A little roof repairing was the order of business today. A commercial roof on a garage in Columbus had been damaged by some of the recent storms. We used a Polymer Modified Bitumen, commonly called torch-down rolled roofing, to patch the problem areas on the roof. While I would never recommend installing a new roof without removing the old roofing material, torching down a patch will solve the problem until later on in the season when the customer can have the entire roof replaced.

Ceiling Day 7

A few more pictures as we continue on with the ceiling in Nelsonville.

Kitchen

Of all the kitchens I have worked on this one is my favorite. To be honest it was my favorite kitchen in Hide-A-Way Hills before we remodeled it. The fireplace, antique tin ceiling, and pickled cabinets were already there when w started. The Owners wanted to add an island and the existing cabinet arrangement did not provide enough space.

We began by removing some of the existing cabinetry along with the ceramic tile floor. New oak hardwood floor was then installed to match the dining room so the two spaces could flow together. Granite counter tops were then installed over the cabinets that remained as well as the new island and redesigned sink area. Low voltage pendant track lighting and recessed can lights finished the project.

Hand Split Shake Siding

Today in Nelsonville we're back to applying urethane to the next load of tongue and groove pine so I thought it might be a good time to go back and take a look at a siding project we finished a couple of years ago.
Being a vacation home the owners had decided that they would rather spend time enjoying Hide-A-Way Hills while they were here rather than the maintenance of the exterior. The siding they chose to use is a vinyl product manufactured by Alcoa in their Discovery line. The resemblance to wood hand split shakes is so close that many people can't tell the difference. To complement the Pebble stone Clay of the siding all the wood around the windows and doors was covered with White custom aluminum trim. White soffit, fascia, and seamless gutters completed the job.
The combination of Pebble Stone Clay shakes and White trim give the House, Boat House, and Unattached Garage, the Lakefront Cottage look we desired. The choice of Vinyl and aluminum will provide years of maintenance free beauty.

Ceiling Day 5

With a week of working with tongue and groove pine under our belts we have the front half of the ceiling installed, the master dormer and master bath ceiling done. We now are ready for another load of lumber to start applying urethane.

Ceiling day 4

Today we worked our way up into the loft of the master bed room and started working on the dormer.

Ceiling day 3

Today we made some more progress on the ceiling. The peak is 21' from the floor of the living room and as we get closer to the top the work goes a little slower.

Ceiling day 2

Today we worked on the area where the roof lines of the front porch and the house come together. This compound mitre proved to be tricky but provided an excellent look.

Wood Ceiling

We have began installing the tongue and groove pine ceiling at the Nelsonville new build. As we work on it over the next several days I will post pictures of the progress.

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Floors

I thought I would take a look at a floor project we installed last year. It was really four projects, three tile floors and one hardwood.



We started with the tile in the kitchen. The owners wanted a custom design and they opted for a clipped 12"x12" blue floor tile with a 4"x4" cobalt wall tile laid at 45 degrees. In the bath we repeated the same pattern with white instead of blue.



Three inch wide oak hardwood was the choice for the dining / living room. To define the living room space, and to keep the project in the budget we were working with, we made an island of carpet surrounded by the hardwood.

Basement Osage Lane

Soon after we completed the home on Osage Lane, the owner asked us to come back and start a new project in his basement. We had about 1,500 square feet to work with so we had ample area to create the living space he desired. The library panel wainscoting, stair wall, and bar were all hand crafted on site using solid Poplar. The fireplace uses propane gas logs and is direct vented through the wall. The same 12"x12" ceramic floor tile in the bar area was repeated in the curved hearth at the fireplace.

Polyurathane

The cathedral ceilings and some of the walls are going to be finished with tongue and groove pine barn-siding at our Nelsonville new build. We opted for a natural finish to let the grains and colors of the wood show through. Two coats of water based Polyurethane were applied to protect the wood. The Clear Satin finish will give the pine a light golden tone and allow it to naturally darken over the years to come.

A-Frame

In the summer of 2005, we took on a remodel addition project on H-A-H Lane in Hide-A-Way Hills.The owners had bought an a-frame cabin that had been unoccupied for several years. As with a lot of projects of this type, the scope of the job expanded as it went on. What started out relatively small, snowballed into a major reconstruction as we found more things needed replacing. It might almost have been less expensive to tear it down and build a new house, but we wouldn't have ended up with a home with anywhere near the character of this one. By project completion we had accomplished the following:
-Built a dormer,installed skylights, and re roofed the house.
-Built a 16'x16' addition on a basement.
-Put in all new plumbing. electrical, and a furnace.
-Installed new windows and doors.
-Created a brand new kitchen and bath.
-Covered the ceilings with tongue and groove pine and the floors with oak hardwood.
-Built over 400 sq. ft of new decks.

Garage Door Opener

The garage door openers we installed at our Nelsonville new build are Wayne-Dalton I-Drive units. The I-Drive is an opener that mounts on the wall above the door and lifts the door by turning the torsion tubes.

In theory the I-Drive is great. It takes less space there's no unit hanging from the ceiling in the middle of the garage, it runs faster, quieter, and has less vibration. The manufacturer advertises a quick easy installation.

