Today I noticed our pending trim in the front yard. It looked small to me, so I snapped the tape measure off my belt (like a real-life architect) and measured it. Horrors. It’s 3.5 inches. That’s wrong. The old trim was 4.5, and I want the old trim back.
According to the James Hardie web site, they have 3.5 and 5.5 inches. I thought maybe the 5.5 would be a better compromise than 3.5, but I mocked it up just to be sure.
This is where my Photophop skills serve me well. Below is a photo of our old back door with three different widths of trim. The thin 3.5, the perfect 4.5, and the fat 5.5.

Any opinions or advice out there?

Yesterday was a very full day. Kidless for the afternoon, we figured we would grab a late lunch and run some Erwin House-related errands.
We headed over to the Sustainable Shopper’s Ball (the “Sustain-a-Ball”) first with the hopes that we would be able to get more info on photo-voltaics (PV’s, or solar panels) and rain barrells. The website wasn’t really very clear on when the event would start or end, but it said they would have food. Unfortunately, we got there a tad too late. Everyone was clearing out.

David’s tenacity helped us to corner the Armadillo Solar guy and get some answers. The good news is that we have plenty of space on our roof for the PV panels, and the roof is even angled in the proper direction to capture the most sunlight (that’s what we had tried to plan for). Plus, the panels just plain look cool.

For those of you in Austin, there is another Ball next month on the 22nd at the Tony Burger Center.
Since we figured we were too far from the Habitat Re-Store to go look for a dining room window, we hit SoCo instead.

We hit the Travis Heights neighborhood where both David and I lived at different times years ago. Wow, that neighborhood is undergoing a change. Even though I don’t like the tone of the “McMansion” debate, I do see the rapid development that has a lot of people on edge. We drove past the Preston-Garcia mansion; does anyone know what is planned for this property?

We also snapped a pic of the carport we want. Looks simple enough (except for the rockin’ storage in back with the sliding door). I wonder what it would cost or how long it would take to build it?

We then drove through the Penn Field parking lot where I took pics of the landscaping since Architerra was closed. Can anyone name the vines or grasses here? This is mainly what I’m thinking about when I think of the wrap-around deck–vines up the posts and some kind of grass or maybe rosemary and lavendar around the walkway underneath.

By the time we got to Opal Divine’s for lunch, we were no longer hungry. We’d had too much eye candy.

I had a student journal meeting on campus around lunchtime. I was driving home after the meeting, talking on the cell to my mom about the progress on the house. I was going to do a quick drive-by on the way to the rental, but stopped and pulled over when I saw a cop car in the old driveway.
“The house looks great,” I was telling my mom. “Its going so fast, and–Uh, I gotta go, Mom, they’re arresting someone in front of the house.” I abruptly hung up.
By the time I got to the front walkway, the cop had pulled off with someone in the back seat. Squatter?

The A/C guy was there, working on installing the ventilation system (on a Saturday!). He said that some guy was there when he showed up, hauling off wood on foot. He told the guy not to take the wood, the guy said it was okay, so he called the cops. The cop and his buddy had gone off to look for the theif who, on foot, most likely hadn’t gotten very far.
David showed up a second later with the camera. I told him he had just missed the hubbub.
The cop showed up with the buddy of the A/C guy and three other dudes who were carrying a 2×4 and utility belts. We asked if there was anything we could do, and he said, “Not really. This is between the two contractors.”
They got Ace on the phone, and our foreman, Scott showed up within minutes. We headed across the street to chat with our neighbors while things were getting sorted out. A cop car generates a lot of attention, I guess. Another neighbor stopped to ask what was going on. A friend that lives around the corner dropped by to see what was up. Finally, we saw the guys with the tool belts head off with the wood.

We asked the cop what had happened. He said that it was all a bizarre twist of fate. The dude’s truck had broken down on his way to installing a fence down the street. He had the truck towed, but put his fencing lumber in our yard until he could come back and get it and had been slowly collecting it, piece by piece. He didn’t speak english very well, so the situation had been difficult to communicate.
In the end, our foreman recognized that the wood he was hauling off (cedar) was not the same as the wood we were using to build (pine).
Poor guy. What a sucky day for him. I almost ran after him to offer my condolences. These days, my belly is just too big to run anywhere.

I would have been more demanding of the draftsman. Today we encountered the third boneheaded mess-up in the plans. The wall between the dining room and the kitchen is one complex piece of origami. You won’t be able to tell when it’s finished, but it’s wacky. We asked if elevations were needed and he said they would understand without them. Guess what. They didn’t.
The good part is, it solves a problem with the AC vent that looked like it needed to go through a beam.
This whole thing sent me back to a set of drawings we did before we signed the contract. I wanted to make sure I had thought of everything before we signed on the dotted line, so I sat up late with a pencil and blank paper and drew every single wall in the house with windows, outlets, trim, toilets, sinks — everything.
This is one room.

