Entry & Powder Ceilings Finished

Finished up the rest of the main floor ceiling work today in the entry/mud room and powder room. 

Entry / Mudroom Ceiling

Powder Room Ceiling

Here's a quick walkthrough of all the first floor ceilings.

All of the tools and equipment are now moved to the upstairs where we'll start this week.

Family Room Ceiling Finished

An afternoon trip to meet a loan progress inspector today, after which Katie and I finished up the ceiling in the family room.

Only the entry and powder room ceilings remain to finish on this level.

Landing Posts, More Ceiling Panels, a Bear

I realized this week that I would need to get the upstairs railing posts fastened to the floor joist before mounting the final ceiling panels underneath the uppper hall. I wanted to use 1/2" through bolts, which requires access to the both sides of the joists. The posts are 2"x2" angle iron.

The first (corner post) was stubborn today. Lessons learned:

• A ceramic bit in a jig saw is ineffective on concrete.
• Masonry grinding discs work on concrete (and make a big mess).
• Don't attempt to drill pilot holes in metal joist hangers with drill bits meant for wood.
• Don't forget the socket set when your putting in lag bolts.

After over 3 hours, two through bolts were finally in the corner post, and starter holes for the lag bolts as well. (They'll wait until I bring up the socket set.) The remaining three posts were mounted with through bolts in about an hour.

The rail posts for the upper landing.

I used 1/2" through bolts to mount each post to the floor joist.

On Tuesday afternoon, we installed 2 additional rows of ceiling panels.

2 more rows on Tuesday afternoon.

Then, after installing the posts on Saturday, we finished two more rows.

2 additional rows on Saturday.

Ceiling panels and railing posts in full view.

Oh, and on the drive in over a temporary detour we saw another large, brown bear. He'd caught wind of our car and was in full gallop ahead of us, darting into the trees before we could get a camera on him. Needless to say, Mackenley was inside most of the day with us.

Ceiling panels begin their ascent

The birch plywood panels began their ascent to the ceiling on Saturday after a week of cutting and preparation. Pictures in reverse chronological order.

From the mudroom door.

From the back, window wall.

The first 6 panels installed.

I failed to source a large enough hole saw for the cans before Saturday. I had to mark and cut each hole by hand with a jig saw. Very time consuming. (I promptly ordered the right-size hole saw on Amazon Saturday evening, as soon as we returned home. It'll be here in a cople days.)

Because we're leaving a 1/8" gap between the panels, I'm using
black gaffers tape in between the panels to hide the framing
and insulation that would otherwise be visible in the gap.

Katie and Eliza took a Friday afternoon field trip to begin varnising the panels so that we'd have some ready for to install on Saturday.

The varnished panels drying on Friday after Katie and Eliza's handiwork.

Eliza varnishing the panels Friday afternoon.

Good news / Bad News.

The good news? 

I finished cutting thirty-six 4x8 plywood panels into 2x4 panels -- 4 pieces from each panel.

2x4 birch plywood panels, ready to finish and install on the ceiling.

Mackenley with the assist.

Made a bit of a mess.

The bad news?

We now have 144 panels that need to be sealed and mounted to the the ceilings.

2x4 birch plywood panels, ready to finish and install on the ceiling.

In other good news...

We took delivery of the custom cabinets for kitchen and kitchenette.

Cabinets are stored in the garage for now.

Notice the custom rough-sawn Alder door panels with invisible pulls.

Katie and Isabelle sealed all the wood in the upstairs bedrooms and bathrooms, and in the entry on the main level.

Katie, Isabelle and Mackenley sealing the wood in the bunkroom.

Mackenley, again with the assist to Isabelle.

All that assisting was interspersed with videos on the iPad.

Olaf bites the dust for the season

The snow melt has been steady since the last snow fall the first week in April. And I was able to drive in to KnArrow Haus and park in the driveway on Friday and Saturday.

The 2019-20 Snow Season at Stevens Pass

Schneewagen is safely put away for the summer. There are a few patches of snow melting on the sides of the road and in the yard. Our kitchen cabinets will be delivered onsite Wednesday. My building permit has been extended until November 11th.

The final push for occupancy begins...   (Contact me if you'd like to help.)

3 work days and 1 Bear

I escaped to KnArrow Haus for some late afternoon-into-evening work this week, and also on Saturday.

On Tuesday evening Katie was in the back yard looking at her phone when she looked up and saw a large brown bear at the front of the hosue standing up and staring back at her. As soon as she looked up, he sauntered away toward the neighbors. Katie ran in to the basement, simultaneously freaked out and excited.

She dashed upstairs and took these videos from the front porch.

The bear also confronted a neighbor and tried to open their front door.

AND the bear tore off some siding at a neighbor's house.

Due to the aggressiveness of the bear, Fish & Wildlife came out today and set a trap.

Amidst the bear kerfuffle, I managed to complete all the pine in the downstairs and add the final cap boards on the main level walls.

Downstairs wall.

Doorway to the upstairs.

Bottom of the stairwell.

Added the top board on the main level. Oh, *and* moved 40 sheets of plywood
out of the garage up to the main level.

The remaining sheets of plywood that we moved upstairs.

Our custom kitchen and kitchenette cabinets are scheduled to be delivered on Wednesday. For now, we'll store the cabinettes in the garage until we get the floor finished. But our next task is to cut and apply sealer to these sheets of plywood and install them on the ceiling.

Let there be light (fixtures on order)

With the walls nearing completion and the ceilings not far behind, we've begun to order our finish-grade lighting fixtures. 

Shopping online for lights is mentally exhausting -- there are so many lights that are nearly the same (and most of them kinda suck.) And almost all of them seems a lot more expensive than they ought to be. 

Just sharing the directions we're headed. All of these have been ordered and should arrive by mid-June.

These are the recessed lights in every room on the top floor.

These sconces will be in the family room.

These sconces will be in the upstairs hallway at the top of the stairs.

These sconces will light the lower stairwell.

Sconces for the master bedroom on each side of the bed.

  

Bunkroom sconces.