Main Dome Floor Tile

Two quick pictures this morning in the same post, rather than splitting things into multiple posts.

The floor tile in the main house is complete. It's actually not the pattern we were looking to use, but it is a reasonable alternative. This tile is in the foyer, utility room, hallways, powder bathroom, kitchen, and dining room, as well as the master bathroom and the kids bathroom.


Also complete is the back splash for the dining room and half of the kitchen back splash. The picture above is the dining room. It's a deep green granite with a river rock back splash. Ungrouted it did not look too attractive, but when the grout is added things really look nice.

The outside rock is progressing as well, but we were surprised to find that no one worked on Saturday (yesterday) when the weather was beautiful (maybe a bit warm, but the longer you wait, the hotter it will get). They have the next section of dome ready with the mesh and the scratch coat, so now all they need to do is lay the rocks on that section. That should take a few days and then we'll be about half way finished with the rocking on the main dome. The contractor says he's hoping for a move in in 30 days. I can't see that happening. I think July 1st is probably a decent expectation at this point.

City Electric Code

One surprise we got last week was the requirement to install an emergency disconnect for the Photovoltaic system that the utility company cold disconnect without entering the house. To accomplish this, they had to drill a hole in the dome wall, install a flex tube, remove 2 or 3 rocks, and soon mount an external box to allow the battery pile to be disconnected from the system. Just watch out for unusual city codes and make sure everyone knows what needs to be done. This was not an expensive almost mistake, but it could have been.
One bright spot that came from this si the realization that since we have a penetration through the house right there, we could also install a plug that connected directly to the inverter to allow us to connect a generator from the outside of the house. Thus if things get really bad, we can run the gasoline (or whatever) generator on the patio, and not have to worry about running wires through the doorway or whatever.

Don't look now, but these is something on our roof

I know this is two posts on the same day, but I got really behind during the end of the semester here in school and I want to make up for lost time. I might even post a third this afternoon.

This is our solar hot water heater panel on the roof. It is going to be connected to a 120 gallon tank, with an electric backup. The solar should be able to heat the water up to 120-130 even in the winter. Since we are in Texas, that does not surprise me all that much, but my concern, being a morning bather, is how will it feel first thing in the morning. The panel is facing mostly south-south-east, so it will not actually catch a lot of the late evening sun. I suspect that in the winter, it will be in the shade by 5:00 in the evening, and 6:00 am is a long time from then. On the other hand, that is why we have electric backup for the system.

A good reminder for us

Last week we found this little guy sitting on our front porch at the new house. He is about 15 inches long. It is a copperhead. This is a good reason for us to be careful, not only with ourselves, but with the dogs as well. By the time we took this picture, it was already dead.


We also find a lot of these little foot prints inside the house. These are going down the stairs. It's just little reminders like this that we need to remember we are moving out of the city into a much more rural area. Only a mile or so from town, but still, we have lots of open spaces around us and things like this will be common around the house, especially for the first month or so.

Tile in the Bathroom

It seems like it has been forever since I posted an update. I think the fact that just a little bit happens each day makes it seem like not a lot goes on, so I get lazy and don't write updates (not to mention that it is final week here now and I am busy with that). One of our daughters purposefully stayed away for a few weeks and then went to look and to her it looked like a LOT had happened. WE now have rock on about 25% of the main dome, the floors are about level and ready to have tile laid on them, the counter tops are supposed to go in this week or early next week, the bathroom tiles are being installed in the shower and tub surround. We have about 75% of the light switches and light fixtures installed. Hoping to finish out the electrical fixtures next week and then we can get final electrical inspection and get power to the house properly, rather than having to connect via LONG extension cords to the power pole by the road.

We have been looking at everything and my wife and I ask, "is that really the fixture we picked out for this room?". I'm sure they are, but at least one seems very out of place. When you are starting down this path of building your own home, make sure you write down or even take a picture of all your various selections. I know we should have, and we did for most things, but not everything. Our bad, but live and learn.

We have Rock

Over the last week the two smaller domes have had the rock facade applied. By the end of today they should be grouted and the scaffolding all moved to the larger house. I'll get another picture once all the scaffolding is out of the way, but I wanted to share this one now anyway.

By now most, if not all, of the floor has been stripped back to the previous layer and the leveling process should begin again soon. The last time they tried the weather got too cold and the final layer did not adhere to the foundation as well as it should have. Within a few weeks it had begun to bubble up and crack. That was back in December/January. I know most of you northern readers will be saying they should have known better, but we will frequently go all winter and never drop below freezing. That said, the forecast was for temperatures that were very close to freezing and they lost the gamble.

Today is supposed to be a clean up and take care of details sort of day. The trim crew will be doing lots of little things, and by the end of the day the stairway should be 100% finished (maybe the hand rail will still need to be stained to match, but structurally it will be done). All the baseboard should be installed and a few other little details should be cleaned up.

The granite counter tops were supposed to be cut last week, but the fabricator apparently thought we had too much money and decided he wanted to raise the price by over $3000, so our contractor selected a new fabricator and the slabs have been moved to the new location. The trouble is that the templates have to be remade and remeasured. It will be at least a week before they can be installed now. sigh. But they are not really slowing anything else down, so I guess I don't mind.

The rock is here

I know my picture does not match my title, so I will talk about the rock first, then move to the kitchen. Yesterday we got 6 pallets of rock delivered. They are supposed to deliver about 2 shipments of rock a week until we have 35 pallets total. If you figure that is 6 loads, then we are looking at about 3 weeks to get all the rock here, sigh. One the other hand, it is getting here, so I guess I should not complain. Now I get to be stuck in the quandary of wishing for warm dry weather to finish the house, and rain to save the plants and crops. The last two days rain has won, but today is supposed to be sunny. Maybe we can ask that the days alternate, rain one and sun the next.



Regardless of the weather, the inside is proceeding. The granite counter tops are supposed to be installed this week and they are making preparations for them. The kitchen will be having a deep green marble on it. I am looking forward to posting a lot of pictures of different countertops in the near future.

The stairs now have treads on them. They were freshly glued down last night, so we could not use them, but they look nice. I am going to wait until the bannister is also up and post a picture of that soon.