Thus far, I am struggling to feel festive this year. Is it the warmer temperatures? Our chaotic household? Perhaps the stress of this year’s gift unpreparedness? Who knows.
In an effort to put myself in the mood, I’m pulling out the images of our vintagey ornaments that I posted last year around this time. Ooh, shiny…
Okay, I’m almost feeling it now. How about you? Maybe just one more?
The Santa tree topper…
Mid-December in the garden. You can tell we’ve been spared an early winter because the strawberry plants are just now turning color…
The lavender and rosemary are still happy, but the rosemary’s unlikely to make it through January…
Somehow, the Nicotiana (Flowering Tobacco) is still making flowers…
Euphorbia ‘Blackbird’ is psyched about the cooler temperatures, as is Dryopteris erythrosora ‘Brilliance’ (Autumn Fern)…
All three of the Cynara cardunculus (Cardoons) are growing like mad…
The Ratibida columnifera (Mexican Hat or prairie coneflowers) recently bloomed again…
And the bottlebrush flowers on the Sanguisorba tenuifolia ‘Alba’ (Great Burnet) are still hanging in there. Believe it or not, I spotted a few local die-hard honeybees on it just last week…
As usual, Sedum rupestre ‘Angelina’ is going gangbusters. Temperature doesn’t seem to affect it much. Although it hasn’t taken on its typical fall coloring yet…
New growth on the Acanthus molls (Bear’s Breeches) is about 3′ across now…
My poppies are suddenly popping up again. And the Conradina verticulata (White Cumberland Rosemary), Festuca glauca ‘Elijah Blue’ (Blue Fescue), Origanum libanoticum (Cascading Ornamental Oregano) and Euphorbia myrsinites (Donkeytail Spurge) are still green (click to biggify)…
Even though it hails from the Mediterranean, the Marrubium rotundifolium (Silver-Edged Horehound) still looks good — though it’s missing its namesake silver margins. At its fee, the Thymus Pseudolanuginosus (Wooly Thyme) is still thriving…
Turns out that if I wanted to, I could make holiday mojitos. The mint is still happy…
After I shot this, I ate the last two (wimpy-looking) raspberries…
Nom nom nom. That’s pretty much it for the season.
Thrilled with the rug I bought on a whim via West Elm’s deal of the day last week…
Perfect for Bix’s room and it only took two years to find it! 100% wool. No latex backing to outgas. For almost half price. Sometimes it pays to be spontaneous. It belongs with our crazy color scheme…
It’ll be a while before the cork floor goes down, so I just rolled it over the hideous carpeting. You didn’t think I’d wait, did you?
It’s 28 degrees this morning. Brrrrrrr. We’ve been trying to wrap things up outside for the season.
Like last year, that means chopping up our bagged leaves instead of dragging them out to the curb…
However, unlike last year, we now have an electric chipper…
Chops the leaves finer than the reel mower — better yet, it lets us chip all the oak branches that fall throughout the year and add them to the pile. Especially handy after a hurricane, lemme tell ya. We spread out the pile where it will remain under a tarp until late summer, when I’ll start using it around the plants…
I have to water less and the worms love it, so it must be working.
What else? Well, I sunk the pots of hardy lotus and waterlilies, then pulled all the water hyacinth and water lettuce out of the koi pond…
Those will be added to the compost pile. No need to waste them.
Now that the water temp is in the low 30s, we’re not supposed to feed the fish. Sorry, guys…
(Leaf net still up to keep debris out.) They get high-protein food in the warm season, but when the temperature drops below 50 they get low-protein food because their metabolism slows down. Guess that’s why they move more slowly, too. We’re not supposed to feed them again until the spring when the temperature goes back up again.
Have also been making hay — when the sun shines, of course…
Okay, we didn’t make it — and it’s not hay, it’s straw (no seeds). Picked up from Allie’s in North Kingstown. Which means we can now put the plants to bed. Like the hardy banana (Musa basjoo)…
Dare I leave it outside in New England all winter? Well, yes. Should be fine with some preparation. I wrapped it in burlap…
Then I padded it thickly with straw and tied it up tight…
I will wrap the whole thing up like a burrito to keep it dry for the winter as soon as my white tarp arrives. (White won’t heat up when the sun hits it, unlike green or black.)
