Efficiency pays off

View from south during construction. The carport has yet to be added to the west side of the house at this point.

 

Carport during construction. Looks narrow, but is wide enough for 2 cars side by side plus a row of firewood along the wall, with plenty of room to spare.

 

Interior view of my son's birthday party. You can see some of the concrete wall on the far end. The wall to the right in this photo is the center of the house. It is drywall over plywood so that I don't need to look for a stud when I'm hanging something like the hunting trophies.

 

Heck of a lighter for the birthday cake!

 

Same day, facing the opposite way showing how the public side of the house is all one area. The kitchen isn't completed yet at this point. I knew I wanted a LaCornue stove, but it was way out of my price range. After a long time of looking, eBay came through. Then it was just a simple drive from NC to Colorado to pick it up! The drive back was the trick back was the trick because I had trouble with the truck and the only Diesel mechanic in the area was on vacation.

 

I'm not sure why the bench was there in this picture. The stove sits in a sort of an alcove. I thought it would be a warm cozy place to read. Turns out the warm cozy place is on the couch where I'm sitting on the other side of the room. I'm working on refining the wood transport bins. Those are just plastic bins on furniture dollies. They work pretty well.

 

Even at 1000 degrees inside, the outside is just comfortably warm. Holds the heat great- can cook pizza and then other foods over the next day or more as the temperature drops.

 

Screw energy efficiency and what not, you had me at pizza oven!
I kid, of course. I dream of a summer kitchen and pizza oven! I mean really, that's what I've thought I'd like to do in my next house. I'm going to have to bookmark this, so many great ideas.

 

THAT right there is COOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

sweet place!! Termites?? lol

 

There are lots of termites here. But none in my house!

 

Polished concrete floors?
We have acid stained concrete floors throughout and love it.

 

Sealed stained concrete. Should have just polished and maybe oiled them. The sealer wears off and looks bad easily. But I still love the concrete floors.

 

After sealing, we put Cherry Wax on ours three years ago. Even with 3 kids, its holding up very well. Cherry Wax is nothing like the floor wax I've been around , its more like clear coat on a car. Extremely hard, dirt doesn't get dirt ground into it, never needs stripped.

 

I think the problem on mine is the execution. I knew they had the B team on the job when I saw the footprint in the concrete.

 

You can always reseal and add cherry wax later, if you choose to. How long have you been in the house?

 

About a year and a half. Slowly finishing the interior ourselves. Had to fire the contractor. Things started off well enough and the critical structural elements seem adequate. But there was some real half-assery by the subs later on. Way off schedule and significant cost overruns. So we cut our losses.
To be fair, nobody had any experience with what I was trying to do and I give credit where credit is due for even trying. A lot of what I designed left exposed what ordinarily would be hidden and people were not used to working that way. I'm happy with the house. Happier with the design than the execution but I better be since I designed it. It would still exist only in my head if it weren't for the people who actually built it.

 

I made it through May with no need for air conditioning despite reaching 90 out more than once. Been holding low to mid 70s by opening up on cool nights and closing during the day.

We are having a cool spell right now- got into the high 50s last night. Opened up all last night and had 70 this AM. I'll keep cooling the slab as much as I can.

 

I don't run A/C except some times for the worse heat of the summer I may put a window unit in the upstairs bedroom. The opening the windows at night and closing in the morning seemed to work ok for this old house. But I face a new problem now. While I'm on dayshifts I leave before 5AM. Often times the house hasnt even reached it coolest yet by that time. Last year seems I'd normally close up the windows between 9 or 10 am. Wish I had power windows in my home I could open and close on a timer lol.

Bert, I wonder how an uninsulated floor would work further north. I think everything else would work up here but I'm not sure about the floor. Definitely researching more, as I would like to build at some point, and want to design it for efficiency.