Big day yesterday as the exterior heat pump compressor showed up. The house now has lungs and is breathing on its own.

Yes, it was snowing (again) when I took that photo.

I carefully picked my way across the snow and mud minefield of my front yard last week and opened the the front door to the most heartwarming sight. A thick ray of sun spread across the back wall of the house, stretching from the kitchen and across the fireplace. I smiled because I knew this meant the sun was back to a position I last remember seeing it in during the summer months, its angle changed to now enter the kitchen window as it sets.

Another positive change was that when I opened the door that day, for the first time I walked into a warm house! It created such an incredible difference in the feel of the house—like with that little bit of heat that had been turned on to cure the drywall mud, the home had come to life. And what an extra blessing that heat is, as I found out from my doctor yesterday that the reason my feet have been so painful this winter is that I actually cold damaged them while working and standing around the site all winter. Spring can’t come soon enough, cry my toes!

So without further ado, I present the first floor tour. Photos were taken last weekend, after drywall was sanded and the first coat of primer was on the walls.

In the foyer, entry to the studio to the right. Tiny powder room tucked in the ell of the stairs.

In the studio, looking back toward the entry way. Secret storage cubby under the stairs.

In the library. Testing paint colors. Which I did all last week and both weekend days. Gah! If you ever want to see my head spin around on my neck while I foam at the mouth, just wave a Benjamin Moore Fan deck in front of my face. Aversion therapy works—I’ve officially been cured of my lifelong obsession with paint chips.

Leaving the library through the pocket doors looking into main living space. Foyer and foyer closet to left, fireplace to right, kitchen beyond.

Kitchen with French door onto screen porch to right. Stove hood vent pipe on right wall, cutout in left wall to recess refrigerator, and entry to tiny hall to the “guest suite” on left.

Guest room with beautiful field/mountain/tree view for all those friends who are hankering for a rural retreat!

Guest bath directly across from guest room. Playing with tile patterns for the shower surround.

Laundry room. Stackable washer and dryer to go back in this spot. Electrical panel.

From the end of the kitchen, back through house. Opening in right side hallway for a tiny pantry storage space. Just big enough for cans!

And that concludes the first floor tour.

Lots of big stuff going on now at the house. The ceilings were painted, and the paint’s on site for the first coat of color to go on tomorrow. Because of the floor finish I chose (a one-coat wax/oil that doesn’t require aggressive sanding) my builder wanted to get the first coat of paint on to help minimize potential damage to the installed floor. Hardwood flooring should be dropped in the next few days to give it time to acclimate to the house before install. The tile shower surrounds were supposed to be done today…but they weren’t for some reason. And so we keep trucking along.

I realize it’s been a while since I’ve shown an overview portrait of the house. So here’s one, actually taken from the road as I approached the house yesterday.

Now that drywall is up and we’re in the process of taping, mudding and sanding, its much easier to envision the final rooms. So I thought it was a good time for a big tour. I am starting with the second floor simply because there are still a lot of scaffolds downstairs and those aren’t so pretty. So up the stairs we go!

Below is the room at the top of the stairs, which has no real purpose yet. But it has beautiful mountain view out across the back pasture from the windows, so I think it would be a nice sitting or office area. The photo’s not quite from the right angle as one would come up the stairs. Instead, it shows the master bath door at the far left, then the stairs, and the door into the master bedroom.

Walking into the master bath:

These gaping unfinished holes are in the kneewalls all over the second floor. In trying to wring every bit of space out of this small house, I wanted to make these otherwise sacrificed spaces productive. The kneewall cubbies also provided the paths along which to run the HVAC ducts. My dad has offered to build custom shelves and cupboards for these spaces, but they may remain in this rough state for a while!

Beautiful six-foot bathtub—a requirement for this long-legged homeowner! To the left of the door is where the sink vanity will go, which will cleverly conceal the HVAC duct in its base. Figuring out how to run the HVAC for this house was a fun puzzle—pretty challenging but I think it worked out well. A cast iron tub of this size wasn’t in the budget, so I asked my builder to insulate the base of the tub. I love cast iron for its ability to hold heat in the bathwater, but I will have to see if this works. If it fails, I also asked the electrician to run a box so we could jury rig a heater into the space under the tub. My greatest source of after-work relaxation is a long bath with the New Yorker and a glass of whiskey, so getting this tub right was a big deal!

