Spray Foam

It was considerably cooler and rainy today, so neither the stucco crew nor the roofers were in sight when I went to the house this afternoon. All the roof tile had been moved from the driveway to the recently-reseeded section of lawn. I guess Rob is going to have to try that again later...
The good news is that the spray foam insulation guys did show up today, as evidenced by the huge trailer in the driveway.
Lots of things had been moved around on the main level of the house in preparation for the foam installation, and Jim was busy covering stuff with tarps. He told me to go upstairs to check out the action. I wasn't the only spectator -- our architect, Marta, and her husband were also up there, as was Rob. They had finished the back bedroom and were working on the master bedroom.
It was a 4-man operation: one guy to spray the foam, and 3 guys to clean up after him. According to Rob, this is a bio-based spray foam, so although it is still a petroleum product, a percentage of it is made from soybeans or some other agricultural by-product. Two different liquids are sprayed onto the walls simultaneously, creating a chemical reaction that causes the resulting substance to expand to 100 times its size and harden into a spongy foam. It's pretty cool to watch, although it doesn't smell all that great (hence the gas masks).
After they spray it on the walls, they just use a saw to trim off the excess foam so it is flush with the studs.
The main drawback is that this process creates a lot of debris! Another one is that if it gets on your clothes when it's still wet, it does NOT come off. As I mentioned before, Josh and I learned this the hard way when we had spray foam installed in our attic a few years ago. Some of it came through the cracks in the ceiling of my closet and left little white flecks all over my clothes. I warned Rob about this, but he already had some on his shirt. At least it was a white shirt...

Bye Bye, Blue!

I had to go to the post office yesterday to stock up on Forever stamps before the rates go up again (44 cents on May 11!) and mail something to Discovery, so I made a quick stop at the house on my way home. The stucco crew has made impressive progress -- my bright blue house is now a much more subdued grey color. The final coat of stucco will be white, like the chimney, to match the original color.
All that's left of the blue sheathing are the little patches around the new arched window, and I'm sure that will be gone very soon.
Even the interior of the front porch has been covered -- although I'm not sure what the plan is for the ceiling. I'll have to ask about that.
Once again, there wasn't much activity inside the house. Rob was vacuuming the stairs, and Jim was adjusting a light fixture in the master bedroom. They were anticipating much more excitement the next day, as both the roofer and the spray foam insulators were scheduled to come. Fingers crossed that they actually show up. The arched window in the front bedroom is now fully framed in, and you can see the stucco guy outside has already started putting up the felt paper around it.
It's raining here today, which has cooled things down considerably, but may cause some more delays for the roofer. If we get thunderstorms, I don't think anyone will want to be standing out on that scaffolding -- the house is like one big lightning rod! I plan to go over this afternoon to see what's happening.

Top 10 Gross Things in Your House

OK, this is a little off-topic, but it's a lot more entertaining than my complaints about the air conditioning in my apartment. I got an email from my friend Sheila at work yesterday with a list of new features she'd recently launched on the Science Channel site. One of them was Top Ten Gross Things in Your House, which I felt compelled to read, much the same way guys feel compelled to poke at nasty things with a stick. Imagine my surprise when I got to #1 (click on the photo to enlarge):
OK, that's not what's really up on the site. If you click on the link up above, you'll see that the #1 thing is actually "You" and there's a generic photo of a guy with dirt all over his face. But I had emailed Sheila back to say that I was hoping the final item would be "Your Husband", so she offered to do a mock-up for me if I sent her a photo of my husband. She is awesome.

Arched Window

Yesterday was another hot day. I called the management office of our apartment complex in the morning to let them know our A/C wasn't working, and they sent someone over to try to fix it. I had a doctor's appointment in DC in the morning, so I drove over to the house and then walked to the Metro from there. By 11 am, it was already pretty warm, so I was dismayed to discover that the A/C wasn't working at my doctor's office either. I had to fan myself with an Oct 2008 issue of the New Yorker while I was waiting for her. Afterwards, I grabbed some lunch and took the Metro back to my house to see how things were going.

