ModHampton - Modern in the Hamptons

The Long Home Stretch

2007-06-21T20:27:00.000-07:00

Without really realizing it, one day it happened: it’s finished. Well, finished in the sense that a baby born at 7 months is still officially a baby, albeit, one that still needs of a lot of TLC before it becomes a fully self-sustaining being. Yes, there is still plenty of work to be done; plenty of punchlist-y stuff to address, a few doo-dads for the building inspector, some return grilles, a few pieces of hardware and a lot of landscaping and painting. But by-and-large, it’s finito. Now all we have to do is hope and pray that we get a building inspector with Alzheimers. It’s not that I believe there is anything structurally wrong or deficient. It’s just that I fear there will be one insidious little stupid, unnecessary detail that’s going to prevent me from getting the C of O. Or that a stair tread is off by 1/8”. Or the handrail is 1/8” too low or too high. Oh, and then there is the business with all of the glass and my ability to demonstrate that they can be shuttered up for a hurricane.

Oh well... que sera sera...

CRISIS AVERTED... SORTA...

In my last entry I ranted and raved about the detestable, shady, evil, manipulative, vile maneuvers pulled by Webster Bank and the whole bullshit “Notice of Default.” It took every ounce of restraint in my body to deal with them without cursing whomever it was I was dealing with. But in the end, they agreed to take me out of “default” if I provided them with the final as-built survey (easy) and if their inspector concludes that the house is “100% complete.” I would then have to provide the C of O within 60 days. When asked what their definition of “100% complete” really meant, they were vague. Did I have to have final landscaping? Do the walls have to be painted, or is priming sufficient? Does the house have to be scrubbed clean? Do the return grilles and registers have to be in place? As expected, the fidgets at Webster Bank were unable/unwilling to provide a response. I basically had to speak with their building inspector to get the answer.

Fortunately the inspector was understanding and basically deemed the house 100% complete (even though it was not quite there). The survey was submitted and now I am just waiting for the C of O inspection. That is, after attending to a few stupid details (e.g., a self-closing hinge on the door into the garage, weather stripping around the basement door, etc., etc.).

IS IT COMPLETE OR IS IT COMPLETE?

One thing I have come to understand and appreciate is the notion of “completeness” when it comes to various phases of the project. For the framing/rough side of it, the state of completeness is fairly black and white. Either it’s complete or it’s not complete. The finishing touches are another matter altogether. Another thing I learned is that attention deficit disorder (ADD) and finishing touches are not a good combination.

My main guy has a serious case of ADD. I am not a healthcare professional or a reader of the DSM-IV. I have just been reflecting on some of the behaviors and incidents that led up to this conclusion. In a nutshell I have relied upon him for virtually all of the finish interior work- spackling, sanding, trim, priming, flooring, tiling, cabinets, etc. Every time I see him I would outline for him the priorities of what should be done first, second, third, etc. However, invariably, he would attempt to do everything all at once at the same time. While painting I noticed lots of bare nail heads, holes, cracks, lumpy spots, etc. in the sheetrock. I would point these out to him and tell him these are the first priority. He would basically start fixing a few of these things, and then he would go straight onto something else. Then, like a broken record, I would have to point out the same issues that are still not fixed. Most telling was the mosaic tile work, especially along the joints, which required the actual cutting and placement of individual tiles (very tedious work). I found places where half the row was tiled (very sloppily), and the rest of the row was simply grouted in! Did he expect me not to notice this?

On several occasions he would say that something was complete, but when I checked, it was anything but. When confronted about things that were left half-assed or undone, he would either get defensive or he would just quip, oh, that’s just a quick and easy fix. Well, if it was so quick and easy, why wasn’t it done in the first place? Okay, nobody is perfect... but don’t tell me something is finished when it is not! Why do I have to feel like Sherlock Holmes every time I come out to the house? Whatever happened to starting something and seeing it through to a complete and satisfactory conclusion? Although I appreciate that he is trying to get things completed quickly, it really is all for naught if the workmanship is lacking. He’s a young guy, so as an elder, I have tried to impart a few pearls of wisdom about doing things properly. But now I am thinking that he probably does need medication to treat his ADD after all. As the old saying goes, you can’t just ask a zebra to change his stripes.

JUICED UP AND WATERED DOWN

The electrical side of things was the first to get completed. All of the light fixtures are in. All of the outlets are turned on. All of the kitchen appliances are in and juiced up. I think I did a pretty decent job with the lighting, if I do say so myself (and I just did!!). I really do not have a clue about lighting design, but somehow all of the elements came together to provide just the right amount of lighting everywhere. I will hardly ever need to buy lamps!

After some terse exchanges, the plumbing was finally completed. All that’s left is a shower that doesn’t drain well and a tub faucet that leaks. The tankless hot water heaters are, um, something else... They are going to take quite a while to get used to. For one thing, they are unexpectedly loud. When you demand hot water, it makes a very loud clicking sound and then the lights in the house will dim/waver just a bit while the hot water heater is operating. It must be sucking some serious wattage! Still, considering how infrequently I use hot water, it’s probably a lot less energy than having a water tank that is constantly on standby.

As expected, the solar photovoltaic panels have been pumping out lots of free electricity, especially with June’s long, sunny days. For the past month I think the electric meter has produced a net excess of between 75-100 kWh per week. Even with the refrigerator running, the geothermal heat pump running intermittently (for cooling), and lights on constantly, it still manages to squeeze out a pretty nice excess. But then again, the east end of Long Island is quite a bit cooler than the city- by as much as 15 degrees F on some days. As such, I probably will not need to have the cooling system running for more than ten days out of the entire season. At this rate, I should have enough excess saved up in my “energy bank” to offset most, if not all, of the heating wattage I will be using this winter. This past winter, I noticed that heating with the geothermal system was very, very costly- like over 1000 kWh per month, even though it was a relatively mild winter. I am optimistically hoping it was because the house was not quite 100% complete, and that it was excessively drafty. This coming winter should be a different situation... I hope!

SO NOW WHAT?

As much as I am relieved that the construction phase has rapidly wound down, I am more than a little angst-ridden over the process of filling out an empty space. In a nutshell, I have nothing! Everything I own is crammed into my tiny apartment in the city. And unless your name is Trump or Vanderbilt, any New Yorker will tell you, one has to make a very committed decision every time one buys something. In a nutshell, do I have the space for it? Am I going to use this enough to justify the space it occupies? Is there anything smaller? Etc... Accordingly, I have just one of everything. One coffeemaker. One frying pan. One spatula. One colander. I don’t even own a toaster (I wouldn’t use it enough to justify its space). So when people ask when I plan to “move in,” I basically point to my backpack and say that I already have!

Now that I have nothing but empty space, I guess you could say that I have to do some re-wiring in my head to get out of the cramped Manhattan mindset. However, having grown averse to conspicuous consumption for the sake of conspicuous consumption, it’s not like I’m going to walk into Wal-Mart and hoover up everything I could fit into a shopping cart or four. I hate having useless junk that I do not need as much as I hate throwing out useless junk that has perceived sentimental value. Quelle dilemma! Therefore my strategy going forward is only to buy things with an enduring functional purpose, and to set some rules around what will/will not be brought into the house. I tend to like Spartan, open spaces, but at the same time I would like it to be comfortable and convenient; i.e., everything I need is at hand. I don’t want to be in a situation where I am constantly thinking, “damn, I shoulda brought _______ with me from the city.” It’s a second home, but a home nonetheless. In true jetsetter fashion, I want to be able to come out on weekends with just the shirt on my back. Oh, and probably a satchel of laundry too. Anyway, I will have to walk that tightrope between consumption/denial very carefully- I think the term “responsible gluttony” fits the bill here.

To complicate matters even more, I have determined that not only will everything be functional, everything has to be aesthetically pleasing and/or appropriately modern in design. Whether it’s silverware, a paper towel holder, dish towels, a spatula, a soap dispenser, etc. I’m not going to buy something just because it’s cheap or on sale. Ideally it should be cheap/on sale, functional, high quality and modern! I know that my parents are going to insist on bringing furnishings and other objects for the home... but it’s going to be awkward accepting something that does not fit in with the design manifest for the house. My parents are not exactly the most “connected” people in the world and therefore would not even begin to understand the concept of “modern” the way that most of us may understand it. If you really think about it, “modern” is a very vague, abstract concept without any strict definitions or boundaries. It is what it is. Whatever “it” may be...

MANIFESTO DESTINY

Since I am basically starting with a blank slate, I am using the following guidelines to inform my purchasing decisions:

1. Everything has to be modern or at least modern-ish.
2. I will limit myself to 10 purely decorative knick-knack/objets for the entire house. Wall hangings are excepted.
3. I will limit myself to 7 mid-century modern-style pieces. As much as I love retro-modern, I think it can get cloying when it is too kitschy. So far I have 4 mid-century modern light fixtures, so this leaves me with only 3 more things...
4. There will be no clothes dressers. Instead, all of the closets are oversized and will contain built-ins.
5. I will not be averse to shopping at Ikea.
6. I will not be averse to pre-owned/vintage furniture. Well, except for upholstered pieces...
7. I will not buy something just because it is pretty. For example, I will not buy a stainless steel trivet when a dishtowel will do in a pinch. Accordingly, I will not buy seating that is pretty but uncomfortable.
8. I will not buy things just because I think I *might* need it someday. For example, I don’t really bake, so I will not buy any bakeware. If I am feeling wild and decide to bake something on a whim, I will go to the dollar store and buy disposable tins. Er, okay, there are no dollar stores in the Hamptons, but I digress...
9. I will not buy gadgets when there are smaller, less expensive alternatives. For example, I will never ever buy an electric can opener since the manual version is just as good and fits in the drawer.
10. I will not save things just because I may need them in the future, e.g., jelly jars, chopsticks from Chinese carryout, etc. In reality, I have found that I always end up throwing these saved things out anyway.
11. I will not buy any bookshelves or bookcases. Sure it might look impressive to display books, but chances are, I will never touch a book I've read ever again, especially when there are millions of things I still have yet to read. Plus, empty shelves attract dust and encourage the purchasing of unnecessary knick-knacks (see above).
12. I will not collect things just for the sake of collecting or completing a collection.
13. I will convert all of my CDs to mp3 files and store them far out of sight.
14. I will try to buy American products as much as possible.
15. I will not be afraid of color.
16. Craigslist is my friend.

Perhaps the most difficult line item would have to be about the way I deal with technology in the house. A television is most definitely necessary. A land telephone line? Eh, probably not. High-speed internet? Hmmm... still debating that. Ideally I want this to be a place to really get away from the world and to get back to basics- working in the garden, reading, kayaking, biking, cooking, etc. Having the internet at arms reach means that I will have this other diversion that tethers me to the rest of the world and thereby takes me away from those activities that I could be/should be pursuing. Then again, I know I would feel totally stranded without the internet. It’s a dilemma for sure. I guess this is something I will have to think more carefully about once I am more settled in...

MIS-ADVENTURES IN E-TAIL

Realizing that I can start staying at the house overnight very soon, I started ordering furniture. Also realizing that I did not have the time (or the money) to run around the city looking for furniture, I decided to make my first big purchases online. Eventually I settled at Sleekspaces.com, which seemed to have some interesting pieces at okay prices. Plus they were offering 10% off and free shipping, which made some of their offerings downright cheap.

So what is the number one most important thing? The bed, of course! Therefore I sought about picking out the beds for the secondary bedrooms first. In the spirit of keeping things simple, modern, inexpensive, uncluttered but sturdy, I bought the Oslo Platform Bed and the Bow Platform Bed. On a whim I also purchased the Daybed Deluxe Convertible Sofa for the loft area as well as the Blu Dot Buttercup Rocker and a dining table. I figured that at least now I would have something to sleep and sit on. By the way I am still shopping around for the master bedroom bed. It has to be really awesome but kinda inexpensive too!

Well, the first sign of trouble was the notification that the Blu Dot rocker was backordered and would not arrive for 9 weeks. Hmmm... okay, I suppose I can live with that. Then I found out that everything would be shipped separately. This would not be a big deal if I was at the house all of the time. But getting stuff in drips and drabs is a real pain if you are, um, like, working and stuff. And 100 miles away too! Anyway... the beds shipped first.

I suppose everything would have been pretty easy to assemble... if they had shipped the correct fucking parts! The fittings and bolts for the beds were virtually all too short, the assembly directions were for shit (only for those that are good at playing Pictionary), and the Oslo bed came with the wrong slat system. I called their customer support line (Mountain time... grrrr....), waited on hold for an entire hour and explained to them the problems. The customer rep said she would pass it along and that they would be sending me an e-mail regarding the replacement parts. A week goes by and no e-mail. I called again, waited on hold for another hour. This time I was told that the replacement parts had shipped from California five days ago. I suspected they were not telling the truth. When asked when the parts are targeted for arrival, the customer rep said she would find out and e-mail the information to me. Guess what? Still no goddamn e-mail!

To make matters worse, the beds are not as nice in person. The finish on the Bow bed was marred and looks very chintzy, and the steel pieces of the Oslo bed did not fit together well. The mattresses (I bought both the foam version and the spring version) left me with an aching back the next morning. These are essentially very costly futons that don’t fold up like a futon.

So now it’s over a month later. I have less than half of my order. Whatever I did get came with the wrong parts. I had to follow up twice with their customer service while waiting on hold for an hour each time. No e-mails, no replacements, no nothing! Needless to say, I would warn anybody who considers purchasing through this shitty e-tailer. I am probably going to have to end up disputing the charge with my credit card company- perhaps then they will finally get around to doing something about this mess.

But then again... this is all just par for the course...

THIS N THAT

The kitchen is pretty much complete except for some serious clean up, paint touch-ups and some missing handles. I must admit that I feel a bit guilty about keeping the refrigerator on. The only thing in there right now is a half-empty carton of soy milk!

In case you were wondering whatever happened to that jug-shaped light fixture...

I thought long and hard about what to do with the basement stairs opening. I suppose I could have had more glass railing there... but I really wanted to isolate the hole as much as possible. Plus, I felt that glass would be perceived as too delicate... I wanted something that looked substantial enough to totally encapsulate that opening. Plus, I wanted to do something that also solved the problem of doing a basement stairs handrail in a cost effective manner. A half-wall/knee wall seemed to be the only logical conclusion. However, I didn't want it to be finished with sheetrock. On a whim I decided to try finishing it with T&G cedar siding, and I must say that it has grown on me. Not only is it functional, it provides a warm counterpoint to all of the metal, glass and concrete. Plus it has that wonderful cedar smell! Once I stain it to match the stair treads and the upstairs flooring, I think it will all come together in a more cohesive fashion.

I've been tagged by the Wielers! Here's a shout out to Andrew and his crew!

NEXT...

A Certificate of Occupancy... or Certifiably Nuts?

The plot thickens...

2007-06-07T10:13:00.000-07:00

So as I hurry down the path toward completion, I thought that I could focus all of my angst on simply getting it done and somehow finding the coin to foot all of my expenses. And balancing this with everything else I have to do like, um, going to work, has been an ongoing struggle.

So just when I think I am home free, I get the following in the mail from the lender of my construction loan, Webster Bank. It would be riotously funny if it wasn't so ill-timed:

May 25, 2007

XXXXXXX
## XXXXX XX
Sag Harbor, NY 11963

Reference Loan: ##########

NOTICE OF DEFAULT

Dear Borrower(s):

We are attempting to collect a debt from you and any information we may be used for that purpose.

Your above reference (sic) loan is currently in default because you have exceeded your original maturity date and for your failure to comply with our request to you dated mm/dd/yyyy (copy attached). You are now required to pay this amount no later than the close of business on June 25, 2007 to correct this default.

You are further advised that if this demand is not satisfied by the close of business on June 25, 2007, we shall declare an immediate acceleration of all monies due under your note secured by your mortgage, without further notice of demand.

Acceleration means that the entire principal balance, together with any accrued interest, late charges, escrow deficiencies, and/or legally collectible expenses will be immediately due and payable.

Failure to adhere to these terms may result in your accout being forwarded to our attorney in order to commence a foreclosure action.

Also pursuant to the terms of your mortgage, you have the right to reinstate your loan after acceleration by paying to us all sums which are due plus our attorney fees and other reasonable costs of proceedings which have been incurred to the date of such payment.

You may seek remedy through court action to assert the nonexistence of a default or any other defense you may have to acceleration and sale of the property.

FAILURE TO RESPOND TO THIS LETTER MAY RESULT IN THE LOSS OF YOUR PROPERTY AND ALSO MAY LEAVE YOU SUBJECT TO A SUIT BY A DEFICIENCY JUDGEMENT.

Your prompt attention to this matter is now required.

Sincerely,

(SOME ANONYMOUS FUCKTARD IN COLLECTIONS)

By the way, the previous letter referenced in this letter was basically a flat out request for the C of O, final inspection report and the final survey.

I don't even know where to begin, this is so ludicrous. For one thing, I have paid my monthly construction loan payments in full. On time. Every month. For the past three years. I haven't even taken out the full amount of my construction loan, nor do I intend to. Ever. So what exactly have I defaulted on, and what amount of money are they trying to collect from me? I have already had my construction loan period extended via a "loan modification," aka, excuse for the bank and title insurance companies to bilk me out of more of my cash. I have given the bank timely updates on my progress. I have excellent credit and I have documentation to prove all of my numbers. The bank's own appraisal of the house is more than double/almost triple the loan amount. Why the fuck are they pulling this stunt now? And so what is the big fucking deal if the construction period is extended? They're still making plenty of interest income off of me every month. And what makes them think I can merely snap my fingers and make the final C of O appear? These things take time; I don't have control over town bureacrats. Oh, and what if there are one or two technicalities that need to be corrected in the inspection report? That will take even more time to get re-inspected, etc. And ultimately there is nothing anywhere in my paperwork from the bank stating that they can serve a NOD and foreclose on my house just because the construction period went overlong. They are going to rue the day they decided to fuck with me; after three years of hard work and suffering, they are not about to pull these kinds of shenanigans with the likes of me, especially at the final stages of the game. If they are going to get all legal with me, I will fight back with every last penny I have. This awful piece of shit excuse for a bank can rot in hell for all I care. Kiss.my.big.black.ass!!!

That drama notwithstanding, I guess you can say the pace has accelerated things a touch. Other than a couple of pesky remaining leaks, a handrail for the basement stairs, and a self-closing hinge for the door to the garage, the house is pretty much finished (of course there's plenty of painting, landscaping and decorative details remaining...). The concrete driveway will pour tomorrow and the countertop/cooktop for the kitchen will be installed on Saturday. The final survey is in hand. Ron the builder is hand-couriering the survey plus water/plumbing specifications to the health department. We are targeting the final C of O inspection for Wednesday-ish of next week. I was hoping that the C of O would be called after things are a bit more polished, but right now it's all about timing and averting this potential war of legal eagles with the bank. The house is still a filthy mess, but I have only the rest of my life to clean it up...

NEXT UP... did he or didn't he?

THE END IS NIGH

2007-05-31T13:56:00.000-07:00

For some reason I originally thought that the milestones of this project would arrive heralded by trumpets, confetti and fanfare. Instead, the finishing touches just kind of creep up on you a little at a time. I also thought that the house would be completed in stages wherein entire rooms would be finished out, roped off and vacuum sealed for consumption at a later date. And my hope was that there would come a point earlier than later where I could actually live in the house while finishing it. Alas, the reality is that everything kind of moved along at the same time- sort of like a painting where the artist applies little bits of ochre and azure here and there until the sky appears in the painting, then digs into the earthtones to do the landscape before going back to the sky again, etc. Little wisps of touch-ups here and there. And it just goes on and on and on... No major breakthroughs. No big milestones. Just a lot of things getting past the 90% completion point at the same time. Alas, I still sit here with a house that leaks, a warren full of bathrooms that look finished but are not functional, a gallery of dead electrical outlets, appliances that lack juice and floors that are still encrusted with months of accumulated goop.

HI INFIDELITY

As anyone who has ever undergone a building or remodeling project before can attest, your lead person/contractor/carpenter is your confidant/best friend/brother. Or maybe even somewhat like your lover. No, I don’t mean in the biblical sense, you silly geese! Not that there would be anything wrong with that if such a situation developed between two consenting adults, mind you... But one would like to think that the relationship one has with one’s lead contractor is a sacred, blessed thing, and that while you are both working on this project, you are wed in holy matrimony. For several months Carlos has been my husband in that regard. He has kept his eye on the place, looking out for any signs of trouble. He fixed things when they broke, had the house cleaned when it was dirty, received shipments of materials, gave me daily updates, etc. He took my tantrums and bitch sessions in stride. He reassured me when my lower lip was swollen and I looked dejected. There was no task too big or too small- he lunged at every opportunity that came his way. And I believed that there was as much at stake emotionally for him as it was for me in terms of the success of the project. He was there every day, seven days a week, and he gave it his all.

But then I started seeing the signs. His phone calls became more and more infrequent. He was at the house less and less. Accordingly, the pace of work started to slow down big time. This could mean only one thing:

He was cheating on me.

Was it me? Did I become less alluring? After suffering in silence for a while, I finally confronted him over the weekend after a week in which very little progressed.

“Are you working on another job?” I asked. After a pregnant pause he spilled the beans: he has been fooling around with a tape/spackling job in Hampton Bays. I knew it! Cheating on me with some low-rent floozy on the wrong side of the Shinnecock Canal! I was a bit taken aback by the news... but I kept my composure. In my usual fashion, I took the highroad

“Oh well, then... I wish you the best. But I need you to finish here ASAP...”

In a way, I knew the relationship had to come to an end eventually... but it is never fun being dumped!

“NOT A PROBLEM”

From Day 1 I liked my electrician. Not only was his initial proposal shockingly modest costwise, he never uttered a complaint or a discouraging word. Unintentionally I must have thrown him every curveball that would have sent any other electrician packing or, at the very least, reaching for his gun. But E (my electrician) only encouraged my eccentricity. There wasn’t a light fixture too bizarre or too difficult to install. If I flaked out and wanted to add a new light fixture or to move an existing one, he would just say “Not a problem.” Low voltage lighting. “Not a problem.” Too few recessed lights. “Not a problem” (he brought his own). If I didn’t know what kind of bulb a particular fixture used, he would just buy it, install it and hand me the empty box. The only thing that visibly fazed him a little was running the extra wires for the water heaters, which involved adding a new 180 amp circuit panel. Still, his pat answer was “Not a problem.” When I griped (to myself) that I had forgotten to buy bathroom fans, the next thing I knew he had bought and installed them for me. He then offered to knock out and install the clothes dryer vent too. When I lamented that I had neglected to specify an exterior light for the back yard, he recommended low voltage well lights which would have required installing a transformer plus lots of wiring and knockout work underground. Just on a whim I bought an extra powerful transformer along with some extra well lights and asked if he could possibly put some well lights in front of the house as well as the back. As before, “Not a problem.”

