Finished upstairs flooring

Upstairs view of the finished floor, sanded and varnished. There are three coats of varnish on the hemlock floor. You can't quite slide on it with your socks (which is probably a good thing), but it is a nice finish.

Francois did a nice job, filling in the knots and some of the gaps that opened in the joints (it's what hemlock does).

Floors ... at last!

We finally had the floors installed downstairs and they look great. We had them installed on house II, but decided at the last minute to have part of the hardwood installed on house I.

We chose 2 1/4'' yellow birch in horizon grade (that's actually 3rd grade) from BSL (hardwood floor company from the Gaspe). This grade has knots in it, but that's okay because because the timbers also have knots in them, and the multihued daeker planks bring  out the hues in the knots of all the other wood finishing we have.

Yellow birch (as the name implies) has a nice yellowish hue that matches the Hermlock timbers. It's also cheaper than the other hardwood species.

The only thing left to do now is the bedroom whcih will be done with black cherry from our own woods.

Kitchen counters

I thought I'd posted these earlier in the year, but I guess I overlooked them.

Kitchen counters are a funny thing. You can either buy really cheap ones or really expensive one. There is no such thing as a quality countertop that won't break the bank.

Fortunately we have these kiln dried hardwood boards we got form our woods and a carpenter not afraid to use them for a nice mid-range option. This gave us hardwood ash countertops. These are protected with 5 oats of non-toxic polyurethane. Here they are with the sink installed. The only weird thing is that it will feel like you are preparing food on a nice bookshelf.

Kitty approves!

Busy looking house site

Lots of work going on inside the house lately. Bathroom accessories, kitchen cabinets, washer driers, light fixtures, and staircases all make for a pile of cardboard boxes, wood scraps and assorted packaging junk. Lisa doesn't like this picture of the mess, but to me it means things are getting done. of curse, Lisa has been busier in the house than I have lately, so she has to look at the pile a lot more than I do.

Willy is in finishing the stairs and kitchen, while Eric is finishing the shower this week. The workbenches you see here are Willy's portable workshop.

In the bedroom, we're storing the pane of tempered glass that will wall off the shower from the rest of the bathroom (while allowing light to shine everywhere) as well as the screen door (minus the screen) that will face onto the front porch. Storage makes for strange bedfellows.

Choosing colours

We are very happy with how the door colours worked out. Willy actually stained them with two coats of Muskoka red. It actually looks better here, a little darker than anticipated, but I think it actually looks better than the preview. The lighting probably helps.

It's pretty much the only splash of colour on a very neutral house, so it doesn't overwhelm the eye as you might expect red to do.


Choosing Door Colours
So red it is for the doors, but which red?

After deliberating with Willy, we decided to go with a stain instead of paint. Paint chips, especially on doors; stain does not. Stain also lets more of the grain of the wood get through and protects the wood.

Fortunately, a company called Sansin offers a fine alternative of saturated colors in stain (see link below). They offer three shades of red, and I had to see how they looked so I simulated them on some image editing software. They are in order of appearance:

• Primary red
• Heritage red
• Muskoka red

We already picked out a colour. Can you guess which one? We're ordering it tomorrow from Simon Fortin in Abercorn (he built the wall trusses).



Link: Sansin saturated colors

Kitchen window sill

A nice thing about timber frames over conventional houses is that the walls are made of light trusses and can be made thick. A side benefit of this is deep window sills. Lisa made an executive decision to have Willy finish the kitchen windows with the same ash as our kitchen counter tops so that we can treat it as an extension of the counter. It was kind of hard to capture this because of the glare you get off the finished wood near windows, but these pictures illustrate the effect. The window remains unfinished for now, but eventually (i.e. when we have money again) we'll have the ash lining the entire window. Lisa is putting on a urethane finish on all the windows to protect them from mold and condensation in the wintertime. I wish I could say it was worth the effort, but I can't because it's all Lisa's effort; we have occasionally discussed the advantages of PVC when faced with the work necessary for maintaining wood windows. This will be the only window finished for the winter. We thought we'd leave it all until the spring, but Lisa figures she likes her time in the kitchen and that it will be all the more pleasant with a finished window supplying that extra counter space. .

South-side door

The south-side door actually looks a lot like the east-side door, but it is framed by the porch. It still works as that splash o' colour on the natural neutral tones of the wood.

The little step is a temporary measure made of hemlock by Joey because he was sick of using blocks (stacked on the left in the photo) as steps. Oh yeah, the insurance required it as well. I kind of like the steps. With a more suitable footing, we can probably keep them for a while. The stacked blocks are actually off cuts from Willy's timbers, and the carpenters use them to keep the good lumber off the ground.