The stucco crew had made significant progress covering the rest of the house with felt paper. Only a small patch of blue was visible above the balcony doors -- which hadn't been there the day before.
Here you can see the layers of material used to install the stucco. First is a layer of black felt paper, then metal mesh, and then the first layer of stucco.
There didn't appear to be anyone inside the house. It was pretty warm in there, despite a huge fan running in the dining room. I stood in front of it to cool off, and caught a brief glimpse of Rob, who commented on the lack of insulation on his way through the room. The spray foam insulation was supposed to be installed yesterday, but apparently they didn't show up -- again.

Upstairs, I noticed they had covered all the mechanical equipment and the bathtubs with plastic in preparation for the spray foam. Good thinking. Last time we had spray foam insulation installed, it came through the gaps in the ceiling of my closet and I ended up with little flecks of it all over the shoulders of my clothes -- like permanent dandruff. Here is the ERV, well-protected should the insulation people decide to show up.
Jim was in the front bedroom cutting a hole for the arched window over the balcony doors, which must have just arrived. That's why they had to remove the stucco from that area on the outside of the house. It was miserably hot up there, but at least he had a fan and some fresh air to make it a little more tolerable.
I had some questions for Rob, but he seemed to have disappeared, so I went back outside to take some more photos just as my neighbor across the street pulled into her driveway. We ended up chatting for a bit, and I told her that we were in the process of installing an arched window similar to the one she has on her house. She had warned us against it, because it's difficult to shade from the sun, but ours is facing in the opposite direction, so it shouldn't be as much of an issue. As I pointed out where the window was going in, I spotted Rob way up at the top of the scaffolding. Now, Rob has mentioned a couple times that he's not particularly fond of heights, so that was the last place I thought to look for him. He was helping Jim install the new window.
Rob seems to be concentrating very hard on the wall rather than enjoying the view...
My house kind of looks like a very large jungle gym these days. I prefer the stairs.
This funny little forklift suddenly appeared from around the corner. They were delivering our roof tile!
The big delivery truck must have been parked around the corner. The forklift made several trips back and forth and stacked it up in the driveway
Rob and Jim finished installing the window, so I finally had an opportunity to go over a few things with Rob, who seemed glad to be back on the ground. He said the insulation people are now supposed to come on Wednesday -- the same day Attila the Roofer is also planning to get started. I'll definitely plan to go back to see how that all comes together, since the stucco guys will still be working then as well. Could be a 3-ring circus!

I went back upstairs to check out the window. They had to cut a rectangular hole, so they'll still need to fill the corners back in, but at least the window is in place. Jim was checking out the view from the balcony.It's quite a novelty to have any kind of 'view', since I am used to a 1-story house. Now you can see all the way down the street. I'm sure the view will only improve once the scaffolding is gone and there's a railing around the balcony so you don't have to worry about falling off.
I had complained to Rob about our non-functional A/C and lack of fans in the apartment, so he lent me a window fan that they weren't using anymore (since the windows are all taped up). Good thing he did, because when I got back to the apartment, it was 88 degrees inside and the A/C still wasn't working. I called the management office again, and they sent someone back to give it another try. I headed out to my aerobics class. Ironically, it was the only place I'd been all day that had air conditioning. When I returned, there seemed to be slightly cooler air coming from the registers, but by 11:30 pm it was still 82 inside, so we opened the windows and cranked up the fan. I'm glad it's supposed to cool down again tomorrow. It's challenging to work from home when it's hot enough to melt your brain in your office.

Hot in the City

It was unseasonably hot here this weekend -- low 90's! -- but our stucco crew kept at it and made some good progress on the house. We came by early Sunday evening to meet up with Josh's parents for a tour, and I snapped a few photos while we were waiting for them to arrive. It won't be long before the blue sheathing is totally covered and it starts looking more like a normal house.
They hadn't quite finished the back porch, but they can't put the last couple boards in until the stucco guys are done, anyway.
It was sweltering inside the house, and since all the windows were taped up, we couldn't open them to get any air circulating inside. It was nice and cool in the basement, but pretty warm on the main level, and positively sauna-like upstairs. I don't envy the guys who have to work up there -- it feels even hotter upstairs than it does outside in the sun!