I’m just so curious to see if this guy actually has a breakpoint. The other day, while putting up the pendants over the kitchen peninsula, he dropped one on the floor. Of course it shattered into a gazllion pieces. I think any other contractor would have either blamed it on another contractor, or would have insisted that it was already broken in the box. But E was horrified and insisted on paying for a new one, whatever it cost. As it turns out, I got an exceptional bargain on these lights at the Pottery Barn/West Elm outlet a year ago. After multiple discounts, they ended up being something ridiculously cheap- like $11 each or so. However, now I was concerned that they stopped manufacturing the item. Fortunately, they still sold them on the West Elm website, but for the full $59 retail price plus shipping and tax. Not expensive but not cheap either. After all E has done for me, I wouldn’t even consider making him pay for this. If anything, he has earned a nice big tip above and beyond whatever I owe him.

Funnily enough, in a house packed with both high-end and bargain basement fixtures and fittings, those $11 West Elm glass cone pendants have earned the most rave reviews. When lit, the reaction from everyone has been, “Wow, that’s cool!” Go figure! If I could go back in time, I would have bought out the store’s entire stock of these lights and strung them everywhere! Er, maybe it is a good thing I can’t go back in time, after all...

COUNTER-INTUITIVE

If you haven’t done this before, I can guarantee that the hardest finishes to decide upon are tile and countertops. Although deciding upon flooring may seem to be the most daunting task, for me it was relatively simple. You either like carpet or you don’t like carpet. You either like tile flooring or you don’t like tile flooring. Hardwood flooring is always the universally most appealing choice, if not exactly the cheapest. And it’s then just a matter of which shade of brown you prefer.

Countertops are another story. A few years ago it was all about granite. And I have to admit that after living in houses and apartments for my entire life that had only laminate countertops, I had granite fever! For a while I would go to showrooms and caress the sample slabs and hold them up to see how they refracted light. The blue pearl slabs were my favorite because of their somber opalescent quality. Back in the day when I was househunting around the Hamptons I would measure the worthiness of a house based upon whether there were granite countertops in the kitchen. Formica actually killed the deal for me. So naturally back when I was orchestrating the genesis of my building project, granite countertops were foremost in my mind.

But, alas, my romance with granite was shortlived. Once considered to be exotic and unusual, granite suddenly became as ubiquitous as formica. The counter at the Chinese food takeouts are all now made of some slab of granite. The ugliest country kitchen displays all have granite tops on them. And for me, granite totally JUMPED THE SHARK when my parents finally hopped on the granite bandwagon and remodeled their kitchen with it. And to make matters worse, their profiles had this ugly ogee detailing on it. BLECCH! And you know when my parents have finally come around to the trend of the moment, it is over! It is sooo 2004! Next!

Still, even without granite, I had a bajillion other options in a quadrillion different colors. There’s marble, or rather “mawble,” as they would say in these parts. No thanks... I’m not a big fan of Atlantic City casinos. Then there are the fake stones- Caesarstone, Silestone, etc. But they mostly seemed to look like a bad glitter art project I made in kindergarten, or a suspension of wasabi peas in miso soup. Then there are the honed surfaces like Corian and Richlite... which I actually liked, but there was something rather Stepfordian about them; they seemed almost too perfect in a way. And they didn’t feel very substantial- almost as if the slightest ding could shatter them into a trillion pieces.

Ultimately it came back to concrete. There’s something so alluring about concrete- the way it looks, the way it feels... it’s beautiful but unpretentious. It’s tough, hard and heavy, but also sleek without being an attention grabber.

After going through the initial motions to order the concrete kitchen and master bath countertops from meldUSA, I wimped out at the last minute. Despite the fabulous pricing and the enthusiasm that meldUSA expressed for this project, I had my reservations about dealing with a company located so far away (NC), and it’s not like I had a crew of people who would know how to install this type of material. And when I started measuring dimensions in my embryonic kitchen, I realized that every dimension and cutout had to be accurate down to the micron. And then when I found out that the minimal lead time for completion was 7-8 weeks, that killed the deal for me.

Just about ready to settle on one of the fake stones, Peg, my kitchen designer at HamptonDesign called me out of the blue to ask me what I was doing about kitchen countertops. When I told her I had no idea, she told me about a vendor that was working on a large custom concrete sink/basin for her. That sounded pretty neat, but whenever I think of Peg, I think of her stylish little studio/showroom in East Hampton Village packed with $100sf Ann Sacks tiles and all of her uber-rich clientele and the Hamptons-scale pricing that goes with it. But before I could ask, she said that they were only charging her $900, which is actually not too bad for a custom-made... anything! When I told her that this sounded great, she told me that this firm is (unfortunately) business-to-business; they don’t deal with the general public. As such, I would have to work with them through Peg. After a pregnant pause on my end, she quipped, “Don’t worry, I’m not going to kill you.” Ah... Peg... there’s no mincing words with that one.

Soon thereafter, Tom from WSO Creative Concrete was at the house taking measurements and templating. Despite all of the cutouts, the slabs in the kitchen were pretty straightforward. However, the master bathroom slab would be a bit of an engineering project. Seeing that it would be difficult to have the weight of a 300lb slab of concrete plus two large, heavy porcelain basins, supported by a couple of wall-hanging cabinets, Tom decided that they would have to custom-weld a steel cantilever structure that would be largely hidden by the cabinets. Of course, as usual, everything is thirty times more difficult than it has to be... it’s just par for the course for this house.

Colorwise, Tom said that I could pretty much do anything with concrete. I could even have other materials mixed in with the concrete- stones, marbles, pieces of wood... even metal. Then he showed me some trippy looking acid stained samples. I was getting a headache thinking about the possibilities. Ultimately he fed-exed to me a Benjamin Moore color wheel and told me to pick something out. I was literally paralyzed with choices. I suppose I could have gone all fancy with additives, but I decided to keep it simple and sober. Toby Rapson had recommended black countertops to make the green cabinets “pop.” However, my main concern with that was black would show all kinds of flaws over time. Ultimately I settled on the Benjamin Moore color “trout grey,” which is a very deep, steely grey for the kitchen and “morning dew,” which is essentially like raw concrete, for the master bath slab. The turnaround time would be three weeks.

Three weeks later we had a date scheduled to have the countertops installed. I was extremely excited. At long last the kitchen would be complete, and the plumber would be able to finish all of the hook-ups. Of course, as before, my luck turned southward. The large peninsula slab is now just a pile of steel rebar and dust. Apparently it was so heavy that it was dropped on the ground as it was being lifted onto the truck. The good news however is that the slab against the wall, where the sink is located, survived, and was ready to be installed along with the master bath slab. Needless to say, I was bummed due to the delay, but it was just one more snafu in a sea of snafus. The WSO guys were so amazed that I didn’t freak out at all; if they only knew how comparatively minor this was relative to everything else...

THE VISUALS...

The following pics are a bit out of date. To be honest, I've been either too angst-ridden or too busy to take pictures on my last few visits to the house, but things are coming together...

Starck X-elicious! Obviously that is not the matching Starck X waterfall faucet since I was not about to spend $700 on a faucet! Still, I'm kinda digging the number with the yellow resin ball on it.

Here's another shot of the upstairs hall bath:

Believe it or not, I had originally intended to go way colorful in the master bath. However, after some consideration, I wanted it to be a relaxing, cozy retreat, rather than something loud and campy. As it turns out, it's all about the greys...

The first floor bath has turned out a bit, hmmm..., how do you say... space-age? In addition to a backlit mirror and recessed circline light fixtures, it's got a metallic machine-like vibe. Who knows... maybe I'm ahead of my time... or maybe this will all look terribly dated next month.

Can you tell that I really like those Nelson lamps?

The rear bedroom.

Okay... yea or nay on the dark accent wall? I was considering putting up toile wallpaper on that wall (since it is so trendy these days), but I just wonder how it will fare over time. In general, wallpaper never ages well.

NEXT...

The real end? Or is it neverending...

It's all about me...

2007-04-30T12:15:00.000-07:00

After the flurry of activity during the first few months of the year, what with the sheetrocking, spackling, painting, flooring, etc., the pace fell off a cliff in April. Was it necessary? No, not really. Was the weather cooperating? Yes, for the most part. So what/who was the obstacle this time? Um... me.

Gratification has been a long way in coming. From the purchase of a little piece of land to today, we’re talking about over three years. This month marks the two-year anniversary of breaking ground. To say I am weary of this project is an understatement- every spare moment, every spare thought has been devoted to thinking about designs, color, materials, structures, money, schedules, strategy, logistics, etc. And it hasn’t been simply a matter of throwing money at a problem until it fixes itself. At several junctures I’ve had to make radical “executive decisions” to change course that altered timelines and budgets radically. It has almost become instinctual. In a way you could almost say that over the past few years I’ve developed a titanium-tough exoskeleton and a stomach to match. But at what expense?

Perhaps enduring this sort of ordeal has been well documented in psychiatry textbooks or journals. Much like there are the cycles of grief, e.g., denial, fear, anxiety, anger, acceptance, etc., I think there are cycles of building a house. Or perhaps these are the same cycles that one experiences with any big project; building a house just happens to be the ultimate example. So here are what I believe to be the psychological stages of building a house:

1. Initial excitement, i.e., “I’m going to build the most awesome house ever with all of the bells and whistles I’ve read about in magazines! I am going to prove that a great house can be built affordably on time and on budget!” This is the most romantic stage wherein everything is viewed with starry-eyed wonder and anticipation. The possibilities are endless and the possibility of errors, miscalculations and snafus is but a highly abstract notion. This is the stage at which the individual will tend to tackle more than he/she is likely to be able to carry ultimately.

2. Disillusionment, i.e., “Shit, what was I thinking when I thought of doing __________. Still, this is pretty cool.” This first happens early on in the process and repeats over and over again.

3. Frustration, i.e., “Why is this taking so fucking long to get built?? Why is everything so goddamned expensive? Why is everything leaking?” No explanation needed.

4. Denial, i.e., “I’m doing okay... the sheetrock, taping and spackling should be finished in one day and should cost around $250. At this rate, I should be finished in three months and under budget.” Or “To save money, I will do ________ myself. This should put me back within budget.” Yeah, whatever gets you through the day.

5. Fear, i.e., “Oh, snap, I am anticipating another $75K in expenses, but I have only $50K left in the budget."

6. Bargaining, i.e., “Okay, instead of the SubZero refrigerator, I’ll get the cheaper Jenn Air refrigerator, and it will be just as fabulous. Yeah, that’s the ticket!” To help mitigate the sting of not building the house of your dreams, you start to try and find ways to cut corners while easing the pain via sublimation and denial.

7. Second wind, i.e., “Wow, everything is starting to heat up again; I’m very excited now.” This usually occurs several times after a period of disillusionment.

8. Despondency/depression, i.e., “I have no life. I have no friends. I am always in a shitty mood. My place is a mess. What is a ‘leisurely pursuit?’” This is the end result of months/years spent doing nothing but going to Home Depot, surfing the internet and magazines for ideas, visiting showrooms, yelling at contractors, driving to the construction site, etc.

9. Regret, i.e., “What the fuck was I thinking when I started this crazy project?” This is the point where you realize that, in the end, the dream is not all that it’s cracked up to be. Even Shangri-la requires upkeep and repair.

10. Capitulation, i.e., “Fuck it. Just get it done, no matter how much it costs.”

I think it’s safe to say that over the past month I’ve been hovering between stages 8 and 9. Although I have tried to avoid getting sucked fully into the “housing drone” mentality for the past couple of years, I think I finally succumbed in March. I entered a deep, deep depression/despair from which I have not yet fully emerged. I am not sleeping too well. I have lost interest in just about everything. I am indifferent. I am not angry nor euphoric. I’m just an empty shell at this point. My fantasy weekend would be to just to sit at home and do absolutely nothing- just sit still and stare into the void.

I have often thought about how my life would be different if I hadn’t spent the past few years doing this. I would probably be happier. I would most definitely be wealthier! I would be living in a much larger apartment in the city. I would have probably done some traveling. I would have probably seen a lot of good shows on Broadway. I would probably have been able to afford a share house at the beach every summer. I would probably be able to ditch my car once and for all (and not pay $400/month for a parking space!). But most importantly I would have had more time to be Me. In a sense, I don’t really know who I am or what makes me tick anymore. A single line from Joni Mitchell’s “Song About the Midway” struck me the other day: “I gave you all my pretty years...” Granted, I am very far from being easy on the eyes, but that kinda sums up how I feel about this project. I started out young, naive and full of energy and enthusiasm. Now I have turned a corner towards middle age and I am so much more guarded, cynical and weary of everything. I gave this house all my pretty years.

DAY OF DAWNING

As I’ve probably mentioned before somewhere on this blog, I am a big believer in fate, that everything happens for a reason. This is not to say that I am anywhere close to being religious. I just tend to think that there is no such thing as accidents or blessings. Things either fall into place or they don’t. And if they don’t, it was never meant to be. It’s circular reasoning... but it does help me get through life without too much angst.

In my March-April despondent haze, during which very, very little progressed, I kept throwing up distractions or excuses for things not getting done. Oh, I am still deciding on the tile. I am going to take time away from work and finally do the painting and second floor flooring. I am going to dig the dry wells myself. But the more I thought about taking on these tasks, the less interested I became. A year ago I was excited about the prospect of laying tile and installing flooring. Today the thought gives me the creeps. Perhaps my change of heart is a remnant of the self-inflicted trauma of trying to stain the siding myself (and the shiteous results thereof). I am so weary now, that I really have no interest in starting something that I had never done before. I am in no mood for trial and error. I am in no mood for spending another six months’ worth of weekends diddling around and accomplishing nothing. And everywhere I looked around the house, something needed work, whether it was a missing fan switch, a nail hole in the sheetrock that need patching, the unfinished fireplace surrounds, leaks in the curtain wall, etc. It has been quite overwhelming... I felt paralyzed by the burden.

At the same time, I have finally come to understand that the lack of progress can be attributed to nothing but fear. The fear of finishing. I almost feel like the character in one of those awful B-movies in which the hostage falls in love with the captor after a while. It’s rather sadistic, actually. I think I’ve been in this project for so long that it has become a way of life. It’s not a pleasurable existence, but it is a routine and a semi-hardwired mindset of constantly being on the lookout and constantly being creative. And being constantly in construction mode means that there is always the opportunity to right the wrongs and redeem myself. Once I am done, that’s it. I’m stuck with what I end up with- good or bad. I love it. I hate it. I don’t know... but I just cannot imagine just simply saying “stick a fork in it!”

FATE

Consistent with the theme that everything happens for a reason, I found myself playing host to my parents last week. I can count on them to come up to visit twice a year: on my birthday in July and then on September 11 (long story...). At the last minute they kind of invited themselves up just so they could check out the house and help out. I mean, I appreciated the gesture and all that, but the reality is that they would have had to see me at my worst emotionally. And I would have had to take time away from my work schedule to accommodate them, but I did my duty and did my thing.

Out of the blue, my mother handed me a check and told me that this was a present to be used to furnish the house. To my utter surprise, it was for $10,000. When I balked (in a kinda half-hearted way, admittedly), she insisted that they weren’t going to live forever (they’re only in their mid sixties!), and that I needed it more than them. To be honest, I don’t know their financial situation. I know that growing up we were just solidly middle class- they owned and operated a single dry cleaning business. I know that they retired about 12 years ago while they were in their early-mid fifties. They own a few properties outright. They travel about four times a year. Beyond that I knew nothing about their financial situation- whether they were scraping by every month or whether they were having Kristal and caviar every night. Anyway, the situation made me more depressed than anything else since it had finally come to this- that I would be needing their money to bail me out. I mean, in the technical sense, I suppose I didn’t really need it. I have a few untapped resources left, despite being well over $100K over budget. And $10,000 is barely even 2% of the construction costs. But even before I could weigh the pros and cons of accepting this, I realized that even though a little bit of weight was lifted off of me, I somehow felt like a total loser for even considering accepting this. Ultimately I did go through the motions of refusing it, but somehow it stayed propped up on my nightstand, mocking me with its plethora of jovially rotund numbers.

That same week Nate Wieler, Toby Rapson and others made the trek to Sag Harbor to visit the house. Apparently this was some kind of a barnstorming tour to visit Nate’s new clients in Montauk as well as to check out the Greenbelt houses currently in the process of being built (all two of them!). I suppose I could have made the effort to go out to meet with them. But it was during the middle of the week and I was still deep in the throes of my apathy. I was also a little bit concerned that Toby would hate some of the liberties I took with the design, so I guess I just wasn’t up to dealing with the awkward silences and gestures. It was also raining torrentially and there were still some areas that were continuing to leak.

Later that day Nate, Toby and their entourage conducted a mini-conference call with me from the Islip airport. Apparently everyone liked what they saw at my house (except for the leaks, of course), or at least they were going through the motions of complimenting it. At one point I caught myself saying something to the effect of, “Golly, I’m so sick of this project; I just wish I could get in a bunch of guys to knock the place out and get it completely finished in ten days.” Pretty farfetched, eh? Or is it?

I shrugged it off, but it had me thinking. Really, what was stopping me from just pulling the trigger and pushing and pushing to the finish line? At this point I thought long and hard about what this will take from a money and timing perspective. And then I thought about that $10,000 check that had just fallen from the heavens a few days before. Ultimately I concluded that I was going nowhere fast because I had just gotten too used to constantly being in construction mode- putting my life on hold, constantly having a goal to work towards, the constant struggle, etc. I had grown to resent everything about this house, yet I was afraid of no longer having this constant presence in my life. Once I’m done, then what? Am I suddenly going to pick up where I left off nearly four years ago like nothing happened? Or am I going to be so programmed toward doing this that I will always be looking for things to do around the house? A friend of mine dubbed my house the Winchester House East- the house that will always be under construction. Although I laughed it off (a little), I thought it hit a little too close to home, so-to-speak.

Anyway, in a nutshell, I knew what I had to do.

TRIGGER, PULLED

With a new perspective and a new attitude (and flush with a little bit of newfound funding), I had a pointed discussion with my main contractor Carlos. He originally started in January as the spackle and taping contractor, but he has subsequently stepped up to the plate to tackle other projects large and small. Although he has sometimes driven me crazy, he has always been on the look out for potential problems and he has given me invaluable advice and pointers about all sorts of things. I knew that his ultimate motivation was getting more work and thereby making more money off of me, but at the same time, he had a dedication to his craft and a the kind of can-do attitude that simply cannot be bought.

I told him that I basically wanted him to finish everything. I meant everything:

-Drywells
-Finished flooring on the second floor
-Remaining taping/spackling
-Doors re-hung, hardware attached
-Baseboard moulding on the second floor
-All bathrooms and fireplace tiled
-Kitchen venting and cabinets finished
-Basement stairs/railing finished.
-Balconies reflashed and sealed.
-Miscellaneous caulking.

Oh, and he had 15 days (end of April) to get it all done. I think we both realized that this was a highly unrealistic timeframe to complete this, but the tone had been set. No more bullshit. No more idling around. It was time to put the pedal to the metal! Just get it done!

Boy am I glad I didn’t take on the tiling. Those glass mosaics may look nice, but boy what a pain to install! All of the cleaning and chipping away, etc. And the wood flooring is going to be no day at the beach either since, due to the prolonged exposure to the elements, the subfloor is warped in a lot of areas and nothing is quite level. It’s going to take quite a bit of sanding and self-leveling underlayment to get the floors true.

GOTCHA

As the momentum picks up again, and the loose ends are finally being tied together, I'm really getting hit with a serious case of the gotcha's- unexpected, totally unplanned expenses. First off, those electric tankless water heaters were a big, big mistake. The particular units being installed in my house (two of them) have staged circuits, which means that the heater will come on in stages (depending on the water demand) rather than being 100% on or completely off. I suppose this is an energy saving feature, which is all fine and dandy. But the gotcha here is that each water heater requires three separate 30-amp circuits!!! The electrician, who had barely read through the cut sheet on the unit, assumed that the whole thing was on a single 30-amp circuit. Needless to say, between the two water heaters, I will need 180 amps worth of additional capacity, which my current electrical panel will not accomodate. So not only will this require an extension to the electrical panel, this will involve several hundred feet of 6-gauge wiring, which costs approximately $3.50 per linear foot! Ka-ching!

Although every last one of my neighbors has conventional downspouts that empty onto a splash guard of some sort, I have to have a dry well system installed in my yard to absorb the stormwater runoff from the roof. Apparently this law was enacted in 2003 in an effort to comply with some federal stormwater runoff initiative. Listen, I'm all for minimizing my impact on the environment, but I should not be singled out. EVERYBODY should have to comply with this retroactively. The gotcha here? A concrete system would have cost over $6,000 to trench/install! I balked and started looking for alternatives. Ultimately I decided to install individual Flo-well dry wells at each downspout, which required a lot of manual digging/backfilling, but came in around only $3,000. Still, that's plenty of ka-ching!

Out of nowhere my plumber started complaining about the difficulty of my project. In particular he said that all of my plumbing fixtures were weird and required too much extra effort above and beyond the original proposal. I would have resisted him... but then he would leave me high and dry, literally! Ka-ching! Another $2500 extorted from my pockets.

And don't get me started on all of the dumpsters... I've probably gone through a dozen or more over the past couple of years. And much of that capacity was due to neighbors throwing their unwanted furniture and carseats in there! And don't get me started on the contractors throwing away perfectly good lumber and building materials... Ka-ching!

And two years of renting a port-a-potty = mucho ka-ching!

A grand here, a few hundred there, a couple grand there... this all adds up. And it's all on stupid, stupid stuff that adds zero value.

ODDS AND ENDS (MOSTLY ODD)

This is what $5,000 worth of red cedars and pines looks like.

The kitchen is now officially 100% greener. Pretty trippy, man...

The balconies are now officially 100% more glazy!

NEXT...

The end... or just the beginning??

And the days go by...