In practice the I-Drive is so finicky it's almost unusable. The door must be in perfect balance to operate, the door may work fine by hand and the opener still won't work properly. It has a built-in locking mechanism that is also problematic, one opener still won't lock at all. The one hour installation advertised turned into four or five. I have installed many other types off openers, screw, chain and belt drives, without any of the problems experienced here.

I hadn't used the I-Drive before, I tried them on the recommendation of a fellow contractor. I will never use them again, and strongly advise against them. I will admit that I made the mistake of not researching this product before we used it. Research since has shown mountains of bad experiences with the Wayne-Dalton product.

To see what others think about the I-Drive go to http://www.pricegrabber.com/rating_getprodrev.php/product_id=15255583/id_type=M/

Drywall

Today we began to hang some of the drywall at our new build in Nelsonville. Most homes today have all the walls and ceilings finished with drywall. Our home owners have opted to only use drywall on only about 15% of the walls and ceilings. Normally I contract out drywall work, but with such a small amount we decided to tackle it ourselves. Its not one of my favorite parts of the building process to do but it is satisfying because when the drywall is up the framing starts to look like rooms.

To learn more about drywall go to http://usg.com/

First Project

Back in the summer of 2002, I resigned from Apco Sidings, a company I had worked at for 18 years. I started Scott Martin Construction and began work on our first project a new home on Osage Lane, here in Hide-A-Way Hills, Ohio.

Hand framing, custom cabinetry, tongue & groove pine ceilings, and tiled and hardwood floors are some of the architectural features that have become a standard in our work.

Steps

The Steps were built today on the front porch of the Nelsonville New build. The most important things to consider when building steps or stairs is the rise and run. The rise is the difference in height from tread to tread. The run is the distance from the front of one tread to the front of the next. I try to build all my stairs as close to a 7" rise and a 9" run as I can. My goal when completed is a set of stairs that provide comfort and safety for years to come.

Foundation

Over the last few days we have been doing punch list work,finishing up odds and ends, at the new build in Nelsonville. We want to finish up all of the little jobs before we move on to the next step of applying the tongue and groove pine to the ceiling and walls. While this punch work is important, I don't particularly want to write about it. I thought that it would be better to go back to the beginning of the build and catch up.

We hired a local excavator to cut in the driveway, clear the space for the house, and dig the basement. After 10"x24" concrete footers were poured, my masons came in and built the basement walls using 8" concrete block. The walls were then grouted, a process in which concrete and steel reinforcing is inserted into the voids of the block, to add strength and stability.

Fireplace

A cold snap has settled in in Southeastern Ohio, and has presented some challenges in building a Masonary Fireplace here on the Nelsonville new build. We basically had to erect a tent to enclose the entire chimney and scaffold, then heat it with kerosene space heaters.

There will be two fireplaces built side by side, one in the kitchen and the other one outside in the screened porch. They are being constructed with concrete block and will be covered with cultured stone. It's hard to see what we're doing outside because of the tent, but the inside fireplace can be seen here before the stone was applied.

Insulation

As the temperatures in Southeastern Ohio have dropped to single digit lows it seems like a good time to talk about the insulation in our new-build in Nelsonville.

The insulation process is one of the many steps in the building of a home that can not be seen in the finished product, but can be felt, if done improperly in both comfort and high heating bills.

The exterior walls were built using 2x6 studs. This allowed us to use an R19 un-faced bat insulation. We then covered the insulation with polyethylene to serve as a vapor barrier and to prevent drafts.

The cathedral ceilings were built using 2x12 rafters. To ventilate the roof we first installed a baffle vent on the underside of the roof plywood. The insulation installed is an r30 incapsulated bat product manufactured by Johns Manville. The plastic encapsulation will prevent drafts while also keeping the dust and fibers out of the air during installation.

For more information on insulation go to http://jm.com/insulation

Tile Shower

A few days ago I posted an article about the shower pan installed in the basement finish on Otto court. The photos above show both the shower pan before the tile as well as the finished tiled and grouted project.

Six inch tile was installed on the shower floor in a 45 degree checker board pattern of tan and brown. The walls were finished with 12" tile, brown on the bottom and tan on the top, separated by a 2" accent strip. Available inventory of stock tiles at home centers allows virtually unlimited patterns and designs for homeowners at a relatively inexpensive costs.

Bar

I

t's that time of year again. As has been tradition for the past 20 years, I'm having a Super Bowl Party! With Super Bowl Sunday right around the corner it's time to finish The Bar, which was started in the summer.

The Bar was constructed out of a 100 year old barn door. A friend of mine found it leaning against the back of his garage when he bought his house. When I saw it, I knew exactly what I wanted to do with it.

The top was tiled with random multi- colored slate that has been sitting in a box for years and years out at my dad's. He found it in an old barn at his dad's, and I thought I should use it before my sons inherited it.

The custom pool table light was constructed using 30 empty Jagermeister bottles. The design was inspired by some Corona lights I saw in a seedy bar when on a cruise in Aruba. While I didn't drink all the Jagermeister myself, I did do my fair share.