In addition to today being Lisa’s birthday, a lot has been happening here.

Roofing

The roofers have started the roofing process, laying down the second layer of paper, and flashing all around the edge of the roof.

We are finalizing the solar layout and contract.  Once that is done, the solar installers will install the posts for the solar panel racks, and then the roofers will continue the installation of the flashing and roof shingles.  Here is what the posts and flashing look like.

We are still choosing the color of our shingles but should have that finalized soon.

Deck / porch railing

Quite a bit of the railing has been installed, and it looks great.

At first I was a little surprised at the heft of the railings (3″ wood), but, it looks great and in perfect proportion to the rest of the house.  Anything less would look too small.

Box beams

The living room, dining room, and family room will all have box beams.  The first part of the process of having the box beams made is laying them out on the floor, and then transferring the layout to the ceiling.  This is both to verify the dimensions so the mill can make them a perfect fit, but also to locate them on the ceiling so that fire sprinklers and light locations can be determined.

The is a great example of the flexibility you need when building a custom home like ours.  In some cases, the preferred location of the can lights, right in the center of the beam rectangles, is not possible because of the presence of a structural member, so we need to come up with a plan B.

Electrical

The electricians are hard at work wiring the lights and outlets but are making good progress.

Plumbing

Early this week we had the central chase drywalled and painted.

This means the plumbers can not start running their plumbing up through the chase.  The water heater flue will also go through the chase, and the water heater is being delivered today.  We are starting with a single 100 gallon water heater, but putting in a flue pipe that can handle two, if necessary.  That way, if it ever becomes common for us to have more than just our family here (we are including quite a bit of potential guest space) then we can add another water heater.

We met with 4 different water treatment companies this week to get quotes for a water treatment system.  This is worth a separate post.

Exterior

And, of course, the carpenters are still working on the shingles and are getting close to being done with the entire exterior.