Engineering Marvel

Here's the nearly completed modified downdraft blower. It started out a rectangular box. After marking, cutting, snipping, bending, drilling, riveting and screwing, it's now a cube.

Pop Rivet

Nick pops a rivet into the (extremely) modified housing of the remote blower for the kitchen cooktop downdraft unit. The downdraft and blower are two separate appliances connected together by ductwork. The downdraft is installed behind the cooktop and is flush with the countertop when it's turned off. When it's on, it'll come up out of the counter to a height of about 7 inches. The remote blower will activate simultaneously and pull 800 cubic feet of air per minute across the top of the cooktop, through the downdraft and ductwork and out of the house, keeping grease off the ceiling and rapidly evacuating steam and smoke from the first floor airspace.

We'll mount the blower remotely on the ceiling of the basement (about 7 feet of duct downline from the downdraft). That it's a remote unit means that it's in another room downstairs and we won't have to listen to a noisy fan in the kitchen. The blower suction is a squirrel cage design (as opposed to a bladed fan normally used in overhead vents), making it very quiet.

The blower was originally about the size of a window-fitted air conditioner, and shipped too large to conveniently fit anywhere in the basement utility room without creating a huge and unsightly obstacle. A lot of engineering went into cutting down the walls by a few inches so that it will fit into the bay between our basement ceiling joists, getting it up out of the way. Thanks Nick for your hands-on help and science (and for helping void the warranty, even though it should be extended). Thanks Bo for the tool loan, and thanks to the guys at Do It Yourself Heating for all the wacky duct parts we need to tie the system together.

• 6/25 :: Daniel adds : This is what our hood uses and what's nice is that the grease trap pops off and goes right in the dishwasher.

Island Update

With Nick's help, we got the island layout figured out and got the appliances fitted. The oven is now installed and we've got power through the floor. The base cabinets (there are three of them here, screwed together) holding this tetris-tight knot of appliances and wiring (don't worry, we're not risking fire hazard) required hours upon hours of adjusting, cutting, fastening, re-fitting, more adjusting, and on and on, but things are starting to come together nicely.

Kitchen Progress

Rachael has continued to closely draft kitchen cabinet installation with kithen cabinet stocking. The cabinets have a lot more work ahead, but that hasn't stopped her from moving all of our condiments, cereals, bowls, cups and utensils into any cabinets with working drawers or doors.

The refrigerator, dishwasher, sink, disposal and built-in microwave are installed and (mostly) working.

Slate Down

The hallway and first floor landing slate tile are installed. Rude has been vigilant about not only making sure that the tile install stays on schedule but that it looks amazing, too. Thanks Rude!

Our good friend Nick helped us hang the bathroom door today (and install the garbage disposal and engineer the kitchen island and work his butt off and keep everyone laughing). It's the original door hung in a new frame. Special thanks to Nick, who clocked 13 hours on site today and is returning for more punishment tomorrow.

Tub Hardware

Dean came by today and installed the plumbing fixtures for the clawfoot tub. We're not going to enclose the tub with a curtain or door, and the wall and floor are designed to take on light water loads and shed them through the floor drain under the tub. The hand shower is for rinsing (dirty tub and dirty bodies). In an effort to keep this relatively small bathroom free of clutter we've ended up with a European style bathing station.

Big Flush, Little Flush

Here's a closer look at the flush buttons on the dual-flush toilet in the first floor bathroom.

Another angle of the deck, this one looking down the south stretch to the front entry way. We really like the look of the recessed can light in the porch ceiling.

Deck Fixtures

The outdoor lighting fixtures and bubble cover outdoor wall outlets have been installed on the deck.

640 Feet of Pine

Leaning against the garage is 640 feet of clear sugar pine trim (Pinus lambertiana) conditioned with Benite and then stained. We picked this up through our friends over at Woodcrafters, which is perhaps the finest finish carpentry supply shop in Portland. We chose the sugar pine because it looks good with the bamboo floors and maple cabinets. Something we didn't know when we picked it out is that it's native to Oregon, Washington and Northern California, and was likely harvested locally.

In the foreground, I think Rachael is collecting the nonferrous metal scraps the magnetic broom wouldn't pick up.

This past weekend we got all of the perimeter cabinets in and we got as far as roughing in the base cabinets for the island. None of these cabinets is attached to anything yet. We need to do a lot of measuring, fitting (and even make-believing that we're sitting at the island hanging out, eating dinner or cooking) to figure out what it will take to get this island together.

There are a lot of things to consider:

• Cooktop, oven and downdraft all have to play into that center base cabinet. It's going to be tight
• The island should be generally centered on the lights and the room and we need to maximize walking space around it
• We need to shape the island so that when people are seated at it major traffic through-ways aren't blocked
• We need to get power through the floor for the cooktop, oven, downdraft and outlets
• We need to be able to get a 10" diameter downdraft vent through the floor into a very tightly packed basement ceiling (packed with wiring, plumbing, etc), into a remote blower (which will also be attached to the basement ceiling) and then out through an exterior wall
• We need to make the island functional enough to work and cook on; some space will need to be designated as a prep area since the cooktop is so wide
• We don't want the island to be so big that it takes over the room
• We need to add otherwise unnecessary vertical support to the island because the base cabinets aren't strong enough on their own to withstand the weight of the concrete countertop Rude will be installing

Anyway, you get the point. This will turn out to be a drawn-out engineering brouhaha.

Backyard From Above

The deck surface is nearly done and the stairs should be done next week. We're still working on our railing solution, but we'll give you a hint: it's going to be considerably different than the deck railing we did on the last house. Rachael and Hannah have done an amazing job of clearing the yard of debris. It's starting to look a lot bigger than it has in recent months now that building materials are disappearing.

We took photo from the second floor bedroom, facing west.