I gave the bamboo a thick blanket of straw. The three Phyllostachys nigra (black bamboo)…
And all fifteen of my Fargesia rufa…
There are only a few spots around the yard that are still pretty barren looking. I covered this bed with straw to keep the bare soil from sliding downhill next spring when the rains hit…
Hopefully this will be grown in by this time next year and will not require prophylactic measures.
Last of all, I gave each of my five Japanese maples a little protection from the cold, drying winds that are on their way…
Wilt-Pruf is organic and biodegradable. Just mix it with water…
Then spray it on and it coats the branches to hold in moisture. Good for azaleas and rhodos, too, if you have them…
You probably can’t tell the difference, but the Acer Palmatum ‘Crimson Queen’ can. She says thank you and see you in the spring.
Okay, time to order path lighting for the outside so people don’t break their necks trying to get around out there. These lights are specifically for the steps and we really only need a few out front and back.
After tons of poking around for something that’s not over-designed (“i’m an attention hog, do not look away from me!!”) and not too out-there (omg it’s like makers think the word “modern” = quirky and hideous), plus not too delicate (this house calls for something beefy, not slender) etc., I’ve finally located two options that are not only modern and minimal but pretty affordable!
First, this simple right-angled path light in aluminum…
From the Atlantis Collection made by Hinkley Lighting, it’s available in bronze, hermatite or titanium finish…
Or this angled path light from their Piza collection, also in aluminum…
Available in bronze and titanium finish…
I think either style could work. Our house has both right angles and angley angles…
Ah, remember summer when it was warm and the garden was just starting to take off?
Anyway, whaddya think? Angle or right angle? Bronze would blend into the scenery the best. Titanium would almost but not quite go with the aluminum window frames and flashing, as well as the galvanized aluminum planter boxes and steps. Decisions, decisions.
If you’ve been following along, the new heat was installed a week or so ago. Then came time to get it running. Jeff from RAM Mechanical came back to commission the HVAC system. First he checked that the 100 psi of nitrogen he put in the lines hadn’t leaked out…
Next he double-checked all the wiring. Once he was sure everything was good to go, he turned it on. There was a problem with the amount of refrigerant in the compressor — it was charged assuming 150′ of pipe but we only had 52′, so the pressure got too high and everything shut down. A couple of phone calls later we had the right amount of pressure and things were heating up nicely.
Until we start on the upstairs construction and tear out the old electric baseboard, these two thermostats will be neighbors. 1971 meet 2011…
The new thermostat is also a remote control… or is it a remote control that’s also a thermostat? It has all the features you might want except it’s not programmable to automatically reduce energy use during different times of the day…
It does have a night-time setback mode which gradually reduces energy use (raising the temp in cooling season, lowering the temp in heating season), but it’s manual mode. We’ll see if there are any other thermostat options available for this system.
In any event, the new Sanyo units produce plenty of heat, the fans are very quiet even on high, and we can’t hear the compressor run. So far so good, we’ll see what the electric bill has to say next month.
I mentioned the other day that our custom flashing deserved its own post. And so be it.
Joe and I examined the details we received from the architect and came up with three profiles to flash all the door and window openings. Joe is an expert at keeping water out of houses and he suggested using metal .040″ thick for its longevity. We chose mill-finish aluminum so it would blend in with our clear anodized aluminum window and door frames. [It’s also available in white, bronze (really just brown) and green — and it’s paintable — we won’t be painting ours.]
I left the ordering of the flashing a bit late and ended up having to pick up 4′ x 10′ sheets of aluminum at Beacon Roofing. Now .040″ doesn’t sound that thick (it’s just over 1/32″), but it’s stiff enough that Beacon couldn’t roll all three aluminum sheets together! I delivered the sheets to James at Renaissance Cornice. We went over the design (drawings below) and he bent them up on his CNC metal brake the night before we needed them. The night before! Man. Thanks, James!