2007-03-04T06:35:00.000-08:00

Wow, what a whirlwind! The past few weeks have provided its share of ups and downs, euphoria, disappointment, anger, frustration, elation and everything else that could possibly fall in between. The momentum has been pretty decent- not too fast, not too slow, and I can now finally state with some confidence that I will be done with the heavy-lifting in a couple of months. Gone are the days when I was content to schedule events weeks out at a time. Nowadays, if it's gonna happen, it's gonna be this week or I will start to seek out more expedient alternatives...

This is not to say that I can just coast from here on out... there are still many, many decisions to be made- master bathroom tile, lighting trims, bathroom hardware, etc. And there are also many finish details that I have to figure out, e.g., capping exposed joist hangers on the stem walls, basement stair finish/materials, fireplace surrounds, etc. I have long since come to the conclusion that I am the master of my own fate and that nobody will be committed to the success failure of anyt of these things. As much as I hate to admit it, for all of the contractors working on this project, this is just a job for them. It's easy for me to get frustrated by their lack of commitment, but it just comes with the territory.

THE LATEST DISH...

The missing elements of my lost Duravit order were finally received. And they happen to be two of my favorite pieces- the Starck 2 toilet and the "In the Mood" vanity. Although I had ordered "orange" glass doors, they look an awful lot like yellow; nothing orange about them at all. Still, I'm just thrilled about the color, design and the build quality of this piece... if it just didn't take a goddamn 'coon's age to produce I would highly recommend it.

I also received the bulk of my tile order from Porcelanosa. A whole skid's worth of tile, which literally must have weighed a ton- not too much fun bringing these upstairs! For the upstairs bathroom floors I have chosen the Ferroker Aluminio tile. The walls will be a hodge-podge of different things- the Glass Acero/Acido tile, the Vitreo Marengo and some miscellaneous vitreous glass mosaics. I can only cross my fingers and hope this all comes together okay.

SUFFICIENTLY ROCKED

Everything is pretty much rocked, although this has not been without its share of drama. Wires and outlets rocked in. A thermostat that was rocked in. The flooring contractor who balked at the chalky goo-encrusted subfloor created by the spackle. Getting on my hands and knees to scrape off said-goo. The contractor who has been trying to guilt me into paying him more money and then giving me the passive-aggressive treatment when I refused.

The end result is generally quite nice, but there are some finish details that annoyed the piss out of me. For one thing, nobody quite understood when I declared "no trim around windows and doors." This does not mean less trim or small trim pieces. "No" means Hell-to-the-NO! Time and time again I got grief about them having to re-do the windows because of this. I don't like making people suffer or creating additional effort, but it's not my problem if people refuse to believe their ears. Well, there must be something wrong with me, since everybody else does trim and crown moulding! I must be all kinds of crazy!

The sheetrock ended up being such a costly series of errors. And I have only myself to blame. For one thing, I made the mistake of doing a time and materials arrangement with two different contractors- one to install, one to tape/spackle. I figured I should utilize a tape/spackler/painter to do the tape/spackle so that the end result will be truly paint-ready. Plus the drywall installer contractor told me it would only take four guys about six days to totally rock the place. In the end, the sheetrock installation took twice as long and the labor tab ran up extravagantly. It got to the point where I had to read him the riot act and chastise him for leading me down this path under false/misguided pretenses. After some tense conversations, we worked out a compromise involving a flat rate and the promise for some additional contract work. But the damage has been done- we are in a cold war. It has been agony trying to coerce him into finishing out the cement boarding of the bathrooms!

As for the tape/spackle contractor, the only fortunate thing is that I entered into a flat price for labor. Indeed, it has taken much longer than expected. But much of this has to do with the fact that he (and his helpers) tend to work shorter days, and they are a bit too laid back. The job he is doing is wonderful for the most part, but he is taking his sweet time. And, to be brutally honest, he kinda gives me the creeps. I don't know why... it's just a feeling I get. He's very friendly- almost too friendly. I always get the sense that he is trying to butter me up or that he is poking his nose around trying to find opportunities for him to do more work. I mean, I appreciate his initiative and all that... but sometimes it's just too much. I am probably going to use him to help me with some of the paint, tile and wood flooring, but I am definitely going to have to keep close tabs on him.

CURTAILED BY CURTAIN WALL Pt. IV

Okay... so what the fuck is up with these glazing contractors? Are there any good, responsible ones around? After firing my first curtain wall contractor last June, I hired a new one- a father-son business in Queens- that seemed to be a great find. Reasonable rates. Ambitious. Courteous. Ambidextrous. Okay... it took them a little bit longer than expected to finish the curtain wall, but they eventually did finish in October. In September we had reached an agreement on a proposal for them to do my stairs, interior/exterior railing and closet doors. The stairs were done quickly... but as for the rest of it? It has now been five months and I have nothing more than some hastily hung closet door shells and lots of unmounted stainless railing posts lying around. The door handle/latch mechanism broke twice. A few leaks in the curtain wall became apparent after sheetrock. And despite my pleas and angry phonecalls, they keep promising to come and fix the problems, but they never show up. The situation has been eerily similar to the shenanigans pulled by curtain wall contractor #1.

I'm over glazing/metal contractors. Over, I say!

ART-DEX!

Everything else about this house has been a saga, so why should the flooring be any different. Long story short, I always wanted concrete floors, but over time, it seemed to become too risky a proposition for a wood-framed floor deck. Then there were concerns about cracking, control joints, dead weight, etc. After doing some online research about lightweight alternatives, I finally stumbled across Ardex, which manufactures a series of flooring underlayments, toppings, sealers, etc. I was particularly intrigued by the fact that the system was lightweight, rapidly installed, and looked/behaved like concrete. Indeed, it appears that it has been used primarily in commercial settings (factories, stores, casinos, restaurants, etc.), I thought it would look perfect within a private residence. Since it was a "poured floor," and self-leveling, I was also under the impression that it would be easy to install and very cost efficient.

After contacting Ardex, I was referred to the local rep, who then referred me to the three "certified" Ardex installers on Long Island. At first the rep told me that it couldn't be installed on a wood subfloor. Then he told me that even if they figured out a way to do it, the job could not be certified or warranteed. Undeterred, I contacted all three of the installers and received three different answers. One said they wouldn't go all the way out to Sag Harbor. Another one told me they could do it, but they would have to do all kinds of stuff to stiffen the subfloor, and it would end up costing me $20 per square foot! The third told me that they could install Ardex on a wood subfloor, as long as the subfloor is 1.5" inches thick. In other words, it needed to be two layers of 3/4" tongue-and-groove plywood, glued and screwed every six inches!! That would have been fine and dandy... except the Ardex pour would be no more than 3/8" thick! Unfortunately, my existing subfloor was already "sunken" 4.5" in anticipation of a conventional 4" concrete pour. In the end, the entire first floor had to be raised 4" by laying down a layer of 2x4's and then two layers of 3/4" T&G plywood on top of the existing deck. The end result is that the first floor deck is literally 18" thick plus the Ardex!

Anyway, after multiple delays, the Ardex installation finally began in earnest. Unfortunately I was not able to witness the installation firsthand, but indeed, it appears to be a bit more labor intensive than the website would lead you to believe. First, after the subfloor/substrate was scraped clean of any debris, the entire surface is treated with a primer. Then a layer of wire lathe is nailed on after the primer is dry. Another coating of primer is laid. Then the Ardex underlayment- a gypsum-based material is poured to about a depth of 3/8". After a few days of curing the "designer" color coat is hand-troweled on layer-upon-micron-thick layer. After the designer coat dries, the sealer is applied.

I must admit that I had feared the worst- that the floors would end up looking like painted concrete, or that it would look chintzy. I was absolutely stunned when I saw the finished results.

Even though the floor was supposed to be the standard Ardex grey, the floor actually came out much darker- almost a bronze color with brownish/rust-colored highlights. I actually love it! Even though the color layer is not even the thickness of a sheet of paper, it has a very rich depth to it- probably due to the multi-step coloring process.

KITSCHY KITCHEN

I must admit that I am probably going out on a limb with this- bright green kitchen cabinets! I originally thought I was going to buy wood-finished kitchen cabinets from Ikea. However, I had misgivings about the fit and build quality of the cabinets, as well as some horror stories. I then considered wood slab cabinets from Kraft Maid, e.g., Madison, Venicia, etc. In the end I realized that I just wasn't "feeling" the Kraft Maids. Plus, I didn't feel very comfortable buying this from Home Depot, where the "designers" were basically little more than order takers. Plus I wanted frameless cabinets! And I realized that I just didn't think wood would work in the house... so after seeing an ad in dwell magazine for Berloni kitchens, I visited the local dealer, HamptonDesign in East Hampton. Immediately I sensed that Berloni was the perfect solution for me. Granted, they were not as cheap as Kraft Maid and Ikea, but they were much cheaper than Poliform, Poggenpahl, Valcucine, etc. Berloni appeared to be the Italian designer cabinets without the designer price. As an added plus, I actually got some real design consultation and renderings.

Anyway, now that the cabinets are here, I am trying to get them installed quickly in anticipation of ordering the "Extreme Concrete" countertops from meldUSA. They have a 6-to-7-week lead time, so I need to get going pronto!

ACTION, LIGHTS... CAMERA!

Somewhere in the craziness, the center hall/atrium walls/ceiling were practically finished, save for the persistent leaks coming through the roof windows. Argh! Anyway, while the scaffolding was up, the electrician seized the opportunity to install the ceiling light fixtures- the George Nelson "Cigar Lamp," the George Kovacs "Cirque" fan and the vintage Verner Panton-like fixture for the dining area. I realize these are the most ubiquitous modern cliches, so call me corny as Kansas in August! I will probably commit many other strikes against good taste! To make matters worse, I splurged on a Ron Rezek for Artemide sconce.

THE REASON
Just when the weight of the world starts to get to me, and I start to questioning why I took on this challenge three years ago, something always reminds me of what it's all about. It's about the water, the sea air, and the short stroll to the end of the street that gives me some of the most beautiful sights in the Hamptons. It's about the house too... but the reality is that I would not be going through all of this torture if I didn't thoroughly love my environs.

I am no photographer at all, but I must say, I really nailed this one shot.

We will, we will 'rock you!

2007-01-22T08:47:00.000-08:00

...and they're off! The sheetrocking has begun with a vengeance. And the place is an utter disaster area of sawdust, plywood scraps, insulation scraps, and inches of gypsum powder. Lots and lots of gypsum; in fact, I have not inhaled so much white powder since the 1980's!

Although I was excited to see the rooms finally become "articulated," I was also very, very nervous. I was nervous over whether I had forgotten any last-minute details- an electric box here and there, a light box here and there, a brace or two, etc. Then there was also the issue of timing. I am currently slated to have the Ardex flooring installation begun on February 1; however the taping/spackling contractor said he may not be finished with the first floor walls by then.

In the grand scheme, this is nothing to panic over; I could probably simply push the Ardex out a few days. But it's just bumming me out because I had built such a head of steam starting at the beginning of the year. By the end of February I wanted to have the place ready for the certificate of occupancy inspection. Perhaps I'm being a bit too ambitious. But then again, I've been patient for way too long. It's high time for me to indulge in my inner-bratdom.

Speaking of nerves, I was quite impressed by the courage displayed by some of the 'rockers. I knew that getting the very tip of the atrium 'rocked would be a tough job. But it was still difficult to watch them teetering on the skinniest of platforms constructed out of nothing but ladders and some hastily assembled scaffolding. It was quite a feat of engineering, to say the least! I just kept thinking to myself that if one of these guys falls, not only would he be banged up pretty badly (or worse!), he basically owns the house.

Anyway, Buddah willing, so far, so good.

The Duravit saga continues...

2007-01-22T08:26:00.000-08:00

You've got to love companies that peddle innovative design but couldn't give two shits about customer service. That is, in a nutshell, the corporate philosophy for Duravit.

In case you haven't been keeping tabs on my progress, I will recap briefly: I placed a fairly large order of Duravit fixtures from a certain online e-tailer (tubs, vanities, toilets, etc.) back in January of 2006. Some of the items were in inventory; however, some of the items were special orders that would take between 12-16 weeks to fulfill. I wasn't thrilled about that, but I figured that this would not be holding anything up on the project.

Fast forward 8 months (of course it was late), and my order finally arrived. Or, more precisely, half of the order arrived. Where was the other half (of course, the half with all of the special order items)? To this day, the whereabouts are still unknown. Clearly the freight carrier was at fault, and a claim was filed against them. But in the meantime I had to decide whether or not to cut and run or to wait for these missing items to be "special-ordered" yet again and wait another six months. Since my bathrooms had already been configured for the Duravit merchandise, I really had no choice but to wait it out. Plus, it's not like the house was in such an advanced state that the plumbing fixtures would delay anything. So I was told that it would take another 10-12 weeks for the items to be re-ordered/re-shipped, etc.

In the intervening weeks, I received some of the replacement items in drips and drabs. However, the one thing I was waiting the longest for was the "In the Mood" vanity pictured above. Apparently Duravit has never sold a single one of these in America! As such, the manufacturing cycle for the product is infrequent/sporadic at best, and unfortunately I was a bit aways from the next cycle.

So after 12 weeks I decided to follow up with that online e-tailer again to inquire about the status of the "In the Mood" vanity. It was still not done! Suffice it to say, both the e-tailer and I were more than pissed. This led to a series of threatening phone calls between the e-tailer, Duravit USA and Duravit Germany. After some weeks of back and forth, I finally received word that Duravit Germany agreed to have it airshipped to me within 2-3 days. A few weeks later, I still had not received word.

Finally on Friday, after following-up yet again, I was told that the vanity was in Atlanta and that it was on its way to that e-tailer, who would then send it to me along with my missing Starck 2 toilet.

Oh how we suffer for our art...

The calm before the storm Part III

2007-01-19T07:39:00.000-08:00

Okay... now the suspense is KILLING ME. The greenlight for the sheetrock has been on for about a week now, but there is yet to be a single board installed. I know, I know... patience, Grasshopper... But "I want it all, and I want it now." (R.I.P. Freddie Mercury)

So what's the main hold-up? Well, it has mostly been a matter of getting the crew assembled. For the past few days I have only been able to get a couple of guys on site, who were mainly busy doing other finishing touches like installing the chimney pipe, the basement stairs and installing the interior doors.

"Interior doors at this stage of the game?" you say. Yes... I really, really do not want any kind of trim around the doors (or windows), so I am going to have the jambs/frames beaded into the drywall. Yes, I know that there is a good possibility that the doors are now susceptible to getting flung with mud, paint, etc. It's a bit more work, but it's definitely worth it in the end.

Anyway, speaking of the chimney... I think the raw chimney pipe adds a little sumpin-sumpin to the house... a bit of "je ne sais quoi," if you will. lol The galvanized steel is brutally industrial on one hand, but in the light of day, it shines like a piece of silver jewelry. It's raw but architectural at the same time. I have to admit I was originally a little bit skeptical about doing this... now all I can say is that Rapson was definitely onto something here.

NEXT... 'ROCKIN' DA HOUSE!!!!!!

The calm before the storm Pt. II

2007-01-14T10:04:00.000-08:00

Well, perhaps calm would not be the word for it. The work site has been anything but calm, but only now there is this inkling that the final push is on, and we just need to really get our heads around everything that needs to be done before sheetrock. Sure, you can cut open sheetrock after it is up, but it would be a shame to be constantly in a state of doing and re-doing something and potentially screwing it up big time. Some of the miscellaneous details that need to be addressed are:

-Venting- bathroom fans, clothes dryer, cooktop, etc.
-Installing a few more light fixture roughs.
-Pipe placement.
-Installation of tankless water heaters.

PADDING THE BOTTOM LINE

Despite the threat of rain, the concrete pads were poured in various spots around the house...

...and admittedly I think it turned out better than I hoped it would. And I thought I was getting a good deal on the job- we found a mason who was willing to work for $25/hour. I would just have to supply the concrete.

Well, not so fast! I was quite taken aback when I got the bill for the labor - $2200!!! So let's break this down... if I were to get a flat-price proposal for the work, including labor and materials, the going rate would have been approximately $250 per yard. On this particular job, we used 8 yards of concrete, which would have meant that it should have cost no more than $2000- INCLUDING THE CONCRETE!! So why was the labor so high? A lot of it had to do with all of the time he spent correcting the stupid mistakes that I pointed out to him (in a nice way, of course). He easily spent two days (with a helper) fixing them. I can only surmize that, although he did a good job, it was only after much trial and error. So this is one of those live-and-learn lessons- if you enter into a time and materials agreement with any contractor, you should benchmark the costs against a fully comprehensive agreement and then set a ceiling clause for labor cost. If the contractor refuses to accept this, then walk away as fast as you can.

Suffice it to say, this mason is not doing the driveway!

Wowie zowie!!

2007-01-12T19:04:00.000-08:00

Electrical inspection- check. Solar inspection- check. Septic inspection- check. Framing inspection- check. Plumbing inspection- check. Insulation inspection- check. I am all clear to get 'rocked!!!! The next inspection will be for the certificate of occupancy. The stage has been set to get the sheetrock started early next week... Suh-weet!!!

The new year starts with a bang!

2007-01-06T20:45:00.000-08:00

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!

The heat is on!

2007-01-06T20:12:00.000-08:00

When I showed up on Friday, I found the HVAC guy in the basement fine-tuning the geothermal heat pump/condensing unit. Apparently everything looked okay; however, the electrician was out looking for a general purpose starter for the supply well. At this point I was practically beside myself with anticipation- this would be the second of the housing trifecta (electric, HVAC, water). And it would mean I can finally stay there for a prolonged period without feeling like I'm getting frostbite.

After the electrician arrived and installed the starter, the system roared to life. Or should I say it "whooshed" to life. At first it was just the fan system. Soon after, the condenser came on. Immediately I could see that the well water getting sucked into the filter was full of all kinds of disgusting schmootz- and it had the color of something not unlike green tea. Thank Buddah I don't have to drink from this stuff! Apparently this will get cleaner and cleaner as the pump sucks up all of the crud floating at the surface. Also, as it turns out, I am not getting any water hammering effect, which means I don't have to go through the expense of installing an expansion tank. Woo-hoo!

Soon I found myself running around upstairs checking the air registers. HEAT! Although, ironically enough, it was not really needed since temperatures outside were in the mid sixties- practically a heatwave in January. One thing that concerns me, however, is the noise. It's not exactly loud; rather, the pump transmits a heck of a vibration up through the first floor deck (all 18 inches of it!). And outside you can actually hear the water getting discharged into the return well- a sound that is not unlike the muffled noise of a toilet flushing. It's actually kind of soothing in a strange way.

So that's it?

2007-01-06T19:34:00.000-08:00

After repeated attempts to contact the building inspector, I finally received a telephone call just after the first of the year. Rather than chastising him for leaving behind this cryptic, nonsensical comment on my failed framing inspection report (and I had every reason to), I took the high road. I played dumb. "Uh, Mr. Inspector-man, um, like, what is this all about?"

"Correction needed: 1 No T-4's, change t-4 @ 3" to Y or sweep @ double joist @ parallel partitions"

The answer: The "correction needed" was in fact two very different corrections. The first part about the t-4 referred to the plumbing. In a nutshell, the waste piping needed to converge into a Y-shaped connection rather than a T-shape. The second comment about the "double joist" refers to the doubling of floor joists underneath walls framed above that run parallel with the floor joists. Both of these are very simple things that could have been explained simply.

Anyway, since nobody left comments with the correct answer, I guess nobody wins the million-dollar jackpot. ;-)

Cracking the code

2007-01-03T09:45:00.000-08:00

Over the years, in my various endeavors, I have come to learn and appreciate that everything has its own jargon- a verbal sort of secret society handshake. What may be complete and utter gibberish for one person may be completely logical and rational for another.

Being new to the construction/building trade, I am still boning up on my construction/building jargon. It doesn't seem terribly complicated for the most part. However, all bets are out the window when the jargon-y shorthand scrawl is introduced, such as the gibberish written by the Southampton town building inspector on my failed framing inspection. He stated the following cryptic comment in a nearly-illegible scribble on the inspection report:

"Correction needed: 1 No T-4's, change t-4 @ 3" to Y or sweep @ double joist @ parallel partitions"

And that was all. Sure, I had read "The da Vinci Code," so I appreciated a good opportunity to decrypt this puzzling code. But there were no clues left around the worksite... no 16th century masterworks embedded with religious symbology to point to the reason(s) why my framing inspection failed. Maybe I should fly to Paris and I will find the answers under the IM Pei pyramid at the Louvre!

Or maybe it was just a matter of being persistent and getting this one bureaucrat at the Southampton Town building/zoning department to return my call and ask him, in so many words, what the fuck was this nonsense about? Indeed, I finally received the verbal explanation. However, I could not figure out why he couldn't have made the effort to write complete sentences to make his points clearer. He could have saved all of us some time and aggravation.

Anyway... go ahead and take a stab at deciphering this gobbledy-gook. I will post the real meaning of this tomorrow (or the day after).

Fumbling forwards...

2006-12-20T18:15:00.000-08:00

As the old saying goes, if you keep your expectations low, you won't be disappointed. So the good news is... I'm not disappointed!! By the lack of progress, that is. Okay... I'm being dramatic. Actually a lot has happened "behind the scenes," as it were...

For one thing, the septic tank was installed, and the main water line was trenched and piped to the water main at the street. I'm all set for water... except it will take another three weeks for the Suffolk Water Authority to get around to tapping me in. Alas, my Port-a-Potty will not be going away anytime soon.

The stucco is nearly complete...

The lot is now nicely graded and the window wells are in (no more swimming pool in the basement, yea!)...

And I continue to order stuff left and right from the internet. This is my chimney cap. Pretty cool, eh?

Once I get through the holidays, the pace will hopefully start to pick up. As it is, insulation is slated to be done this weekend. And starting next week Jose the pimp, er, roofer has his crew starting on the odds and ends that my recently departed lead carpenter left behind. I hope to then get the framing/plumbing/insulation inspection done, although it is not likely to occur until the New Year. Still... this is all very exciting for me. I am this close to being 'ROCKED!

Everything happens for a reason

2006-12-20T14:22:00.000-08:00

Will I ever win? Will something good ever happen to me?