When Josh's parents arrived, we gave them a quick tour, pointed out some of the 'green' elements, and showed them a few tile samples. They seemed impressed -- I think they may want to move in with us when it's all done.
After the tour, we all went out for Indian food and then came back to our apartment to discover that our central air conditioning doesn't work. Our apartment have any ceiling fans, and all our fans are in storage, so we just had to open the windows back up and sweat it out until it cooled down enough for us to fall asleep. I called the management office this morning, and they had someone working on it while I was out this afternoon, but it still does not seem to be working. It is currently 88 degrees inside my apartment. Bleah.

All Hands on Deck

I stopped by the house briefly yesterday afternoon and found Rob and John working on the back porch. They had finished the steps and were just starting on the deck, so there was still just a narrow plank of wood connecting the back door to the stairs. Rob joked that John wouldn't show up in this photo because he's dressed in camo from head to toe -- including his hat.
Rob later told me I could not publish this photo on my blog because he had the collar of his shirt turned up to protect his neck from the sun -- a fashion choice he is vehemently opposed to -- so he did not want anyone to see him dressed like that. I didn't want to ruin his reputation -- whatever that may be -- so I just cropped him out of the photo.

See, you can hardly even see John -- he blends in so well...
Inside the house, John had framed in the arches over the windows in the living room.
And Jim had just finished taping a bunch of scraps of duct insulation together to insulate the hot water pipes in the kitchen wall. I asked him if he'd be happy to never see a roll of duct insulation again, but he diplomatically replied that that was pretty unlikely in his line of work.
While I was talking to Jim, I heard a loud noise from the back porch. Apparently, Rob had started walking across the plank into the house when it fell through the framing, taking him with it. Ouch! Fortunately, he was not seriously injured, and once he was able to extract himself from the awkward position in which he landed, he went right back to work. Justin (in jeans and baseball cap) later helpfully suggested they lay the unused Trex across the deck so they'd have something a little more substantial to walk on. This photo was approved by Rob, as he has his shirt collar appropriately folded down.
I'm not sure if they were able to finish the porch deck before it was time to clean up and go home for the weekend, but I'll find out tomorrow. We're meeting Josh's parents at the house for a tour in the evening.

Rob also told me the stucco guys were planning to work over the weekend, since they were set back by all the rain earlier in the week. Sure enough, there were probably a dozen guys working on the outside of the house when we drove by this afternoon. I'm sure it will look significantly different by tomorrow evening.

Another Arch

I got a call this morning from Rob asking how I'd like them to design the arched opening to the master bedroom. That's a difficult question to answer over the phone, so I told him I'd come over to the house after lunch to work with John on that.

Soon after, I got an email from Dane saying that the interior doors we had picked out were over our budget, so we'd either have to pay an extra $3,000 or pick something else. This has been challenging because a) I don't actually know what our door budget is, and b) none of the web sites for the door manufacturers have any pricing on them anyway. All I can do is pick some door styles that look nice, email them to Rob, and wait 'til he gets pricing info back from his supplier. Since we've already gone over our budget on several other things (roof, tile, stucco) and we don't want to do that on the doors, I asked Rob if he could just have his supplier suggest some other options within our price range. Hopefully we'll be able to make a decision on the doors tomorrow and check one more thing off the still-lengthy list.

The weather had drastically improved today -- sunny, breezy, low 60's -- and the stucco operation was in full swing when I got to the house this afternoon.
It looks like they've finished the first coat on the north side of the house...
... so most of the activity was in the back. They rigged a pulley system so someone could fill a bucket on the ground and hoist it up to the person working up on the scaffolding.
After they applied the stucco, they used some kind of tool that created cool wavy lines (see the top part above the board).Meanwhile, Rob was building the Trex steps for our back porch. I'm looking forward to being able to walk on the back porch without feeling like Indiana Jones...
I found John upstairs working in the laundry room. He had already nailed up a piece of sheetrock where the arch will go and described what he had in mind.
He drew the arch for me so I could see what it would look like. I told him that it looked good, so he got right to work.
It was fascinating to see how he created the arch. (But since we were engrossed in conversation, I didn't take photos -- sorry!) He took a long piece of metal about 4 inches wide and shaped like this: [ and measured out 2.5-inch segments, which he marked with a pencil. Then he clipped the edges on both sides at each mark, so that it was easily bent into an arch shape.