Heading back out through the purpose-less room and into the master bedroom:

The big front gable in the photo above was a great source of angst from the beginning. The framers had trouble with hip rafters, and then last week when the drywall went on their ineptitude leapt into plain sight. If you look closely, you see four planes coming together at the edges of that dormer. That’s a tricky bit of framing to get perfect even for an experienced builder. After we conveyed how unacceptable his work was, my builder spent a day correcting the framing. Even though the planes don’t align as I envisioned, I think it’s fine. Just one more mark of character…which is what I am trying to tell myself about everything that’s not done quite how I imagined.

I wasn’t originally planning on putting my bed there, but that spot seems to be calling to me…More kneewall storage visible, this to be covered with a door.

Through the door in the photo of the bedroom and you’re in the master closet, which I envision as the mother of all closets to make up for the many years I’ve lived without adequate clothes storage. It’s twenty feet deep. More kneewall storage and a nice little puttin’-on-shoes window seat.

Coming out of the closet…

The skylight is still covered with snow, otherwise there would be even more light in this room. The skylight wasn’t originally in the plan, and I was worried about it being dark as this room spans the whole (admitedly small) width of the house. But now I realize it probably wouldn’t have been.  Oh well. I stayed in a flat in London with a skylight right over the bed, and it made quite an impression on me. I loved how connected I felt to the sky. The sound of the rain was divine, so why not enjoy that again by putting a skylight in my own house?

Coming out of the bedroom back into the purposeless room:

The access panel in the wall to the left of the photo allows us to get under the master bathtub in case anything goes wrong with the insulation (e.g., mold) or to add a heater.

And with that shot of the stairs, the second floor tour concludes! Stay tuned for the first floor someday! In the meantime I am challenged to come up with a whole house of paint colors, as primer may go on as early as next week. But who knows…there’s another snowstorm expected tomorrow!

Last week’s post detailed the 10 inches of snow we got last Saturday. In the intervening week, we got a little storm that brought a measly four or so inches on Tuesday night. And then Friday it started snowing and, just like in December, it just. didn’t. stop. For two days. Only this time around we had the pleasure of losing power for the past two days. Umm…nothing like inside winter camping to send visions of seed packets and swimming pools through my head. I have no way of measuring the total accumulation this time around, what with the remnants of two storms still on the ground. But here’s a good way to tell—arriving at my house this afternoon I went to walk into the field to take a photo and foundered into snow that came over my knees. And I am not short. The photo above pretty much sums up the story of the ten-mile drive up to the house on Sunday to plow out the driveway for the drywall crew.

Last week was also a bit of a bust in the house department as well. We’re already well off of the projected completion schedule handed out just weeks ago. Plus I found a major problem with the framing in the master bedroom. Well, I should say we knew it was there all along as the framers did such a crappy job on that gable, but we were assured that it would all be solved with drywall. Right. Well, not surprisingly, drywall went on and not only did the corners of the gable not line up, the horizontal edge was four inches off level. A hasty diatribe went out to my builder via e-mail, and now it’s in his court to fix. Stay tuned.

In so many ways this winter—and building this house—feels like one step forward, two steps back. Make a bit of progress, only to have to fight yet another quality control battle. Get something seemingly squared away, only to have the quicksand shift again under foot and back to the drawing board. It’s like shoveling snow for two days straight only to have another storm wipe out all the effect of the effort. And do I even need to mention it’s snowing again tonight? For those keeping score at home, that’s four storms—two with 10+ inches of accumulation—in the past ten days. I think we’re all a bit worn out.

Last week the siding/trim guys installed the tongue and groove ceiling on the front porch. I am so pleased with how it turns out—the seamless transition from flat to arch to flat was a bear to figure out, as was how to apply the material to the barrel of the arch—but all the hard design work payed off in a beautiful execution.

It reminds me of something you’d see on a ship, all beautiful wood lapped tight together around a curve.

And then Friday drywall started going up inside and boy does the house feel different! It feels complicated to me as I forge new paths around unfamiliar barriers. No longer can I walk though walls to get from one room to another!

From the front door. May I present my front hallway—really one of the reasons I reworked the old house, so I could have a proper foyer. After living for the past 12 years in apartments where the door opened directly upon the main area, I lusted for a foyer to serve as a formal transition between outside and in, as a place to stow coats and boots and keys and mail and vases of fresh flowers.