The latest hurdle to my progress was the abrupt resignation of my lead carpenter. Abrupt as in, "I'm going back home to Romania for an indefinite period. Oh, and I've got a plane to catch." He said that he would return when the time was right. But in our heart of hearts, Ron the builder and I knew that we would probably never see him again. I certainly did not see this coming, but apparently he had dropped subtle hints here and there about what was about to transpire. Rumor has it (from his buddies in the construction trade) that his Romanian girlfriend was extremely homesick and hated living in the Hamptons. I suppose I don't blame her. There is no Romanian community to speak of on the East End. Yeah, things are kind of fun and exciting during the summer season... but winters can be brutally desolate here at the end of the world.

I don't know about you, but I suspect most people do not quit their jobs, rid themselves of their material possessions and terminate their leases before heading off on an extended trip abroad.

As for me, I can only wish him well... although I wish he could have been more transparent about his intentions. I would have appreciated some kind of a lead time for finding his replacement; but alas, here I am without a go-to guy for the odds and ends that need to be performed.

Fortunately, our rock Jose the roofer has stepped up to the plate. This isn't the first time he's saved me from peril, nor will it be the last. Apparently he's quite the pimp in the East End construction world. He has connections upon connections to hook us up with. I believe everything happens for a reason, so perhaps this was all part of the master plan...

Ooh... competition...

2006-12-20T14:00:00.000-08:00

When I started this site-built contruction project back in the Mesozoic Age, I figured I would beat prefab construction at its game. I would not only finish quickly, I would come in much cheaper. Or so I thought. Anyway... two years and several dozen grey hairs later, I sit here humbled by the magnitude of my hubris. I have failed miserably on all fronts. And to pour salt into the wounds, this Johnny-come-lately has stepped up to the plate.

To be honest, I didn't think it could be done. But somehow, someway Nate Wieler managed to get the first fully-modular Greenbelt 2 house underway in Maryland. Congrats, Nate! My house now has a southern cousin! This is pretty impressive considering this couldn't have started any earlier than the summer of 2006... so now that the playing field has been leveled, let's see who can get to the finish line quicker- the tortoise or the hare! Oh, it's on. BRING IT!!!

I realize the exterior has not been finished yet... but the reality seems quite different from the original computer renderings. It also appears that there are interior walls that were, perhaps, built in to provide rigidity during transport (?). I wonder if the clients requested a lot of customizations that resulted in these drastic deviations from the original renderings. I'm also curious to see whether they were able to prefab the atrium, aka, "greenbelt" walls as well. Oh well... perhaps one day I will be able to visit.

Leaning, Leaning... (originally posted on LiveModern on November 4, 2006)

2006-12-18T13:50:00.000-08:00

The major autumn push I had hoped for never materialized. Well... it sorta materialized. In fits and starts. But it's been frustrating in the same way that it's frustrating getting stuck on the ski lift and watching other skiers whizzing by below in vapory trails. Still... every day is a new learning experience and a new opportunity to tweak this or to re-think that. Slow and steady is the course from here on out. No miracles needed.

LET IT BLEED

I am bleeding. Financially, that is. And under normal circumstances, I would feel the pain, or I would do whatever I can to stanch the outflow. But I am kind of numb at the moment. I do see the numbers… but they have become a hazy abstraction. Under normal circumstances, I would think to myself, "gosh, I could eat for 6 months on $2000," not unlike those fast food commercials in which the mechanic says "A new alternator is gonna cost about 250 milkshakes." Numbers that are 3, 4, even 5 digits long have kind of lost their real meaning. Oh, so what's another $2000 to revive my lapsed building permit in the grand scheme of things? What is another $4000 to raise the subfloor? It's nothing compared to the $15,000 check I wrote for the solar panels, etc.

Will I ever rediscover the true value of a dollar?

BIG INTEREST

Although the adjustable rate for my construction loan was quite appealing at the outset a couple of years ago (3.75%), it has adjusted to an absolutely toxic rate (8.0%), which is well above the current going rate for a 30-year fixed (6.3%). Thank you, Greenspan and Bernanke! Fortunately I am nowhere even close to tapping out the full loan amount, nor do I intend to reach that amount. Instead I have been taking advantage of some of the teasers sent out by my credit card companies. Chase offered a 4.9% cash advance that is fixed for the life of the loan. Discover offered 0% APR until February 2007. Suffice it to say, I have been loading up on cheap money in the short-term, which I will pay off after I receive the Certificate of Occupancy and refi into a fixed conventional mortgage. And considering the monumental downturn in the housing market and the attendant downturn in the loan industry, I feel confident that I will have no problems finding lenders willing to dole out cheap money as-needed.

So what's left? Well, the kitchen is paid for. The bathrooms are paid for. I only owe another $10K on the plumbing, HVAC and electricity. It's tempting to think that I have taken all of the big hits… but I feel that it's the little things that will pile up quickly. Recessed lighting trims. Doorstops. Tile. New building permit (the old one expired). Paint. Trees. Countertops. Window treatments. Oy vey!

OTHER TYPES OF INTEREST

As the house begins to take the form of something approaching completion, I have noticed the emergence of the Looky-loo, who find it totally within their right to enter the house without my permission or knowledge. In some instances, they show their appreciation and generosity by depositing their unwanted sh*t in my dumpster or nailing business cards to the studs. Needless to say, I wish I had the means to set up some wireless cameras or some other kind of surveillance equipment to keep an eye on things. Or better yet, stockade fences with barbed wire surrounded by a moat!

As a participant in the recent Long Island Solar House Tour, more looky-loo's stopped by to pick my brain for my very limited knowledge about photovoltaics, green building, etc. Oddly enough, the conversation invariably turned to the house. The typical reactions were "I can't believe you are building this kind of house!" Or "Did you design this yourself? Who is your architect?" Or "(So-and-so) told me I needed to check out this house." Or "Why did you do this with concrete walls?"

The feedback on the house has been overwhelmingly positive for the most part and eye-opening for me. I got the overall impression that people were not necessarily averse to modern design; rather, they just never considered it as an option. Or they didn't think "real people" i.e., non-architects, built them. The common theme expressed by most visitors was their appreciation for the honest use of materials- wood, concrete, glass, metal, etc., and the fact that it was not too austere or cold.

BALCONIES OF HORROR

When the sliding doors were measured and fabricated, I assumed everything would be hunky dory. Wrong! For whatever reason, the doors ended up being a tad too tall, which necessitated cutting into the door header and positioning the door unit on a 3/4" spacer, which was wholly insufficient for providing a proper run-off slope on the balcony. When I confronted my glass contractor, he shrugged and said that he could possibly cut into the header some more, but the surrounding areas would need to be re-sided and stained. Ugh! After some consideration, I presented this dilemma to my roofing contractor, since he, beyond everyone else, knew about water run-off and infiltration issues. He was stymied at first, but then came up with a plausible solution that called for lowering the balcony subfloor (in between the studs), applying ice shield material, pitching concrete board with cedar shakes, and setting tiles as the finished surface. This should prevent water from entering the house through the sliding door or through the airspace under the balcony. Regarding the finished balcony flooring material, I told him that I would like to use large, dark grey unglazed tiles, not unlike slate, or some approximation thereof. I told him to use his "best judgment."

When it comes to aesthetics, never trust someone else's judgment. I repeat, never trust someone else's judgment! Suffice it to say, my reaction was one of utter horror when I saw the finished product:

Because he was unable to find large (18") grey tiles in quantity, he took the liberty of using these stone-colored faux-travertine ceramic tiles. Yes, Virginia… a touch of the ol' Southwest right here on the eastern end of Long Island! Of course it was too late to turn back since the tilework was well underway by the time I discovered the atrocities. At the same time, I was just relieved that the balconies were finally getting finished, one way or another, so I bit my tongue and hoped that, at some later date, I could use a solid deck coating material (like Sani-tred) to cover this up.

However, after seeing the balconies in their finished state, I must admit that the faux travertine has grown on me somewhat. If nothing else, it's very low-key (and not visible from the street) and is a close match in color to the siding. Plus, when trimmed out with strips of cedar, it looked downright, um, appropriate!

MAGICALLY STEELICIOUS!

I have to admit that I was skeptical about the steel stair design, which, if you recall, was supposed to be something like this:

For one thing, I thought it would have been prohibitively complex/expensive to fabricate. Secondly, I was skeptical about the structural integrity of three-foot cantilevers, i.e., shaking, wobbling, etc. Thirdly, I didn't think they could meet code due to open risers, tread/riser dimensions, etc. And after many hours of going over designs, sending e-mails, arguing, throwing tantrums and haggling, the stairs finally came together beautifully:

By concealing the main weight-bearing steel member within the wall, the staircase will appear to float in mid-air; none of the treads will touch the wall or curtain wall. Still, the structure is surprisingly solid and doesn't even transmit the least bit of vibration, even when jumping up and down on the treads. Additionally, the T-shape of each tread provides a riser opening that is less than 4", thereby meeting the IRC for stairs. So it's open, but not too open.

IN THE MOOD… FOR BLOOD!!

As described in a past entry, "That Online E-tailer" lost over half of my bathroom fixture order in transit. Of course, with my luck, it was the half containing the obscure/special-order Duravit fixtures. The good news is that half of the lost fixtures were in inventory and shipped to me. However, I still haven't received some pieces, namely the Starck 2 toilet and the "In the Mood" vanity. In July, I was told that the "In the Mood" replacement vanity would take 16 weeks to deliver because it was a special order item made in Germany. Although I wasn't happy about the timeframe, I figured that 16 weeks would not have caused me any delays, even though it seemed like a ridiculously long time to fabricate and ship a product. Oh well… good things come to those who wait, right?

Fast forward four months; I checked on the status of the "In the Mood" vanity. After some back-and-forth, I was told that it would take another 8 weeks! That's a full six months to make a vanity! And that's almost a full year since I made my initial order! Does Duravit think they are the only company that makes vanities? Is their business so strong that they can be so blasé about customer service/order fulfillment? Don't get me wrong, I love the design of Duravit fixtures. But the customer service really, really BLOWS; I can't see myself ever ordering anything from them ever again. And I would STRONGLY discourage anyone within earshot of this blog from ordering from them either. There appears to be a major disconnect between the Duravit manufacturing hub in Germany and Duravit's U.S. outpost in Atlanta, which serves as little more than a post office for them. I realize that it wasn't Duravit's fault that half of my order was lost, but they should have some means, even if it comes at a paid premium, whereby products can be expedited or airshipped directly from Germany. All I know is that it is too late for me to change gears and go with something else, especially since the dimensions, fixtures and rough plumbing for that bathroom have all been set. And honestly, I really, really had my heart set on this one freakin' piece above and beyond anything else I had ordered.

I know, I know… I need to get a life...

STUC IT TO ME

Although I was a bit of a bear on stucco, it is amazing how much of a difference it has on the look of the Superior Walls. Although it appears white, it is supposed to be a Benjamin Moore color called "Halo," which is supposed to be a sandy, greyish color. The stucco itself is a synthetic product called STO, which may or may not hold up better than concrete over time. All I know is that it has a very consistent composition and finish and it looks pretty good.

Tipping Point (originally posted on LiveModern on September 20, 2006)

2006-12-18T13:37:00.000-08:00

There is nothing like a building project to make time fly at warp speed, where time is measured in increments of weeks rather than hours or even days. "I can start next week." "I'm on vacation this week." "It will be finished by the end of next week." A week doesn't seem to be such a big deal until you realize that there are only four of them in a month. And only three months in a season, four seasons in a year, etc. This time last year seems like last month, when enthusiasm and optimism seemed to be an unlimited resource. This year I sense that the enthusiasm and optimism tank is a bit under half-full, largely replaced by sheer angst and impatience. And unfortunately, the pace is still stuck somewhat in a state of evolution. Still, I have that little flicker of hope that I am finally at the crest of a long, slow gradual climb and that I am now teetering on the edge of a massively productive snowball of events happening in rapid succession. Fasten your seatbelts; it's going to be a bumpy night!

SAY 'NO' TO AGENT ORANGE

Over a year into the construction project, I have yet to put my own physical mark on this project. I brainstorm. I talk to trades. I design. I pay the checks. But I haven't really put any "sweat equity" into it. For whatever reason I came to the conclusion that staining the siding would be my first bold, committed step towards leaving my imprint. I even did lots of reading up on technique, products, stains, etc. I've stained decks before (as a kid, at my parent's house), so how difficult could it be? It's not unlike painting, right? Well… let's just say that I had some hard lessons to learn about staining and about life in general.

After researching several products online, I decided upon the Olympic stain/sealant product sold "exclusively" at Lowe's stores. It seemed to be one of the only products guaranteed to protect siding from discoloration and rot for up to seven years. And considering my location adjacent to the salty, brackish waters of the bay, this was a compelling consideration. And it seemed to be very attractively priced too ($112 for five gallons). I figured that all of the materials I needed for this job would be under $500, including the stain, a pump sprayer, mold-killer, brushes, etc. I finally decided upon the "natural cedar tone" "semi-transparent" color, which was supposed to help retain the cedar color while allowing the grain to show through.

The first day of pre-treating/bleaching the siding was arduous, backbreaking and wet… but it came off without too much hassle. My first lesson was that ANYTHING is more difficult when you work above the first story, especially on a job site with uneven terrain. Without a scaffolding it was very difficult to maneuver, and it was all too easy to mar the cedar siding if the ladder slipped. And with the second story being so tall, it was especially difficult to reach every square foot of the surface. And when you are teetering 20 feet above the ground on the ladder, it's hard to concentrate on anything but trying not to fall.

Needless to say, the actual process of staining turned out to be an utter disaster. I walked into the task assuming that "natural cedartone" would, um, resemble real natural cedar. Sure, the cedar siding had aged a bit since it was installed in January. But it still had a lovely pale yellowish pinkish tan color with a few hints of grey and brown thrown into the mix. I decided to start with the little bit of siding on the garage to get my bearings with the stain/sealer. To my horror, the first application was not pink, grey, yellow or brown. It was orange!

It wasn't merely orange-ish or rusty. It was full-on, carrot-dangling-in-your-face orange. Anita Bryant would have been proud. And the orange pretty much covered up all of the grain, save for the darkest marks. Although I was horrified initially, I soldiered on and continued around the garage under the hope/assumption/delusion that the orange would mellow out as it dried. Once I finished around the garage, I started on the house itself. It was at this point that I realized that the stain was drying into an even more intense orange. With a heavy heart, I stood there perplexed about what to do next. At this point Ron the builder drove up and let me have it. It was simply godawful. Not only was the color awful, my technique sucked as well- lots of overlap marks, drip marks, etc.

Over the next three hours I experienced all of the stages of grief: anger, accusation, denial, bargaining, and finally acceptance. When Ron showed up, I was just at the anger, accusation and denial stages. The bargaining stage was when I made a feverish dash back to Lowes (about 35 miles up island) to find a remediation for this, any kind. I decided that I could potentially mask "Agent Orange" by stripping the stain and masking any discoloration in the wood with a much darker stain, like walnut. So I bought the stain stripper along with some brushes, scrubbers, etc. Back at the house I set about trying to undo the damage. The stripper was just the most caustic, nasty stuff imaginable- it literally dissolved the brush I was using. And ultimately it did seem to strip away Agent Orange. However, it left the cedar BLACK. Not just dark brown. Like ebony. And all of the spraying and scrubbing in the world would not return the cedar to its original pristine state. The acceptance stage had just now set in. I could either have the siding (and roof capping) replaced, or I can call in an expert to fix the situation.

In the end, like a deus ex machinas, my electrical contractor's brother saved the day. His specialty is paint and stain, so he knew his stuff. First, he chided me for attempting to use a horrible, cheap, ugly product. Second, he made sure to test colors on actual samples of the cedar siding before selecting the stain product. It became apparent to me very quickly that ANYTHING you put on clear cedar will tend to turn yellow-ish or orange-ish, even the clear stuff. After some testing, I decided on the teak stain by Sikkens, which was much more expensive than the Olympic cr@p, but definitely worth it. It was a true dark brown with some yellow/amber highlights. In the end, he stripped the rest of the Agent Orange, bleached all the siding, powerwashed the siding, sanded down rough areas and applied the stain. All for only $2,000. And it looks absolutely perfect:

If I had known it would be this reasonable and beautiful, I wouldn't have bothered attempting this myself. The big lesson here: penny wise, pound foolish. The secondary lesson here is that you get what you pay for. Never shop based solely on price or availability. But ultimately this was just a really big serving of humble pie. I am no longer pining for the opportunity to do my own work!

CURTAIN WALL CAPERS

Just when I thought the curtain wall situation was all put to rest, along comes trouble. This time it was about the exterior capping. I had always assumed that curtain wall was curtain wall, regardless of who manufactured it. But apparently there are differences. My old contractor installed YKK curtain wall tubes and fabricated the capping for it (which was delivered to the site before he was terminated earlier this year). This, I thought, was all well and dandy. However, as the pieces were assembled, my new curtain wall contractor determined that they were not the right size, and that new caps would have to be fabricated and installed. Okay, fine. However, the new contractor uses only Kawneer curtain wall, which they discovered (the hard way) was incompatible with the YKK tubes. And apparently all of their suppliers only stock Kawneer as well. Anyway, after a month of dialing around the tri-state area, they finally located the compatible caps in the Bronx, which were then installed during a single nightlong session. The final sheet metal capping and sealing was also finally done:

Although I really like the black/bronze metal trim, I can't say that I am entirely thrilled with the finished job. It looks okay from a distance, but up-close you can see the seams, the silicone globs, etc. And the metal appears to expand and distort somewhat during the day. But ultimately I think it is what it needs to be. Perhaps some day in the future, when I have hit the lottery, I will think about finishing this out with custom-fabricated steel…

PAINT IT BLACK

When I said that I wanted a red door, I wasn't expecting it to be fluorescent. But that is essentially what I have:

It does not really come across in the picture, but it is a very intense tomato red, which can be almost blinding when the sun hits it. I love it! It is essentially a sheet of red Acrylite sandwiched in between the two glass panes in the door. Plus I had them stencil the house numbers (12" tall) onto the inside of the glass. Since my street address only has two numbers, I figured I could get away with really large numbers. It's not quite "Neutra font," but it's darn close…

BAND-AID

Of all of the things to give me angst on this house, I always knew that the curtain wall and roof would be my biggest issues. And, as it turned out, they were. However, I was not expecting the architectural features we have dubbed the "rim bands" to be such a source of frustration. This is the architectural band between the first and second stories and at the roofline that goes around the entire perimeter of the house like a cinch. At first I thought it would be a, um, cinch- simply tacking up some boards and painting them. However, in the interest of trying to create clean lines and providing an appropriate transition between the concrete and wood elements, I came up with a design that incorporated multiple metal profiles:

The metal to be used on this band would be a composite of the metal used on the roof capping and gutters, as well as the break metal used at the curtain wall. Unfortunately this has resulted in two different contractors having to create two different components of the rimband (since two different contractors are responsible for the different metals). And from what I can tell, they cannot stand each other. I've never heard such "tsk tsking" in my life; they would rip on each others contribution, or state that it should have been done a different way, etc. It's almost like being backstage at the Miss America pageant. And although my primary contacts understood the work at hand, their crews were often at a loss for what to do. Even Ron the builder was confused. And unfortunately since I am living and working 100 miles away, I cannot be there to orchestrate this full time. I know this is going to look great when it is finally finished, but goshdarn it has been painful to get there.

CRACK IS WACK PT II

The good news is that the engineer who examined the cracked section of Superior Wall under the front balcony determined that the wall was structurally sound and would not require remediation. The bad news is that, upon closer examination, the engineer found approximately three additional cracks of various lengths throughout the house, albeit also structurally sound. According to the engineer, these cracks may be attributed to the natural settling of the house. And so it goes. Nevertheless, I have a call into the local Superior Walls rep to have their people examine the cracks.

THIS N THAT

-My confidence in freight carriers has plummeted even lower. This time, my fireplace arrived completely BUSTED. A replacement is supposedly on its way; however, the fireplace opening is wide open to the elements until then.

-My next house is going to be one-story. I am sick to death of the logistics of stair fabrication and meeting the building codes. Apparently, due to space constrictions, the L-shaped staircase I am planning to fabricate is not compliant with the International Building Code, but just squeaks by under the New York State Building Code in terms of tread/riser dimensions. Meanwhile I can open up any modern design publication and note that each and every staircase is not compliant with the IBC. I suspect that these people must secretly replace their staircases after receiving the Certificate of Occupancy, because they have wide open risers (>4"), ladder railing, no railing, shallow treads, etc. Thank Buddah I live in a state where people have smaller feet but longer legs!

-Oh, and here is one more obligatory progress shot:

Wind in my sails (originally posted on LiveModern on August 12, 2006)

2006-12-18T13:05:00.000-08:00

For a person so used to instant gratification, this project has been the ultimate test in patience. Each and every step forward is a little miracle unto itself and it makes you appreciate everything else that has been accomplished, albeit, very slowly. And after drifting around the Sargasso Sea of virtually suspended animation for the better part of a year, I can finally feel the Gulf Stream at my back. Albeit, with a hurricane or two tossed in for good measure. Don't you just love weather analogies?

In a nutshell, a corner is being turned. The trigger has been pulled and we're off. Being weathered in (well, at least 99% weathered in) is such an incredibly satisfying achievement, especially since it has taken so long and has been fraught with so many setbacks. Considering that all of the trades and components have been staged for completion, the challenge now will be to prevent all of the horses from tripping over each other in the mad dash to the finish line.

(NO LONGER) CURTAILED BY CURTAIN WALL PT. III

After dumping Curtain Wall Clown Number 1, I almost felt like Wile E. Coyote running off of a cliff- it felt good at first, but then, when the gravity of what I had done hit me, I started to freefall into a sort of panic state. What am I gonna do now? Can I order curtain wall in a box from Acme? What impact will this have on the project? Will I even be able to find someone to take over? If I do, will they charge an arm and a leg (i.e., union)?

So what does one do when he runs out of options? He turns to the Blue Book and starts letting the fingers do the walking, that's what.

I must have cold-called literally 40 glazing contractors located between Westhampton and Brooklyn- the vast majority, as expected, were strictly commercial or strictly union. I must have sent drawings/pictures/elevations to 20 of them. About 10 of them went out to visit the site. About 3 of them provided written proposals. At one extreme, the proposal to finish the job was actually MORE expensive than the total cost of the job by Curtwain Wall Clown Number 1! The others fell within a wide spread ($25K!) under that.