While he was working, John told me about growing up in Albania under Communist rule and how his grandfather had a flair for languages (including Esperanto!) -- many of which he taught himself using books and dictionaries. John himself speaks Albanian, Greek, Spanish, English, and I think a little French and Russian. (Even though English is probably his 3rd or 4th language, I rarely have trouble understanding him -- although Rob initially felt compelled to 'translate' everything he said, just in case.) I was surprised to learn that since Albania was a Communist country, people who wanted to study abroad often ended up going to China, learning Chinese, and then studying their subject of choice in Chinese -- even if it was another foreign language, like German.

When John was done creating the metal frame, he went downstairs to get a saw, so I took the opportunity to check in with Rob about the doors. He said he had forwarded my email to the door guy and should have pricing info for me tomorrow. Then he showed me how he was building the steps for the back porch. He only finished the first 3 steps before he had to start putting everything away, so it's still a bit precarious getting in and out of the house.
While Rob was cleaning up, I went back upstairs to see how John was doing and was shocked to see that he had already finished the arch! He said he even waited a little while for me to come back so I could watch. That was fast! He graciously posed for a photo with his handiwork.
And here's the arch from the other side...
The other thing I went over with John this afternoon was the trim around the doors. We have a lot of tricky spots where there isn't a lot of room for trim, but the original trim from our house was about 5.25 inches wide. They saved a piece of it for reference.
It doesn't look like we'll be able to use something that wide anymore -- in fact, John was saying 3.25 inches was about the maximum we have space for in many spots -- so we'll have to make some compromises. Ahh, compromises... I know them well...

Happy Earth Day!

In observance of Earth Day, I wore these wacky socks that Ann gave me for my birthday. In addition to promoting Peace, Love, and Recycling, they are made of bamboo and are surprisingly soft and comfy.
I also baked some brownies for the crew, so I stopped by this afternoon to drop them off. It was pretty quiet at the house -- I found John in the front bedroom sealing up the old A/C register in the corner. I walked in to say hello, and suddenly a huge gloved hand popped up through the hole in the floor and waved, and I heard Rob's voice saying "Hi!" He was down in the crawl space stapling up the last of the duct insulation over the radiant heating system. I let them finish what they were doing and went off in search of one of Sally Fretwell's paint sticks that we had inadvertently left behind last night. I found it in one of the upstairs bedrooms. In between rain showers, I went around to the back of the house to see what progress the stucco guys had made. Looks like they are almost done prepping the walls with felt and mesh.
Back inside, I noticed that they had finished installing most of the fireproof insulation.
So now we have 3 kinds of insulation in the house -- the structural insulated sheathing on the exterior walls, the duct insulation in the floors, and this stuff in the north interior walls. The 4th kind, a soy-based spray foam, will be installed in the remaining areas next week.

Rob took a short break from working in the cramped crawlspace to give me an update on what was going on around the house (and eat about half a dozen brownies!). The HVAC guys had come back to put a second layer of sealant on the ducts, the insulation company will start installing the spray foam on Monday, and the roofers should be getting started around the end of next week. In the meantime, he and John are just finishing up all the details inside the house. He also told me that Paul had been let go, so we won't be seeing him anymore. Rob was confident that he and John could handle the rest of the job on their own. I gave Rob a quick recap of what had transpired the night before, and showed him the photo of the Colwells with Josh to prove that they really were there. I wonder if we'll encounter any more celebrities this week...

