The new year starts with a bang!

With the holidays finally relegated to history, the new year has started off with a gallop. I seem to have accomplished more during the first week of January (a short week at that!) than the months of November and December put together. But of course, as with anything done in haste, there is plenty of waste.

Now that the site has been graded, we felt it would be a good idea to take advantage of the mild weather to forge ahead with some of the concrete work. Although I wanted to do everything at once (pads, garage, driveway), it would have been terribly complicated, and it really wouldn't have saved any money. As such, Ron the builder and I decided to do the pads first and everything else later. I designed the pads and sent the renderings for Ron the builder to present to the concrete guy.



I decided to have a little bit of fun with the pads, which will contain large openings that will be filled with stones. I have to admit that I was originally inspired to do this by a scene in the movie "Thank You for Smoking." The Hollywood agent played by Rob Lowe has this pretentiously Asian-inspired office, which happened to have floor-to-ceiling windows abutting a bed of rocks with low voltage lights in them. I was quite taken with that effect... it seemed very calming and serene. Anyway, the forms are up, but the concrete will not be poured until the weather clears up.

Work also began on the railing for the roofdeck and the balconies. For the time being the stainless posts have been positioned around the perimeter.


And the insulation is in too:


Next week I hope to finally get tapped into the town water supply, pass the framing/insulation/plumbing inspection, install interior doors, finish the fireplace and finally get the sheetrock started.

It's finally starting to get fun!