The Barn Update

I've been talking to a few barn companies, including Country Carpenters, a Connecticut based company who has Post & Beam barn kits.  They will sell you one of their barn kits, and if you're local enough, you have the option to have them come over and put it together as well.   At this stage, we like their 36x22 foot 1 1/2 story barn with a 10 foot lean-to running along the back of the barn. 

It would look something like the one above, which I took from the Country Carpenters catalog, except there would be no Cupalo on top (unless Kim wants one of course) and the garage doors would be on the right side.  We have not yet agreed on the price, so we're still looking at other companies and want the people we select to do our framing to bid on it as well.

Housatonic Hardwoods

After our visit with Wes on Friday,  I spent 1 1/2 hours in the dentist chair of  Dr. Mike Monsarrat and then we continuing our journey to find some reclaimed wood flooring that we can afford and visited Housatonic Hardwoods right in Kent, CT.   We met with the owner, Bob Indorf, who showed us some great samples, including Antique Pine like our neighbors in Kent have and Antique Oak which we like as well.   We can also do the main floor in the Antique Pine or Oak and then the upstairs in a new Oak that has been distressed by the mill for a lot less than the Antique Oak. 

More bids in

Kim and I spent a few hours with Wes at his Kent office on Friday and reviewed some of the big bids that have come in.  During the conversation, we also brought up some of the ideas that David had faxed over. 

Site work and foundation
Wes has been creative and aggressive in trying to get the cost down on the site work and foundation.  It's a pretty big number, as it includes clearing the lot for the house and barn, digging the foundation, putting up the forms and pouring the concrete foundation.  It also includes the septic system as well as all the drainage and conduit work to pull power to the house and barn.  Wes has bid it a couple of ways, as a complete job and separating the components.  It turns out that the best price he's gotten has been to break out the job into pieces and to buy the concrete ourselves.  We still have more adjustments to make as we want to remove some of the rebar because we don't really need it and remove the retaining wall work as we're going to ask the mason to bid on that.   I think we're almost there on this one, but may put one more bid out for the concrete work.

Windows
Good news here in that we got another window bid that was substantially lower then the first three and we just need to take a look at the windows.  If they are what we expect, then we may be done.  If they are not, we're going to take a look at another name brand.  Kim also talked to Wes about removing three or four windows on the sides of the house.  We're not doing this for costs reasons, but to give us more wall space.

Rough framing material and Labor
Some bids are in here and some are not yet in.  These still seem high, but Wes has come up with two suggestions that would significantly reduce the number, both in material and labor.  One is a configuration change in the Douglas fur lumber in the Great Room.  We're finding it hard to picture the difference in the look as there will be a few less beams, but Wes feels we will still have the dramatic lodge feel we are looking for.  The other change is to remove the rigid insulation from the exterior walls, replace the 2x4 studs with 2x6 studs and add more foam insulation.  We also asked Wes to take out the covered overhang on the back patio as we're not sure of our overall design on the patio and don't want to be locked in just yet.  We feel we'll design the patio late in the year and not build it until the summer after we move in.  No reason to rush!

and .... it turns out that a nice metal room is actually less expensive that a 50 year ashalt shingle room, so we get our metal roof!  We'll put one on the barn as well!


Masonry
We got our first bid back on Masonry labor and Wes has done some work on supplies.  The main points here are that Wes has the Masons also bidding on the couple of retaining walls we're building right away, the chimney is custom and he has included 'Thin Stone' as the covering material for the exposed foundation, retaining wall and fireplace.  Thin stone is interesting.  It's actual real stone but split into thin pieces.  That seems like a great compromise, but we also want to look at Eldorado Stone, which is manufactured.  In particular, we like the Rustic Ledge (Saratoga) series.  We're going to get the square foot cost for that and give to Wes to see if it's a good option.   We also want to consider some prefabricated materials in the chimney being built, but need Wes' guidance on what to look at.

HVAC
We also spent a few minutes talking about the (Heating, Ventilating and Air Conditioning) HVAC system and let Wes know that we're leaning toward a forced hot air system over the more expensive radiant heating system.

As far as David's list, although we covered a lot of the items David had mentioned, we agreed that Wes and David would get on the phone to talk about getting some bids from sources that David knows to round out some of the bidding.

Another View

Last Saturday night, Kim and I went over to her college friend David's house in Westchester, NY where we enjoyed a dinner cooked up by his wife Nancy.  Their daughter Erin was also there, along with Kim's sister Kelley, her husband Greg and their daughter Mya, who happens to be our God Child.