The window flashing turned out pretty great…
Here’s the concept showing how it will extend over the siding which isn’t back on the house yet…
The flashing for the sides and top of the openings will align with the sill flashing and make a frame around the doors and windows…
Because the downstairs slider opens onto a patio, we took extra care to install it in an even more waterproof manner. Joe designed a clever interlocking flashing system…
One piece goes up the face of the house and then under the bottom of the slider where it will get bent up to keep out any water that makes it in there…
The other piece goes down the face of the house and then tucks under, shedding water onto a large piece of lead flashing between the wood framing and the concrete slab. Why lead? It lasts forever. The concern is with the ground so close, snow and ice could build up and then melt and sneak inside. We’ll use this same profile for the rest of the exterior doors on the house.
We won’t get to the full exterior of the house this year, obviously. But because the deck-end siding had to come off to add the new windows, we should think about color before we re-side. I’ve always imagined that once the paint is planed off of the redwood that we’d go dark grey, setting off the insets with a natural (brown) wood shade — stain, not paint, so we can still see the wood grain.
But what if we took a quick look at a few color possibilities?
ORIGINAL EXTERIOR, 1972
When I say “insets,” I’m referring to the cutouts in the outer envelope — around the front door + the full height of the deck-end…
And around the back door…
CURRENT EXTERIOR, 2011
Now let’s try to picture a few possibilities…
GREY ENVELOPE, COLORFUL INSET
Probably too dramatic for our house but it sure does look cool…
pull house, taylor and miller architecture and design | dwell.com
los feliz residence, warren techentin architecture | archdaily.com
I know, the color is only on the window frames (our new frames are all silver aluminum), but you get the idea.
park residence, MACK architecs | archdaily.com
DARK ENVELOPE, WHITE INSET
scape house, andrew simpson architects | archdaily.com
humbug, kebbel daish architects ltd. | archdaily.com
zen garden house, david jay wiener architect | architectural record
GREY ENVELOPE, WHITE INSET
private house, weinstein vaadia architects | archdaily.com
BROWN ENVELOPE, WHITE INSET
minimum house, scheidt kasprusch architekten | archdaily.com
richmond house, rachcoff vella architecture | archdaily.com
DARK ENVELOPE, BROWN INSET
kerr ritchie house, kerr ritchie architects | dwell.com
(I am also including this shot from the interior, because the shape of the inset is almost exactly like ours…)
kerr ritchie house, kerr ritchie architects | dwell.com
rubber house, cityforster | archdaily.com
LIGHT GREY ENVELOPE, BROWN INSET
texas hill road residence, incorporated architecture and design | architizer.com
genolier house, lrs architects | contemporist.com
BROWN ENVELOPE, DARK GRAY INSET
dorsey residence, coates design architects | houzz.com
Off to look at stains later today!
This is where we left off with windows. Now here’s where we pick up… The problem with just-in-time construction is it doesn’t allow for falling behind.
Tuesday we tried to stay ahead of the window and door installers by at least one opening. Here’s Joe applying house-wrap over the new foam+plywood and frames on the upstairs portion of the back wall…
Joe installed the custom flashing, bending it up at the inside corners and then sealing it down with super-duper tape…
Tape? For obvious reasons, you don’t want to put any fasteners through flashing — water has a way of getting into places you thought it couldn’t. The trick to keeping it out is to seal everything from the bottom up in order to shed the water back out. Bad flashing details can trap water and then it’s perfectly happy to cause mold, mildew and rot — not something we want.