Looking from the corner of the living room into the front hall closet at left and kitchen at right, you get a peek of the new brick fireplace surround in front of the old chimney peeking through the studs. We ripped the old one out a few weeks ago and redid it, as when we razed the old house and rebuilt, the floor ended up higher than it was originally and the firebox was no longer proportional. Plus, its lintel was too low to accommodate a wood stove pipe. I chose a handmade brick from North Carolina that’s very rustic and rough, and I am happy with how it turned out. I may still paint it or not depending upon how it looks when the mantle is installed.

From the library looking into the studio, at left, through what will be glass doors, and into the living room, at right, through pocket doors.

Here’s the front hall looking into the funny little powder room tucked under the stairs. I’d like to do something really fun in this space since it’s so small and odd-shaped. I’m thinking wallpaper? Don’t freak!

And as if that wasn’t enough excitement, we got 10 inches of snow on Saturday, when the temperature failed to rise above 17 degrees. There were still piles lying around from the Dec. 17 storm and here we go again!

Last Saturday, my dad and I pulled into the driveway by the garage just in time to see the largest fox either of us has ever seen come tearing across the back field right at the woodline. The creature was one of the most gorgeous animals I have ever seen—as large as a Labrador retriever and sporting the smartest black stockings. I knew right where he was headed, as I’d discovered his lair while poking about the forest edge, and I’d heard him out singing with his friends during the summer nights.

Just as Mr. Fox ducked home I saw a woman on a beautiful white horse hooting and hollering in the back field. Turns out we had pulled into the middle of a foxhunt. The area around my house is popular foxhunting ground. In fact, hounds are kenneled at the base of the mountains that run behind my house. Horses and riders and their dogs take great liberty with area personal property as they tally ho up and down the fields. I don’t mind seeing them ride, and it was rather thrilling to hear the hounds’ calls come closer and closer until I saw the dogs surge as a pack across my neighbor’s field and on down the road. Three riders came across my land that day, and I didn’t tell any of them that their quarry was tucked up safe and sound right in his burrow in my back yard.

Then Dad and I spent the rest of the day running 14-gauge speaker wire to five rooms in my house. Drywall was due to start the next week, and it was our last shot to get it in the walls before they were sealed up for good. It was actually pretty fun to drill holes in my house, and I got to learn all sorts of tricks such as how to clamp the two spools on a spindle to a sawhorse so that I could easily pull two strands of wire through the house.

All I can say now is the Bonafide Farmhouse is wired for a party…in the studio, in the library, in the kitchen, on the back porch, in the master bedroom, and yes, even in the master bath! Ye-haw!

And then all the way home, we schemed about how to build the mother of all fox-proof chicken coops.

Much has happen in the last two weeks. My builder emerged from the holidays like a house on fire (knock on wood) and there has been a steady stream of tradesmen through the house. The siding guys completed much of the horizontal siding. Taking my cue from the old wood siding on the well house, I went with a 5″reveal on the HardiPlank to approximate the look of an older home. It’s primed and ready for paint, though a neighbor stopped by the other night to tell me how much she loved the color of it as is!

I’ve been kept very busy figuring out my electrical plan, including phone/tv and data cables, the blue and black wires shown above, dangling in the laundry room awaiting eventual hookup. I’ve also plotted out all my light fixtures and exactly where they need to be hung, and walked the house many, many times “practicing” tuning on light switches to make sure their locations make sense.

One of the small joys of building a home is that I get to put things exactly where I want them. In many ways, this house is sized to fit me. From the placement of outlets and switches to the length of the bathtubs to the height of the showers and the head room above the toilet in the master bath—above—I’ve used my own body as a measuring tape.

Insulation went in today, and I was amazed that all the exterior walls and roof were accomplished in one day. The house feels different now—fluffier! I am particularly taken with the shape that’s emerging in the large gable dormer that’s in my upstairs bedroom:

Next week we say goodbye to the studs and hello to real walls as drywall starts on Jan. 25.  My builder wrapped the faux beams in the kitchen in preparation.

Other changes include the build-out of the porch. The front porch is getting beefed up with a drop beam, weightier paneled columns, and the tounge and groove floor and ceiling pine is ready and waiting in the garage. I won’t even get into the hours of consternation and drama that went into figuring out how to finish this porch. It was a challenge!

In the meantime, seed catalogs are pouring into my mailbox and the recent warm up has me dreaming of planting time. I can’t wait until next summer when I can come home from work, take off my heels and dress clothes, and walk right out the door to my garden. I have a feeling it’s going to be great.

