There are two considerations in making home finish decisions: what you want and what the house wants. By the time the finishes are being completed, the house will tell you what fits, or not.
Category Archive: Construction
“Big Stuff” and House Flooring Decisions 🏡
Home construction includes a variety of “big” things. Perhaps the most pivotal is the flooring, because it covers the house, is used every day and is mostly permanent. This is about our floor decisions.
Choosing Recessed LED “Can” Lights
A friend who is a few months behind us in their home project reached out to ask a few questions about choosing recessed LED can lights for their new home.
Designing a Network for New Home Construction
When building a new house, it’s worth considering whether or not to run ethernet networking and if so, what products may work best. This is our plan.
Smart Lights, Smart Home 💡🏡
Our final decisions on smart home lighting and home automation options for our house on Orcas Island.
The Thermal Imager for Radiant Heat
Today at the construction site the team was putting down a subfloor over the radiant heating tubes that will warm our house. One of the risks of having tubes of water in your floor is one of them getting punctured when flooring goes down. This is especially true once...
Then and Now 📷 🏡
The post below was sent as an issue of my newsletter, Ready for Rain. I’ve taken thousands of photos of the house project, mostly from my phone and drone. In isolation, they look like any other house photo, a point in time without context. One can only get so excited...
Puzzle Pieces 🧩 and 🍕
The post below was sent as an issue of my newsletter, Ready for Rain. On the ferries we take to the mainland, there are often puzzles on tables for anyone who wants to pass the time. What most short-term puzzlers on the boat don’t know is that some of the puzzles have...
Preparing Drywall for Paint 🧹🧽
Before the house could be painted, the dust from level 5 drywall had to be removed and it was a much bigger challenge that I expected and it put a strain on our relationship.
Masking and Painting The House 🎨
We are doing the painting on the house project, which ended up being a much bigger job than I expected.
Designing Our Blackened-Steel Fireplace 🔥
Our fireplaces are the heart of our house and an element we took great care to design.
Shou Sugi Ban Siding – Fortified by Fire 🔥
The siding for our house is Japanese cypress that has been charred to make it more resilient and beautiful. It’s called “Shou Sugi Ban” or “yakisugi”.
Before Drywall -Did We Get It Right?
The race is on. A couple of weeks ago, Drew, our contractor, set a date for our house to be insulated. We’re using spray foam insulation, which creates a hardened shell in the spaces in the walls. It also locks into place years of decisions and the work of...
What to Consider Before Drywall is Installed 🤔 🏡
Once the drywall goes up, a lot of decisions become harder to change. We tried our best to think ahead and avoid any changes.
Rolling Out Our Metal Roof 🏡
Our house was designed to have a metal standing seam roof and I was not clear about how, exactly, the roof panels would be delivered and applied. It turns out they are formed on-site.
Mindfulness and Just One Thing 💦🌲
I decided to try being more mindful and focused on one thing at a time. It didn’t go well.
A Cabin the PNW Woods
It's a familiar story. Two friends decide to build a cabin in the woods where they can get away from desk jobs and spend time away from the city. These stories often cover the same territory: the dream runs headlong into reality. The story below is no different, but...
Rolling Out the Roof
You've probably seen metal roofs on houses. They usually have "standing seams" like this: The roof on our house will be no different. In fact, it's one of our only options because the slope of the roof is so flat. For us, it's exactly what we need. A metal roof can...
What is a Rain Screen for a House?
Before siding was applied, our house was striped with wooden supports. These are there to create a rain screen that’s designed not to trap moisture.
Cedar, Big Enough, and Boats 🌲📔🚤
A snapshot of summer 2020 when we were staining cedar for the house, preparing to publish a book, and spending a lot of time on the Salish Sea.