Our SIP House Build

[imjustawarrior]

Beautiful lot and nice house design. Thank you for sharing.

 

[rmcelwee]

Here's a pic of the Lunawood siding on part of the house. It attaches to a wood lattice, which is attached to the SIPs.
View attachment 59678

That is beautiful. You made a great choice!

 

[Koolau]

We don't have that much in our whole house!
Got an estimate for $12K for shingles and spent $3k for the metal and friends put in on.....

Those are some nice friends, old medic! Good for them.

 

[pdxgal]

Looks very inviting and well thought out. I'd love to live there! Years ago I remember reading in the IKEA catalog that 400 sq ft per person of living space is really very comfortable, especially if well designed. In most of the world that would even be quite a bit of space.

I do wonder about the spec for 160 CFM range hood. In my experience that's not enough to really suck up cooking steam, grease and smells. At least if one cooks much. I switched to a 360-400 CFM hood and it made a big improvement in air quality when cooking. I know there are code restrictions for max CFM and make-up air. Maybe because a SIP house is so "tight" the CFM is restricted to even less than 400 CFM?

 

[rmcelwee]

Maybe because a SIP house is so "tight" the CFM is restricted to even less than 400 CFM?

I believe the new standard, code in some places, is to have a fresh air blower slaved to the stove fan. That way there isn't a restriction. We did not do this in our house but I might rig up something after testing.

 

[old medic]

Those are some nice friends, old medic! Good for them.

Yes they sure are... Very blessed

 

[B-Guy]

I would like to see more photo's of the exterior.

 

[JackJester]

Here's an older pic taken from the street (East side) ... this is before Lunawood siding. Not a lot of windows in the front. The front door is where that little ladder is located. Eventually there will be a porch framed out under that front roof with 3-4 steps from the driveway to enter the house. Right of the front door is the window over the kitchen sink. The 2 little windows on the left are the living room (just to provide a little light since the entire back is mostly all windows).

Here's the right (north slide) of the house that has the utility room with electric panel and eventually a heat pump water heater. You can see the HVAC heat pump to the left of the utility room. Window on left is bathroom shower (above boob level ). 2 windows on right is bedroom.

Finally, here's a pic from the back that shows the deck and back windows (bedroom on left and living room on right). Behind that little Lt gray wheel barrel is our access to the crawl space (its almost 5 ft high under there). Hot tub pad is to the left of the deck.

I'll provide pics again once the metal roof is done. And, yes, its a modern design standing seam roof with no exposed fasteners; I'll provide details once its installed.

 

[pb4uski]

Freedom for some, limiting for others.

It's tough to have a hobby if the only thing you have is a backpack.

I dunno. You could have a harmonica. Or a whittling knife and block of wood. Others too.

When I was working there was an IT manager that was also accomplished on the harmonica. He had many different harmonicas but always had one on him and would sometimes play a little while we were waiting for people to come to a meeting.

 

[pb4uski]

Thanks for the update. Lunawood looks interesting and I have some spots that could work with that

Sounds like it would be good for decking.

 

[pb4uski]

Very nice. Black stuff is usually called "ice and water" shield.

Both roofers I consulted said the same about a good metal standing seam roof being approx 3x shingles.

In our area, initially ice and water shield was crazy expensive and was only used on the peak, valleys and perimeter edges. As it became more affordable it began being used over the whole roof and then covered by shingles.

 

[rmcelwee]

In our area, initially ice and water shield was crazy expensive and was only used on the peak, valleys and perimeter edges. As it became more affordable it began being used over the whole roof and then covered by shingles.

We were told it was crazy expensive and they only used it in the valleys. I wasn't consulted, they just did it.

 

[B-Guy]

Here's an older pic taken from the street (East side) ...

Wow, love the architecture.

 

[skyking1]

that was the first good view of that rock wall. That is some super framing of the house there.
You protected the tree root integrity there below the wall, and got the lift needed for the sewer.
It looks nice and private out that way with the big windows and also the smaller ones on the colder north for just a bit of light.
I can dig that whole scene.

 

[B-Guy]

More progress photos please.

 

[Koolau]

More progress photos please.

Are you Jonesing?

 

[B-Guy]

Are you Jonesing?

Yep.

 

[street]

Can't wait to see some more pictures too.

 

[JackJester]

We visited the house today. It was about a month ago, but we lost some progress with the week of Thanksgiving, so this is about 3 weeks since my last update. Highlights:
1) We have the metal roof fully installed (fascia in work, gutters next week).
2) We have the bedroom door to the deck and the French doors to the deck installed. The front door is being stained, but not installed yet, so technically, we aren’t fully dried in yet. Very soon though.
3) we had the Salal brush cleared in the back yard around the trees and had some bark laid over the dirt. So we now have a clean slate to do landscaping this spring.
4) the skylight is in over the deck. Originally we were going to have 3 skylights, but went down to 1 and it provides a good amount of natural light and will still give good shade in the summer across the deck.
5) Much of the Lunawood siding has been installed.
6) We nailed down the front porch design via 3D modeling. It will be a simple pressure treated wood frame with some unique V-shaped posts, and will have architectural pavers for the stairs and entry.
Next steps are the following (with a projected move-in date late Feb):
- Drywall (next week hopefully). We have decided to go with a zero-base-reveal look. Basically this approach does not use baseboards. Instead a metal plate is used on the bottom of the drywall and provides of a subtle floating border between floor and wall. Here’s a simple overview video if you are not familiar with the approach.