Ultimately, out of the gazillion contractors I contacted, it really only came down to one- a small father-son glazing contracting business located in Jackson Heights, Queens. The young son in particular was especially taken with the design of the Greenbelt house and seemed very enthusiastic about having the opportunity to add it to his portfolio of projects. And based on some of the other work they did for businesses in the outer boroughs as well as Manhattan (including a wonderful modern penthouse triplex on a rooftop on Warren St. in TriBeCa that I had always admired [that was owned by that CEO in that drug stock scandal that wasn't "a good thing."- hint, hint]), I felt like they had the right mindset and pedigree to do this. And not only was the proposal very reasonable, their specialty was on custom-fabricating everything precisely to spec. And you can't put a price tag on enthusiasm; there's nothing worse than being treated like you're just another McCustomer doing just another McJob.

Less than a month after signing the dotted line, things started happening- most of the operable window units and all four of the sliding doors and the front door frame were installed. I was very pleased, especially by the sliders, which were anodized alumninum on both the inside and outside, and had super, super-narrow profiles. Tres chic!

However, as you can see, the door hardware was, for all intents and purposes, major-league FUG. They are presently scouring their catalogs and online resources to find something decent. I provided them with an Omnia door leverset which they are going to try to marry up with the lock/mortise mechanism in the door just in case they were not able to find something decent.

Last to go up were the freakin' triangle end gables in the roof, which required on-site glass pane fabrication since these were all odd trianglular/polygonal shapes. Quite fascinating to watch. After repeatedly taking precise measurements of lengths and angles, templates of each glazing section were made. Then they scored large sheets of glass along the templates that were then snapped perfectly along the score with a strategic tap at just the right location and intensity (apparently this is a bit of an art). After thorough cleansing, the cut glass panes were bonded to metal channels/gaskets, evacuated and sealed with some kind of a suction machine. Almost immediately they were ready to be popped into the curtain wall frame.

FIRE IN THE HOLE

After bouncing around a bunch of ideas about how to plug that big hole in the living room curtain wall for the fireplace, we just decided to do the most straightforward thing- a masonry box. And in my classic display of overkill, I ordered a monster of a fireplace (Lennox Col-3629) that necessitated a monster of a masonry box. Ron the builder thinks it looks awful, but I kind of like the scale of it- in a jail cell for dwarfs kind of way.

LOST IN TRANSITION

After waiting six months for my Duravit bath fixture order to be fabricated and shipped from Germany, the delivery date was set. I was like a kid on Christmas Eve waiting for the delivery truck like I was waiting for St. Nick himself. Rather than visions of sugar plums dancing, I saw myself plowing through the boxes, one-by-one, to take in all of the modern Euro-fabulosity. Box upon box upon box upon box of it. But when the delivery finally arrived, I quickly surmized that a lot of it was missing. A shitload, even. I basically received one of the tubs and a bunch of odds-and-ends and fittings. So where was all the cool schwag??? Wherefore the Starck X basin? The "In the Mood" vanity?? I called "that online e-tailer" to ask why over half of my order was missing (and arguably the cooler half!). Apparently my shipment should have arrived on two skids, but I only received one. Therefore, the second skid must have been left behind somewhere. Unfortunately that "somewhere" could have been any one of the bazillion freight hubs between the midwest and Long Island. To complicate matters, large freight like this may change carriers multiple times after it leaves its point of origination. So the search was on… in every port and dock between Chicago and Boston. Alas, after a couple of weeks and a couple of false positives, the trail finally went dead cold for the second skid around Indianapolis. It was almost, without a doubt, sent to someone else by mistake. It was officially branded "MIA" at this point.

All we know is that someone, somewhere out in the hinterlands of red state America, inadvertently received a large shipment of expensive merchandise that did not belong to them. It's time to 'fess up, whoever you are. It's times like this that I really question humanity, integrity and the goodwill of people. Yes, I have been checking in on eBay to see if any of my stuff ended up there.

Anyway, "that e-tailer" has committed to fulfilling the order by any means possible, but some of it will take another six months to order from Germany. Schießen Sie mich!

"CRACK IS WACK!"

The other day while I was checking on things I noticed that the front Superior Wall under the balcony had a hairline crack running through it. Top to bottom.

Hmmm… Then I noticed another hairline crack running… top to bottom… Then I noticed yet another hairline crack. Hmmm…

Immediately I remembered that two HVAC supplies were run through the recesses of this section of wall. In fact, the HVAC contractor went through the backbreaking effort of breaking through the concrete header/footer between the basement and first floor, as well as the concrete header to the second floor:

I suspected immediately that the herculean force used to create these passages most likely caused these cracks to form over time. We took pictures and immediately had Superior Walls have their say on it. Without sending an engineer out to assess the situation, SW surmized that it should not be a structural issue. Still, they said that an engineer should come out (hint: at my expense) to determine the cause of the cracks (i.e., to see if SW may be liable), and to determine the appropriate remediation. Ron the builder suspects that, at the very least, some form of lateral bracing will be required, even if it means having to redirect the HVAC supplies, filling the recesses between studs with concrete, etc.

I am not terribly concerned about this. All I know is that somebody else is paying to assess the situation and fix this. Not me. If it isn't an inherent failure of the Superior Walls system, then it's the responsibility of the HVAC contractor. They can fight it out amongst themselves; I'll just ring the bell.

GOOD GOLLY, I NEEDS A LOLLY

Maybe it was all of the heavy glass being staged on the garage roof. Maybe it was the weight of the garage door and motor. But in the end gravity won.

The first sign of trouble was the formation of a pond, er, puddle on the roof over the garage after a rainstorm. A pretty deep puddle. At first I assumed that the roof was not pitched sufficiently or that there was perhaps a deficiency of roofing material in that spot. Later, after some investigation, the roofing contractor determined that the LVL in the garage was starting to sag. In a nutshell, it seems that the beam was insufficiently sized to support the entire roof structure to begin with. In hindsight, this should have been a steel beam. But in the interest of saving a few drakmas, we went with an LVL instead. Penny wise, pound foolish indeed. So rather than undergoing the horrific task of replacing it with a steel beam after the fact, a lolly column will be installed to support the LVL. Ugh! I am definitely disappointed with having a column in the garage, but I suppose that is infinitely better than having the entire thing collapse during the next Nor'easter this winter.

ODDS n ENDS (mostly odd)

My mailbox:

Ron the builder is convinced that someone is going to a) steal it or b) knock it over with a baseball bat. I guess no matter where you go there will never be a shortage of bored teens.

Break Metal:

I didn't think I was going to like this (my heart was set on clear anodized), but I think it adds some depth/contrast to the curtain wall.

Stair Design:

No, this is not MY staircase (I wish!), but the new curtain wall contractor is going to take up the challenge of doing an L-shaped design inspired by this cantilevered design. He's a brave, brave man!

Dear OPEC and your $75/barrel oil: Drop dead.

Stick a fork in me (originally posted on LiveModern on June 13, 2006)

2006-12-18T12:59:00.001-08:00

Although I usually consider myself to be a pretty tough cookie, the past couple of months have been probably among the most trying of my life. Things blowing up on the homefront, personal front and especially the professional front. Oh, and there was also this little modern house project that I've been working on for the past couple of years that is/was stuck in a serious rut. At my darkest hour, considering how everything else had kind of imploded, I considered (for a few nanoseconds) selling off this surreally difficult project... but the moment passed. Indeed, insanity ultimately prevailed.

To enter into a long woe-is-me tale about my goings-on for the past couple of months would be the subject of another blog, so I won't get into it. But I will say that the dust is settling and that, besides a few dozen additional grey hairs, a quasi-nervous breakdown and some lost sleep, I'm pretty much okay now.

CURTAILED BY CURTAIN WALL PT. II

The early spring has turned into late spring. The flowers have bloomed, the leaves are on the trees, and another summer season in the Hamptons is in full swing. But here I am merely reading about it online (http://beach.curbed.com) rather than actually being there to enjoy it. I could have never imagined, even in my worst nightmare, that I would be sitting here with a half-finished house a year after groundbreaking.

As before, the main source of my angst has been the curtain wall contractor. And boy could I kick myself for allowing him to string me along for such a long time. I did everything in my power to try to coerce him into action. I tried to guilt him into acting by going on at length about the negative impact of prolonged exposure to the elements. When this didn't work, I mixed my pleas with a bit of Philly street thug ("After a while, yous gotta sh*t or get off da pot."). When this didn't work I threatened to can his lazy a$$ off the job. He finally wrote me an e-mail that he would have the entire job, including curtain wall, sliders, sealing and break metal completed within a month. But that is only if I would advance him the next milestone payment, even though he had not completed the previous milestone! He said that he needed the money because he was having "cash flow issues" and that Efco would not take any orders until they received some cash upfront. And given my utter lack of confidence in this clown and my realization that he was not ever going to finish, I refused; I would not throw good money after bad. So without cash he would not be able to reach the next milestone. But he would not receive any cash from me until he reached the next milestone. Classic standoff. After a couple of weeks of playing out this silly dance I finally canned him at the beginning of June without any idea of how this will be completed or will complete it. Admittedly, considering the work that has been done thus far, I would say that I have the upper hand with the curtain wall contractor- the project is about 35-40% complete, even though I paid less than 25% towards it. But considering the thousands he has cost me in terms of fees, interest and penalties (due to his prolonging my construction period by five months), he had better not even consider coming after me for the difference!

THE SEARCH GOES ON

Is there a curtain wall contractor in the house? After calling dozens upon dozens of storefront/glazing contractors in the NYC/Long Island area, I found only a few places that would even consider doing a residential project, let alone one that is partially completed, let along one that is located way out on the East End of Long Island. And then there are those who do residential projects... but they are strictly union shops, which means that they will take as long as they want to take and demand top dollar. This is definitely a situation where beggers cannot be choosers... but then again, I find it hard to believe that in one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the entire world, I cannot find a single contractor who would be willing to do this. Yes, I am getting nibbles here and there... but I desperately need someone to step up to the plate and say that they will not only get the job done, but that this would be their utmost priority. Hey, a boy can dream!

ARRGGH-DEX

One of the biggest challenges of working with a non-weathertight structure is how to carry on the momentum. The HVAC ducting/roughing is complete. The rough plumbing is complete. Most of the electrical wiring is complete. So what about the floors? My original intention from the get-go was to do a concrete slab for the first floor. We even anticipated the additional load by utilizing 2 x 12 floor joists. All of the door openings were adjusted to accommodate the thickness of the slab. But when push came to shove, we all had cold feet about doing this- could a wood deck support the dead weight of concrete. And when the concrete contractor is the biggest skeptic of them all, that's when you know that it may be time to consider Plan B. After doing a bit of searching online, I came across the various different poured flooring systems (like gypcrete), which are typically underlayments used on concrete slabs to seal and level high/low areas, and then finished with either tile or engineered hardwood flooring. However, I was interested in using this sort of system as the finished flooring. For me the biggest advantages of using a poured floor were that they were lightweight (only 1/4 - 1/2" thick), very quickly installed, and they are fully cured within 24 hours. Gypcrete was immediately ruled out because it was never intended to be a wearing surface. I looked into a couple of others but was told by a flooring contractor (who used lots of different products) that Ardex was the best of the lot. After calling them for a local referral, I spoke with a flooring company (not a concrete contractor) who said that they could definitely use Ardex SD-T (using a multiple step metal lath, priming, pouring, sealing process) on a plywood deck. The only caveat was that the deck would have to be at least 1.5" thick, which would require putting on a second subfloor. This would help to minimize deflection and the development of cracks. However, he did caution me that spider-vein cracks are likely to appear around the T&G joints in the plywood. Eh, whatever- as long as it doesn't result in big chunks of the floor flaking out over time. It adds character, right? They eventually gave me a proposal to apply the Ardex system for $6 a square foot (not including the second plywood deck). I thought that was an okay price, if not a great price. I decided to get a second opinion from another flooring contractor. Boy did they sing a different tune! After getting the local Ardex field representative involved, they determined that they would not recommend putting Ardex on a wood deck and that it was more than likely that massive failures would occur due to the different expansion/contraction coefficients for wood vs. Ardex and deflection in the floor joists. I asked them if installing control joints over the plywood seams would help ease this issue, and they said that it could. Ultimately they agreed to give me a proposal, but they were not be able to guarantee the job. At first I thought their proposal had an extra digit in it! $16 per square foot! For that kind of money I could have put in a metal deck and poured a conventional slab and still had thousands left over. Needless to say, I will probably be utilizing Flooring Contractor #1 for this project, even though I am now a bit more paranoid about the potential for failure. I am heartened to see that many of the art and furniture galleries in SoHo (in 19th century cast iron buildings) appear to use these poured floors over hardwood flooring, and they look great, despite all of the commercial traffic.

Now wouldn't it have just been easier to go with hardwood flooring?? You try to do something a little different...

I'VE GOT THE POWER

After a couple of months of delays, the solar panels for my house were finally "allotted" to me. Apparently these are quite in demand! The 4509-watt system pretty much covers the entire surface area of the angled/shed roof section, so I am glad that I used regular 30-year asphalt shingles up there. But I have to admit that it looks really, really neat:

The inverter has been activated, the power company, LIPA approved the electrical box and now I officially have power! In fact, the meter is spinning backwards like a top, even on overcast days. If there is one ray of light (pun intended) amidst all of this doom and gloom, this is it.

BELLO DOOR-O

As I had mentioned previously, I opted for the Clopay Avante door for the garage. It was a no-brainer. In fact, I couldn't imagine there being anything else there. However, I have to admit that I was a tad disappointed with it. It's a beautiful door for sure, but the "obscure" glazing looks a bit chintzy- it has the look of pebbled glass, as if it were covered by condensation. When ordering the "obscure" glass I had assumed that it would have more of a frosted appearance. Still, I can live with it.

Curtailed by Curtain Wall! (originally posted on LiveModern on April 7, 2006)

2006-12-18T12:37:00.000-08:00

Although I was expecting the project to move along in fits and starts, even at my most pessimistic I couldn't have anticipated that things would come to a screeching halt. Starting in the fall, my main objective was to get closed in so that work could progress through the winter months. I figured that, by initiating the curtain wall project in October, I would be closed in shortly after the beginning of the new year. Well, it's April, and I'm still not closed in! Boy did I turn out to be the April fool here. Well, on the bright side of things, at least I no longer have to worry about being able to work through winter. Spring done sprung!

Four words succinctly describe my mood at this point: I've fuckin' had it! Even enthusiasm and anticipation can only sustain one for so long. I had read about it, but I never thought it would happen to me. Alas, I am dealing with the contractor from hell. More specifically, the curtain wall contractor from hell. Perhaps I must come across as the biggest sucker in the world. If it wasn't one thing, it was another. The following is a short list of the bullshit I was fed that kept delaying the curtain wall installation:

All of the fabricators are sick with the flu.

A bunch of my fabricators resigned.

So-and-so's father died.

So-and-so's grandmother died.

So-and-so has jury duty.

My truck was broken into in Brooklyn and all of my tools were stolen.

We're having trouble finding a large glass truck willing to deliver that far away.

And the most oft used line of bullshit:

I had an emergency on another project.

And every time I expressed disappointment or tried to light a fire under them, I was fed one line of BS after another. "They'll be out tomorrow." "They'll be out this weekend." "I will call you tomorrow to let you know." And, of course, the targeted days would come and go without nary a peep from this wonderful contractor. Unfortunately I am not exactly in a position to just let my fingers do the walking and find someone else to do this. I am certain that 99.9% of curtain wall contractors would not touch me with a ten-foot lolly column- they either work exclusively on commercial projects, or they would not be willing to make the trek all the way out to the East End of Long Island. Plus I have already put down 25% of the project cost.

Now that the curtain wall and door installation is about THREE MONTHS LATE (and counting), I have incurred all kinds of consequences. The siding/trim contractor has essentially walked away in disgust. We're crossing our fingers for good weather so that the first floor concrete pour can begin. I have thousands of dollars worth of kitchen cabinets and bathroom fixtures that I will have to stall the delivery for. I have additional builders risk insurance premiums. I have to file an extension on my building permit. The bank is breathing down my neck, etc., etc.

So, indeed, the curtain wall has been going up very slowly. VERY, VERY slowly. Rather than attacking the frames and glass all at once (thus saving multiple trips from Cherry Hill, NJ), they chose to put in three-hour work days days and weeks apart. As if this wasn't bad enough, they put in the wrong glass at the roof; it is opaque instead of clear. So now, due to their total ineptitude, they have to trash seven large pieces of laminated glass- nominally 4' x 6' each. Perhaps someone out there in LiveModernville could use these? Lord only knows how long it will take them to re-fabricate these units with clear glass.

In any case, despite the disaster that the curtain wall has become, I must admit that it looks AMAZING. Admittedly I had my misgivings about having such large expanses of glazing in relation to the close proximity of neighbors and the street. I would have been living in a fishbowl. However, the laminated panes are wonderful- they provide lots of soft light while providing total privacy.

Here are some shots of the progress:

March 4, 2006:

Details of the balcony. The cladding of the balcony joists turned out quite well.

The capping of the curb at the roof line has almost completed. They are waiting on the completion of the curtain wall before they proceed with the final trim details.

Here is a detail of the "naked" curtain wall frame in the living room.

The "naked" curtain wall frames at the roof:

April 6, 2006. Most of the curtain wall has FINALLY been installed. However, the triangular end gables are still being fabricated.

A view of the back of the house:

A view from inside looking out the front:

Looking up from the first floor:

Looking down from the loft:

View from the roof deck, where you can see the opaque laminated glass that was installed in error. I actually kind of like it. However, I want to see stars when looking up at night.

The front entry. The door is still being fabricated (ugh!).

Although I am being reassured that the curtain wall will be wrapped up soon, I am forging ahead now that temperatures are pretty much above freezing. My short term goals are:

-First floor and garage concrete: This has turned out to be outrageously expensive- somewhere on the order of $500 per cubic yard. Apparently this will involve using lightweight concrete, lots of mesh/rebar and temporary support structures in the basement.

-Stair fabrication. After months of weighing the various options, including steel and aluminum, I think we are going to attempt to do this purely out of wood; the quotes I have received for steel fabrication have been disastrously expensive. My goal is to have an open riser stair with stringers that are very close together- virtually a single stringer. Using 2" treads should enable a pretty decent cantilever off of the stringers.

-Garage Door. I am pretty much resigned to putting in the Clopay Avante. My only concern is whether I am going overboard on that whole anodized aluminum-opaque glass look. What if it becomes horribly dated in a few years?

-Solar Panels. My contractor has received the panels and is ready to install them once the electric service has been connected. Unfortunately, the electric service is dependent upon being closed in to the weather, which is dependent on the curtain wall and doors. Ugh!

-HVAC. The geothermal heat exchange and blower units are ready to be installed once I am closed in. A pipe then has to be run from the supply/discharge wells.

-Finishing the trim. I suspect this will be my first official "sweat equity" task. I am going to paint the boards that will comprise the trim/fascia pieces. I am still not entirely certain what color this will be. I want it to be a bright color, whatever it is.

-Staining and sealing the cedar siding. This will be my second "sweat equity" task. I suspect this will be tantamount to hell on earth.

-Parging the Superior Walls. This should be fairly straightforward.

Water Off a Duck's Back (originally posted on LiveModern on February 5, 2006)

2006-12-18T12:21:00.000-08:00

This is just a quick mini-update since the last post. But it has been a challenging couple of weeks, to say the least. The push is on, but I've been beset with exterior trim issues, a totaled car, and budgetary concerns. I've spent a couple of restless nights fretting about the unknown, fretting about finances and the feeling of being stranded without a car. But then I keep reminding myself how worry is such a useless emotion. Everything happens for a reason- good or bad, so this is all just one more lump I had coming to me. I just have to let this all happen and get past it- like water off of a duck's back.

The good news is that this winter has been incredibly mild, which has been a godsend for getting the exterior finishing started. The bad news is that it has also been annoyingly rainy. Especially on the weekends. It's yucky duck weather.

The windows and one of two Nordic Doors are in while the curtain wall installation has been scheduled. Here are some shots of the house with about 80% of the siding up:

And here are some shots from the garage roof deck. The windows seem a bit "random" right now, but I'm confident that they will become more "coherent" when the roof coping and "rim band" fascia are applied. Ugh, the rim band! After lots of aborted concepts, I came up with a design that incorporates wrapped metal profiles and planks of painted cedar board. Jose the roofer, who happens to own sheet metal forming equipment kind of sighed when asked to give a proposal on the rim band, but he ultimately stepped up to the plate. In addition to the rim band, he will be wrapping the exposed joists above the balconies with the same aluminum sheet metal. This should be interesting! Anyway:

And here is a close-in detail of the Nordic door. I'm still not sure if I am exactly thrilled with the door hardware, which came with the door. I really didn't have the option to install my own hardware since the door itself is of a rather unusual thickness, which would not be compatible with most commercially available hardware.

I was rather relieved to see the curtain wall material that had been staged in the garage. It looks really sleek and seems like it will match the H Windows perfectly. I have a feeling it will look amazing when it is installed.

And finally, the true inspiration for my post, shot outside of the Sag Harbor 7-Eleven:

The Rain King (originally posted on LiveModern on January 24, 2006)

2006-12-18T11:57:00.000-08:00

What happened to the last three months of my life? I feel almost as if I blinked and early Autumn suddenly became mid-winter. I also feel like it has been a steadily productive period, yet, at the same time, from the outside, it doesn't seem like a whole lot has progressed. I suppose much of the time was spent waiting patiently. Waiting for quotes. Waiting for windows. Waiting for the snow to melt. Waiting for the holidays to end. Waiting for the free days when I am able to visit the site to check on things. And it almost seems like I bring the rain with me every time I visit. I am the Rain King!

With January being surprisingly balmy after a suprisingly frigid December, the momentum is once again starting up. I think that getting weathered in will be the tipping point. The ensuing weeks should be a relentless, furious period of work.

DECISIONS, DECISIONS

I have now officially reached the stage of the project where I have to make very resolute decisions. Sure, there were some decisions to be made from the very beginning regarding framing, structure, materials, etc. But only now am I starting to make final decisions about the "fun stuff"- the finishes, the fixtures, the layout, etc. After months, if not years of looking at magazines, catalogues, websites at faucets, bathtubs, kitchens, lighting fixtures, etc., I finally had to show something for all of that research. And at the end of the day, it was rather anticlimactic. They were invariably rushed decisions that were borne of necessity, dimensional constraints and timing, rather than fantasy. It was more about spending hours on the internet and calling e-tailers, playing with floorplans and balancing the practical with the downright looney. It wasn't exactly sipping champagne at a Madison Avenue showroom.

