Backfill, framing, Mike & Denny

Front (east) and south (window) sides of cottage after backfill.

Click on photos to enlarge.

South side of house. Framing for walk-out basement is completed.

Front (east) looking down on basement and west toward lake.

West side of cottage with walk-out basement.

Bonnie and Mike discussing options.

Looking W toward lake. Openings for double glass doors & utility room window.


Bonnie

Builder Mike Tribolet
Would you trust this man to build YOUR home?

Neighbor Denny Dull shooting the breeze with Bonnie.

We were very surprised and delighted to see the progress made this week on the cottage. Most of the backfill had been completed and the grade was not nearly as steep as we had feared it would be. The land had been leveled on the west side of the cottage near the opening to the walk-out basement which will keep the rain from pouring into the basement. The appearance of the cottage after this week's dozer work exceeded our expectations.

It was agreed that window wells would be needed. This will prevent Kathy (who is shorter than Bonnie) from having the best of views looking south from the basement. Mike was purchasing the window wells on his way home Wednesday to install Thursday.

While doing the backfill, an older tile was unearthed into which the perimeter drainage tile can be tied. This is the same tile mentioned in an earlier post which was discovered while putting in the leech bed and into which the perimeter drain for the bed will drain. Tying in the perimeter tile may take some doing since it is currently lower than the older tile. The great thing about finding this tile is that there is no longer a need to trench and run the perimeter tile out into the woods. It has saved extra excavating and expense twice now. Had the cottage been built further east on the property as originally planned, this tile would have gone undiscovered and left unused for the perimeter drainage. But in situating the house further west and having the walk-out basement, it was found when additional excavating was needed for the retaining walls and to level the area outside the walk-out basement.

Rick Bauer still needs to set the septic tank and finish the backfilling. With the majority of the backfilling completed, he can now set the tanks. He will need to finish the backfilling after the retaining walls are poured. The retaining walls can now be poured because the excavating that needed to be done for that part of the project has been completed.

Denny and Barbara were in their yard while we were talking to Mike so we waved them over for a visit. They are expecting their third grandchild very shortly.

Our flooring samples arrived yesterday and Kathy loves the cork. She also loves the hand-scraped bamboo, just not the light color sample that came. While at lunch at Moosewood yesterday, Bonnie and Kathy talked to a man whose hobby is bamboo. There was much discussion about bamboo flooring, and the samples (which were taken into the restaurant) were studied, with pros and cons debated.

The samples were brought out again and shared with Barbara and Denny, and Barbara gave her stamp of approval to the cork. Denny and Bonnie discussed how to cut the flooring and Kathy is hoping they can tempt Denny into helping to lay the flooring when the time comes. It needs no underlayment and is a floating floor. The sections are fairly large, 1' x 3', so should go down quickly. No gluing...just snaps into place. Should be simple to install. They are insulating, sound-deadening, and will work with radiant floor heating Bonnie would like to install down the road.

The interior colors we picked out from Safecoat: Discover, Mist, Satya, Prana, Autumn and Namaste, all look GREAT with the flooring. Our maple dining set and ash pie safe also look wonderful with the flooring, which is Enviro-Cork from Simple Floors and the color is Vision. We will try to upload the colors and the flooring.

Thursday note: Kathy was able to download color samples of the paint colors and flooring but the pictures, when posted, looked nothing like the samples; i.e., a beautiful pale green with some yellow in it looked gray. So it is doubtful that photos will be uploaded.