Next up: the two big fixed window frames. Waiting to go in, no glass in them yet…
The aluminum window frames are thermally broken (they have a non-metallic connector between the inside and outside faces to limit heat transfer) but are ordinarily installed hollow. Joe and I decided leaving them hollow was a missed opportunity to be more energy-efficient, so I ripped 3/4″ EPS on the table saw to fit and we jammed it in there…
Once the window frames were installed level and square (which was easy because we made the extension frames level and square), butyl rubber got applied to the inside face of the frame…
Close-up of the frame almost ready for the glass…
I was an honorary glass man for the day, helping hoist the new panels into place with a fancy suction cup handle. Those suckers were HEHVEE….
Joe was the balance man…
Once the glass was in against the butyl rubber, aluminum stops were snapped in on the outside and a rubber gasket was driven in-between the stops and the glass. No fasteners show so there’s a nice clean look.
That slot in the aluminum stop is a weep hole to let water out in case the wind drives it in there…
Each glass panel has a low-e coating on the inner piece of glass (“lite” in technical jargon). It acts as sort of a one-way system for radiant heat — heat from the sun can come in but can’t get back out…
The new sliders look great, perform great and slide like butter on a hot pan…
A bump stop goes in at the top of the slider to keep fingers from being crushed…
Digging the nice, clean look of the door hardware…
All in all, looking great from the outside…
But wait — not done yet! The gaps between the window and door frames and the house need to be filled. Caulk can bridge small gaps just fine but bigger gaps require that foam backer rod stuffed in. This stops the caulk from falling in to the gap…
Joe picked up a tube of this at Home Depot…
DO NOT use this. It stank to high heaven and smelled up the whole house even though it clearly says “V.O.C. compliant.” Not good. I’ll find something braincell-friendlier for the rest of the project.
So here’s the finished caulking job. The caulk is clear so it’s hard to tell what’s happening but I promise it’s in there. You can clearly see the backer rod!
Backer rod didn’t fill the really big gaps at the tops of the two big windows so I put blue tape across them, pushed in a bit to leave room for caulk…
Then I filled all the gaps with expanding foam from the inside. The smaller gaps now have caulk or backer rod and caulk to stop the foam. The big gaps have the blue tape for the foam to expand up against. Soon I’ll strip the tape and caulk them from the outside, easy peasy.
And that, my friends, was a long day.
Back in the spring we started looking at manufacturers of aluminum windows and ultimately chose Arcadia. About three months ago, we put in our order for the first round of windows. As of yesterday morning, replacement of the windows and sliders on just the deck-end of the house finally kicked off.
Did I say “just”? It took four people from Rhode Island Glass to unload it all…
While the shiny new goods were unloaded, Joe and David got the window wall ready to go by removing the moldings holding in the old wood frames…
Goodbye, moldings. I will not miss you. You make no sense in an MCM house that wants a cleaner, simpler look…
The crew from Rhode Island Glass carefully removed the old glass. Mind you, they’re standing on scaffolding one flight off the ground and the glass weighs a gazillion pounds…
Like that’s not hard enough, the two panes started to separate from each other. Nice. Somehow they lowered it to the ground and carted the whole business up-slope without injuring themselves. Goodbye, cloudy old glass…
David and Joe worked upstairs, installing the wood frames to extend the openings out flush with the face of the 3″ foam+plywood, while the crew worked downstairs…
Newly fitted window box complete. The giant windows on both sides of the central slider were resized about 12″ narrower in width…
… to accommodate future built-ins planned to run along the walls of the upstairs livingroom. The cabinetry needs a solid wall to die into…
Over the foam+plywood went a layer of house-wrap to keep out the elements. Joe carefully detailed the openings prior to windows…
The house-wrap was then topped off by custom-made aluminum flashing…
[The flashing deserves its own post — it’s pretty special.]
The downstairs slider went in and then the window. Full pics tomorrow…
Before the day came to a close, Joe and David had all four of the upper window and door extensions fully adhered, leveled and screwed into place…
But there just wasn’t enough time to get windows and sliders in upstairs. Although David wrapped the openings in anticipation of last night’s storminess, at 1:30 the gusts, how you say, compromised the plastic…
… and the storm found its way in. Nothing like fixing things in the middle of the night to make you tired for round two the next day…
You can hardly wait to find out how it all ends, right?