As the inner workings of our house and the most important part (plumbing, heating and electrical) are put in place the house seems to see little visual changes on a daily basis. However when something visually substantial arrives there’s much reason to get excited and today was one of those days.

The stairs and deck railing are one of the pieces that are designed and built to be a showcase piece of the house. So the arrival of the first images of their construction were highly anticipated. Our architect Michael Huber had designed the center wall of the stairs to be one continuous metal structure, running the height of the stairs. However, instead of being a solid wall with obstructed views the stairs were designed and built out of an open grid of metal that would allow light to pass from section to section. The engineer and fabricator of the stairs Grant Leum then improved upon the idea by making the divider wall out of 3/4″ perforated metal. This circular grid pattern was then repeated on the risers of the stairs, the posts of the deck railing and the mid-level landing itself. All the steel will be covered with a clear coat so the natural beauty of the metal can be seen.
In order to contrast the rugged a raw nature of the steel the treads will be made out of 3/4″ Birch Plywood and the 4′x6′ landing will be made of glass. This was an idea that I had to make the landing have an almost surreal feeling to it, as you are forced to step out onto what apears to be nothing in order to proceed up or down the stairs. I quickly learned that the type of glass that is needed for this type of a structural element is by no means cheap and was one of the few splurge items in the house.

The divider that will separate the the two runs of stairs.

A close up on the 3/4″ perforated steel.

A section of deck railing with the perforated steel.

the 4′ x 6′

If you ever have the joy of building or working with the trades people you will quickly find out that there are unique practices among each group. When it comes to plumbers they seem to be broken into two groups: those that require you to buy all the plumbing fixtures through them and those who don’t. Since we were dead set on picking our own products it was important that we find one that was willing to work with what we purchased. Fortunately for us, we also found one that is reliable and does great work — Marque Plumbing, a Father and son owned business out of Stillwater, MN.

When it comes to modern design, plumbing fixtures seem to be an area of distinction. From toilets to towel bars there are so many options available in classic designs but a very limited selection of clean lined and modern ones. This was the very reason that we wanted to be able to pick just the right fixtures. The trouble is that many of those options are priced well out my largely modest price range or often times designed for European specifications. Fortunately in my effort to find water-saving toilets I stumbled on to TOTO plumbing fixtures. Although they do not exclusively offer modern looking fixtures they do have one of the most extensive collection of lines that fit this description. Outside of a couple of sinks that we had purchased from various online sources all of our plumbing fixtures as well as the various fit and finishes (towel bars, toilet paper holders etc.) are TOTO products.

Of all the plumbing products we looked at there is one item that we are considering that will require a bit more specialty installation and would be something new for our family. A few years back I read that toilet paper is one of the least environmentally friendly consumer products used my almost all Americans, both from a natural resources as well as waste water treatment perspective. Since that time I’ve made sure that we buy non-scented and pattern free tissue paper products as well as trying to purchase those with recycled content. So when I saw that TOTO offered a product called the Washlet that works something like a hybrid between a toilet seat and a bidet and could significantly reduce our need for tissue paper products, I was pretty interested in the concept. Check out their very informative, fairly light hearted site cleanishappy.com (if your are easily offended be warned, they do show a few butts at the beginning). From my understand they could probably add environmentally friendly to there list of reasons to own one.

the sleek sophisticated lines of the Soiréé shower head we will
use for the master bath.

The Mercer shower head with its simple rounded lines and
modern simplicity will look great in the boys bathroom.

Our house got it’s hat this week. The roof panels capped off the building and brought some visual definition to the structure. This step of the process certainly made some of the rooms look a lot smaller in size. Normally with a pitched roof this closed in feeling doesn’t come until the sheet rock goes on the ceiling but since our roof is flat and made of OSB the placements of the roof panels created this feeling immediately.

From the street the house is really starting to look like the original renderings. I know that this statement is bit ridiculous as this is ultimately the goal but when you’ve been looking at it on paper for so long, seeing it in real life is a bit of surreal feeling.

This week we’re playing a bit of a game again with the weather as the rain seems to never end lately, I can only imagine what it’s like to build in a place like Seattle. However, If all goes well and we with the war with the weather we should be putting the windows in by the end of the week the next major milestone.

Corey Benedict, Steve Berget and Rick Becker (the boom truck operator)
who is an expert in SIPs panel installs prepare a roof panel to be placed.

Rick Fastens down the hook that is used to hoist the panel in place
these things are not light.

The tower gets it’s hat and the house has it’s final form


the lines of the house look most distinct looking East, towards
the deck and tower.

This weekend we ventured north to Duluth, MN to visit the Duluth Timber Company. Our kitchen design calls for a 15 foot breakfast bar that we had originally planned to construct out of Birch plywood. Our cabinet maker Matt Eastvold from Eastvold Custom Woodworks had suggested that a really cool, very “green” friendly option would be to utilize a reclaimed wood timber. Matt had lived in Duluth a few years back and had become familiar with the Duluth Timber Company and worked with their products to create stunning reclaimed timber table that graced the pages of Dwell magazine. My interest was peaked enough that we made plans to take a tour of the facilities and learn more about the use of reclaimed wood.

Located on a dirt road on a man made peninsula on Lake Superior, The Duluth Timber company sits in the shadows of a Georgia Pacific paper plant and an old General Mills building. The 900 foot long corrugated steel building, is surrounded by the architectural remnants from timber framed buildings from around the country and beyond.

