More Window Trim!

Yet another view of the kitchen windows, this time with the oak trim finished.



I will not put curtains on these windows. Both have views of my forest and I really like that. A curtain would spoil the view of sky, trees and grass.

The cabinet maker is coming today to finish the cabinet above the stove. Hope to have pictures of that later today.

Great Windows!

Richard put the oak trim around the windows. He also installed the curtain rods.

This prompted me to make the valances from the 4 yards of fabric I bought a couple years ago. I'll make the rest of the curtains later. Maybe even tomorrow!



This is the view of the front window with the oak trim and the new valance.



This is the side window with the oak trim and the new valance.

More Master Bathroom...

Here are a couple pictures of the bathtub, toilet and window of the master bathroom. The sink has not been installed yet.



The entire tub wall with ship mural installed.



An angled view showing the toilet in relation to the tub.



The toilet with the window above.

The Master Bathroom...

About 20 years ago Richard bought a tile mural featuring a lovely sailing ship. We saved it all these years to go into a house that we built. The tiling team installed it today in the master bathroom.

Like the guest bathroom, I wanted to put individual tiles on the walls of some other photos or pictures. Being a Trekker, I decided I'd find pictures of all the Enterprises, from the sloop Benedict Arnold managed to steal from the British (America's first Enterprise) to the America's Cup winner, to the aircraft carrier and any in between. I intended to culminate the pictures with one of the Star Trek Enterprise. Richard vetoed the entire idea. Sigh. In a way it was good because I was unable to find most of the photos and pictures I needed anyway. I have a great shot of the Star Trek Enterprise hanging in the Smithsonian because we toured the exhibit when it first arrived there. Beyond that, except for the aircraft carrier, the other pictures were not available.



Looks pretty good, doesn't it?

The professional tilers work a whole lot faster than we did! They expect to finish tomorrow.

My kitchen is starting to look like a real kitchen! Richard and I put the wall cupboards up. We have a man coming to do the tile work behind the stove next week. We bought the toekick boards and Richard will finish out the woodwork.

He is currently working to put a vapor barrier in the crawlspace beneath the gravel. This is something that should have been done at the beginning, but again, several subcontractors had different opinions, so we chose not to. Its still a question as to whether this will help the attic condensation issue, but time will telll. It certainly can't hurt anything by being there and in fact, will keep the crawlspace from condensation issues, too. Since we do store some things down there, it will prevent rust and water damage.

A sink! And more...

The sink is now functioning. So is the garbage disposal, the icemaker and the dishwasher! I am running a load of dishes right now. We can't test the icemaker just yet - somehow, we've lost the ice bucket that fits under it. I know its out there in the garage somewhere...



I never thought I'd be GLAD to do dishes.

Attic condensation issues...

We are still dealing with the attic condensation issues. The 7 new roof vents did very little to fix the problem. It is possible that this is because the weather has been miserable - freezing cold and low humidity, meaning the condensation freezes at night in the low 20 degree range. Daytime temperatures have been 31 degrees for three days, which means it has not unfrozen.

Richard placed wireless temperature and humidity gauges on both sides the attic. We also have a weather station wired to the outside. He has created a spreadsheet and chart and is monitoring the whole thing. The humidity in the attic is between 80-100% at any given time, despite outside gauge reading in the 40% range. The temperature in the attic is hovering at the high 60 degree range, a good 30 degrees higher than the outside temps. From what I understand, attic temp and humidity and outside temp and humidity should be within a few degrees of each other if the circulation from soffits and vents is well-placed. This is not happening.

We were advised that the problem might be the crawlspace foundation leaching moisture through the outer walls to the attic. We bought a dehumidifier and it has been running for two days. The pan is half full of water after a 24 hour period, and relative humidity in the crawlspace has improved.

However, the attic remains the same. Today the temps went to the 40s so we are trying something different. We opened all the doors and windows and have turned on the whole house fan. Within a few minutes, the humidity in the attic dropped to 60% (from a high today of 82%). It has remained steady for the last 3 hours.

We are currently bundled up in our winter jackets while the attic dries out.

Richard has gone into the attic to check the status and says the condensation on the baffles is gone.

We will leave the whole house fan on for a few more hours and then shut it off.

Tomorrow, we will repeat the process and see what transpires with the condensation.

What we do know is that this is a bandaid, not a fix. We will be doing some other remediation recommendations until the problem is solved.