I'm kind of looking forward to the metal going on the porch roof. Once the solar collectors are installed, that should get done quickly. You want to step on the metal as little possible.

Here's a picture of the hardwood threshold that came as part of the doorframe. It's protected by the porch and made of ash, so it should now be quite durable. Hardwood is susceptible to weathering, so Lisa put 5 coats of urethane on it last week. I guess you can say Lisa gave our ash a good shellacking :-).

Doors

Well, the trash clutters up the view a bit, but here's the door trimmed with the white Maibec and with a temporary step leading up to the porch. It will look better once the siding is on. Still haven't decided on a permanent solution for the stairs, which will get dripped on by runoff from the roof.

One thing for sure now that I see it is that we will go with a red door. paint is not appropriate as it will chip, so we'll have to get a nice bright red stain for the door. That will add a splash of color on some rather neutral colors.

West side story

Well, the saga of the west wall has nearly come to an end. The siding is all done, and damn it looks good. I love wood.

The only thing left on this side is the fascia along the gables of the roof, and maybe some white trim on the fascia of the porch.

It also helps to see the sun after several days of drizzle. The blue sky looks extra good against this cream coloured wooden siding (soon to be gray).

Still have the front sides of the house to cover. There are more windows here, so they could be a while. The siding goes up quick. It's the trim around the windows that needs careful sealing to prevent water infiltration.

Window trim detail

This is the north-side bedroom window. All the windows will look like this when we're done (well, maybe the photographer won't be reflected in the panes all the time). The Maibec ultra-white trim is 4'' wide and 1 1/4'' thick, matching the white cladding on the windows. If you look carefully you'll see that the trim on top is covered with a little "roof". At this close range you can actually see the candle distort the perspective slightly.

The picture below shows the detail of the bottom right corner. You can see the white painted nails in the trim and the stainless steel nails in the hemlock siding. You can also see the paint seal used between the horizontal trim below the window and the vertical trim to the right of the window. Also visible is the white caulking used to seal the window and trim.

Trim and mouldings

Despite having enough hemlock boards for trim, we decided to go with Maibec for the corner boards, window trim, and fascias. The reason is that we wanted a little colour in the hose to accent the natural wood of the rabbeted bevel siding, especially when it starts turning grey. Maibec is wood coated with several layers of factory-coated paint with the paint lasting about 20 years (we don't want to paint it every two years). We chose ultra-white because it matches the cladding on the windows and because it makes for a nice bright contrast to the natural wood siding (and with the grey once the siding is weathered). The guys managed to finish the bottom half of the west side of the house and are getting the scaffolding up again to finish the upper part of the house.

Here's a picture of an outside corner with the west side finished with siding and the south side unfinished. The corner is constructed using two 2'' boards painted on all sides. It is nailed to the furring lats and over white aluminum flashing that covers the blue insulation on the foundation. We should have covered the foundation insulation before back-filling it. Styrofoam is resistant to just about everything except UV radiation from the sun.

Up goes the siding

Here's the siding going up on the North side of the house outside the bedroom window. Wow does it look good. This is the siding we had sawn from logs out of the woods. Also shown is the window and corner trim from Maibec (white). Maibec is wood treated with paint that's supposed to last 20 years. The effect of the white trim will be to offset the hemlock siding (which we will let go grey like an old barn). The hemlock tends to crack, but there doesn't seem to be more than 10% wasted for now.

Also shown is the white flashing covering the foundation insulation. Hold have put this on a long time ago. Better late than never.

Finished painting

Here's a look at the upstairs following the drywall, mudding, and painting. It pretty much sums up all the nice work and contributions: the timber frame from Willy Lemaitre from Sutton, Alex Courvoisier (from Dunham) assembly job, the ceiling planks from Nicholas Hamel in the Beauce, the windows from Elite courtesy of the Liptak family near Ottawa, the flooring planks sawn up by Martial Marois in Granby, and finally the mudding and painting by Luc Tremblay in Frelighsburg to bring out the colours in grains in all this wood.

With the afternoon sun provided by mother natures, it makes for a really nice picture from the staircase.

Installing the windows

We installed the windows in early April. There was a nice three week stretch of warm, dry weather that let us get this done. Papa came out to take a few pictures and got some really nice ones. The first picture gives an idea of how the windows were installed. Francois (shown here talking to the owner) shimmed them into the openings before sealing the holes with foam insulation. The picture also shows a full length view of the interior part of the chimney, how nicely the light plays with the yellow hemlock ceiling, and how it looked before we had the floor slab poured.

With the snow melted, Papa also managed to get a new pespetive on how the house interacts with surrounding landscape. This view is from the south side where there is a small pond along a path that leads to the sugar house in the back woods of the property. It's one of my favorite views of the house. When the leaves come out, it disappears!

