Life At Villa Boswell

While a lot of the exterior work was going on, we had a crew inside doing the drywall.  Boy, these guys are FAST!!! And really messy.  You’ve never seen anything so messy as drywall, and it’s not just the dust. But, as usual, let’s start with just before, where the remaining walls that were not ThermaSteel SIPs were covered with reflective foil.  Heat reflection and insulation, with 5/8" drywall everywhere–efficient and sound absorbent.

Living room.

Master Bedroom.

Ok, now let’s begin drywalling. 

Continue reading Drywall

This post will be sort of a long pictorial showing how we started the finish work on the lower walkway. The final touches are not done yet, but you’ll get the sense of the scope of what it means to create a raised walkway with fill and concrete, and how important it is to have knowledgeable concrete workers doing the job.

The Before

So, here we are in the before. In the very foreground is the rough cut soil that is thankfully decomposed granite.  Still, that all had to be finished.  There is a good 7′ of clearance between the bottom of the walkway and the underside of the plank going from the lane to the main deck.

Continue reading Lower Walkway

It’s been a long time since my last post, and a lot has happened.  I had this silly idea that I would be able to blog about each main section after it was all complete.  But this house doesn’t go up like that.  It goes up in layers… long, never-ending, maddening layers.  But, we’re getting close.  We’ll be in by Christmas for sure.  In the meantime, this post is about some fixes that we’ve made to the walkway with the help of the Palomino brothers, who are really wonderful.

The Landing

First, the landing to our main doorway was really a problem.  I cannot find any photos of the before, and that’s probably because I was repressing the image.  In any case, the gist of it is that the steps to the main walkway landed in a section that was about 4" below the actual level of the door landing area, so you would have to cross a slight "depression" and then go up again to get to the front door.  This was a result of the height requirement of the stairs.  It looked awful, but Chris said, "We can’t do anything about it; County requirements."  I said:

"You’ll fix it.  You always think of something and then fix it."

The picture below shows the first step in fixing that.  Notice how the landing area beneath the step and the entry pad to the right are on the same level? 

Continue reading Walkway Fixes

I just finished editing this YouTube video from footage taken by Brian (he’s done the best shots), Chris and Lora.  It shows the stem-to-stern process of putting in the radiant tubing and pouring concrete to finish the floors.  Below the video, you can see some of the shots that I took of the completed floors.  They are broom-finished and ready for tiling.  But, the next step is insulation and … FINALLY .. drywall.

Continue reading Radiant Floors Complete

This has truly been an exciting week @ Villa Boswell. It’s Saturday and our radiant floors are in! That means that insulation can begin and after that, drywall. We’re pretty excited about wrapping this place up in time for Christmas. But, I get ahead of myself. First, here’s the scoop on what goes into radiant floors.

First, you need radiant barrier foil. This is essentially a shiny foil-like barrier that is applied to the surface of the floor before any of the radiant tubing is put down. Shiny side up. It was developed initially by NASA for astronauts’ suits, and it’s a fundamental part of any radiant heating system. You can read more about how radiant foil works by checking out this fact sheet, or by searching on the topic.

Continue reading Radiant Floors Prep