2018

Subscribe to our RSS feed to automatically receive new blog entries

Where has the time gone? Though it has been a while since I updated this blog, we have been working diligently on home building projects for our clients in North Idaho. Sometimes it is hard to know what the next update should be when there are so many, but I will start where I left off - with the conclusion of our last project that was the subject of blog entries of the beginning of this year. We finished the guest house over garage that we were building, and then we even added a bunch of exterior projects for that client and then built a garage in Hope and are now on to a project in Laclede!

So, let's just review some of the finish details, and I will let the video we produced (which you can watch at the bottom of this page) give you the more complete picture. We'll start on the ground floor, which is a "walk-out" garage - built into the side of the sloping lot with a stepped foundation. It is 28' x 36' and has an epoxy finish on the concrete floor (very durable and popular with a lot of our clients). The epoxy finish we have used for years is Corotech by Benjamin Moore, and we apply it with a roller after we wash and acid etch the floor. The etching opens up pores in the floor that the epoxy can then grip to stay adhered over time. There is a 1/2 bath on this level, laundry facilities and storage. The main purpose and objective for this level of the building is to provide boat storage for the owner on this river-front lot.

There is a full apartment upstairs above the garage and two ways to get up there - a set of interior stairs and a set of stairs outside but under roof cover (watch the video way down below to see that as well). The windows in the photo are Milgard Montecito white vinyl. The trim seen is a #2 or #3 grade pine, and the stair treads are simply #2 fir/larch:

Here is an interior view of the stairs coming the rest of the way up inside the guest house:

Go up the stairs and the first main room upstairs in the apartment is the kitchen. All of the lighting is on dimmers and includes recessed cans with LED bulbs, pendants and undercabinet lighting (we like two to three layers of switchable lighting for each room, and we like dimmers). The counter is granite provided by Idaho Granite Works. Cabinets are rustic hickory and were supplied by Selkirk Glass & Cabinets. The window trim is lacquered hemlock, the flooring laminate:

Here is a view looking from the kitchen across the island and out the windows north facing the river and Baldy Mountain (through a filter of trees):

Below is a view of the bedroom. On the wall besides the closet is a built-in cabinet. We have done these on several homes now:

Now, the bathroom. We enter through a solid wood pocket door with privacy lock. The floor is 18x18 tiles set over Ditra Heat. That means there is a Ditra membrane below the tile installation - Ditra being a tile installation membrane sold by Schluter Systems, and it is designed to contain an electric heat cable and sensors that control the heat in the room via the thermostat on the wall. The Ditra membrane also serves the purpose of separating the tile installation from the OSB subfloor, isolating the tile installation from the substrate to prevent tiles popping and grout cracking for the long term.

The tile shower seen in the photo is built with a drypack sloped floor (a drypack floor is mainly sand and Portland Cement) to send water to te drain, and it is entirely waterproofed the same way we waterproof all of our tile showers - with the Kerdi waterproofing system by Schluter Systems:

The vanity with the undermount sink. We like the granite countertops, the granite wall cap, and the shelves we built in at the lower left corner of the vanity. We like to put our vanity wall sconces ideally at face level so that the lighting is directly on our face without casting shadows across our facial features like lighting set well above our face level would tend to do. This allows men and women to shave or apply make-up and see all the details of their face as they do so:

For many of our jobs we have been installing Moen shower valves and trims. Typical for us is the three-way diverter valve in which our client can send water to a handheld sprayer that is detachable from the slidebar, they can send water to the main shower head, or they can direct water to both at the same time. You'll have to watch our video below this photo to see the corner, granite capped bench we put in this shower as well:

If you really want to see more completely the details of this project, watch the below video: