Just in Time for Winter!

The windows arrived November 11th, were installed on the 12th, and winter arrived on the 14th and looks like it is here to stay!

November 13

November 14

This is the dining room area at the end of the kitchen.

Most of the interior walls are framed and ready for the electrician to start work.  This photo shows the stairway.  The opening at the top of the wall will be a built-in bookcase at the top of the stairs.  On the other side of the bookcase is the bonus room space above the garage, a nice 41' long x 12' wide space (aka Mary Lou's walk-in closet!) Without a basement, this will indeed be a useful space.

More Snow...November 21

Just a note about the power poles you see in the foreground going across our driveway - these are not our power poles, as the power to our house is all underground.  The power poles are actually a dedicated line that serves the aquaduct for the city of Ely's water supply, which comes from Burnside Lake a few miles away and runs directly under our driveway on its way to Ely two miles away. We had to obtain a special permit in order to build a driveway over the aquaduct, which also included supplementing the soil and building everything up approximately 8 feet from the original level, in order to protect the aquaduct as heavy vehicles use the driveway.

The exterior doors have arrived and will be installed in the next few days. We will have to wait a couple more weeks for our front door to be shipped.  In the meantime, Mary Lou is busy figuring out lighting with the electricians, has finalized the cabinet plans for the kitchen with the building center in Eveleth,  plumbing fixtures etc. have been selected, as well as the appliances and most of the flooring. We also visited a stoneworks facility near St. Cloud, MN called Stone Holding and looked at granite slabs for the counter tops.  The stone place was extremely interesting - like going to the library but instead of books there were rows and rows of 1,000 pound slabs of granite. There were 3,000 slabs in the particular warehouse we visited.  We had an appointment and had previously looked at samples at the tile & counter top place in Duluth, so we knew what we wanted. An employee at the warehouse takes you to the exact spot where the granite you are interested in is located (in the granite library), then they use a crane type machine to lift each piece up and set it down at the end of the row so you can get a better look at the piece and put your tile, cabinet etc. samples next to it (which we brought along).  Quite the process, we wish we had taken photos of that place!  We selected two slabs of "verde butterfly" - a dark greenish/blackish stone. Stone Holding ships the actual slabs we selected up to the fabricator in Duluth to make our counter tops when the time comes.  Enough about the granite...we'll add photos of the finished counters, etc. as the house progresses. 

Here's Herman making his way up the driveway to the house...

More later from WINTERY  Ely!

Thanks again for reading our blog!

~Mary Lou & Herman

  







More Progress

We've had beautiful dry weather for the last couple of weeks, so the builders were able to get the roof shingled and wrapped the house, getting it ready for the siding.

This is the back of the house - the patio door coming out of the living room.  The paper is covering the window openings right now.  The soffit and facia will be some of the next things added.

This may be somewhat difficut to see, but here are the choices we've made for siding, etc. Everything we've chosen is as maintenance-free as possible. Our siding is Smart Side, an engineered wood product that is pre-painted in a finish called "Diamond Kote" .We chose Seal for the color, which is a dark brownish-gray, and the trim boards will be Beige.  The garage doors will be metal, 2-inch thick doors by Midland in the Almond color (samples are the round disks by the siding samples).  Rollex makes the metal soffit and facia, and that will be Almond.  The Marvin Windows will be aluminum clad exterior crank out windows in the Coconut Cream color.  The new crank out windows all flip around so you can easily clean the outside of the windows without going outdoors or having to climb a ladder for the second story windows, so that is a great feature.  Lastly, we are planning to use a composite decking material by Kodiak for the front and back decks/porches on the house.  The material is a 50/50 mix of 100% recycled pine wood fiber and high density polyethylene, making it eco-friendly as well as maintenance-free.  We are going with the New England Grey color. The exterior doors and patio doors have also been ordered - information and photos later.

That's about it for now.  More updates later.  Good bye from Shagawa Lake, thanks for reading our blog!

~ Herman & Mary Lou

Visible Progress

Even though the weather hasn't been too cooperative (rainy), our contractor Dave, and his crew Chris, Chase & Tanya have made good progress over the past two weeks.  The garage walls as well as some of the second floor walls are up.  This coming week they will be working to complete the upper portion of the house in order to move forward with the roof trusses and roofing.  The windows are being ordered from Marvin Windows and will be one of the next things done.  Here are several photos taken over the last two weeks:

To the left of the bottom of the stairway is the kitchen, to the right will be the living room.

This photo is taken standing just inside the front door looking into the foyer and the living room.

Mary Lou is standing in the upstairs bathroom window in the above photo.

This is the view of the back corner of the house (window opening is in the master bath above the bathtub).  The beams have been added on the back of the house to support the edge of the roof overhanging the deck/porch behind the living room and the master bedroom.



Here are a couple of close up photos of the pre-insulated panel walls:



 The holes in the end of the panels will allow for any electrical lines to be added into the walls. The panels have pre-drilled channels near the base of each wall as well as about 4 feet up, to allow for electrical lines where any are needed.

This is the view from the back corner of the garage.  There will be a door out the back of the garage onto a concrete slab which will be covered by the overhang of the roof. This will be the perfect spot for the grill and perhaps a small pile of wood in the winter so Herman can fire up the stove in the dining room.

This view is taken a few yards into the woods walking towards the lake, looking back at the house.  The living room and dining room windows have a nice view of the woods and lake.

 As we mentioned previously, our next door neighbors own/operate a tree farm, which has been in their family for over 50 years.  We are fortunate and appreciative that they allow us to walk wherever we like in the forestland they own adjacent to our property.  This is a majestic stand of red pines along the road into our place.  It's like having our own private park!  The neighbors also have many walking trails/ATV trails throughout the other parts of their property. The trails are great for snowshoeing in the winter also.

The fall colors are just past peak here now.  This photo of Shagawa Lake was taken October 2 from our beach.

That's it for now. This coming week the weather is supposed to be more cooperative, which is great.  The next update should have even more visible progress.  Thanks again for viewing our update!

~Mary Lou & Herman

Taking Shape

Things are taking shape. The rainy weather we experienced the week prior to Labor Day put things behind schedule a bit, but things cleared up so the floor was poured on Sept. 8th.  This first photo shows the surface all ready for the radiant heat (Wirsbo) system tubes to be placed by the plumber prior to the floor being poured.

The next picture shows the water tubes for the Wirsbo system.  Sheets of foam-like material were placed over the plumbing and electrical, serving as the base/surface on which the tubes were placed. The central portion without heat tubes (with the H-shaped metal piece) is where that main support beam will be as well as the location of the fireplace. The white PVC tubes protruding here and there are locations of vents, drains, water connections for sinks, shower,etc. There are also a couple of spots where we planned for in-floor electrical plug ins, and the electrician had to install the access spots for those at this point  also.  



 On September 8th the cement was poured, covering the tubes.  All was now ready for the super-insulated panel walls to be installed.

...And here are the much awaited walls, beginning to be installed:

This photo is looking into the back corner of the house.The window opening closest to the ladder will be the window over the bathtub in the master bath.  The doorway next to one of the construction crew members is the patio door out the back of the master bedroom.



This is the back wall of the house (facing the lake side) as viewed from the outside. On the right side is the patio door to the master bedroom, and the larger opening to the left of that will be the double patio doors entering the living room, with windows on both sides. On the very left edge of the photo you can see the start of the window that will be at the end of the kitchen (see the last photo in this update).

 Here is a vew of the front of the house.  The driveway/garage will be on the right - the walls of the double attached garage are not yet up.  The floor for the garage will  probably be poured within a week.

 



Here is Mary Lou checking out the view from the window that will be at the end of the kitchen, looking into the woods towrds the lake.  There will be a 5 ft. wide picture window in the center of the opening with a window on each side of the picture window that will crank open. We hope to have a small wood-burring stove in the corner to the left, near the other window opening you see in this photo.  Herman has LOTS of wood to burn from all the brushing and trimming he has been doing on the property.

That's it for now - quite a bit of progress in the last couple of weeks!  More to come...our builder is anxious to get the roof on, windows installed, etc. From that point, the weather won't be such a factor anymore.  We had 31 degrees here in Ely last night.   

Thanks for following our blog!

~Mary Lou & Herman  



Getting Ready for the Floor

The plumber and the electrician have been at the building site to place what they need under the floor before it is poured this Friday.  Late last week, the footings were poured that will support the deck and porch areas. In the first photo, the area that is being poured is where a main support beam will be placed in the center of the house.  Our builder said this base needs to be very strong, as it will be supporting 40,000 pounds. The two steel bars sticking up through the concrete in the second photo will be the base of the main support beam. The beam will be inside one of the walls once the house is built so it won't be visible.

