Building our new retirement place

[skyking1]

We had the yard ready to hydroseed and we were waiting on the vendor, so we got cracking on the first floor lights.
My wife's sewing room is a special case. It has a 4 pack for general lighting and we put a string of 5 gimballed lights where she would have her machine(s).
Test them first.

We got the dining, living room and the kitchen gimballs up yesterday as well.

Those are placed to aim into cabinets, the pantry and positioned so you won's shadow the counter you are working at.
The hydroseeder came today and made it green, as seen from the second floor party room.

 

[skyking1]

We rented a big zero turn mower and got it all knocked down the other day. This area was full of construction stuff and scrap lumber.

Looking further to the likely location for a shop/ADU behind the trees and mostly out of sight

Looking back on the house, the property has a lot of "character", I am standing 8' below the basement floor.

Between the right of way and the 3 properties, we mowed about 4 acres

 

[skyking1]

Little bits of finish here and there. We finished the VG fir french doors for the basement. The flooring looks good enough against that, so I will do all the stair casework and rails in VG fir.

In our bathroom-
From very warm 2200K

To bright 5000K and all points in between

Even a blind squirrel finds a nut now and again. I think I will build those mirror cabs from scratch. Everything I look at feels like junk.

 

[finnski1]

Little bits of finish here and there. We finished the VG fir french doors for the basement. The flooring looks good enough against that, so I will do all the stair casework and rails in VG fir.
View attachment 64167
In our bathroom-
From very warm 2200K

View attachment 64168

To bright 5000K and all points in between

View attachment 64169

Even a blind squirrel finds a nut now and again. I think I will build those mirror cabs from scratch. Everything I look at feels like junk.

We rented a big zero turn mower and got it all knocked down the other day. This area was full of construction stuff and scrap lumber.
View attachment 64035
Looking further to the likely location for a shop/ADU behind the trees and mostly out of sight
View attachment 64036
Looking back on the house, the property has a lot of "character", I am standing 8' below the basement floor.
View attachment 64037
Between the right of way and the 3 properties, we mowed about 4 acres

looking very nice!

 

[skyking1]

dragging in late tonight after getting all the smart lighting up and running.
I have a zoom meeting with the lighting company in the morning, to do the first run through with the system connected to the hub and network. The hub is a raspberry pi with their own OS on it. On first fire up it will flash lights and you can go through and label the whole system in one session.
Otherwise you do it piecemeal and it's more time consuming. Any new added devices are easy to do.
Obligatory picture of the upstairs main vanity lighting.

 

[skyking1]

They delivered the LVP flooring today and it will be ready to go down on Sunday.

The concrete crew did the first placement out from the carport. We do the form work and they just bill me for the hours on the job. It has been a good working relationship.

They do good work. The 1/2 conduit is for communications wire to the awning solar panels so they can all be shut down with a single switch.

The second 12' wide placement will go out into that void in the lawn to provide a backing spot.
Now we can build the landing and timber stairs up to the sun deck, perhaps next week.

 

[skyking1]

all the light fixtures and ceiling fans and bathroom fans are up and wired.

Big tiles going into the upstairs main.

He plans on tiling those two showers complete less grout this weekend, and the soaking tub shower with this stuff in vertical orientation like this:

They are big 18x36, and my tile guy does not have his big saw here to cut them lengthways.
No problem. The vendor will loan me his big saw. I am digging this community.

 

[skyking1]

We got a start on laying down the LVP today.
I laid out the cabinet and island footprints.

 

[pacergal]

Lots of hard work, it will be beautiful when completed!

 

[skyking1]

Lots of hard work, it will be beautiful when completed!

Thank you. My neighbor is a go-getter and I have a time keeping up with him. We are going to knock out floor 1 tomorrow and I am going to call a halt so we can recover and I can catch up on paperwork.
Upstairs shower is tiled and ready for grout. he did a 60/40 split on that niche for the taller bottles.

we have enough tile to wainscoat behind the toilets in both mains.

All the baths have bidet electrical outlets.

The long view from the west wing door through the butler's kitchen, kitchen, and living room.

 

[skyking1]

I used some what-have-ya to model the newell post and the next two on the landing, so we can put the flooring down around it.

I put a mild tent top on it at 40" to see what that was like. It's a piece of firewood that got detoured from the burn barrel.

I have to be very circumspect about attaching to the subfloor, with the heating system waiting underneath.
I will probably mortise it in halfway with a multitool to lock the bottom.

 

[Masquernom]

I saw your comment above about having outlets for bidets. I love my bidet and highly recommend them now, although my wife won't use one.

