MoTrad House - porch and patio

The owner has moved back into the house - a great milestone. But while his time is now split between getting settled and finishing the details, some things were getting finished outside.

The original house had a small front stoop, but now with the great overhang on the front of the house we've expanded it into a full width front porch. With steps all around and no hand rails it retains its open feeling.

Around back a similar concrete patio has gone in outside the living room windows where life can move outdoors during fair weather. These are modest paved areas, yes, but will give much utility back to the house. More photos after the link below.

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MoTrad House - rails part III

Another step taken with the handrails - the temporary wood panels for the stair have been installed, and they look great.

But these are simply luan plywood - thin quarter inch plywood that is typically put under tile or vinyl floors as an underlayment. However it does help you imagine a nice baltic birch ply as an alternate to a glass panel. But we are not done - the wood handrail that will top these is yet to be installed. You can see them on the floor in front of the railing in the photo above.

A few more shots after the link.

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MoTrad House - rails part II

The rail for the stair has arrived, and before it went in the temporary stair treads were OUT, and the final stair treads were IN.

All of the rails still await the in-fill panels that will complete them, but for the time being its a bit less precarious going up and down the stair. I really like the parallel strand lumber that was used for the stair treads. This is an engineered wood product made by laminating small strips of wood under great pressure. The resulting wood is stronger and more consistent than solid wood lumber and it is used for structural beams in wood frame construction. This is a great appropriation of that material for another use where the interesting grain pattern can be displayed.

More photos after the link below.

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MoTrad House - night shot

A few photos of the night lighting added to the house with the addition/renovation.

The front steps here will be updated with a new front porch that will stretch the width of this recess. The deep overhang here has recessed lighting, as well as the overhang around the master bathroom bay on the second floor level. And there are some shots of progress made in the kitchen. Photos after the link below.

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MoTrad House - rails

You know you have an owner dedicated to design when in the course of the schematic design they travel, not once, but twice, to far reaches of the country in order to go on home tours in places where he will see recent modern houses. And so now that the details are beginning to come together we are starting to see the fruits of the inspiration he took from other houses he has visited. The stair began with an idea this way, and now the rails.

These are 2" square tubing, with tabs off the posts to support tempered glass panels. The small extensions you see protruding from the top will support a wood handrail at the proper railing height. A great combination of wood and glass and steel. Its always satisfying to see a house plan customer do a great job finishing out their house, to see them make great material choices, and to see them realize the dreams and inspirations they have gotten from reading their favorite design magazines or blogs. Here the same thing is happening as the owner gets to make real the small parts and pieces of the house in a special way, as he saw in the houses he toured.

This is a big deal to me. It validates for me the whole premise of offering modern house plans. The customers for my house plans were always assumed to be design savvy, to be able to tell the difference between an inspired design and a mcmansion with a nose job. For the cost of house plans its not possible to provide the custom and personalized details that you would get with a custom designed home. But the modern house plan customer is smart, resourceful, and they can make these details happen for themselves. And in the end when they make these things happen for themself it makes the house take on more meaning for them and builds a closer tie to their home. I've seen it in a dozen house builds by my customers, and the MoTrad House proves it out again.

A few more railing photos after the link below.

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MoTrad House - covering those floors

And in a blink of the blog's eye those dusty plywood subfloors are gone, and finish flooring rolls out in its place. Stained bamboo in the living area, planks recycled from the original kitchen in the office, and carpet upstairs in the bedrooms. I know there is still a lot of finishes to complete, the bathrooms for instance, but this place is starting to smell like Done.

Construction momentum is an amazing thing, and this project has had it. Every week the house took a significant step, even when mother nature was throwing everything she had at them. So its looking very done, but the baseboards and other trim are not in, and the kitchen as you see still needs to be assembled. None the less, an amazing transformation over the past few weeks.

As always more photos after the link.

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MoTrad House - exterior all but finished

The weather broke, just for a few days, and the stucco men and siding hangers rushed in and finished up outside. Given how much snow and how much cold we had this past winter this house pushed through the foul weather and made great progress.

I thought this owner GC'd build would move more slowly, but I was wrong. A determined owner has kept the work moving, including the tasks done himself. Looking back the owner did the bulk of the demo, including salvage for reuse, excavation, and some of the footing work, he has built the stair, and will install the cabinets and much of the flooring and interior trim work. Good inspiration for my other customers who plan to have their hands in their construction work as well. More photos of the completed exterior after the link below:

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MoTrad House - circling the wagons

Well, circling the kitchen cabinets actually.

Installation of the kitchen cabinets has begun. A few more photos after the link below.

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MoTrad House - the finish begins

Its time - all the rough work in the house is complete and its time for finishes to begin.

