Group 6 2 minutes Read

progress report: week 9

Lauren Zerbey

Maybe it was the Monday holiday, but this past week flew by without a lot of physical progress on the house. Unfortunately, our schedule and mother nature didn’t cooperate with each other so we weren’t able to install the 2nd skylight. We did do some more framing (I know, we weren’t really done…) and some planning and research for the electrical side of things. To summarize:

1. This past week, we’ve been giving more thought to what kind of whole house sound system we want. First we visited Magnolia Audio, where we learned that we could spend anywhere between $1,000 and $100,000 equipping our 800 SF house. We did learn about a few cool products, such as Sonos, a wireless music system that allows you to control everything via your iPhone. We then looked into what the chain stores had to offer and came up somewhere between the two. At this point, we’re leaning towards quality over quantity, with a pair of reputable bookshelf speakers in the living room, a new receiver/amplifier, and the Sonos system. We’ll also eventually install a couple outdoor speakers for the backyard. (Down the road, we’ll be converting part of our basement into a media room, so we’re not planning for any surround sound or video components for this project.) While others would absolutely say we need speakers in the bedrooms and bathroom with individual volume controls and devices that massage the incoming current, we’re just not convinced it would be worth it for our lifestyle and how open the layout will be.  (However, we did invest in a full security system with remote monitoring so we won’t be depriving ourselves of techiness.) But what about you audiophiles out there? Anyone have a favorite system that is simple, good-quality, affordable and aesthetically pleasing?

2. As mentioned above, we’re still waiting for enough dry weather for skylight #2.  We framed in as much as we could on the inside…

Kyle also framed in the opening for the roof window in the loft. We just ordered this guy a few days ago so install will be at least a couple of weeks out. Still, it’s exciting to visualize an opening there. Even better, we noticed that you’ll see some blue sky from the kitchen space below.

3. Thanks to good ol’ life safety codes, we also ordered 7 smoke and carbon monoxide alarms last week. It does seem a bit ridiculous, but we’re all about “doing it right”. (FYI – we actually ordered them off Amazon for much less than HD.)

4. Lastly, we’re making some final decisions on the rest of our lighting and have started to install j-boxes. Check back mid-week for a post about that and how we finally found some cool under cabinet lights!

Hope everyone is having a relaxing Sunday. We just spent the last hour or so looking at reglets and detailing the various connections that we’ll have between different materials (like where the drywall on the walls meets the wood on the vaulted ceiling). I know, we’re not normal.