 This third photo is the wall panels that were delivered the other day.  They are stored at the nearby gravel pit for a few more days until the floor is done. The balance of the roof trusses are supposed to come this week also and will be stored at the same area.

Here are just a couple more photos - it was a nice evening (Aug. 27th).  Here's the left side of the house (septic filters are the green objects in the corner of the photo):

The right side of the house - (the builder's trailer is parked in what will be the garage):

More later!

~Herman & Mary Lou

Walls & Roof Arrive Tomorrow

We aren't quite ready for them, but the walls and roof panels are arriving tomorrow from Iowa.  As I mentioned previously, they will be off-loaded at a nearby gravel pit, and the builder will get them when all is ready.  The foundation is basically done.  This first photo shows the metal braces around the foundation that provided stability as the cement was inserted in between the foundation walls. 

After the cement was inserted, the foundation was waterproofed with the black material (I think I had this part mistakenly reversed in the last update).  Another layer of styrofoam is placed flat at the base on the outside of the foundation  to insulate, then it is backfilled. The excavator is at the building site today (August 19), adding the fill around most of the house as well as inside the interior sections.  The top of the foundation is where the floor of the house will start. At this point the electrician and plumber will also start some of their work making the initial water and electrical connections to the house before the foundation is completely backfilled.  The well is yet to be dug.  The excavator is removing a large brush pile today that will allow the well driller access to the site for the well which is off to the side of the garage about 50 ft. 

This section shown in the photo with the concrete base is the mechanical room behind the garage. You can also see part of one of the pieces of styrofoam insulation that is yet to be covered up at the base on the exterior of the foundation.

That's about it for now.  We will post another update when there is more to see.  Maybe next time there will be some WALLS to see.  Thanks for reading our blog! 

~Herman & Mary Lou

Getting the Foundation Ready

The footings are in and now the styrofoam foundation walls are almost ready for the cement to be inserted in between them.  The builder will waterproof the styrofoam walls of the foundation before adding the cement in the next few days.  Today (August 9) Herman and I went out there at noon and they were adding  metal braces to the foundation walls, to prevent any bowing or buckling when the cement is added. The first photo shows the area where the front door will be.  Where the foundation zig zags is the front door area.

The second photo is the lakeside wall of the master bedroom.  There will be a small patio door (where the discolored piece of styrofoam is) from the master bedroom out on to the covered porch.  The design of this house includes covered porches all across both the front and back sides of the house.  We opted not to have a screened in porch, but instead extended the kitchen/dining room area and added a picture window at the end of that room. I'll try and add pictures of that later as more progress is made.

Here also is a photo of our beach.  We are fortunate to have a level sandy beach, which is somewhat unusual up here where there are alot of rocks and actual cliffs on some lakefront properties on the same lake (Shagawa), as is also the case with most other lakes. Our end of the lake is actually a fairly large bay, very quiet. We see lots of eagles, ducks, deer,and have a loon family in our bay with two chicks - very fun to watch.

More Later!  Thanks for checking our blog!

Herman & Mary Lou

Progress on the House

Yes, we have started the bulding process!  It is a little behind schedule perhaps, but not too much. Our lot is 2.7 miles SW of Ely directly off Highway 169 and is located about 200 feet or so back from our lakeshore on Shagawa Lake.  The site is prepped, the road, electric & septic is in.  The site for the house has been excavated, and the trenches for the footings are ready - the footings will be poured on August 3rd.( We will not have a basement). The well site has been determined, and the well will be dug soon.

I will post updates and new pictures as there are things to see, which hopefully will give you a better idea of what the house looks like as progress is made.  The BIG day will be on or about August 20th, when we are expecting the SIP panels to be delivered. (These are the super-insulated panel walls that have already been constructed at a company in LaGrange Iowa).  The panel walls will come on 5 semi trucks, and will be off-loaded 1/2 mile from our property at a neighbor's gravel pit.  Our builder will then transport them one at a time down our road (which is 2 tenths of a mile off Highway169).  The trucks simply cannot turn around at the end of our road, nor would there be room to store all the panels on the site and still have space for the builder to maneuver.
More to come...hope you enjoy the updates!  Email me if you have any questions...thanks for viewing our blog!