The point was, I want no surprises, I don’t want any change orders, and I don’t want to get caught having not thought of something. We attached the drawing to the contract.
I didn’t do the exterior of the house. And I missed communicating one important spec, the thickness of the eaves. The old house had (I think) 12 inch thick eaves. The new house has 8 inch. I liked that big slab of roof and wanted it too look like we had just moved it up one story and tilted it. The new ones looks thin to me. I’m hoping the roof and the flashing will make them look thicker, or the paint colors, or I’ll get over it.
Looking around at other eaves, I’m surprised they got it so close to my expectations considering there are no specs for them anywhere, and no one asked me.

They’re putting on our subroof right now as we speak thisveryminute. Apparently, the rain is no biggie. With the subroof and the Tyvek, the house should be fairly water-resistant.
Of course, it doesn’t have any windows yet, but hey who’s counting?
My biggest concern is that the rain will simply slow the project down and, according to yesterday’s ultrasound, Baby Erwin is measuring right on time for being due June 10. (As I write this, she sticks a heel in my ribcage. I know, I know, silly.)
I think I need to destroy all calendars in our house. They’re freaking me out.

I refuse to be intimidated. We will prevail.
LOL

I’ve been using several consistent places to take before, during, during, during, and after photos. And I just decided to name the locations and tag them in Flickr. Some of the before photos are out of order, but you can figure out which ones they are.

Gnome’s Eye View. Named for a garden gnome who observes the construction from the safety of a fence post in our back yard. You see what he sees.

Viking View Named for the glimpse of the Viking Fence logo on our fence that you can see in some shots. Normally I wouldn’t like a brand on anything, but this one was so goofy, I OK’ed it. The house has outgrown my wide-angle lens and this view has been replaced with the Penelope View which is taken from a doomed Chinese Pistache named Penelope.
Terry View. Named for our neighbor who will see basically this view of our house from her backyard… only, with a fence in the way.
Glastron View. Named for the 45-year-old boat that is shipwrecked in our backyard.
End of Sidewalk View. I don’t know why I called it that.

I’ve just uploaded a bunch of photos to Flickr, catching up on the two days without an internet connection. I took this one at night, so the color is a little weird. Note the makeshift scaffolding on the right hand side.
All Erwin House Photos

The framing is about done and they are wrapping the house in plywood and Tyvek. Still no decking on the roof. Ugh, right now it is raining in three places in the US. Seattle, New Orleans, and Austin.
The big news today is that we are going to replace all of the sheetrock in the whole house. We had hoped to save it just for cost sake. But it took quite a beating in the framing and the 4 inches of rain finished it off. This is a big relief. I was worried about mold, and I never liked the “Orange Peel” texture.
In the photo you can see a big pocket of water under the paint (and orange peel).

The crew was gone a little early today and there was evidence of two abruptly ended card games. Cards were scattered all around the picnic table and in the living room. I hope no one got hurt.

I’ve been a little sleep-deprived lately. And today, when I could not hold my head up at my desk, I stepped out for a quick walk. Across the street is a KB Homes Design Showroom. I had never had any reason to go there, but I popped in today.

What awful glee I had. There was not a single good thing in the showroom. Even the designers of the retail space seemed to despise the merchandise. Against the clean lines, bright colors, halogen lights and crisp aluminum windows, the merchandise looked like Mennonites crashing a disco.
First several kitchens. Yuk! In a hotel or apartment - fine, but not in my house!
Next bathrooms, with stern signs everywhere proclaiming, “White. Only available in white.”
Now porch lights. Why, why, why do they all look like eighteenth century carriage lanterns? And why are they so big? That must have been one huge buggy.
And your choice of three, count them three, plastic door types. The plastic doors are supposed to look like wood, but they look like Disney wood, with over-exaggerated wood grains. Real wood doors are sanded, and you can’t see the wood grain. I say, if you are going to use plastic, embrace your materials. Make it look like Legos or Tupperware or something.
Now carpet, tile, and paint. Beige! Beige! Beige! Eight hundred shades of beige! No wonder couples go after each other’s throats when they’re designing a house. “Honey, it’s ’sweet cream’ not ‘corn silk’. Can’t you tell the difference?” “No! And I don’t care! I don’t care about anything anymore!”
My God I love our house. It is going to be so cool.