A B-log Entry

Natalie among the redwood logs prior to installation. Quite the pieces of "trim".

This is the seemingly slow period in which the framing punch list gets finished up, and all the electrical wiring, plumbing and HVAC ducting gets installed.  The fast and furious pace of framing has given way to lots of individual contractor work, but often not a lot of very visible progress.  Still, the back sliding doors are going in, and a staggering amount of ducting and wiring and lighting and piping is going everywhere in the house now as you can see from this picture of one corner of the kitchen.

Electrical and Plumbing getting done

We’ve now installed “smurf tube” into every room to allow us to pull low voltage wiring and easily upgrade our computer wiring at some future point, and that is now all converging on a central panel for structured wiring.  Once this is all complete, there will be electrical/plumbing/HVAC inspection, the insulation and drywall and exterior stuccoing can start.  The strawbale library is now completely lathed and ready for stucco on the outside (and needs to be protected from the rain until it is!), but the final lath wiring is still to be done on the inside.  A project for over the Christmas break!!!

Catherine putting protective finish on the logs

The dizzying activity for today was sealing the log ends after they had been installed up at the roof line.  Thankfully the stucco guys have already installed their scaffolding!  That certainly made both the installation of the logs by the framing crew last week, and the sealing of them by us this weekend much more tractable.   When it is all complete, these logs will look like they are supporting the roof, but they certainly aren’t doing that!  Rather, these log stubs are hung from cantilevered beams that are hidden under the white cedar soffit and extend back into the house.

We have gone back and forth on the logs wondering if it was going to look cool, or weird and tacky.  It is certainly a risk doing something this unconventional.  We had convinced ourselves that cool would predominate, and once they went in, we were relieved to see that they do add a visual interest.   Hopefully they won’t end up being a maintenance nightmare dropping bark on our heads or wicking water back towards the house!