 

[skyking1]

I gave the table saw some much needed attention today, and free cut the stair and landing pieces and splined them together with pieces I ripped and planed.

The landing is about 60" for the elevator, and I splined the top step to all that and glued down 105" of assembly. 3 pieces of bullnosed vinyl stair tread.

That is the first piece of finished wood, that first shot across the bow so to speak. It is a Vertical Grain (VG) fir bypass skirt board that had to go in first.

We templated the traditional skirt board down along the shaft.

That has all the information I need to cut the skirt from a 1x12

 

[skyking1]

the 2 roll in showers and the 6' soaking tub enclosure are grouted and getting caulked today, ready for trim and grab bars. The showers get a 4 way trim valve. I'll mount the hand spray on a vertical grab bar and it can be run concurrently with the shower head. That is the drop for the hand spray at waist level so a 6' hose will suffice.

 

[skyking1]

check out the 26 day grass, and the load of timber for the stairs.

Today's progress

 

[Ronstar]

What kind of wood is the stairs?

 

[skyking1]

Pressure treated hem/fir 4x12s.
The 20's were on the rack a long time at the lumber yard and relatively dry. I cut a couple of 16's for more treads and those were heavy. The 6x6 posts ditto.
The plan is to let that PT age a year, then pressure wash it next summer and find a good deck treatment.
Framer really wanted us to go with concrete treads. DW said NO to that.
This wood will get more sun than anything.

 

[Ronstar]

Your stairs look very nice. Your whole house does.
You’re in the home stretch- won’t be long before you’re moved in.

 

[MC Rider]

Looking good, and going on 5 years for this thread.
Go go go!

 

[like2]

Absolutely amazing!! Seems you've had your hands on every aspect of your new home! That has to be very satisfying!!

 

[skyking1]

Absolutely amazing!! Seems you've had your hands on every aspect of your new home! That has to be very satisfying!!

It is. Now I get to put on my welder' s helmet and design the safety rail and handrails up those stairs. I would really use two of me right now, one for the steel outside and on the elevator platform, and another at the saw and planer and router table for the wood rails and balusters and Newell posts.
My neighbor and friend worked steel fab for years and said he could help.
I will get the post designs drawn up this week, and set up a fab table in the current home's garage.

 

[skyking1]

I have 1/4" steel sheets I can use for my welding table, I will tack them to the trailer. This is $2300 of rail building materials.

Backed in and leveled in the carport. I will fabricate and fit the rails, sandblast and paint and install them.

 

[calmloki]

Pressure treated hem/fir 4x12s.
The 20's were on the rack a long time at the lumber yard and relatively dry. I cut a couple of 16's for more treads and those were heavy. The 6x6 posts ditto.
The plan is to let that PT age a year, then pressure wash it next summer and find a good deck treatment.
Framer really wanted us to go with concrete treads. DW said NO to that.
This wood will get more sun than anything.

check out the 26 day grass, and the load of timber for the stairs.
View attachment 64552

View attachment 64553
Today's progress

View attachment 64554

View attachment 64555

We did a match to your stairs material, construction and dimension-wise about fifteen years ago on a sixteen unit apartment. So lots of tenant traffic and appliance replacement banging up and down. Had the bottom tread, which got the most abuse, split. The end. Plenty skookum.
Admire your construction. Level across your bath light fixture shades? It's like you actually care about the details and aren't letting getting done with the job be the driver of your actions.

 

[skyking1]

I had reverse plumbed my pipe from the neighbor's garden hose so I could have water down there 550' away.
Today was the big day, tie in to the water main and backfill and pave in one day.
I had a traffic control plan and picked up all the signs and candles.
I emailed the public works supervisor I had been working with to confirm I was ready, when he replied right back with a bit of bad news. They had run out of Romac saddles to tap the main, the order was late and he wanted to reschedule for Friday!
That was not acceptable. I had the signage rented, my guy there, and a big paving crew scheduled for the afternoon.
I sent back that what if I sourced the Romac? He was good with that idea. I sent my guy on a 3 hour round trip for the part, and I peeled up the patch and took all the nice material off the top of the main.
They had offered to pothole it for me with their vac truck and I took him up on that.

I had both machines and used them.
We got it backfilled and ready, I pulled the rest of the asphalt and prepped the hard edge down.

The city crew came back and set the meter box for me, and I will put together the double check valve and PRV in the morning. That is another inspection followed by a test, and we may have water on Friday.

 

[street]

WOW!!! A lot of moving parts but things fell in place.