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August 8 through 15 was Centerville's 106th Old Home Week. Activities included a concert, presentations, a road race and an ice cream social for the kids. The Main Street walking tour provided an interesting introduction to some of Centerville's history and architecture, including some unexpected surprises. There were numerous Crosby family houses on Main Street and the James Crosby house started out in the Greek Revival style, was totally transformed into a Queen Anne style house
about 20 years later to match The Howard Marston house (now the Fernbrook Inn) across the street, and then expanded and completely reconfigured
about 25 years later in the Colonial Revival style. If you look at the three windows on the left side of the second floor you can see the little bit that remained. The turret, porch and detailing were all removed.
That night there was a bonfire and concert on the beach
and the modern version of the pied piper.
Although not a part of Old Home Week, on Sunday we took a shellfishing class,
caught a mess of quahogs and enjoyed them that evening.
Now, back to the house-
We were able to fit a small Powder Room on the First Floor. This is the Toto dual flush toilet.
The room is so small that we were worried about the space that the towel bar and tp holder take up. They do fit but just barely.
The corner pedestal sink is from Porcher. It was supposed to get the more rounded Grohe Eurodisc faucet, but the more angular Grohe Essence faucet that you see here wouldn't fit in the upstairs vanity. For some reason the vanity was built 20" deep rather than the more typical 21" to 22". There wasn't enough room for the pop-up for the drain so we had to swap them.
We searched for a mirror and finally found just the right one on Craigslist. It looks great and it was only $10.
In June I invited my mom along with my brother and his family to visit the new place for a week in late July. I knew they wanted to spend some time there and also extended the same invitation to my siblings. There are five 'kids' in my family and we're pretty spread out geographically. All of them came, along with some of their spouses and children and a couple of my mom's sisters too. It's just a two-bedroom house but is designed for gatherings and this was the experiment to see how things work out with a hoard of people.
We can't comfortably accommodate all of them, and a few stayed at the Centerville Corners Inn, which is just down the street, and the Fernbrook Inn, which is a beautiful former private estate turned B&B. The beds, trundle bed, sleeper sofa and futon accommodated the rest.
Since the five of us aren't together often, I arranged a photographer to do a group photo shoot on the beach in Osterville, although I don't have those photos just yet. Here's a less professional version.
Rain threatened and I had to modify the time with the photographer. The exact time was undetermined until just about time to leave, and gathering everyone was a little like herding cats, but we made it.
We had 17 for dinner that night. The table stretches out to 10' and the bar seats 3, so we did all fit in the Dining Room. The built-in hutch
is still MIA and would have been a real help. It's intended as a set-up area to free the table and peninsula/bar. It's just another example of what I called "Cape Cod Time" in my blog from June 28.
What a long process this has been. We finally have the actual front door - although it's not really the front door, per my post from February 21. It's painted a dark marine blue so it's hard to make out the window, especially in this light. The shadow puts the glass in full shade.
I like the parades in Centerville. They're short and just up the street. We can walk there, see the parade and get on with things.
Main Street is quaint, but certain modern necessities have gotten in the way. Notice the electric service running across the front of the Historical Museum. There must have been a better way.
I think just about every kid in town was in the parade.
The fireworks in Hyannis take a little more effort. You have to get a parking space early before they fill up. While waiting for darkness I took this photo of the pre-firework sunset over Hyannis Port.
As we were waiting I couldn't help but think about all the things I should be doing at the house instead.
The cupola light is finally in. It was low on the list of electrical tasks so it took a while. It has a 5 watt long-life cold cathode bulb hooked up to a light sensor. The electrician mistakenly put in a 13 watt compact fluorescent bulb and it looked like a landing light in comparison.
And the photovotaic panels are finally installed. We've had our deposit in since January but a number or missteps on the installer's part delayed things until July. The inverter is at the roof deck level because apparently the DC current from the PV panels cannot run within the house. The inverter converts the DC to AC. They wanted to run a conduit around the back of the house and down to the basement, but I want to avoid looking like the Historical Museum.
And the Kitchen is still not quite done. The cabinets, doors and drawers seem to come in installments. It's all looking good, though.
The Ikea appliances look sharp, but the controls sure aren't intuitive. You actually have to read the manuals to use them.
This is one of our many, many cardboard and trash runs. Can you believe that the dump is closed on the on the 4th!
I can't count how many full wagon loads of cardboard we've hauled away. The quantity has been incredible. At least it all gets recycled.
It seems that some things happen slowly on what we call "Cape Cod time".
Back in late April I started contacting fence companies to get prices on the railings, screen panels at the deck, and the split rail fence required by the Town's Conservation Commission. A couple of the fence companies actually came out and provided quotes, but most never bothered. The prices from two who quoted were very high and extremely high - with the high price being almost $25,000. It turned out that the convenience of one stop shopping would be rather pricey.
I decided there has to be a less expensive way to go. I figured I would handle the deck railings and screening and then have a fence company install the split rail fence. A local fence company arranged and then missed several appointments and weren't very good at returning subsequent phone calls. I contacted another fence company and they said they would get me a price but also never returned phone calls. It seems that the recession hasn't hit fence companies on Cape Cod.
For the railings and deck screening I looked into the Certainteed fencing and railing systems and redesigned things based on their products. They have CAD details online which helped - except that they're not to scale. After modifying their CAD details and adjusting my plans to their product, I was ready to order.
In this area these Certainteed products are sold through Harvey Building Products. Harvey doesn't sell to the general public, so I had to apply and receive permission to buy products from them.
Harvey tried to place the order for me and then discovered that Certainteed fencing is only sold to fence installers. They recommended Kroy fencing instead. The links on Kroy's website are broken, so I had to make decisions based on their small thumbnail images. The panels should have arrived in three weeks, but they took almost five - and they only sent two out of the three panels.
They are good quality and fortunately are what I was looking for. The last panel has been expedited and should be delivered tomorrow.
I've hired someone to install the split rail fence and place gravel to stabilize the ground at the hay bails/silt fence line.
The split rail components, gravel and deck screening panels should all be finally completed this week.
Today we received the Certificate of Occupancy. It wasn't easy, though. The final three panels to complete the deck and railing were to have come in last week but did not, so we installed one section of temporary railing to pass inspection. Here's a building code related question. What's wrong with the railings in this picture?
Here's a hint. It involves the one section of temporary railing which has 2x4's top and bottom. The portion of the deck facing the street, per the building code, actually doesn't need railings because it's less than 30" above grade. However, the first thing the building inspector said was that the temporary railing needs to be pressure treated even though it may only be up for a week. It seems rather wasteful and unnecessary to me, but we had to remove the railing you see, build another with pressure treated 2x4's top and bottom, and then in a week or so we'll toss that one too.
The final inspection was on the morning of June 9 and I was to fly to Miami that afternoon for the AIA Convention. However, I had installed a furnace with 95% efficiency rather than the 96% efficient furnace I had anticipated in my REScheck energy calculations. Even though the house more than met the energy code, I had to redo the calculations right away. Fortunately I had my laptop computer with me. If I didn't have my computer with the program and previous calculations with me, I would have really been stuck. I recalculated things and drove down the street and found some wi-fi.
We are within a mile of the coast and, although the windows are impact rated and each pane of glass is properly stamped, I needed to provide certification. Also, although the Board of Health had completed their inspections and approved things, they hadn't signed off on the building permit card. Someone, though, had to phyically take the building permit card to the Board of Health office, but only between the 3:30 and 4:30 PM and I had a plane to catch.
I found someone who could take the permit to the BOH at the appointed time and then bring it back to the house. The inspector went back to the house the next day, reinspected and signed the permit card. I thought the inspector would take the permit back with him, but they don't do that. Someone had to drive it back down to the building department. It's surely not an efficient or user-friendly system. This morning the Certificate of Occupancy was finally ready.
Here's the steel telescoping ladder from Calvert Stairs. It's pretty neat how it works.
And this is the view from the roof.
The wire you see is for the inverter for the photovoltaic solar panels, which will go on the roof just beyond the half-wall. Those should have been in and producing electricity by now, but that's yet another story.
Last week the landscape was completed.
Our son Brian and his company, The Natural Landscape blitzed it in four days. We were so tired of looking at sand and were amazed by the quick transformation.
Our Landscape Architect, Andrew Garulay from Down Cape Engineerng, created a design using mostly drought-tolerant native species. This ties into the LEED recommendations and makes ecological sense. The driveway is sea shells, which are light reflective and give a nice crunch sound when you pull in.
The walkway is Boston City Hall Pavers. No, we didn't steal them from City Hall - they sell that style brick, which has a nice soft red color. We still have the temporary door on front, but that's a long story. The porch railings will go in next week and the house will look complete from the outside. It's nearly complete inside, except that the kitchen cabinets are just barely started.
Even the business end of the house looks pretty good. You can see the dryer vent, the gas meter, the furnace vent, electric meter and condenser, but they're not obtrusive.
