Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Construction: Stuff is Happening

This looks much brighter than real life.
This is closer to the right color.
View from the sidewalk

Construction always seems like you have nothing, then a ton of stuff really fast, then nothing, then a ton of stuff really fast.  Repeat for as many months as your project takes.  

I think part of that is that digging a big hole is not super exciting (unless you happen to be a 3 year old boy, in which case it is the best thing EVER), and neither is plumbing or electrical rough in.  Framing, however, and drywall.  Those things look like real progress.  They're big!  You can see them!

In any case, plumbing and electrical rough in and inspections have been happening lately at our place, so it has not seemed like there was a ton of progress, even though logically I realize that's all important stuff.    

While the specialists work on that stuff, however, our contractors and my husband have been putting up siding.  Lovely beautiful siding!  Siding is progress!!!  

I agonized over siding colors for a month.  Classic white?  Sage green?  That beige color that seems really popular right now?  Eventually, somehow, we ended up at red.  The rationale is that it in brick red the addition would not be a big distracting cube of some random color from the street.  In the last picture you can see the view from the sidewalk. It does not look *exactly* like the brick, but that's OK.  I think it's less visually distracting because the colors are similar.   I also don't think they are so close together that it looks like we were trying to match and slightly failed.  (See also: wearing black pants and a black jacket from two different pant suits)

We've picked a bunch of things based on keeping the addition consistent with the rest of the house, so the red siding kind of made sense.  In some cases, we were able to pick some elements that are both consistent with the house now, and consistent with what the house was like when it was built.  (This is hard, because the house was built in 1924.) Unfortunately, money and time are always problems, so we get plain double-four siding instead of the faux cedar shake that I would have liked.  (Though I saw that on our local eat & park restaurant, and it looked kinda bad, so I think I am happy with the double-four.  Also, if I knew more about what double four meant besides "each board thingy has 2 - four inch horizontal, er, bits, I would tell you, but I totally don't.)

We got windows that look like three over one paned, because that's what the original windows in the house were. There are a few left in the house, and lots of our neighbors have them.  (The previous owners replaced some with those grid-like mullions, which are fine, but don't really have the same feeling as the three over one.)  We also got a solid wood front door with nice, straight angles.  It's hard to know, but I suspect the original door would have been something similar.

We're not trying to recreate the house as it was in 1924, but rather to pick elements that seem right in the house, while not giving up modern conveniences.  (For example, the three over one windows are modern flat easy to clean double hung windows that look paned and not all wood single paned. )

I am really digging the mock-clerestory windows on the side of the house pictured, by the way.  I think they are secretly transoms for over a door, but I really wanted three high windows there (to bring in light but avoid having a view of the neighbors back yard), and those are what fit.  Thank you father-in-law-contractor for thinking of that!

Yay Progress!

Now it's tie to watch frosty with the little one.

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