...AND EVEN MORE DECISIONS

After suffering through another month of pondering over the window situation, I finally made decisions on how to deal with all of the glazing. The punch windows were fairly straightforward, but the 2-story atrium walls posed some heady design challenges. It appeared rather obvious from Ralph Rapson's original plans that he specified some kind of extruded aluminum frame with glass inserts for the atrium walls. However, in the interest of possibly saving some money (and also without having any previous experience with curtain wall or storefronts), Ron recommended that we frame up the walls with 2 x 6's and pop in conventional windows. This sounded okay at first, but the closer I came to making final choices, the more hesitant I became. Not only would this create really thick/bulky mulls, it also presented issues with regard to trim and structural integrity. I looked into the possibility of doing this with storefronts, but most people doing storefronts were not interested in doing one-shot residential projects. And fewer were willing to schlep all the way out to the Hamptons, and there aren't exactly tons of window fabricators in the Hamptons to begin with. And the handful who seemed willing to do a residential job in the Hamptons told me to send drawings/specs for pricing. Only one company bothered sending me a proposal, which was so ridiculously overpriced that they were clearly not serious. After some persistence, I finally came across a smaller shop in Cherry Hill, NJ (just outside of Philadelphia!), who seemed very interested in my project. They had done a modern house on Long Island previously, so they had no problem with my location or project. Ultimately they talked me out of storefronts because curtain wall had many advantages over storefronts, not the least of which being lateral structural support and resistance to air and water infiltration. And the pricing was surprisingly comparable to storefronts. And after some further discussion, they proposed to do the entire living room wall in curtain wall as well as the central atrium area, the roof windows and the end gables. I figured it would make sense to have them do all four of the 8' x 8' slider units as well as the front door- all curtain wall and door components would be custom fabricated from YKK and Efco Door. The process of bringing the curtain wall to fruition has been painful (the company has been very busy) and all of the custom fabrication has been way more expensive than I would have wanted, but ultimately I think it's one more painful expense I have to swallow to do this house properly.

THIS 'N' THAT

Other developments on the homefront:

-Much of the electrical wiring has been started and the power line was "shot" under the street to a meter that will eventually be hidden by the front hedge. Unfortunately LIPA requires that stairs to the basement are finished before electric service is activated. I'm thinking this has something to do with ensuring that some fat-a$$ sloth from the electric company can go into the basement to inspect the hookup. Here is Septimiu, the master carpenter, cobbling together the stair framing in a really wet basement:

-Much to my relief, the Suffolk Water Authority confirmed that there is a municipal water line running along my street. It's just a $950 hookup charge. The supply will be trenched when the septic tank is installed.

-The rough plumbing and PVC are complete.

-The supply and return wells/pumps for the geothermal system have been drilled and trenched to the house.

-The rough HVAC ducts have been blocked in anticipation of the concrete slab on the first floor.

-I am currently working up a kitchen design/quote with a local design firm in East Hampton who is trying to establish Berloni cabinets in the Hamptons market; they were very enthusiastic about doing a modern kitchen vs. the standard French country stuff which is the norm. The Berloni cabinets are beautiful and appear to be very well made. Even the grilled anodized aluminum toekick is gorgeous. I have considered some more competitively priced options that I have sourced in the local NYC area; however, the cost of delivery out to the Hamptons largely cancels out any cost savings. I am really liking the Hal cabinets:

or the "Class" cabinets.

WINDOWS

When I placed my house window order from H Window at the beginning of November, I was not sure what to expect. I had seen other installations of H Windows, but I had never seen them done with clear anodized aluminum exteriors. I also ordered a couple of Nordic doors from them for the bedroom roofdeck and the mud room. Even though I specified that there should be no kickplates or extraneous details on the doors, the pictures on the website seemed to have some details (like recessed panels) that I wasn't crazy about. Anyway, I was very, very pleased to see the windows when they were finally delivered to the site on January 23. The windows are absolutely breathtaking from the outside- perfectly squared details and a flawless satin aluminum finish. The doors had none of those superfluous details that I was originally concerned about. I couldn't have designed more beautiful windows if I tried. If I am ever crazy enough to build another house, I am definitely going to order from them again. The pictures don't really do them justice:

The double unit in the master bedroom (nominally 9'H x 8'W):

And here is a close-in detail of one of the Nordic doors. It's hard to photograph this stuff!

And here are some simple awning units being installed in the master bath:

And even before the windows could be installed, Jose and his crew wasted no time wrapping the second floor with tar paper in anticipation of the vertical T&G cedar siding. Apparently tar paper is a better substrate than Tyvek for cedar siding. It's also a lot cheaper, so I'm not complaining! Anyway, despite my initial willingness to go a bit "rustic" with the cedar siding (to save a few pesos), I decided it was worth it to bite the bullet with the #1 clear grade 1 x 6. After comparing the rustic and clear grades side by side, there was just no comparison. It's double the price, but ultimately worth it.

GOALS FOR NEXT WEEK:

-Finish installing windows and secondary exterior doors.

-Figuring out what to do with the fascia/trim. Then actually doing it.

-Applying the cedar siding.

-Installing all of the curtain wall.

-Figuring out what to do for the garage door.

-Check out the woodburning fireplaces up at the Wittus store in Pound Ridge.

Chaos and Creation in the Back Yard (originally posted on LiveModern on October 2, 2005)

2006-12-18T11:36:00.000-08:00

SCHOOL OF HARD KNOCKS

Indeed, new experiences rarely pan out the way you expect them to. Building this house has been no exception. The budget is non-existent. The timeline is a big question mark. And I am beginning to dread checking my mail, fearing that I will get yet another invoice or statement for charges/materials I was not expecting. But I know that this experience is ultimately going to serve me well in my future endeavors. However, I feel incredibly vulnerable. I have come to realize that there are no safety nets for me- that even with a building consultant on retainer, I am the only one who has any stake in the outcome. As such, despite my working full time and being 100 miles away, willingly or not, I have become much more hands on with every aspect of this project.

One thing I have noticed is that I have managed to utilize a new set of vocabulary that I never had any use for before: "rough opening," "jamb," "soffit," "LVL," "parapet," "fascia," "moment connection," etc. Working in biotech, I really have no use for these things! Another thing I have learned is that I am a lot more perceptive about structural issues than I thought I could be. In essence, if my intuition told me that something was an issue, invariably, it really was an issue. And finally I am starting to get some mileage out of taking high school trig!

Some other things I have learned:

1. Take nothing for granted. Just because something is stated on the floorplan/elevation, or something is stated verbally, one can never assume that it will be done correctly. And you cannot assume that any of the contractors have an eye for aesthetics, sight lines and balance. Even if you have a very specific vision of what the structure should be, this does not mean that anybody else shares this vision. What your builder/GC/construction manager perceives as being correct may not be correct in your own perception. Therefore, you must check EVERY little detail carefully. Be prepared to spend hours with a tape measure, a pen and a note pad. And follow-up, follow-up, follow-up. The old adage about "let it be spoken, let it be done," does not apply here.

2. Make sure you have every specific detail documented BEFORE you start the project in earnest. There has been a lot of guesswork, a lot of "fudging," and a lot of revisiting things that were not explicitly clear on the drawings. Make sure there is no room for interpretation- the framing of a house should not be unlike assembling a model airplane.

3. It's true what they say about being on-site as much as possible. This is redundant, but again, you can not assume that things will be done per the plans. My biggest regret about this whole process is that I could not devote my time to this at all. Instead of being able to catch errors before/as they happen, things have to be corrected after the fact, which invariable affects other things that have been framed around it. I get the feeling that I instill a sense of dread in the framing crew whenever I pop by. If I ever build another house, I will try to figure out a way to take a sabbatical from work during the crucial phases of construction.

4. No plans are perfect. Plans may appear to be correct on paper, but may be contradictory out in the field. But the framing contractors may not be aware of this and may go ahead and frame a wall in front of a window opening per the plan dimensions (this actually happened!). Also, plans drawn by an architect located in another municipality, e.g., Ralph Rapson, may not meet the code requirements for your local building inspector, thereby necessitating deviations from the plans. And once you deviate from the original plans, this begats other deviations upon more deviations, and so on and so on. After a certain point, there is only so much the original architect can do to help guide you through a specific issue.

WINDOWS

Although the house was framed for using conventional windows for punch openings, even in the two-story "greenbelt" atrium area, I am starting to wonder if this is a good idea. For one thing, I think the look will be very bulky with thick sashes/profiles. Secondly, it's not exactly inexpensive doing it this way. Thirdly, this present a problem regarding how to properly trim the exterior of this "wall of windows." I am now beginning to think about putting up storefront windows, as opposed to a curtain wall of glass. I considered using curtain walls originally, but the cost was extremely prohibitive. However, the price point for storefronts appears to be comparable to using high-end residential windows, if not a tad higher. I have finally realized that curtain walls and storefronts look essentially the same. However, curtain walls are structural, thus costing much more money. I don't need curtain walls since the openings are relatively small and I have structural wood beams to support them on the second floor. Another thing I realized is that there are A BUNCH of storefront fabricators in the NYC area. Even moreso than residential window installers. Granted, every storefront fabricator I spoke with thought I was crazy for wanting this look on a single residence, but after some explaining, some of them seemed receptive to actually working on a house, especially the fabricators that specialized in small businesses. I guess I will have to chalk this up to experience!

Anyway, the jury is still out on this issue; I have to get some estimates before I make a final decision on this.

ROOFING

Although I was hesitant at first, now I am fairly certain that I will do the flat roofing myself using rubber coatings. In theory, it appears to be only a little more complicated than applying asphalt to a driveway. Sani-tred appears to be the coating of choice, but despite the high cost of this material, I think I can still save thousands by doing this myself.

TRIG FUNCTIONS

Figuring the roof pitch over the greenbelt section of the house was more challenging than I could have possibly imagined. Ralph Rapson's original plans called for a pitch that was approximately 19-20 degrees from the horizontal. While this may be acceptable for a solar roof panel installation in Florida or California, it would have been less than ideal for Sag Harbor's latitude, which should have the solar panels pitched at 25-55 degrees (I understand the rule of thumb is that the pitch should be plus or minus 15 degrees of latitude). We tried looking at 30 degrees, but this created an outrageously tall peak. Ultimately, we ended up with a roof pitched at approximately 23 degrees, which was good for absorbing the summer rays, but less than ideal for winter rays. However, this pitch provided sufficient surface area for the solar panels and looked appropriate relative to the rest of the house. In the end it was a compromise between efficiency, capacity and appearance.

PROGRESS

Despite the repetition, the house is essentially framed up. Here is a chronology of the progress since the last entry:

September 4, 2005

September 9, 2005

September 24, 2005

Sheathing has just begun.

Hurricane clips are being nailed on:

October 1, 2005

Sheathing is mostly complete and the greenbelt roof is being reframed (after being improperly framed the first time). This time it looks good.

Some interior shots:

I can't wait to have the roof windows installed. In fact, I think this is my favorite part of the house.

It's goin' up, up, up, up... (originally posted on LiveModern on September 8, 2005)

2006-12-18T11:24:00.000-08:00

PROGRESS

After spending some time with the engineer at the local steel yard, Ron the builder had him design the steel beam spanning the wall of windows in the living room. By using a 12" wide flange beam, we do not need to have any steel columns/supports within that span. Additionally, the engineer determined that the lateral support on the walls of windows in the greenbelt/dining area/foyer could be handled with multiple 2 x 10 members, as opposed to the much more costly option of using steel. However, I would still require steel to support the cantilevered front and rear balconies. Still, the engineer specified a less-costly C-channel steel that would be used on the top and bottom sections of the balconies.

After some crafty negotiation between Ron the builder and the framing crew, they gave me a proposal to do all of the interior/exterior framing (including balconies), sheathing and installation of windows (all 4 bazillion of them!) for a flat fee for labor only. As before, I would supply the materials. It was a fair proposal, not a great one. In the unlikelihood they would come down in their pricing, I asked if they could throw in the siding installation (second floor only) as well. Since there isn't a lot of siding on this house, I figured this would be a fair strategy. As it turned out, they agreed to throw in the siding into the proposal for the same cost.

The framing of the interior walls and the second floor exterior walls began in earnest starting on August 24. I was actually shocked by the amount of progress made by the time I visited the site on August 27:

The view from the living room to the kitchen:

A sectional view of the lateral support spanning the greenbelt:

The C-channel steel for the balconies was installed shortly after the steel beam in the living room. However, the engineer insisted that the steel had to rest atop concrete, rather than wood framing members, which would likely deform. As such, we had to have the framing crew form concrete posts on top of the Superior Walls to support the balcony steel. Theoretically, the C-channels could have been placed directly on top of the Superior Walls; however, this would have made the balcony floor much thicker and it would have just plain looked "chunky," for lack of a better term. Ralph Rapson also indicated that this would not have been the a good approach when we spoke in June. Anyway, here is a view of the balcony steel:

Here is the front view on September 1:

...and a few more views:

SUNNY SIDE SOUTH

After doing a lot of research on solar/renewable energy and HVAC systems, and after some failed dalliances with solar/HVAC contractors, I think I have finally come up with a REALISTIC strategy for my electrical, heating and cooling needs. My plan is to use the pitched (27 degrees) roof section over the greenbelt/atrium to hold a 4500 watt array of photovoltaic cells, which would generate approximately an average of $90/month worth of electricity (LIPA has the highest electrical rates in the country). This will be used to power the HVAC system, which will be a groundwater heat source heat pump, aka, geothermal heat pump. Unfortunately, this means strictly a forced air system, but apparently this is an ideal system for a two-level house with high ceilings and large expanses of glass (i.e., lots of heat loss/gain). It is my current understanding that this is the most efficient way to power, heat and cool this house, and it does seem to make sense.

Fortunately I found a single local contractor to perform the solar and HVAC work. After rebates and tax incentives, the net cost of the solar PV system is going to be $9,300. The geothermal heat pump system (six tons), including all ductwork, two zones, two thermostats, two wells (supply + return), etc. has a net cost (after LIPA rebates) of $29,200, which is actually only about 20% higher than a conventional oil or LP system in a house of this size/design (which is far more complicated to duct than a house with an attic). Even after the rebates/incentives, this is still quite a chunk of change. But I really love the notion of having a practically non-existent electric bill and no reliance on oil/gas whatsoever, especially considering the rapidly escalating demand and price for fossil fuels. But most importantly I like the fact that there are no emissions.

Summertime... and the livin' is sloooowwww...... (originally posted on LiveModern on July 31, 2005)

2006-12-18T11:04:00.000-08:00

After the elation of finally breaking ground and getting the foundation in, Ron the builder and I came crashing back to earth very quickly. Now what?? Pretty much all that happened over the past two months was the basement slab being poured and the steel beams and tubular steel columns were put into position in the basement. Otherwise everything else appeared to be at a standstill; there were lots of questions, few answers, and a great deal of uncertainty. I felt like I had only myself to blame for all of this.

In a way I feel like I am forcing us (myself and Ron the builder) down some decidedly uncharted territory- at least as far as one-off residential construction goes. In my initial exuberance (and ignorance) at the outset of this project, I had a somewhat approximate vision of what I wanted to do, and, accordingly, an approximate guess as to how it would be done. And while I wanted to do this project as economically as possible, I also wanted to do something boldly different using alternate building systems and materials. Hence, my insistence on using the Superior Walls, pouring concrete floors, incorporating solar elements, etc. Rapson's original plans never called for any of these. I think it would be one thing if we tweaked one or two things, but I sometimes feel like we just took the design and went to town with modifications to the point where any similarities to the original Rapson design are purely conceptual. At this point I feel like we have gone down a path that we need to see to its conclusion, regardless of how twisted and tortuous it may be. I don't want this to be a "halfway" house.

STRUCTURAL STUFF

Despite Ron the builder's pleas otherwise, I stuck to my guns regarding concrete floors. Not only did I want the look of polished concrete floors throughout the house, I was very keen on putting in hydronic radiant heat in the floor. Also, much to Ron the builder's chagrin, I was also keen on putting in a solar photovoltaic system and solar hot water system to heat and cool the house. Not only did he lack experience with solar or radiant heat, he believed that solar was still prohibitively expensive and "not yet ready for primetime." He felt that we were still years away from having the technology that would make solar truly practical. Anyway, suffice to say, I stuck to my guns and he relented after much sighing.

Now we had to figure out how to build the structure that would accomodate the deadweight of a 4" suspended concrete slab- approximately 50 lbs/sf. He felt that going any thinner with the slab would virtually guarantee cracking during curing, even with control joints. We asked the engineer at the steel yard to come up with a structure. Suffice it to say, it came back prohibitively expensive- $23,000 to frame the first floor (approx. 1500 sf) with steel joists and steel decking. Not only was this too expensive, it made the roughing in of plumbing, electrical, radiant, etc. much more difficult, which would mean less flexibility and greater cost. I suspect none of the residential contractors would touch this with a 10 foot lolly column. After consulting briefly with another engineer and using a few span/load calculators, we determined that we can also frame the structure with wood. Conservatively this meant 2 x 12's spaced 16" OC.

So once we had an action plan on the floor structure, we decided to move ahead with the framing of the first floor deck (after the wide flange steel beams and tubular steel columns were set). Then we hit a snag- the floor joist hangers sold by Superior Walls do not accomodate 2 x 12's. The lumber yards in the area didn't have them either. Finally we had them custom made by the steel yard- to the tune of $815 and a 10-day delay. Ouch!

The decking itself took only two days and the sand (it's not really dirt) was backfilled around the perimeter of the foundation.

THE CREW

Ron the builder has been working on a much bigger project in parallel with mine- a 5000sf mansion in Water Mill. So in a way he is acting as a guinea pig for all of the trades that will eventually get tossed my way. One in particular has appeared to step to the fore. It is a group of general builders who work for a Brazilian family-run home renovation business based out of Newark, NJ called Ideal Home Restoration. For whatever reason, this group of guys has been doing construction work around the Hamptons, which is about 120 miles from Newark. And Ron discovered quickly that they did very good work and were very competitive price-wise- anything from framing to drywall to concrete work to plaster to roofing, etc. It seems likely that we will be relying on them to do most of the framing and concrete work on my house- I just need to order the supplies and they take care of the rest. So far they did a fantastic job with the slab and the first floor decking, so I am gung ho about this.

D-DAY PART II

The set date for the first floor Superior Walls was supposed to be July 25. I made a point of taking the day off of work to be there. Of course with me there is always a snag. I was about halfway out to Sag Harbor when Ron called me to tell me that I had been "bumped" to "Wednesday or Thursday." Obviously I was beside myself with frustration since I wanted to see the work taking place. But I continued on anyway just to meet with Ron the builder and to see how the first floor deck and basement looked (I had not been out there since the foundation set in late May).

My initial reaction to seeing the site was:

"Dude, where's the rest of my house?" The footprint looked so small. Ron the builder told me that was always the reaction at this stage of the project. He said that a house gets bigger and smaller throughout its lifecycle. I could only take him at his word.

Fast forward to Wednesday. I received a telephone call from Ron the builder. Indeed, the crane was there, the set crew was there and the first floor walls were there. I was stoked. And I asked him to take lots of pictures with his phone.

An hour later I received another call from Ron the builder. Immediately I could hear in his voice that something was going on. "I saw the first wall piece being hoisted up and the next thing I heard was a big BANG," said Ron the builder. This 85-ton crane apparently died while the wall piece was in mid-air. Hour after hour I checked in to see what was going on. Ultimately the crane company had to call out another crane to come and rescue the wall piece stuck perilously in midair (I did not want to think what it would be crashing down upon if that were to happen...). Unfortunately this meant that yet another big chunk of my hedges would have to be ripped down to let this other crane get onto the job site. Grrrr.... Finally by 2 in the afternoon, the setting of the walls back on track. It would now have to be a 2-day affair.

I went out on Saturday to check it out:

The view from the front

I must admit I was a bit shocked to see it at first. For lack of a better term, it had a kind of majestic presence about it. Ron the builder joked that I should just put a roof on it now. I didn't think it was such a far-fetched idea, honestly.

A closeup of the front.

As you can see, we will need to do a lot of "parging" and other cosmetic detailing to hide the seams and discolorations in the concrete.

A view from the right (south) side. The opening will be a wall of windows with the exception of a stand-alone fireplace

It's going to be a beotch finding window treatments for those windows!

My ugly mug (just to get a sense of scale).

The view from the back yard.

Ron the builder thinks the door opening is too short. It was supposed to be 7' tall, so I am wondering if Superior Walls may have screwed this up. It looks alright to me, however.

Another view of the back.

THE RAPSONS

Back in June I had the pleasure of meeting Toby and Ralph Rapson, who were in New York to speak at a presentation of a documentary on Ralph's body of work. I found out that Toby actually has been following this blog on LiveModern, so I was really impressed how up to speed he was on this project. I decided to take them to one of my favorite vegetarian restaurants (since I am a vegetarian and I heard Ralph was pretty much a vegetarian these days for health reasons). Of course I failed to consider that the main dining area was on the second floor, which meant having to take some stairs. I was not aware that Ralph had injured his leg sometime ago! Oy!

Anyway, after dinner we got around to some discussions around the structure- in particular, the balconies and the roof deck. Toby and Ralph- if you are reading this, thanks for the advice (and the grub)! Ron the builder and I are actually working on the implementation of this.

The foundation is in! (originally posted on LiveModern on May 24, 2005)

2006-12-18T10:47:00.000-08:00

Despite the threat of an impending Nor'easter blowing in from the cape, the foundation set, according to the crew, was as good as it gets.

After not hearing from Ron the builder during the week, I called him Saturday to confirm that all systems were "go" for the 2-day set starting on May 23. At first he seemed surprised by my phone call, especially since he wasn't expecting the set to occur until later in the week. I asked him precisely when "later" in the week the set would occur.

"I'm not sure... I suspect it will be Wednesday," he replied. I was incredulous, especially considering the scope and magnitude of the foundation set. Walls have to be made. Walls have to be transported. Set crewmen have to be transported. The excavation had to be complete. The crane had to be there.

"How can you NOT be sure about something like this?" I asked. "And if you knew the set date was delayed by a couple of days, why didn't you let me know? I have a schedule to work around too."

"I'm afraid you misunderstood... and now I am less confident about the exact date" replied Ron meekly. And it's at this point that I nearly lost it. Not only did he forget about the set date, he intoned that I misunderstood him when I basically took him at his word, verbatim. I was deeply offended and annoyed at the oversight.

