25 February 2016

Sonny, Ty, and Doug went crazy again today hanging sheetrock, getting a lot more of the lower level walls done.  Goodro’s delivered a couple of sheets of water-resistant drywall that were installed in the guest bathroom ceiling.  Chree so likes the color (purple) that now she doesn’t want that ceiling painted.  (Just kidding, but just barely.)  Doug is getting so good with the dremel tool used to trim and cut out openings in the drywall, that he carved a replica of the State of Vermont out of one door opening and then signed his name.  Hung in the shop, this is our first artwork for the new house.  A major milestone was achieved today!  Steve (with some help from Dennis) got the geothermal heat pump operational.  By quitting time we had 85° water (climbing steadily towards 120°) circulating in the southern half of the house under the basement slab and under the main level floor.  Turned off and disconnected the propane heater.  Bryan put down the Schluter^® Ditra underlayment and then started laying the Cæsar Snow porcelain floor tile in the master bathroom.  (The tile was made in Spezzano di Fiorano, Italy, ‘cause we believe in buying local.)  He also served on the Esthetics Board, helping as Chree and I wrestled with room paint and carpeting color decisions.  Sean was here first thing to go over design details with Chree and me.  We three also took another look at the LED color temperature options and decided to go with all 4000K lights, most all of which will be controlled by dimmer switches.  Chree and I went into Middlebury to meet with Joan Donahue, our attorney with Connolly and Foote, Ltd. about an amendment to Chree’s trust.  Then we spent some quality time at Countryside Carpet and Paint working with Brianna Desautels on preliminary carpet selections for the house.  Returned to Fern Lake, we took all of our samples (paint, slate, & carpet) over to the house to look at them under the 4000K lights temporarily installed in the living room.  Glad we did, as the sample colors look much different under the LED lighting than they did under the florescent lights at Countryside.