Building a Front porch and Mudroom
Building the front porch Labor Day weekend
After living one winter in the house with the snow fall coming off the roof and on to the front steps, we knew that summer would mean building a front porch. This would help not only with the snow but also give us a roofed 4 season area to grill, store things or just sit and enjoy the view. Again we were lucky to have great friends come and help us out with building - I guess our labor day weekends are meant to be just that, Labor days...
Shout out to Anthony, Ian and Roxy for the help and great memories!
Shout out to Anthony, Ian and Roxy for the help and great memories!
Choosing a paint color...
Front of house painted first
Like the placement of the house, choosing a color that everyone is in agreement was no easy task. As we had to let the siding dry out we couldn't paint until the end of summer. In the end we went with Atlantic Blue by Behr. It is actually a solid stain so it should last a few years. At first, like with most decisions, you look at it and think holy cow did we really choose that color? Then the next stage is, well after all this work I am not changing it now. But when it was all done, we loved it! I will mention that painting hemlock siding is no easy task. I actually hand brushed the whole front of the house as the boards are all rough sawn lumber so they are literally rough with splintery bits and crevices that are not easily covered. It also was now dry so absorb the paint like a sponge. It does feel good though now that it is all done and the trim is painted.
To floor or not to floor....
Boys discussing the new floor
One thing with building your own house is that after a while you don't see unfinished things like drywall that has yet to have joint compound on it or Advantech for flooring. But with winter coming and the nesting urge hit, we decided we would like to make our winter living quarters a bit more finished. So we compounded the walls and headed to our local DIY store to see what our choices were for flooring.
We thought about pre-finished hardwood and priced it out...eeeegads! We built our house for almost that amount! OK so what about unfinished? Well by the time we buy it, install it, sand it and refinished it... we were looking at almost $2,500 just to do the livingroom, kitchen and diningroom floors. Wow maybe Advantech isn't so bad after all. But then we found the laminate section and Pergo just came out with a new line of heavy duty flooring that was half the price of the unfinished hardwood! So we investigated some more, took some samples home and then decided to use it!
The flooring itself is a breeze to install as there is no nailing because it is a floating floor. What I mean by this is that the floor locks into itself and covers the floor like a blanket which allows it to move as the house does without doing damage. The flooring comes pre-padded so there is no extra step of laying an underlayment first and the best part, the floor is already finished so it is just place, interlock, tap down and Bam your done! We had the complete downstairs done in 2 days and that wasn't even full days as we had to wait for the DIY store to get more in to finish off! The results are amazing as it has transformed and finished off the downstairs! The laminate flooring we bought is made from recycled materials so we are still keeping to our Green theme which makes us feel good.
A word on laminate flooring, we have a lot of positives on using it like ease of installation, recycled material, prefinished...so what are some of the negatives? Well for one, you can only damp mop it which isn't too bad but we opted for a darker color and guess what? It shows up every dog print and dust bunny! So if you have animals you might want to opt for a lighter color. The other negative we found is that laminate flooring causes static electricity. In the dryer months of the winter when the relative humidity levels in the house are low, because the flooring has its own padding it creates a buffer between contacting the sub floor and you! So if you have carpets or furniture made of man made materials such as Nylon, you are now going to be an electric conductor! Just imagine, three kids walking along the carpet, dragging their feet so that they can charge themselves up to ZAP someone! Yup that is what happened all winter long in our house! But you didn't even have to walk on the carpet, just sitting for any length of time exposed us to enough charge so that when we stood up and touched something grounded like the bathroom door handle or an electronic device, ZAP! The novelty wore off fast as some charges really stung. I researched on this and found that we were not the only ones having this happen to us as most people who install laminate flooring have found that in the drier months they had a bad case of the ZAPs as well! So what can you do about it? One easy solution to this was to raise the humidity level up in our house. Easier said then done when heating 24/7, but using a humidifier, pot of water on the stove or like us - install an Aquaponics system in your livingroom does the trick! Now we can enjoy our new floor with a few less ZAPs but we still have dog prints to contend with :)
We thought about pre-finished hardwood and priced it out...eeeegads! We built our house for almost that amount! OK so what about unfinished? Well by the time we buy it, install it, sand it and refinished it... we were looking at almost $2,500 just to do the livingroom, kitchen and diningroom floors. Wow maybe Advantech isn't so bad after all. But then we found the laminate section and Pergo just came out with a new line of heavy duty flooring that was half the price of the unfinished hardwood! So we investigated some more, took some samples home and then decided to use it!
The flooring itself is a breeze to install as there is no nailing because it is a floating floor. What I mean by this is that the floor locks into itself and covers the floor like a blanket which allows it to move as the house does without doing damage. The flooring comes pre-padded so there is no extra step of laying an underlayment first and the best part, the floor is already finished so it is just place, interlock, tap down and Bam your done! We had the complete downstairs done in 2 days and that wasn't even full days as we had to wait for the DIY store to get more in to finish off! The results are amazing as it has transformed and finished off the downstairs! The laminate flooring we bought is made from recycled materials so we are still keeping to our Green theme which makes us feel good.
A word on laminate flooring, we have a lot of positives on using it like ease of installation, recycled material, prefinished...so what are some of the negatives? Well for one, you can only damp mop it which isn't too bad but we opted for a darker color and guess what? It shows up every dog print and dust bunny! So if you have animals you might want to opt for a lighter color. The other negative we found is that laminate flooring causes static electricity. In the dryer months of the winter when the relative humidity levels in the house are low, because the flooring has its own padding it creates a buffer between contacting the sub floor and you! So if you have carpets or furniture made of man made materials such as Nylon, you are now going to be an electric conductor! Just imagine, three kids walking along the carpet, dragging their feet so that they can charge themselves up to ZAP someone! Yup that is what happened all winter long in our house! But you didn't even have to walk on the carpet, just sitting for any length of time exposed us to enough charge so that when we stood up and touched something grounded like the bathroom door handle or an electronic device, ZAP! The novelty wore off fast as some charges really stung. I researched on this and found that we were not the only ones having this happen to us as most people who install laminate flooring have found that in the drier months they had a bad case of the ZAPs as well! So what can you do about it? One easy solution to this was to raise the humidity level up in our house. Easier said then done when heating 24/7, but using a humidifier, pot of water on the stove or like us - install an Aquaponics system in your livingroom does the trick! Now we can enjoy our new floor with a few less ZAPs but we still have dog prints to contend with :)
Here we go again.. building some more
Tukey Truck delivery the wood
It is building time again on Heidi's Happy Acre Farm and here is another delivery arriving from Tukey Bros! We are now going to be adding on to the back a work room as well as barn and wood shed. Approx 20x30 so almost the same foot print of the house. These pictures show all the wood for the main structure besides the beams to be used as the posts in the ground and cement which will come from a different vendor. We will keep you posted as the building takes shape with updated pictures and I am sure stories to tell!