We had arranged to meet with the Duluth Timber Company’s Peter Krieger. A former Twin Cities native and timber frame industry expert, who had been lured North to work with the nationals greatest collection of reclaimed timbers. We met at the gates of the facilities early on Saturday morning and made our way down the rows upon rows of Heart Pine, Douglas Fir and the occasional pieces of luxurious Redwood. Peter provided as a guided tour of the facilities along with a short history lesson on both the facility and the logging industry in the U.S.

What may be even more impressive than the size and volume of these timbers are the stories of their origin. Although the lumbering industry had been booming in the U.S. for well over a century, many of the timbers reclaimed today come from buildings constructed during WWII. The abundance of wood and the need for steel for the war effort made timbers an invaluable resource in the construction of military, government and civilian buildings alike. Amazingly, Peter has a catalog of all the timbers on-site and can tell you a little bit about almost any piece of wood you may take a liking too. These little pieces of knowledge make the idea of having one of these timbers as a key feature in our home all that much more exciting.

Our Timber will most likely be a piece of 3 or 4″ thick, 20 foot long piece of Douglas Fir coming from a building in California. However the final piece won’t be selected until Peter and Matt have a chance to talk in more detail about our project. From there Peter will select out just the right piece to be cut down to reveal the wonderful unexposed grain of this historic piece of wood. Ultimately we look forward to having a little piece of the “Industrial Forest” as key element in our home for the next 100 years or so.

A beautiful Timber table built by Eastvold Custom Woodworks.

The Duluth Timber Company’s sign.

Timber expert Peter Krieger gives us a history lesson on
reclaimed timbers.

Giant timbers like these line the drive to the Duluth
Timber Company.

The huge saw used to trim down the timbers can take pieces
of wood in excess of 40 feet long.

4″ thick pieces of finished timbers ready for delivery.

The crew from Plummer Concrete had arrived very early on Thursday to prep the floors for the city inspection, with the intention to pour the following day based on the weather forecast. However, by the time Thursday morning rolled around (and the inspection was passed with flying colors) the forecast was calling for the rain to hold off until early Friday. The crew seized the break in the weather and got to work filling the holes with concrete and putting the final finish on the floors.

The crew from Plummer Concrete preps the floor with laying
down rows of rebar over the foam insulation and radiant
heat tubing.

Waiting for the city inspector — the crew from Plummer Concrete
and Benedict and Associates discuss the possibility of pouring
based on the change in the weather forecast.

12 hours later the floors are finished but the concrete is hot
to the touch as the chemical reaction that cooks the concrete
is still going on under the surface.

Gotta love the texture and depth that concrete has. We hope
to enhance this natural beauty with the addition of a concrete
stain and finish.
I had left the sight shortly after the inspection so I didn’t see the completed floors until late Thursday night, on my way home from work. It’s strange how the various stages of the building process make the house feel completely different, as rooms seems to go from big to to small to big again. Seeing the floors completed seem to make the spaces seem much larger than they had just a few hours earlier. Although we’ve gone over these spaces a thousand times (both on the plans and in our heads) we find ourselves wondering if we should have made this room a bit bigger, or that one a bit smaller. Measuring again and again to see just how our dining table might feel in the space, or which couch to buy to work with the size and shape of the room. As much as you hope that you’ve done this in the design of the building, ultimately it will come down to good spacial planning once you’re in the house. I’ve been in some huge homes that feel strangely barren and quaint little ones that seem open and comfortable. Ultimately we want a space that feels comfortable for our family now and as our kids grow. Our SIPs panels are next on the list of big thing to happen and I’m interested to see how enclosing in the space will impact the feel.

Our architect Michael Huber had coined the phrase “The Slide House”, in an initial drawing, of the concept that eventually developed into the final design of our house. The term had come from his use of various sliding horizontal and vertical plains, that work together to create the structure of the house. this linear sliding design is something that we’ve tried to carry throughout every aspect of the home from the design of the bar in the kitchen, to the rain gardens and landscaping. However with all those linear shapes and plains we needed another element that we could use to contrast and complement those forms, something that would provide a little “softer” visual feel.

When you’re trying to find a balance for a home that has such a strong over-all theme, It’s easy to start over doing the shapes and textures and ultimately dilute the designs aesthetic. This is why I think it’s key to select just one simple element to provide that contrast. In our case we’ve decided to use circular shapes to contrast all of the linear lines. Some of these circular elements will appear in subtle things like the shapes of the sinks or lighting fixtures, while others are a little more pronounced. One of the areas where we’ve decided to introduce circles in a prominent way is in the stair well. the risers of the stairs are made of steal, so our fabricator (Grant Leum) suggested that we cut circular holes out of this area to allow light to pass through, as well as to lighten the structural weight of the metal. We are also exploring using some perforated metal to divide the center wall of the stairs. These same elements will be reflected in the deck railings on the second floor where the panels between posts will use the same material and the corner supports will have the same laser cut holes as the stair risers.

Sample of the perforated metal we are looking at using as the
center divider on our stairs and deck panels.

A cross section of the stair riser and tread with the laser cut
circles in the risers.

Side view of the stairs. The open panel areas
will be filled with the perforated metal shown above.