Mud / Brown

Here's the first floor landing as of this evening. The cream colored borders around the windows and wall edges are wet joint compound, also known as mud. This is a finishing step for drywall to make all the tape lines, dents and screw holes disappear.

The brown swatches on the wall are not mud. They're paint tests Rachael and I did this past weekend. The color on the right is officially named Jackson Tan, but we're calling it Jackson Browne. We'll use that color for the stairwell and hallway and we'll also use it in the kitchen and in the basement utility room. Valley Forge Brown is on the left and we're going to use that in the basement bedroom. The colors don't come out quite right in the photo, but we love them on the wall.

Interior painting starts this Friday and should be done by Tuesday, so it's going to be exciting to watch as our array of colors goes up.

Truaxed Doors

Our basement door (shown here) and back door are back from Truax Builders Supply, who fitted the doors with new hinges and jambs. The back door came with the house, but the old basement door had to go--it's only 1" thick and it's an interior door, not an exterior door which is more appropriate here. The new door you see in the photo is a discard from a commercial building that we picked up at the ReBuilding Center. It's a solid core door with a thick tempered glass light (pane of glass).

We have the plywood mounted over all the house doors for security until we install the door hardware, including lever handles and deadbolts, which we'll do after we finish painting this coming weekend. We can't wait to secure the place further since someone broke into the house last week and took a cartload of new light fixtures and our acoustic guitar. The stuff was in a locked room, but interior doors make for poor security. That, plus nothing begs burgling like a construction site.

Cool Metal

We're installing a standing seam galvalume metal roof painted with Cool Color paint, which has increased light and heat reflectivity over non-Cool Color paints. This roof is constructed of steel, which will resist dents and wear. The standing seams allow the roof to be assembled in overlapping pieces while maintaining water proofing and adding structural rigidity.

This photo shows the North roof slope. The hedge in the foreground runs along our driveway and separates our yard from the adjacent property.