Virginia Garage and House - Let the process begin.

[s219]

Thanks, I didn't realize that there where other options on a piece of land that didn't pass the perk test. I guess it's just money and it's just part of what you have to pay if you want a house.

I think that's a good way to look at it. Around here, realtors or property sellers will warn buyers if a particular piece of land has that issue, so they can plan accordingly and factor it in to their budget or offer. We got our soil tested before signing the contract on our land. Everyone told us it would need an engineered system, so we had been planning that into our construction loan, but turned out we could go conventional. I credit the septic tester for knowing where to look. He saw an area with a lot of beech trees, mentioned that they only tolerated well-drained soil, and did his bores there.

 

[hcallaway]

Now that the drywall is hung, mudded and sanded, paint is starting this week. Some of the little finishing details with this builder.
He is kind of old fashion. We went over each closet as to what we wanted. He was happy to do what ever we wanted. I have yet to hear this is not part of our package we quoted you. We had the typical rubber maid wire closets in the house we were in for over 20 years.

This closet had to be location for the air return, thus the odd shapes on the left wall. He suggested really good use of the space.
Typical of the other 3 closets.

The interior doors are the solid core. I guess that is how to describe them. They were pretty heavy as I found out helping a delivery man. The feel good like a Volvo when you close them and I felt like they take some of the sound transfer away as well.
With a small house we have tried to pay attention to this. We insulated some interior walls around the Mud Room, added doors to close off areas, picked appliances that were rated on sound. Bosch Dishwashers was a must have item for us with the open floor plan. At it's loudest, most people described it as lower than conversational decibels.

 

[hcallaway]

Some of the other things we did to reduce noise were:
The angle and set back on the house in relation to the road.
One side of the house angled towards the road does not have any windows so we could locate the HVAC and Whole House Generator on that side. There is a fixed window that sits above a soaking tub to let a little natural light in there.
Also we will locate our propane tank and the controls-alerts for the septic system.

 

[s219]

We insulated many of the walls between noisy/quiet areas (just used regular insulation). Even insulated the knee wall behind the dishwasher and kitchen sink for extra sound deadening. But we didn't give a thought to insulating the first floor ceiling in our two-story house, and boy does noise carry with hardwood flooring above! When our fridge ice maker drops a batch of cubes in the kitchen, I hear it pretty good from the master bedroom above. Our old house had carpet upstairs and was quite a bit quieter.

 

[EddieWalker]

Are you texturing your walls? I always do my trim and built ins after I've textured because it's so much more work covering everything that I don't want texture on

 

[hcallaway]

No texture. They are spraying the primer and then paint the trim and roll the walls. We are using a very light grey and white trim.
You can tell we only wanted very simple trim. The doors are in a craftsman style and we knew that colonial trim was not that good a match. We had clear coated pine to match the floor in a mountain house we had built. This house will have pine floors but we decided to do painted trim.

 

[KRBrouwer]

The Falcon has landed in it's new home.

My first car, 1963 Ford Falcon, wish I had kept it.

Ken

 

[hcallaway]

My first car, 1963 Ford Falcon, wish I had kept it.

Ken

The front plate is UNC1

 

[Walkin Horse]

Am I correct about you having to pump on a schedule?

It every 5 years and they will call if you don't have it done. The septic pumping co. sends the paperwork in. We always call Johnson's to pump ours.

 

[hcallaway]

Septic Field is finished. Health Department came and they pressurized the system loops and it was given an OK.

Loops are covered in the sand.

Layer of Dirt and then grass seed for ground cover.
When people hear that an alternate system is above ground it really does not sound very appealing.
The finished product is just fine in the proper location.