The drywall work has been painted, at least a base coat of white to begin. The owner has moved in the kitchen cabinet boxes, which are actually being re-used from the original house. He built these himself for the original house, so he dismantled and salvaged them for the new house, and we made sure they would fit in the new location in the addition portion of the house. I suspect he has some new pieces to fabricate and some existing ones to alter, but its still largely ready to go.

Other finishes in the house will begin in earnest soon as well, and we've actually entered the last major phase of construction. More photos in an image browser after the link below.

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MoTrad House - the owner builds a stair

The owner buckled down and got to work this past weekend and built his own stair. With some inspiration from our friends at PostGreen Homes, developers of the famous 100k house project, the MoTrad House owner fabricated his own dual stringer stair, made from oriented strand beams.

He had priced out a custom made single steel stringer stair, for which he would still have made the thick wood treads. But alas the price for the steel was outside his value range. Thats a polite way to say it was too much. So confident, and industrious, and with a good role model, he forged ahead and made his own. He did still source a custom steel bracket to support the stringers at the top, but the rest was by the work of his own hands. And power tools.

More photos after the link below:

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MoTrad House - sheetrock happens

The house is "rocked" as they say. The gypsum wall board hangers came, and my client reports they hung the drywall in one day. Like a gypsum tornado, an experience crew can make short work of drywalling a house, even a house such as this one with some odd angles, and some very high spaces as you will see in the photographs.

While the gypsum magic was happening inside, the plasterers were busy outside trying to get the stucco coats on the house. Unfortunately the weather has not cooperated and we've had a late March revisit of February weather. Its been too cold and they have to come back when it warms up some.
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MoTrad House - black tie and tails

Well the Motrad house is not exactly putting on a tux and stepping out on the town, but it has gotten a second wrap of black asphalt coated building paper and reinforcing mesh in advance of the start of stucco application.

What we have as a result is the first indication of the different materials the house will have on the facade. The areas now wrapped in black paper will start receiving stucco - like as I am writing this. The areas wrapped in the white house-wrap material will receive wood siding panels - I think, at least the last time I spoke to the owner specifically about this..! In either case there will be a second and contrasting cladding material on these areas which will emphasize the form of the house.

A few more shots in a slide show after the link below.

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MoTrad House - insulation

The rough in of electrical and plumbing is complete and the insulation of the walls, roof, and ceiling have begun.

The owner is using EcoBatts by Knaupf insulation, a european company that has brought this recycled glass batt insulation to the US. R-values are consistent with other fiberglass batt products. Notably the glass fibers are brown from the color of the various recycled glass that goes into the mix.

A few more photos after the continue reading link below.

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MoTrad House - plumbing begun

Work has begun inside, and not much looks different outside, yet we have some new photos of the house from the owner.

There is some house wrap missing on this side, so still some catching up to do before the cladding goes on. The finish will be stucco. Click through for a photo browser of the new pictures.

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Motrad House - roof on, windows in

Its official, the roof is on, the windows are in, the interior work will now commence in earnest.

Seems like just yesterday we were trying to imagine what the house would look like when the roof was framed, and here is all shingled up, all those wall holes filled with windows, and looking all very housey.

Well we have some treats for you today, because if you follow the link below not only will you find the usual selection of further images of the progress of the construction, but also two wonderful videos that the owner has made of a short walk-thru of the house. Its still all just framing inside, but there is no better way to finally understand the collection of rooms and spaces shown on a floor plan than to take a little stroll through them. So click on dear reader..

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Motrad House - house shell all framed up

The framing of the shell of the house is now done. There is a little bit more of partition framing going on inside, but soon the Electricians, Plumbers, and HVAC men will be on the job installing the guts of the house. Finish work to follow.

I'm very pleased with the how the house is coming out. The progress photos line up very nicely with the design sketches which is very gratifying. And best of all its shaping up to be one very cool house!

And after the link we have a photo browser with more pictures - enjoy!

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MoTrad House - snow does not let up

And neither do the carpenters. The roof is way along now, the front more so than the back, but we can see the massing of the house now. Its no longer overshadowed by its neighbor.

And after the link we have a photo browser with more photos.

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MoTrad House - rafters landing

As the rafters begin to go in you can start to get a sense of the massing of the house.

If you take a look at the project page at our web site you'll see more illustrations of how the house will finally appear. This may help you make sense out of what the rafters are doing here.

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MoTrad House - second floor cometh

The second floor partitions, and the roof in as much as it is tied together with the partitions, have begun to be framed up. Very soon the overall massing of the house will take shape. Already you can start to get a sense of the second floor spaces.

So click through to see the most recent photos from the second floor.

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MoTrad House - second floor platform done

Not big news, but what this means is that since the second floor platform is in place you can now get a good sense of what the rooms on the ground floor feel like. Some new interior shots and a comparison to the design sketches.

So click through to see more of the main spaces from the ground floor shot from different angles. And I'm going to try to post a short video clip of the ground floor that the owner posted.

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