The 18×18 House is officially complete!
You read that right. The new semester saw the final touches on the interior, siding, and porch, after a productive end to the summer.
Interior
After painting was done, Jake, Julie, and Meagan started with the tile in the bathroom and the floors downstairs. The tiling process involved patching gaps in the cement board around the shower, then lining up row after row of (square) tiles in an offset grid. We thought it looked pretty good, right?
Installing the floors downstairs involved a special guest! Adam Whitley from Interface, Inc. paid the team a visit to show us how to lay the vinyl tiles. We owe a huge thank you to Interface for donating these beautiful tiles to the project! And, of course, to Adam and his step-by-step tutorial!
The floors upstairs are hardwood instead of vinyl, so that process was a little different. The team set down an underlayment before installing the floor plank by plank on the second and third levels of the house. The stairs were included, and Jake took on that challenge all by himself.
After floors came CABINETS!!!
Julie and Meagan laid out the kitchen one cabinet at a time, then installed the countertop and sink. This installation really made the house start to feel finished.
But then came the really exciting day. The ship’s ladder and guardrail designed by the team and fabricated by Superior Metal Works were ready to install. Our client, Detyrick, came to check on us just in time to see it fastened into place, and he got to see it for the first time with us!
Outside
Since the home stretch of this project lined up with the start of a new semester, the team was lucky enough to get some help during “Neckdown”! We had new (and old!) students working with us to set pavers for the porch, spread topsoil, and lay grass seed around the site. A special thanks goes to Peter from the CLT Core House team, who was on our site three days in a row and acted like he enjoyed it the whole time.
The final few panels of siding also went up, covering the last of our sheathing doodles. The house had scaffolding around it for months and looks entirely different without it. And the last touch on the outside of the house is painting the door! After much deliberation, Detyrick helped the team pick out a light blue to complement the gray metal. We got it done and painted to finish off the exterior.
And that’s a wrap, folks. The team is preparing for their next steps after Rural Studio, but not before saying a proper goodbye to Hale County. We hope to see all of our friends, family, supporters, and past Rural Studio friends at our opening on October 18!
Thanks to all. Signing off,
Jake, Julie, Meagan, and Naomi
