On New Year’s Day, here is an update of our project.

The soffits, frieze and fascia are mostly in place. The windows are all in on the second floor, and the contractor’s got a start on the first floor.

The duct work is roughed-in, now, almost ready for the equipment, which will wait until after drywall is in place. The neighbors have been asking what’s in that roof?!? Well, here it is: mechanical and storage space. Why, you might ask, use such space for that? Here’s why.

Stacking new stairs to the attic would have meant either significant point loads on the existing foundations or switching the span of the structure to the long axis of the house, both of which were structurally infeasible. Also, the south roof was designed for solar water heat panels; it didn’t make much sense to me to warm the water on the roof, pipe it to the basement, then pipe it back to the second or third floor for use. Too inefficient. Our budget is stretched already, so adding more finished space to the project just didn’t work. As it is now, we’ll be able to easily and efficiently add the solar water system when the funding becomes available. What we end up with is a workable second floor of four bedrooms and two baths, a striking roofline, and storage where we need it.

Confession: we may one day add a dormer on the north side…

This week we hope to see the plumber and the electrician working on their rough-ins. The insulator is slated for next week.

Mary picked up floor and wall tile for the bathrooms yesterday, which is exciting as we are already ready to move in!

We opted for a high-velocity air handler to heat and cool the house, both for efficiency and ease of routing the smaller diameter ducts. The diffusers are discretely inserted into our existing first floor ceiling. We’ll abandon the old, unsealed, poorly routed, uninsulated ducts.

I came across and old shot of the previous facade; it’s fun to see the change already!