten trees are on the way from Arbor Day Foundation (their 'Wild bird" mix). I have ordered six blueberry bushes locally, and plan dwarf fruit trees as well.  Again, more on this later.

An underlying theme is a focus on systems: the house as part of the surrounding environment; using a natural approach to manage transfer of heat into and out of the house, according to the season; myself as part of this house/environment system; and the role of my abode to ensure a productive life, with good input into my well-being in this, my last quarter century (75 years next month).  I purchased the house on my birthday last year (May 29) and moved in on June 1st.  So far an amazing experience and lots of work.  I dips my lid to my contractor, Daniel, who has been such an excellent partner in following my dream.  I plan some sideshows for Photo Bucket so you can follow each aspect of the work in more detail.  Keep watching this space!