From sledding hill to luge track

The neighborhood kids were disappointed that we built a house on their sledding hill, so we decided to put in a luge track on the sides of the house! 

Well not quite… We are having a landscape company put in some drainage swales (essentially rocky river beds) on each side of the house to help with drainage from the backyard down to the street. We were worried about the winter precipitation and the amount of damage the runoff could do if we didn’t control it. 

  

The south side of the house yesterday afternoon. 

 

 The south side of the house this afternoon.

The north side of the house yesterday afternoon.

 The north side of the house at lunch today. 

 

 

The north side of the house this afternoon. They work quickly! They mixed some malapai boulders and larger rocks in with the granite...looks good! The black weed fabric will keep the river from getting muddy and weeds from growing up through the rocks.

The landscape company is also putting in a few rock walls in the front yard to make our dirt bank a little more exciting. We will wait until the spring to put in trees, bushes, flowers, gravel, etc. They work quickly and are good at using picks to move all of the pesky rocks that we have in the yard.

Plenty of activity in the front yard!

 

The big pile on the sidewalk is the granite rip rap for the river swales that was delivered this morning. 

 

 

 The little trough is for the irrigation system. More work with the pick! 

We went from practically nothing happening on the house Tuesday to at least 10 guys working on various projects on Wednesday. That makes it feel like the construction is progressing much faster! The concrete company seemed to be motivated by the approaching winter weather and decided to start the driveway this week after all. They scraped the driveway to get down to the right level and agree on the layout with us. They brought in a load of ABC as fill for under the concrete and compacted it all.

They poured the sidewalk and approach this morning. This has to be a separate pour because the city require special concrete for their sidewalk!  

 

 

 Was warm and sunny during the pour, so hopefully all goes well! It's a different company doing the driveway; the guys who did the garage slab didn't really want to come back and do the driveway for us.

 They covered the sidewalk and driveway for the evening to keep it warm and let the concrete cure properly. The PVC for gutter downspouts under the driveway will go in tomorrow, then the insulation and PEX tubing can go in over the weekend (if it doesn't snow too much!). We will cover the driveway with blankets to keep the ground from freezing, and with plastic to keep it dry from the snow and rain. Hopefully it clears up next week and we can pour the driveway!

The painters finally started caulking the outside of the house. But it's slow work because they have to wait for the sun to hit the spots they want to do since it's so cold out now! 

 

They guys were back today finishing up some of the stone work. They added the little cap row of stones on the top of the columns. 

The painters sprayed primer on the drywall so that we could find all of the spots that still needed sanding or drywall touch up. It's amazing how much more you can see when it's primed and you have a bright light! They whole house looks pretty white now...maybe that's a good color to pick for the walls and ceiling:)

We designed our closet layouts the other day and Marcus started building the shelves. Looks like it'll take a few more days and fine tuning!

Dealing with Mud

They're busy putting mud on the drywall in the house (the white kind at least!) and we're figuring out how to deal with the mud in the front yard!

The walls now have texture. Apparently smooth drywall is not common out here like it is on the east coast. We chose the rounded drywall corners and the 80/20 texture. This is about as smooth as they like to make it out here (it's harder and more expensive the smoother you go).

 

 

 

 A view from the stairs makes the great room ceiling look very tall!

They've been working on finishing up the rock work.

The corner on the back of the house is still in progress. 

The chimney is done and the front corner just needs a top cap.

The next big decision is tile. We're working on the master bath design. We are going to use Kashmir White granite (there's a little square in the photo) for 3 walls and tile the 4th wall. We like the glass and rock tile mixture shown on the left, with some of the little red tiles mixed in. The large cream tile below will be the floor. Does it all go together?

We've been talking with a landscaper to figure out what to do with the front yard. We would like to get some hardscape done before winter since the muddy front yard will only get worse with the wet weather. The landscaper is quite a character, but he seems to do great work and comes highly recommended. He showed us several yards that he has landscaped. They were all pretty impressive.

 Stairs made of malapai

A river trough with granite rip rap like what we will need on the sides of the house to help with drainage. 

 

 

A beautiful malapai wall with various size rocks and plants intermixed. This is what we are hoping to do along the front yard of our house. 

 

 More stairs made of flagstone. The yard is covered in half inch cinnamon colored stone.

 

More stairs and rocky river on a steep lot.

 

 Malapai rock and plants make the yard look fairly natural.

Paint Colors

 

The big decision now is what color we should paint the house? The chimney is almost finished and the rest of the rock work is in progress. The drywall is going quickly. They are done taping and the first two coats of mudding, the finish coat should happen this week.

 The painters painted two test colors that we chose. The trim will be the dark brown color to match the gutters (we had limited choices for gutter colors). We wanted to keep the house a lighter color to be more friendly with the brutal sun here in Arizona. The two tan colors that we picked are pretty similar. If you look closely, the top three siding pieces are painted in a lighter brown which is called dormer brown, and the bottom three pieces are dry dock. Which do you like better? It has to match the malapai rock below, the brown trim, the red windows and the rusty metal siding.

Quite a job to reach the top of the chimney!

We bought the rigid foam (XPS) to use as insulation under the driveway.  

A few photos of the drywall progress...

And some exterior progress photos from last week...