15 Minutes

We need to make a decision soon on the kitchen cabinets, so I gave Dane a call this morning to see where things stood. He was concerned about the 8-week lead time on the Crystal cabinets that we met about on Saturday, so he was trying to get us more information about the other two companies we looked at. He asked if he could stop by and drop off some samples of the Executive Kitchens cabinets we'd met about last month. The phone rang just as Dane knocked on the door. It was Steve W. calling to tell me that he was at an Earth Day event at the Senate with a color expert he'd worked with before, and she was willing to come by the house to give us some guidance on paint colors. They agreed to call me in the afternoon to set up a time. Then Dane and I looked over the samples he'd brought. Most of the stain and glaze colors had names like chocolate, mocha, nutmeg, and cinnamon, so we started getting hungry trying to figure out what combination of stain and glaze looked best.
After Dane left, I tried to get caught up with work and laundry. I have developed a deeper appreciation for my washer and dryer now that I've moved back into an apartment. The laundry room is on the other side of the building, which means I have to schlep everything down 2 flights of stairs, go outside, walk around the building and back up half a flight of stairs, and then into the laundry room, which requires a key. Inside, there are only 2 small washers and 2 small dryers, and each load is $2.75 to wash and dry, so it cost me $11 in quarters to do 4 loads of laundry! Fortunately, we scored $40 in quarters from our friend Rob on Sunday night, so that should tide us over for a few weeks. I can't wait to have my own washer & dryer again!

I got a series of calls in the afternoon trying to coordinate a time for Sally Fretwell, the color expert, to meet me at the house. We finally determined that she and Steve B. would get a bite to eat somewhere and meet up with me a little after 5. I told Josh about the plan, and he decided to leave work a little early and meet me there, since he's already been thinking about paint colors. We both arrived at the house around the same time, and took the opportunity to see what was new and take some photos before Sally and Steve arrived. Even though it was after 5 and the SAI crew had left for the day, the stucco guys were still hard at work.


Inside, it looked like Paul and Jim had finished stapling up all the duct insulation between the floor joists. It must have been quite a challenge to work around all the plumbing pipes in the ceiling.
These huge bags in the living room are full of fire-proof insulation for the north wall of the house. Because our house is less than 5 feet from the property line on that side, we are required to have a 1-hour fire-rated wall there.
They had already started installing the insulation in the front bedroom downstairs.
Upstairs, in the master bathroom, I noticed that John had autographed his handiwork. These metal pieces form the framework for the arched ceiling over the tub that John has been working on. "Skerdilajd" is John's real name -- he's from Albania -- but he goes by "John" since even he doesn't seem to know how to pronounce it. (Rob asked him to tell me his real name once, and John made Rob do it instead.)

I also discovered that John's last name is Pali, so my April Fools joke about "Pali Floors" was an unfortunate coincidence. I didn't want to implicate our builders or their crew, so I made up a name by anagramming "April Fools." Since they were in the process of meeting with flooring companies, the word "Floors" seemed a good choice. I just invented "Pali" out of the leftover letters! Oops...

Since the insulation is going in soon and this will all be covered up, here's yet another example of all the writing on the wall. I think this is a calculation of how much tile is needed for the shower in the master bath -- seeing as how it was written inside the shower in the master bath.
When Steve B. finally arrived, we were surprised to see that he had brought an entire entourage with him. In addition to Sally Fretwell, he was accompanied by Susan Colwell, founder of My Green Cottage (MGC), her husband Cerphe Colwell, a local radio DJ, and Shannon King, a web developer/IT expert who moonlights as a cameraman for MGC. SAI and MGC have some sort of partnership, so they have been filming the Steves at different job sites and were interested in getting some footage of our house. MGC also works with Sally Fretwell and uses her low/no-VOC paints, so they also wanted to film her doing a color consultation with us.

Here are Steve B, Shannon, Susan, and Cerphe in our living room.
And here's me with Steve, Shannon, and Cerphe.
We walked around the house with Sally while Shannon filmed us. She had a big bag full of paint sticks and showed us how different colors would work better based on the natural light in each room. Unfortunately, there was a raging thunderstorm outside during most of this, so it was a bit dark in the house, but she was still able to find some nice colors that worked well with the tile we had chosen for the bathrooms and kitchen.
Then they had us film a segment where we spoke with Steve about our project. We had to stand in the upstairs hallway under the skylight because it was so dark in the rest of the house. (Nevertheless, the stucco guys kept on working outside, despite the torrential rain, wind, and lightning). As you can see, neither of us had anticipated being filmed...
As we were winding down, we told Susan and Cerphe that they were welcome to come back to see the progress of our project, since they are local. They were both extremely nice and told us they thought our house was beautiful. That's always nice to hear, especially from someone who works in the industry.
Shannon promised to send me some video clips, so I'll add them to the blog when I get them -- unless we look really dorky...