- Paint: after the drywall is done we will paint some sections to finalize the paint choice. We have 2 choices that are basically a very light grey/blue/white color. Probably this will happen 1st week of Jan.
- Tiling in the bathroom. We decided upon Arizona Tile Borgo Ombra. Borgo The bathroom will have electric radiant flooring, even into the walk-in shower.
- In parallel to all this work we should gave all the exterior done and the porch complete.
- Kitchen Cabinets have been ordered and will be installed after painting
- Then measure for the counter tops, order, install
- Final Plumbing and Electric
- Appliances
- lights
- storage shed complete
- driveway; minus minus gravel with asphalt apron to street

We have a ways to go, but I think I see a peak of light coming out of that choo choo tunnel.

 

[rmcelwee]

Here’s a simple overview video if you are not familiar with the approach.

My wife is getting ready to do the baseboards. I will show her this. Thanks!

 

[JoeWras]

I appreciate the updating, especially the discussion and video on the non-baseboard look. This opened my eyes quite a bit to "a different way" that I never considered.

I do a lot of drywall work in both my own home and the non-profit. Seeing that those buildings are 45 years old, they were not done with this in mind. Like all drywallers do knowing a baseboard is coming, they skip the hard work on the last 2 inches. The video mentions the challenges of remodeling to this aesthetic. Oh yeah, it would be a challenge. Even installing and finishing drywall in a new home like yours will present challenges for drywallers, but certainly not impossible by any means. I'll have to look into how they do it.

Update: I searched a bit, and techniques are many and varied. The one that caught my eye was to start the drywall 6 to 8 inches up, then finish the last 6-8 inches with cement board if going with no metal strip and small reveal for a 100% complete clean look. This can also be done for a remodel, but that floor has to be flat as a pool table. Cement board provides a bit more impact resistance and definitely extra water resistance. Almost all the drywallers in the forum did swear a little bit about this trend because they feel they'll get blamed for inevitable water wicking or vacuum damage.

Their consensus also was to end with a metal strip, as you are doing. The first example in the video goes without it. I wouldn't. If you are going to do this, I think your plan is good.

Coda: if I were a flooring installer, I'd probably turn down jobs with this look. Baseboard is flooring installers' best friend.

 

[rmcelwee]

My wife is getting ready to do the baseboards. I will show her this. Thanks!

I guess I am too late to do a zero base reveal. A box truck with $4k in baseboards showed up this morning. Oh well, I'll do it on the next house...

 

[JoeWras]

I guess I am too late to do a zero base reveal. A box truck with $4k in baseboards showed up this morning. Oh well, I'll do it on the next house...

Baseboards will make the flooring easier. They aren't bad, and will forever be classic.

Trends come and go. Serif fonts have made a huge comeback lately. Serifs are the baseboards of fonts.

 

[skyking1]

I appreciate the updating, especially the discussion and video on the non-baseboard look. This opened my eyes quite a bit to "a different way" that I never considered.

I do a lot of drywall work in both my own home and the non-profit. Seeing that those buildings are 45 years old, they were not done with this in mind. Like all drywallers do knowing a baseboard is coming, they skip the hard work on the last 2 inches. The video mentions the challenges of remodeling to this aesthetic. Oh yeah, it would be a challenge. Even installing and finishing drywall in a new home like yours will present challenges for drywallers, but certainly not impossible by any means. I'll have to look into how they do it.

Update: I searched a bit, and techniques are many and varied. The one that caught my eye was to start the drywall 6 to 8 inches up, then finish the last 6-8 inches with cement board if going with no metal strip and small reveal for a 100% complete clean look. This can also be done for a remodel, but that floor has to be flat as a pool table. Cement board provides a bit more impact resistance and definitely extra water resistance. Almost all the drywallers in the forum did swear a little bit about this trend because they feel they'll get blamed for inevitable water wicking or vacuum damage.

Their consensus also was to end with a metal strip, as you are doing. The first example in the video goes without it. I wouldn't. If you are going to do this, I think your plan is good.

Coda: if I were a flooring installer, I'd probably turn down jobs with this look. Baseboard is flooring installers' best friend.

Thank you for looking at that and reviewing it , and thanks to @JackJester for posting it.
I am approaching that step in the next few months.
I do have straight flat subfloor and glue down LVP coming.
I was all about old school because I am used to doing it.
I have to admit, this is way cooler.

 

[Koolau]

During our remodel from a fair amount of carpet and really ugly tile, we did one tile throughout the entire apartment and simply used the same tile (4" high) as our baseboard. Sturdy, attractive, simple, easy to replace (though we never have) and relatively inexpensive. It covered a multitude of sins as we raised the floor as much as 3 inches in the middle to none at the edges (using floor level compound).