Needless to say, harsh words were exchanged, some panicky phone calls were placed to the various players, and we were left with an uncertain future. According to Ron, the only certainty was that the set would not begin on Monday since he had not received any telephone calls from Superior Walls, and usually they are pretty good about confirming things.

Indeed, as it turned out, he was dead wrong! A representative from Superior Walls came down to check out the excavation on Monday. However, the actual set would occur on Tuesday (today). Fortunately for Ron the builder, the excavator did an EXCEPTIONAL job with the site with just the right amount of overdig. And most importantly, he finished his work just in time for the Superior Walls (any later and I would have been charged a $500 postponement fee). In the end, the job site conditions were so ideal that the crew was able to complete the foundation set in less than a day, thereby saving me a full day's crane rental!

The following are some pics I took of the set this morning. I would have loved to have been there to capture the very first panel being installed... but the traffic on the Montauk Highway east of the Canal was biblical!

Yep, that's an 85-ton crane! Total overkill; it was sort of like using a blow torch to light candles. It pretty much destroyed the street, so I can tell that the town will be VERY happy with me.

It's starting to take shape...

This is a tiny 2.7-foot segment flying through the air...

...craned into position...

...easy does it...

...and the corner joint is bolted together.

A 14-foot section getting craned in.

A view from the garage side (yet to be done).

Amid the destruction of my lot... my lilacs were salvaged, and they're nice 'n' big.

D-Day: East Coast Style (originally posted on LiveModern on May 17, 2005)

2006-12-18T10:46:00.000-08:00

The Superior Walls for the basement and garage will be craned into position on May 23-24. Unfortunately the first floor walls will have to be craned into position at a later date after the basement slab has been poured, the first floor deck installed and the foundation walls backfilled. Still, I can't believe this is FINALLY starting. I would have never thought back in February 2004 that this journey would take so long... but it feels really good (and scary).

Anyway, if you happen to be in the Sag Harbor/Hamptons area (this is the week before the official kickoff of the summer season, after all...) and you want to check out this building system in action, drop me a private message for directions, etc.

The calm before the storm... (originally posted on LiveModern on April 23, 2005)

2006-12-18T10:40:00.000-08:00

The building permit has been received. The lot is staked out. The excavator is on notice. Now I am just waiting on the final price and contract for the Superior Walls. An eerie calm has set in, yet there are still lots of details to address...

The final 3-D rendering of the foundation + first floor Superior Walls has me quite excited, yet nervous at the same time. Once they are fabricated and laid into place, that's it. No more doubling back to reconsider dimension and placement. Here is the FINAL plan:

As you can see, I have deviated from the original Rapson design in some areas. Most noticeably I was forced to delete/move/resize windows to fit within the constraints of the Superior Walls. In essence, there can be no "stand alone" sections of wall (that are not attached to a corner module) and the minimum length of a wall is 18 inches. Also, we had to define an opening for the walkway/laundry room into the garage.

Anyway, next week I will have the final pricing and contracts to move forward with the fabrication. I should theoretically be into the ground by the second week of May.

SOLAR

Even though I am only a few weeks away from the construction phase of the project, I still have not made any final decisions about the HVAC, plumbing, and electrical setup. Fortunately, having a full basement affords me the luxury of going with just about any option since I will have ample space for the mechanical components, ductwork, or whatever the situation dictates.

Regarding the HVAC system, I have been doing more flip-flops than John Kerry. I originally assumed I would be using some kind of an oil or propane-based forced air system. But considering the rising prices of gas and oil and the negative political and environmental aspects of burning fossil fuels, I have seriously given some thought to solar- a hybrid system involving both photovoltaic cells and solar thermal water heating. Yes, it is tremendously expensive, but I think there is a way to make it work financially:

-My original estimate for a conventionally ducted forced air propane furnace system was $15,000 (at the low end). Going with a thermal solar hot water system will enable me to put in a hydronic radiant system vs. the conventional system. It will also double as the source of potable hot water, which replaces the tankless hot water system (approx. $1500) I was considering. I have estimated that a solar hot water system + hydronic radiant heat system(where I do most of the installation labor) will cost about about $11,500. This results in a net savings of $5,000.

-For the photovoltaic system, I was quoted a going rate of $7.80 per watt installed. This may be less depending on the ease of installation (since this is on new construction vs. a retrofit). Anyway, for a 3.5 kilowatt system, the installed price will be $27,300. NYSERDA/Long Island Power Authority is offering a rebate incentive of $4 per watt for newly-installed PV systems. Additionally, NY state is offering a tax incentive of 25% of the cost of a PV system or a maximum benefit of $3,750. For a 3.5 kilowatt system, the incentives add up to $17,750. The net cost of the system then goes down to $9,550.

-If I subtract the cost savings realized with going with the thermal solar heating system ($5,000), the net, net cost of the system goes down to $4,550.

-A 3.5 kilowatt (DC) system generates approximately 4,550 kWh per year. The going rate for electricity is $0.17 per kWh, so this means the system will generate about $774 worth of electricity per year or an average of $64 per month. The additional $4,550 added to the mortgage results in an additional monthly payment of about $22. Subtracting the additional mortgage amount of $22 from the electricity generated results in a net profit of $42 per month.

-An unknown variable in the equation here is the ability of the solar thermal collectors to provide radiant heat. Realistically this will need to be supplemented by electrical hot water heat (primarily at night), so it is likely that the net effect is that a good portion of the net electricity generated by the photovoltaic system will need to be utilized.

Of course this is all theory, but I think it makes a rational case for building in the solar systems upfront. It's going to be a lot of cash upfront along with some trial and error, but I think it will be worthwhile, even if it is just for the environmental benefits.

The Verdict Pt. 2... and miscellaneous other updates... (originally posted on April 5, 2005)

2006-12-18T10:30:00.000-08:00

And the verdict on the building permit is....

GRANTED!!!

Ron the builder just received word from the Southampton Town Building Inspector's office. Apparently, due to some mixup (where one hand did not know what the other was doing), the building inspector thought that my house was still up for approval by the Architectural Review Board. In fact, the Architectural Review Board approved the design (conditional upon some landscaping concessions) back on March 15 by a 4-1 majority vote (I understand that the sole dissenter was basically against ANYTHING modern). So for the past 2+ weeks the permit sign-off was sitting on some bureacrats desk waiting for this last piece of information. Needless to say, the administrator who called Ron the builder today was extremely contrite and committed to getting the final paperwork out to us ASAP. In the end, this cost us a couple of weeks, but in the process, we managed to elicit some sympathy, which is always a good thing. Also, we did not spend the past couple of weeks sitting idle twiddling our thumbs... And after a series of snowstorms and rainstorms, everything is fully defrosted. Some updates:

1. Finalized the Superior Walls drawings. Although I had originally insisted on having a poured slab on grade, I was eventually talked into doing a crawlspace due to the relative ease (and lower labor costs) of running plumbing and ductwork under the first floor, rather than trying to channel this through concrete. However, after some more consideration, I have finally resigned myself to going with a full-height basement. Why? When I did the math, I realized that I can have a full height basement for nominally more ($2000) money than a crawlspace. And this would also alleviate the issue of basement/crawlspace access (the crawlspace would have required unsightly exterior bilco doors or cellar doors); I can now access this space from inside of the house with a regular pass-through door. I am hoping to finalize the order by the end of this week so that the construction of the walls at the factory can commence in earnest. They can supposedly turn this around and start laying down the walls on site within two weeks!

2. Hired a new surveyor and staked out the site. My old surveyor was, to put it mildly, a passive-aggressive idiot. He was impossible to reach by telephone, he never called us to point out potential problems/issues, and he was not cheap. Don't go away mad, just go away!

3. Designated an excavator to perform the initial excavation, haul away the excavated sand, lay down the crushed stone and footings, backfill, install a septic system, lay down gravel for the driveway bed. The total estimate for this work (for a roughly 1800-2000 sf footprint) was $10,930. This is a tad higher than I had originally estimated, but then again, I was not expecting that much crushed stone to cost over $3000! I am *hoping* to get all of this started by some time next week (weather permitting).

4. Kitchen design. After some consideration of the various options (and constraints) I had to work with, I finally decided on a small but efficient kitchen layout:

After seeing what's out there in terms of cabinetry, I went back to a custom furniture manufacturer in Manhattan, Metropolitan Design Center, who said they could do my kitchen in "rift cut" ash/birch plywood base cabinets (with integrated extruded aluminum handles) and sandblasted glass and aluminum canopy wall cabinets (that resemble Ikea's, but with MUCH better build quality). Along with a 6" metal veneer toekick, the final estimate was $10,800 + $1900 delivery and installation. Plus I could get 5% off if I paid in cash. So for a smidge over $12,000 I think I would be getting a high-end European look (with arguably better build quality) for a fraction of the cost. By comparison, the same kitchen at Chelsea Kitchens by the "lower priced" Italian maker (forget the name) was estimated at $26,000 plus $2,500 design fee plus $1000 delivery (no installation).

Anyway, after typing a longer blog entry and having the changes lost due to some snafu with "Save," I am cutting this blog short.

More to come!

Concessions (originally posted on LiveModern on March 1, 2005)

2006-12-18T10:27:00.000-08:00

I was cautiously optimistic about resubmitting the plans to the Southampton Town building inspector. As noted in the previous entry, the details to be sorted out were primarily regarding the cantilever structure (for the two balconies) and the hurricane windzone requirements. In addition to providing window data (or a commitment to create wood shutters in lieu of impact resistant windows), the drawings needed to show cross sectional details on the "hurricane connections," or the structural members that would ensure the integrity of the structure in a hurricane. This came as somewhat of a surprise to Ron the builder, whose own "traditional" house project went through the permit process without a hitch. To make matters worse, the stock set of plans issued by Nate Wieler (who is located in NC, which is considered to be a prime hurricane windzone area) did not contain any hurricane engineering drawings. There are a couple of takehome messages in this: 1) There is a double standard; a modern house (with a lot of glazing) will be subject to much greater scrutiny and will require much more justification than a traditional house and 2) there is a lot to be said for using a local architect or getting a local engineer's take on a project very early on in the design phase. A face-to-face meeting with the building inspector also proved very helpful towards figuring out what we needed to do to fulfill the building inspector's issues.

After delving into the engineering issues, things became more complicated than expected. As noted before, the first floor walls will be constructed of precast concrete walls made by Superior Walls. Not an issue engineering-wise. The problem now was to justify the cantilevers and the rest of the second floor structure using wood members (LVLs, 2x10s, etc.). In a nutshell, the building inspector was skeptical about this approach without some engineering data. After some consideration and subsequent follow-up with the inspector, we are proposing to use structural steel to form the structure of the second floor on top of the concrete walls. This will definitely satisfy the building inspector's concerns. However, this is going to be significantly more costly than wood, but it is also the path of least resistance. Ron the builder says it may be worth investigating the possibilty of framing the second floor walls with steel studs as well since we are now buying significant amounts of steel structural members anyway. The precut steel may also save us some construction time. SIPs?? Fuggedaboutit! If I was willing to put up with many more weeks of shenanigans with the building department, thousands of more dollars in engineering and then the looming uncertainty of getting approval, I would go for it. But framing the second floor with steel may be the quickest and perhaps least costly approach. Hurricane resistance? With all of this concrete and steel, I think this house will be the only thing standing in the Hamptons after an atom bomb!

Another kink in the road was that we were requested to go before the Southampton Town Architectural review board (this morning). I was not even aware of such a group, but Ron the builder says it is fairly routine for modern houses. The architectural review board was concerned mainly with the amount of visibility into/out of the house from the street and the neighbors (due to the extensive use of glazing). They were also concerned about the glare of reflected light from the windows. We now have a couple of weeks (until the next meeting) to figure out how to address the visibility/glare issues. This may be simply a matter of planting some mature trees in some strategic locations around the property (in addition to the hedge that is already in place). Again, this is way above/beyond the standard applied to traditional houses. So we are now revisiting the site plan/elevations to see what types of trees to plant. Is there a such thing as modern trees? ;-)

So hopefully, once we submit a revised site plan and elevation with trees, the architectural review board will relent and the permit will issue by the third week of March. Accordingly, hopefully the snow will be gone and the ground will be thawed as well.

And the verdict on the building permit is... (originally posted on LiveModern on February 4, 2005)

2006-12-18T10:22:00.000-08:00

About 2.5 weeks after submitting the building permit application, Ron the builder received the preliminary verdict from the Southampton Town Building Inspector- INCOMPLETE. In essence, it appears that we are being harangued by this ludicrous hurricane windzone issue, the window specifications and the lot size. We have to:

Make notations on the drawing that all construction will adhere to a 120mph wind zone specification, including details of high wind connections.

Simple notation.

The proposed awning windows for the bedrooms were not appropriate for emergency egress.

We will have to change these to casement windows. (No double-hungs!). Easy fix.

Proof that the proposed dwelling is in compliance with the local pyramid rule for building height (i.e., that the structure will stay within the bounds of a 45-degree pyramid drawn at the corners of the property).

Easy.

Window compliance data demonstrating resistance to windborn debris and 120mph winds.

This is information that will need to be provided by H Window, so I am pretty much at their mercy. If they cannot provide proof of the hurricane wind zone resistance, I will have to have plywood shutters and hooks prepared for all of the windows. UGH!!!

Ron the builder thinks these are not particularly unreasonable issues and thinks they can be resolved within a week. Unfortunately the new drawings will have to go through the engineering review and stamp process again, which means yet more $$$. And then after everything is resubmitted to the town, another 2-3 weeks of waiting.

Now I just wonder if we will still be drinking Bloody Mary's by the pool before Labor Day (Ron's personal goal). When I imagined summering in the Hamptons, I was thinking about beaches, wineries and sailing. Not hammering, sawing and painting!

Details, details, details... (originally posted on LiveModern on January 18, 2005)

2006-12-18T09:53:00.000-08:00

In early October 2004 I entered an agreement with Wieler Homes to build the Greenbelt 2 house. Ron the builder and I looked over the stock plans and began to ponder the reality of modern building and about building on-site in general. The devil is in the details!

After being adrift for a while, the building project was back on course. It was almost a year to the date since I first met with Ron the builder about building a quaint little house in the woods. What a difference a year makes! After six aborted projects, I finally felt like the Rapson Greenbelt 2 was THE ONE.

Within a week of executing my agreement with Wieler, I started receiving stuff from Rapson Architects.

First was a personalized/signed copy of "Ralph Rapson: Sixty Years of Modern Design" coffee table book, which really drove home for me the epic magnitude of the man's work. Next were the stock blueprints, which were even better than I could have hoped for. It inspired me to think about all of the possible customizations/options I can tinker with.

MORE GLAZING THAN A CINNABON

After the initial novelty wore off, the details started to become a bit worrisome. This house has a lot of glazing. A lot. Five sets of sliding patio doors, twenty windows, two two-story curtain walls, two glazed gables, and a row of roof windows that spans the depth of the house. To make matters even worse, all of these components were of very odd/unusual dimensions, e.g., 2' x 9' windows, 9' tall patio doors, and almost randomly placed canopy windows embedded within the curtain walls. Needless to say, these will all need to be custom-fabricated. And then to pour salt into the knife wounds, the building codes in Long Island were updated in 2003 to conform with the latest international code, as well as the Dade County hurricane windzone standards (by the way, the last major hurricane to hit Long Island was back in 1938!). The result of all of this is that all glass utilized on new construction on Long Island now requires impact-resistant glazing. Needless to say, this essentially doubles the price and thickness of the windows.

At Nate Wieler's suggestion, for the roof glazing we looked into the possibility of using Polygal or some other polycarbonate material like Kalwall, which is typically found in large commercial buildings like school gymnasiums and shopping malls. It is a translucent material that emits a shadowless milky-white glow in daylight. The advantage to it is that it is great for daylighting, is very flexible, virtually indestructible, can be used in roofing applications, lasts longer than conventional windows or roofing materials, and has relatively high R-values. However, the downside is that it would prevent the benefit of passive solar heating (the row of roof windows has a direct south exposure on my lot/orientation), it looks a bit "chintzy" when placed alongside concrete and wood, and it is really, really expensive- on the order of $40+ per sf.

As for the curtain walls on the front and back sides of the house, I looked into the possibility of utilizing an aluminum extruded curtain wall system that is also typically found in commercial applications. I walked around the city for inspiration. Needless to say, this proved to be a disastrously expensive option. Various fabricators (and there are not a whole lot out there) were estimating the job to run between $80 to $120 per sf on the low end!

Fortunately Ron the builder has a working relationship with a custom window fabricator in Wisconsin called the H Window company. He had always maintained that they were the best windows he has ever seen, and after seeing some installations, I was totally in agreement. After sending them the front and rear elevations of the house, they proposed to cobble together the curtain walls using individual window panes that would be framed together by doubled 2 x 6 members. As a result, the mullions will be much thicker, but I do not think that is necessarily a bad thing. In addition, H Window can fabricate all of the roof glazing components, including the end gables and rooflights. Needless to say, even using double-paned low-e hurricane glass (which will be 1.5" thick!), it will be expensive, but not nearly as expensive as the curtainwall and Kalwall options.

However, now we are still looking for good, well-priced, modern, low-e, impact-resistant sliding patio doors that come in a 9-foot height. Something like the Nana wall system or the Fleetwood door, but more reasonably priced! Any suggestions are welcomed.

TO BASEMENT OR NOT TO BASEMENT

I have never been a fan of basements. I do realize that basement technology is far more advanced today than before, but no matter what, I will always associate basements as dark, damp, moldy, clammy, musty places filled with cobwebs and all manner of pest and vermin. I simply have no desire to have one, period. As such, if I had my druthers, I would have a slab-on-grade foundation (with buried footers). Not only is this less expensive than a full basement, I can easily have polished concrete floors throughout the first floor.

Upon closer examination of the Greenbelt 2 plans, I noticed that it included a basement plan, but it didn't include an entrance to the basement from the first floor. This was fine by me; I figured that I could convert one of the first floor bedrooms into a utility room that would house all of the mechanical components. Who needs a basement anyway??

"I insist that you put in a full basement," insisted Ron the builder. "Why?" I replied. "Because it's just the way things are done around here." I remained unswayed by that line of reasoning and demanded more information about this. This shouldn't be rocket science- everything is built on slabs in the south. So why should my house be any different?

Bob the HVAC guy gave me a puzzled look when I explained that I wanted a slab foundation. He didn't object to it at first. He merely mentioned that he had never done HVAC in a slab house and that he had never seen a slab house on Long Island. He said that he would have to think through the logistics of putting ductwork under a slab. The plumbing contractor gave the same answer. The electrical contractor gave the same answer. In the end, all of the trades basically said that they could possibly do it, but they were not sure if they would be successful.

After some consideration (I really, really wanted polished concrete floors!), I decided that I did not want to fund the experimentation of the trades. At the same time, I did not want a basement, even if there was a way to figure out a basement entrance. Ultimately, I decided to go with a crawlspace with an exterior entrance only. It is a compromise- the trades can run their ductwork/pipes through the crawlspace, it is less expensive than a basement, and I don't have to worry about creepy things getting into the house. So unless I can figure out a cost-effective way to create a floor system that can support a concrete floor above grade, I will probably have to go with a conventional wood floor. Ugh!

SETBACKS: A POTENTIAL SETBACK?

Finding a house design that fits within the setbacks on my lot was a bit of a challenge. My lot is 124' wide by 100' deep. The setbacks on the front and back sides must be at least 30', whereas the setbacks on the sides need to add up to at least 25' with a 10' minimum on one side. As such, I had quite a bit of flexibility with regard to the building width. But the depth of the house could not exceed 40'. As much as I liked the one-story Greenbelt 1 design, it simply would not have fit on my lot.

The Greenbelt 2 did not fit either; it has an overall depth of 44 feet. However, upon closer examination, I noticed that each modular component of the house was 38 feet in length arranged in a staggered "Z" formation. In effect, I proposed changing this:

to this:

So the end result was that I was able to conform with the setbacks by sliding one "box" up four feet, and the other box down four feet. The Rapsons felt that this approach was fine. In a sense, this is truly a "glide house."

DUDE, WHERE'S MY CAR?

The most glaring omission from the stock plan is a garage. Admittedly, the garage is sort of the bane of McMansions. But at the same time, it can be a necessity, especially in areas with harsh winters like Long Island. Additionally, in my particular case, in the absence of a basement I do not have lots of storage space.

I toyed with the notion of adding a single car garage, but decided that it would be out of proportion with the rest of the house. It needed a double-wide. Ralph Rapson suggested putting in a semi-detached garage that could be accessed via a breezeway or walkway. He felt that having an attached garage would have made the house seem too monolithic. I agreed, even though I realized that having a semi-detached garage meant having to spend more money since it would not share a marriage wall with the main house. But I suppose it is all for the best since now the rumble of the garage door opening will be completely isolated from the rest of the house.

CODE DEPENDENT

From the very beginning, I understood that whatever plans we came up with ultimately had to be reviewed and stamped by a qualified engineer. I had assumed the engineer's main purpose was to review the building materials, the dimensions, the tensile/elastic strength of the building materials, loads, etc. It didn't occur to me that the house would also be reviewed for its conformance with the energy codes; that compliance will be determined based upon the house's projected heating and cooling needs. The East End of Long Island is considered to be a 6000-degree day area, so energy compliance is relatively tough to achieve.

Ron the builder, who has been working with the local Southampton Town Building Department for decades, has a good understanding of what is needed for obtaining a building permit. In a nutshell, in order to pass the energy code, a single family dwelling cannot have more than 15% of its walls comprised of glazing. At least this is according to the Southampton Town officials. The Rapson Greenbelt 2 was way over this limit- it was around 27% glazing. I was ready to start eliminating or resizing windows to meet this standard. Ron the builder said this wouldn't be necessary; we could include the garage wall area to the overall denominator by considering it part of the conditioned space. Although I certainly have no intention of heating and cooling the garage, he said that we could probably get away with this.