East side of house enclosed

We had a wintertime lull in the construction (including an overnight 2-foot dump of snow that left us shoveling out the house site) so I've been a little despondent about progress lately. But things are on track again after two beautiful weeks of sunshine and maple-sap-producing temperatures (above freezing during day, below freezing at night). We've had steady progress with carpenters on the site 5 days a week, plus 2 days with the mason installing the brick chimney (next post). The lack of rain has meant a relatively dry site during the early thaw, with dry roads that let trucks and trailers make it up Pinnacle Road without carving huge ruts in what's usually a very muddy road.

Note that the carpenters took advantage of the scaffolding on the east side and installed the windows in the cathedral part of the house. These are fixed windows that cannot really be accessed otherwise. It's very tempting to get the porch on right away, but other projects await.

Revised wall system

The builder made a few alterations to the wall system on site. In particular, the sill system has been altered. Flooring and base boards are new to the design as well. The extra insulation needed for the foundation needed for the heated floor slab complicate the design a little. Obviously, styrofoam is not going to support the wall trusses.

On the other hand, the wall trusses are supported by the timber frame. It's still nice to have part of the wall trusses over the concrete foundation. The southern wall will feature a 4'9'' wide awning to allow full sun on the windows in the winter but little or no sun in the summer. To support the awning, 2'' x 8'' wall studs will be added in line with the trusses.

The photo shows a cross section of the wall system, including the sill board. The shiplapped siding will come down over the foundation insulation and will be sealed at the bottom (seal not shown) to prevent moisture infiltration.

The view from the loft

This photo gives a good idea of the view from the loft. Click on the photo and you can see Mount Sutton more clearly. It kind of blends in with the sky because of the light.

Looking at this picture, it's very tempting to change the plans and just make a huge picture window to the second floor wall. A lot of the view will be obliterated by walls, but the windows will be large enough so that you can see Mount Sutton once the poplars are cut down if you place yourself.

I'm also tempted to put a small rosetta window in the middle of the triangle at the peak of the wall.

Window dimension details

The dimensions we used to calculate the window sizes were not Elite's standard sizes. No problem here. You don't really notice the difference.

Item	Qty	Type	Desired dimensions	Standard sizes
1	11 6 2 2 1	Double hung a) living room b) bedroom c) loft d) bathroom	2'6''w x 4'10 h	31 1/2 x 59 1/16 130 mm (5 1/8”) frame 130 mm (5 1/8”) sill sill inclined 6°
2	2	Fixed* (cathedral area)	2'6''w x 4'10 h	(31 1/2) x (59 1/16) 130 mm (5 1/8”) frame 130 mm (5 1/8”) sill inclined 6°
3	1	Double casement (kitchen)	4'w x 3'4''h	(47 1/2 x 39 3/8) 130 mm (5 1/8”) frame, 159 mm (6 1/4”) sill
4	1	Double casement (bathroom)	5'w x 2'6'' h	59 5/16 x 31 1/2 159 5/16 x 31 1/230 mm (5 1/8”) frame 159 mm (6 1/4”) sill
5	1	Casement (dining)	2'6''w x 3'4'' h	30 1/8 x 39 3/8 130 mm (5 1/8”) frame 159 mm (6 1/4”) sill
6	1	Casement (pantry)	2'6'' w x 2'6'' h	30 1/8 x 31 1/2 130 mm (5 1/8”) frame 159 mm (6 1/4”) sill
	17	Total

Windows and doors: Summary

Elite - Tradition:

- 2 Fixed: Aluminum clad; white
- 11 Double hung: Aluminum clad 4'10'' x 2'6''; white
- 4 Casement: Aluminum clad; white

• 1 Double Casement 3'4h x 4w'
• 1 Double Casement: 2'6''hX5''w
• 1 Single casement: 2'6''x2'6''
• 1 single casement: 3'4'' x 2'6''

Source and Copywrite: Elite Windows and Doors

Windows and doors: Description

Pantry

• 1 Casement 2'6''x2'6''
  

Second floor

• 2 Double hung: 4'10'' x 2'6''

Kitchen

• 1 Double Casement 3'4h x 4w'

Bedroom

• 2 Double hung: 4'10'' x 2'6''

Bathroom:

• 1 Double Casement: 2'6''hX5''w
  
• 1 Double hung: 4'10'' x 2'6''

Cathedral wall:

• 2 Fixed (upper): 4'10'' x 2'6''
  
• 2 Double hung: 4'10'' x 2'6''
• 1 Casement: 3'4'' x 2'6''
  

Living Area (south and east side):

• 6 Double hung 4'10'' x 2'6'' :

All this will take away from the "old farmhouse" look we're trying to get from the outside, though.