The Salmon dinner was fantastic, and it turns out that David is a building contractor.  Wow, and we just happened to have the plans for our house in the car, and for some some reason, I just happened to bring them into their house and spread them on the kitchen counter.  David really had no choice, especially after a glass of wine, to give us his view.   Actually, I pounced on him so quickly, after an hour he was still standing next to the plans in his splattered work clothes.

He really liked the design, and being very careful not to bruise my fragile ego, had a few suggestions.  He started talking about beams, rebar, conduits and such, and after my second glass of wine,  he realized that I wasn't retaining any of his advice, so he offered to review the plans during the week and give us a call.

On Thursday, true to his word, David faxed two and a half pages of somewhat legible suggestions which we now had in hand for our meeting with Wes on Friday.  Some of them I vaguely remember from dinner Saturday night, but there were others as well.

Reclaimed Flooring

If the budget allows, we want to use reclaimed wood flooring in most rooms, and then slate or tile in the Bathrooms and Mud Room.  We think we can get the slate or tile at a local supplier or Home Depot if the local places are not competitive.  For the reclaimed flooring, it's the same.  We will look locally, but so far that seems way too expensive, so we are looking at large shops that are out of state.

For everything, we will always look to local suppliers first as we believe in community, but will use national chains or suppliers out of our area if the quality or price is much better.

Kim and I had a conference call with Dana from Mountain Lumber on Friday.  They research old buildings around the world that are about to be torn down, buy beams, siding, floors, etc. and then bring it back to their location to condition and mill it for resale.  Their flooring looks beautiful, but like most out there, expensive.  If you look at their website (Mountain Lumber Floor Types), we're focused on finding something like the Reclaimed 'Authentic Distressed Heart Pine' or 'Granary Oak'.

We have asked Dana to send the following samples, which includes the two above and some others that are a bit less expensive:

• Reclaimed Heart Pine - Authentic Distressed (minimized variation of color)
• Reclaimed Hardwoods - Granary Oak
• Reclaimed Hardwood - Homestead Hardwoods Distressed  (minimized variation of color)
• Reclaimed Hardwood - Homestead Hardwoods Smooth  (minimized variation of color)
• Reclaimed Engineered - Distressed Antique Oak
• Reclaimed Engineered - Historic Heart Pine Distressed

Reclaimed Engineered is different from Reclaimed in that it's really a thin piece of reclaimed wood over plywood vs. solid reclaimed and milled wood.  It's less expensive and comes finished.  We're considering mixing up the flooring in the house and perhaps using solid wood downstairs and engineered upstairs to lower the flooring cost.

Let there be light ... and power

Here are the floor plans that include the reference to built in lights as well as locations of the electrical plugs.  It does not include any low voltage wiring as I'm going to do that with Amal, a friend of mine who seems dead set on us creating the most energy efficient and forward looking smart house ever.  When you see these plans, you may feel that the lighting is overkill, but we have decided that, given our advancing age, we will install very near 'Stadium Lighting' .... now if we could only figure a way to compensate for our hearing loss, that would be great.

Basement:

Main Floor:

Upstairs:

Starting the New Year

OK, so we've rounded into 2010 and still have a lot to do before we complete the design and bidding process, but our goal is still to break ground somewhere around the end of March, weather permitting.

Right now here's our status:

• Waiting on one more bid to come back on the excavation/foundation.
• Bids out for the rough lumber.
• Another bid went out for the windows from a different manufacturer.
• Closing in on putting bids out for rough carpentry.
• In the middle of designing the HVAC as well as the Lighting plan.
• Started to talk to Barn Companies and have settled on a 1 1/2 story 26'x38' barn give or take.

Interesting on the HVAC in that we are now seriously looking at doing the entire house heating system with Radiant Heat and using a product called Warmboard as the subflooring.... http://www.warmboard.com/ ... This stuff is interesting in that it can save a lot of cost on the overall flooring installation (for Radiant Heat that is) but there are some complexities.
 
Also, we plan on visting the following companies over the weekend:

• Country Carpenters to look at Barns http://www.countrycarpenters.com/.  We'll be looking at two more Barn companies as well as accepting bids from our rough carpenter.
• PC Richards to begin research on appliances.
• Klaffs http://www.klaffs.com/ home design to look start to get an idea on Kitchen & Bathroom design.

We meet with Wes on Friday, so perhaps better posts next week.