This wasn't enough for me. Upon doing some research on the internet, I came across a valuable resource on energy codes at the U.S. Department of Energy building energy codes website. After some exploration, the most important thing I learned was that the 2004 energy code was drastically updated to simplify the energy compliance calculation. And most importantly, rather than relying on the outdated percentage of glazing as a rule of thumb, the new code takes into consideration the overall R/U values of all of the building components. As such, if your walls have minimal insulation, your floors and ceilings must have super-high R values in order to compensate/offset the lack of insulation in the walls. In my situation, in order to pass the test with a lot of glazing, I have to make sure that the glazing is double paned and low-emissivity, and that all of the other building components are super energy efficient. Additionally, I have to make sure that the HVAC system energy efficiency specs are higher as well. There is a great online calculator on the energycodes.gov website called "REScheck" that helps to determine whether your house in your state will pass the energy code.

In any case, calculations were performed, and the engineer saw fit to give it his stamp of approval. Who am I to question his assessment??

A SITE FOR SORE EYES

Without further ado, this is the proposed site plan. In reality, the pool will be much smaller, as well as the garage. It appears that there are lot coverage limitations that stipulate that the dwelling plus swimming pool can only cover up to 20% of the lot's square footage. This is actually a good deterrant against McMansion-like developments. However, I won't be able to swim long laps!

PICS AND PLANS

The following plan not only adds a semi-detached garage, but it also adds a proposed roof deck over the walkway/garage that would be accessed by a second-floor bedroom. I know it seems rather eccentric to have a bedroom that has both a private balcony and access to the roof deck, so I will have to think about how best to pull this off.

First floor:

Second floor:

After several months of effort, the building permit application was finally submitted last week. Now it's just time to wait, pray and prepare for the best!

NEXT... Will the building permit issue??

The Backstory- to the Future! (originally posted on LiveModern on January 14, 2005)

2006-12-18T09:25:00.000-08:00

My two-story traditional modular house project was now up in the air due to a conflict with the modular manufacturer. I had a weekend to think about the future of the project- whether to try another modular builder or to do something else entirely...

When Ron the builder broke the "bad news" to me that my two-story traditional modular house had hit a major snafu, I seized the opportunity to scrap the project altogether and start anew. I was shocked at my reaction; it's amazing how within a ten-minute period one can so readily/eagerly discard a piece of work that has been labored over for months. It just wasn't what I was about. By the end of my conversation with Ron the builder, I knew what I had to do.

BUT I'VE ALWAYS BEEN A "MODERNIST"

Immediately I realized that I wanted to go modern. I had never been a "traditional" person, so why was I going to start now? I had complete creative control over my destiny, yet for some reason I did not step up to the plate with the house.

In some ways I feel like I was always a "modernist," but I just never quite had a name for it. I have always had a deep appreciation for conservation, recycling, etc. I have been a vegetarian for 16 years (the meat industry is one of the major polluters of the nation's drinkable water supply). I am a shameless Democrat and have been aghast at the negative impact on the environment conferred by the latest "regime." I detest SUVs. Having grown up in a McMansion development in suburbia, I had grown to hate "pseudo" architecture. I never liked frilly things or the ornate appearance of things. I always liked clean, simple, modern lines in everything- clothes, cars, furniture, etc. And moving to live in Manhattan, and getting to know people in the design and media fields, exposed me to a world of modern that I never quite knew about before while living in suburbia. It was an eye-opening experience for sure.

RESOLUTION 4

After some initial exploration around the web I somehow arrived at the Dwell Home competition website. And I instantly became very interested in the Dwell Home winner- the Resolution 4 house. After navigating through the Resolution 4 website, I became quite fascinated with the thought of building a house that seemed to be stackable like building blocks. And I assumed that it would be relatively inexpensive to produce because each "block" was a simple 14-foot wide box of varying length.

I called Ron the builder to discuss Resolution 4. The sobering reality was that he knew Resolution 4 very well. Very, very well. In a nutshell he was the one who helped Resolution 4 evaluate various modular manufacturers (mostly in Pennsylvania), so he knew that they would not come cheaply. And this is where I came up with my "brilliant" scheme. In my naivete, I figured, hey, who needs them anyway? I'll just take my existing two-story traditional design and put a Resolution 4 "skin" over it. I really liked their use of concrete (or hardiboard?) with wood siding, so I stole all of their design cues and produced this monstrosity, my first and last attempt at being an architect:

Needless to say, Ron the builder did not mince words- it was utter garbage. He said that he would call over to Resolution 4 to see if they were willing to give me a break on the design fee due to all of the pro bono work (evaluating modular builders) he had done for them in the past. With that flimsy possibility looming on the horizon, I optimistically continued to explore the Resolution 4 topologies to see what worked for me. Although the combinations were virtually endless and kind of fun to play around with, I came to realize that despite the novelty, it didn't seem like a particularly practical house, or a house that would be easy to live in. For example, the designs seemed to lack basic amenities like a laundry room, closets, utility rooms, and in most cases, a garage. And I wondered how such a house would withstand a hurricane, a major Nor'easter, or heavy snowfall. I'm certainly no engineer, but my gut told me that it probably wasn't the sturdiest of structures.

Still, I googled "Resolution 4A" to see if there were any other projects out there, and that search lead me to the fabprefab site. Eureka, I had hit the goldmine! It was just what I was looking for.

My enthusiasm waned a bit as I started clicking around the site to check out the various "fabzone" and "fablist" projects posted. A lot of them seemed to be strictly "science fiction" or case studies, rather than actual houses. However, buried in among the glass and cantilevered designs was a link to Nate Wieler's site. I went there and pretty much decided then and there that I wanted to build the Ralph Rapson Greenbelt 2. I e-mailed a link to the Wieler site to Ron the builder.

"GREENER" PASTURES

"I LOVE this!" Ron beamed on the telephone the next day. Because Wieler Homes was based out of North Carolina, I noted that it would be impractical for us to have the modulars built through Wieler. The costs would have been beyond prohibitive. Then we briefly discussed the notion of doing our own knock-off version. But the problem is that none of the local modular builders have ever built a house like this, and there would be huge costs and delays incurred through engineering and New York state approval (all modular houseplans in NY must be reviewed and approved by the state). And that is assuming that any modular company would be willing to take on such an unusual house made of such unusual materials (like polygal, EPDM, galvalume, etc.). Ron the builder assured me that it could be site-built using panelized components. But he said that he would get back to me later in the day.

Later in the day Ron called me to tell ask me how much I would be willing to pay for design work? I wasn't quite prepared for this. I knew what Resolution 4 would get, so I knew I didn't have money in my budget for those kinds of fees. I gave him a low-ball number. When I asked why he was asking this question, he replied that he was in the process of negotiating a design deal with Nate Wieler at Wieler Homes. He said that he would call me back later.

A few minutes later Ron called me to tell me that Wieler countered with a nominally higher sum, but the deal would include the following: a single license to build the design, the floorplans and elevations, hours of design consultation with Rapson Architects, and when my building permit is issued, a signed drawing of my customized house by Ralph Rapson himself. It was an offer I couldn't pass up. However, the catch to all of this is that I had to agree to allow the house to be photographed for promotional purposes after it is built. That was all fine and dandy.

HOW "GREEN" WAS MY GREENBELT

For some time Ron the builder had been working with the local Southampton building officials to convince them to accept foundation walls constructed from Super Walls, which are precast concrete panels that are craned into position at the job site. Since we were not working within the constraints of modulars I decided that I wanted to incorporate the concrete walls into the design of the Greenbelt 2. First and foremost, I have always loved the look of concrete in residential applications. But I also liked the notion of being able to leave it unfinished and never having to paint it or maintain it. It is also extremely durable, sustainable and extremely thick. However, my primary concern was whether the Rapsons (Ralph and Toby, his son) would be receptive to this idea. After all, here is the stock Greebelt 2 image from the Wieler Homes website:

Anyway, I was very relieved to learn that Ralph Rapson had actually considered precast concrete panels for the Greenbelt 2. Out of the blue, Toby Rapson sent me the following image that Ralph had sketched with the first floor of the Greenbelt 2 done in precast concrete panels, and the second floor finished with T&G cedar boards. In addition, he suggested the use of curved Kalwall or some other polycarbonate for a domed roof over the greenbelt. I'm not doing it (cost prohibitive), but it looks really neat! But I am definitely doing the semi-detached garage. Ralph felt that an attached garage would have appeared too "monolithic."

STILL TO COME... THE FINAL CUSTOMIZED GREENBELT 2 PLANS...

More of the backstory... (originally posted on LiveModern on January 12, 2005)

2006-12-18T09:08:00.000-08:00

By the end of February 2004 I had a parcel of land chosen, construction loan approval, and a signed contract on the lot... However, I was still missing the key ingredient: the house! Ron the builder (who was the first and only modular builder to respond to my queries) and I went through several concepts, including a variation on a Michael Graves design, a heinous Cape Cod (with HUGE columns!), a farmhouse, a quasi-modern Victorian, an A-frame, etc. One by one each concept got killed for various reasons. One was just too big. One was prohibitively expensive to build. My builder had a shouting match with the modular builder, etc. It was almost a comedy of errors.

In hindsight these projects were laughable, but at the time I felt that I had no choice but to utilize these designs, primarily for budgetary considerations. I heard from many sources about the nightmarish cost of site-building in the Hamptons- starting at $250 per square foot and beyond, so modular construction, which was coming in at approximately $80 per square foot seemed to be a no-brainer to me. Accordingly, I tried to do creative things with the inherently boxy structure of conventional modulars. By the way, not even ONCE did the notion of modern modular houses enter the fray. It is essentially invisible to the lay person looking to build a house.

Anyway, what you are about to look at is the semi-final concept that came fairly close to being built. I suppose it is not particularly awful for a cedar-shingled two-story "post-modern," which is essentially what 99.999% of new construction in the Hamptons is these days. I had engineering drawings, elevations and site plans drawn up with this house. Please don't laugh (okay, laugh!):

For a modular house, I think we (Ron the builder and myself) came up with a decent plan. Not terrific, not horrendous... just decent. And deep inside I kind of fancied the notion of keeping the status quo relative to my fellow Hamptonites. This is apparently what people want, and if/when the time comes, I should have no problem selling it. Besides, during this tumultuous design time I was deep in the throes of going to settlement on the land, so it was not a good time to do a lot of soul searching.

THE LAND

Unfortunately I don't have jpegs of any of the original surveys of the land. But it is a very simple plan. It is basically a perfectly flat, cleared rectangle that is about 124 x 100. It is a west-facing lot, so all of the designs up to this point attempted to exploit the southern exposure, i.e., the right side of the house. It has remained vacant for the entire 50 years that the subdivision has been developed. This is because it has essentially served as the backyard of the house behind it from the very beginning. It was only after the owner died that the estate had the lot subdivided. As such, my lot, which had been used as the neighborhood baseball diamond for sometime, has some nice hedgerows along the street and one neighbor.

The subdivision is an area directly across the cove from Sag Harbor Village. It is essentially a tiny little gall bladder-shaped peninsula that is approximately 1000 ft. in diameter. It is like a little island that is connected to North Haven (another island) and the mainland by a narrow beach strip known as Long Beach. Its location makes it a bit off of the beaten path but still very close to the village and all of the wonderful bay beaches. The neighborhood itself was originally developed as a summer home community in the early 1950s, mostly comprised of tiny 2-bedroom one bath ranch bungalows and cottages on small lots (at 0.29 acres, my lot is one of the largest). Many of these original cottages still exist today. However, most have been replaced by more substantial houses of recent vintage, especially the multimillion dollar homes along the waterfront. As a result, there are houses of all shapes, sizes and styles- ranches, capes, salt box colonials, post moderns, and even a couple of very modern designs. In a way, the extreme diversity of architectural styles is one of the many charms that drove my decision to buy there. It's almost a Utopian notion that all different kinds of houses and people can exist in harmony on this tiny little spit of land. Give me your good, bad, ugly and modern! It's all good.

SETTLEMENT ON THE LAND

Going to settlement on the land at the end of July 2004 came off rather uneventfully, even though this was now literally five months after my initial offer on the land. At least I came to settlement satisfied with the notion that the lot had already appreciated considerably during those months (a much smaller lot on the next street was listed for $100K more than my larger, cleared lot). What was a bit unsettling was that I was about to purchase land that may not be buildable; there were no applications or permits executed at all. But it wasn't like I could be too choosy with land, so I had to essentially take a leap of faith. I was also assured by everyone, including a geothermal scientist, that the lot would be buildable. Well, heaven forbid they should discover a Native American burial ground or nuclear waste or something!

Closing costs are always more than one thinks is reasonable. I have never heard of a person who said, "Wow, those closing costs are cheap!" But it is particularly painful in Southampton town, where they collect the Peconic Bay Preservation Fund fee, which is based on the sales price. This fund is used to purchase township lands for conversion to open space. All told, between title search, loan fees, lawyers, insurance, taxes, etc. (I was even coerced to tip the settlement clerk $75!), I spent about $15,000.

APPLICATIONS

Basically there are three permits that need to be obtained in Southampton Town before any construction can commence. Unfortunately these have to be obtained in sequence, not in parallel:

1. Health Department. This is an assessment of the septic design, the footprint of the proposed dwelling and the setbacks. $275 and 3-4 months. Approval received in late September 2004.

2. Highway Department. This is required for any new dwelling that is to be built along a county-owned road. It's definitely bureacracy at its best. No fee, 4 weeks. Approval received in December 2004.

3. Building Permit. This is the really crucial one that requires permits 1 and 2 above to be included in the application. I am just about to submit this, but it will take at least a month to review and approve, that is, assuming there aren't any issues discovered. $1700. I am literally a day away from submitting this.

THE PHONE CALL I WASN'T EXPECTING

It was late September 2004. The health department application was in. The engineering drawings, elevations, floorplans, surveys, etc. for the house (as shown in the above image) were all complete. I was feeling upbeat about the house project despite this lingering nagging feeling that I was merely settling for this house project. I started visiting Home Depot, Ikea and various other places to get ideas about fixtures. It was a good time.

All of the sudden I got a call from Ron the builder. He said that he had good news and bad news. I told him to tell me the good news first. The good news was that the health department permit was issued. Hooray! The bad news was that he got into a shouting match over the phone with the modular company that was about to build my house and that we would have to find another modular builder to build these plans. I was taken aback, but I had mixed feelings about this. I could have perceived this as yet another annoying stumbling block on the road to building this house, or I could seize this opportunity to go back to square one with something truly wonderful. Ron was mortified at what had just happened and he was trying to console me over the phone. But for some reason I felt a large weight lift off of me. I told Ron that it was okay and that I would think about this over the weekend.

This was the point where modernism entered my life... or was I always a closet modernist who needed to be coaxed out of the modern closet??

NEXT... PROJECT GREENBELT

Where to Begin... (originally posted on LiveModern on January 11, 2005)

2006-12-18T08:58:00.000-08:00

I hesitated and re-hesitated about starting a blog about this project. I have already invested over a year's worth of effort into this project (starting with the home/land search), but it has been a very, very slow road full of turns and changes in direction. Now that I am somewhat confident that the project is focused and on track, the blog can proceed in earnest.

In a nutshell I am now just about to apply for a building permit to build a slight variation on the Greenbelt 2. However, I will attempt to briefly recap the road to here:

THE HAMPTONS

This is essentially the area east of the Shinnecock Canal on the South Fork of eastern Long Island, about 100 miles from Manhattan. For most people, the Hamptons is synonymous with money and is known as the summer playground of actors, musicians and writers. That is partially true, but the Hamptons is also an area of incredible beauty and serenity. And the East End towns, Southampton and East Hampton, have taken very deliberate measures to preserve the bucolic beauty of the area via strict zoning and building codes. The Hamptons is almost completely free of interstate highways, mega-malls, strip malls and fast food joints (with the exception of some parts of County Road 39, which is kind of the gateway). Accordingly the zoning favors village/hamlet development that is very modest in scale, thereby preserving the small-town/rural character. The waterfront megamansions excepted! The East End towns have been very actively purchasing large tracts of privately owned farmland to preserve as open space. Additionally, there are initiatives to upzone the size of existing vacant residential lots, as well as to impose building moratoriums and dwelling size restrictions. The net result of all of this is that buildable land is extremely difficult to find and extremely expensive.

THE HUNT

My original intention back in August 2003 was to find a modest second home. With a maximum budget of $400,000 I decided to try and see what was out there. My initial efforts to find something in this price range proved unfruitful. $400,000 would basically buy an 800 sq. ft. ranch in need of extensive renovation. My price range crept up to $450,000. Then $500,000. I found a couple of places that had potential, but ended up losing them in bidding wars. Ultimately my price range went up to $650,000, which for me is a lot of money for a second home. At this price I would have expected to get exactly what I wanted. Alas, there was nothing out there that I perceived to be worth this princely sum of money. So on the verge of giving up, I decided to look into possibly building a house from scratch.

Driving around the Hamptons, my realtor pointed out various houses that were modular. And by golly, they looked like it! Boxy, lacking in personality, employing faux colonial details, vinyl siding, etc. I was instantly turned off of the notion of modular construction. However, things started to change when I started doing research about modular construction online. I learned about the various advantages of modular construction- cost savings, time savings, build quality, etc., so I started making e-mail queries to various modular builders in the area. In the northeast, it seems that for some reason, most of the modular manufacturing facilities are located in Pennsylvania.

Before embarking on this building project, I did four things simultaneously: 1) Researched land prices, 2) Researched the local regulatory hurdles, 3) Researched financing options and 4) Researched builders. I discovered a local modular builder who advertised in the local Southampton paper. I went to their website and submitted a query form. The next day I was contacted by a builder who was very positive and encouraging. He was of the opinion that any house design can be modularized and he even started sending me examples of famous architect designs- Frank Lloyd Wright, Michael Graves, etc. This all seemed very exciting to me. However, every time I came back with proposed floorplans and ideas, he came back and said that it couldn't be done with modulars for one reason or another. I learned that, indeed, I could do anything I wanted with modulars... as long as it was a rectangular, boxy colonial, cape or ranch. It seemed that none of the local modular companies offered anything that could be considered "out of the box," no pun intended.

Even though I was disappointed by the lack of modular style options, I persevered, thinking that perhaps there would be a way to employ alternative finishes and materials to make a modular house less bland. As such, I set about searching for land with fierce determination. My requirements were pretty basic- minimum half acre within biking/walking distance of the open water, or a smaller lot within biking/walking distance of a village. In my price range, this was extremely tough to find, even in the less desirable areas. I did find lots, but some had restricted building envelopes due to wetlands. Some were right on major roads. Some were on unpaved roads deep within the forest. Some were high on bluffs that would have been impossible for a crane to get remotely close to.

Finally I found a small lot (0.29 acres) within an established development on a little peninsula between Sag Harbor Cove and Noyack Bay. It essentially met all of my criteria. However, as before, a slight bidding war ensued. Luckily, I dealt only with the listing agent who stopped the bidding war the second I placed a bid $1,000 over the asking price. This way she would get 100% of the commission, rather than having to split the commission with another broker delivering an even higher offer. I somehow felt there was something unethical about all of this; after all, she has a fiduciary responsibility to the seller to fetch the highest price. However, it was still within her legal right to stop the bidding action once the asking price was met. Anyway, the take home lesson in all of this is that you should always deal directly with the listing agent when you are in a highly competitive real estate situation. The listing agent will do whatever it takes to earn the full commission! Ideally one should be faithful and dedicated to a single, qualified real estate agent. However, I have learned my lesson after losing bidding war after bidding war this way.

FINANCING

Before any notion of building from scratch entered my mind, I had assumed that finding financing for a building project would be as simple as finding a conventional mortgage. Boy was I wrong! After searching through the internet, I found a handful of institutions that dealt with construction loans. However, the interest rates were generally a tad higher than conventional mortgages. I was a bit discouraged, but, as before, I persevered. My real estate broker's firm had an onsite broker who specialized in construction loans. Great, I thought. This should be a no-brainer. Things were going well until he broached the subject of closing costs. Having good credit and a decent cash downpayment, I was in no mood to pay points at closing. With this mortgage broker, I would have to pay, at the minimum, 1.5 points! This is a substantial sum. I immediately searched some more.

I came across a firm that does a lot of loans in the city- Manhattan Mortgage. I figured they probably didn't do many construction loans, since there is virtually no single home construction in the five boroughs of New York. Well, I was wrong! The broker who contacted me told me about a zero-point adjustable prime-based interest-only construction loan that automatically rolled over into a 15-year mortgage upon the delivery of a Certificate of Occupancy. This way there would be only one closing and one set of closing costs! I was skeptical... until he mentioned that the floating rate was prime minus one quarter point. At the time (early 2004), the rate was only 3.25%!!! I was sold. I figured that even though it was interest only, I would be able to kick in additional money every month to bring down the principle- all of my yearly bonuses or other windfalls would go toward this as well. And I figured that if I don't have the entire principle paid in 15 years, I can refinance or I can sell. Ultimately the bank that Manhattan Mortgage hooked me up with is Webster Bank, which is located in Connecticut. They asked for a lot of documents, but they were ultimately flexible and moved things along fairly quickly.

NEXT... SETTLEMENT AND PERMITS

Welcome to ModHampton!!

2006-12-18T08:01:00.000-08:00

After blogging on LiveModern for the past couple of years, the time has come for me to spin off onto my own blogging destiny. LiveModern is a great community where modern enthusiasts are able to exchange ideas about design, materials, architecture, environmental issues, etc. However, to put it bluntly, the interface was ass. I really wanted to blog more frequently, but it was just too prohibitively time-consuming, difficult and quirky. And the migration to the new software basically put the nail in the coffin for me- all of my old blog entries are essentially toast. Blogging should be au courant, spontaneous, and most of all, enjoyable! And now that I am here, I can be as snarky, blunt and ruthless as I want to be!

My blog over on LiveModern was pretty much a very dry, factual account of my attempts, as a non-architect, non-builder, non-designer, non-artist, non-millionaire to build my own house... in the Hamptons. My original intention was just find a nice lot somewhere east of the Shinnecock Canal and to build a modest cedar-shingled cottage or Cape Cod house. However, after poring through countless designs and elevations, I came across the Greenbelt 2 house and immediately I got that inner sense that this is going to be the one, even though it was totally not within my original scope.

Although it was originally spec'd to be a prefab modular, I decided to do it as a site-built house using prefab components like prefab concrete walls.

I would like to think that this house has kind of awakened the inner-modernist in me, which I am now unleashing onto the world. Now that I am here, I will continue blogging about the construction. In addition, I will go off on tangents and post about anything and everything that catches my eye, or the wacky goings-on in that crazy place 100 miles east of NYC.

But before I do anything else... it's time to do some catch-up. I will repost, in its entirety, my old LiveModern blog over here.