Reading back through this blog, I realize I’ve been awfully flippant about just how this house is getting built. To read my entries one might imagine that the house self-assembles as easily as the words flow onto my computer screen. The truth is anything but. In fact, I realize that I’ve been hiding most of the gritty details of getting this job done—mostly in an effort to avoid further stamping into my mind what already keeps me awake at night. Maybe, I must be reasoning, if I write that things are fine and easy and proceeding smoothly, I can actually make that happen.

Ah. The seductive lure of wishful thinking. The self preservation games we play.

I don’t want to be misleading. Nothing horrible has happened and I don’t anticipate a poor outcome. But what has shocked me about the process of building this house is just how involved I have needed to be. Now that I am about, hopefully, halfway through construction, I can say that the builder I chose doesn’t necessarily share my vision and isn’t quite as quick on the uptake as I might desire. Thus, quality control has fallen to me and my father, and it’s been a round-the-clock job for both of us. For example, I was at the house for six hours in the freezing cold with my dad on Sunday, he sketching out detailing for the front porch and me obsessing about where to hang light fixtures and floodlights and where to install shower mixing valves. Then that night we spent a couple of hours drafting e-mails to my builder to answer all my builder’s questions about how to run wiring, how to pad out porch columns…the list goes on and on. Then Monday I received throughtout the day five long e-mails from my builder requiring thoughts and decisions about structured wiring, sump pumps, water heaters, and god knows what else. After working late at my real job, I came home to a three-hour discussion with my building partner (dad) and drafted e-mail responses to all these questions. And then today several calls from the builder to my office needing answers NOW. Then, after again working late at my real job, I went up to the house to inspect the day’s work in the light of my car’s highbeams and a flashlight. And I should probably get to bed because I have a 7:30 appointment tomorrow morning with my builder at the brickyard, to select bricks for the new fireplace surround. And it has been this way, nonstop, since first engaging the draftsman back in May.

Lots of things have fallen to the wayside through this process. I almost feel as one might when they have a child—all consumed and singularly focused. I’ve had to pass up friends’ invitations to dinners, I’ve been late to important celebrations, my e-mail correspondence has dwindled. Even over New Year’s, when I traveled to meet friends—some of whom had crossed oceans to get together—I was getting 8 a.m. calls from my roofer and reviewing my kitchen cabinet renderings.

You could certainly say I asked for this. To which I’d respond, “You’re right.” I mean, look at my blog header. And I still believe it will be worth it in the end. I cling to the hope that this sustained focus may perhaps teach me just what I am capable of doing in the future. But in the meantime, it’s a slog. Redeemed only by this:

Tonight at the house, 25 degrees outside, I walked into the middle of the front field and turned off my flashlight. The stars snapped into focus, just above my outreached fingertips, and the snow on the ground glowed with their light. In that moment, in the stop-breath cold, I looked up and remembered why I am doing this at all.

You are going to rock!

I returned to the farm today after a wonderful, much-needed trip to a bustling big city to see beloved friends. Much awesome beer, delicious food, and goofing around has me relaxed and ready to power through the second half of getting this house built. I’m going to need all the help I can get to stay focused and not let the stresses get me–and the stresses are flying fast and furious. Planning parties–and returning hosting favors–for next summer also helps keep my eye on the goal.

Work has moved inside, which is good as temperatures are expected to barely get above freezing this week. The plumbers have been setting  tubs and running pipes. The electrician has begun to hang boxes for switches and outlets. I pity the siding crew that will be finishing up exterior siding this week. It was so cold at the house today that when I walked on top of the remaining snow, my boots left no tracks. But the birds were singing like crazy in the sun, I fall more in love with the farm each time I visit, and 2010 is going to be my best year yet.

Gone are the days of getting up and downstairs like this:

Check out the new stairs!

These stairs are a pretty good metaphor for my whole experience of buying/building this house. The first time I showed up to the site when it wasn’t much more than a few sticks of timber and had to climb up a wobbly ladder to get to the barely-built second floor, I was shaky and scared and almost couldn’t do it. But the more I forced myself up and down that ladder, the easier it became. And then the weekend before the stairs went in, I sailed right up the ladder holding an open can of paint in one hand and a camera bag in the other. Just walked right up and down as easily as if the ladder was already a staircase.

This project has forced me to learn and get comfortable with something new on an almost daily basis. The lessons have run the gamut from how to bush hog to how to run an HVAC duct to how not go crazy with the anxiety of managing a big project involving lots of people while also holding a demanding full-time job. If I can get through this, just think of what I can tackle for my next project!