Wood Stove, Framing, and Rough-in

Things have been busy, with interior framing, rough-ins, and the wood stove installation. The last post showed creating the wood stove hearth. The masons have been here and finished the wall behind the wood stove. I moved the stove into place and cut the connector pipe for the fresh air intake. Bay Stoves supplied the stove pipe and did the install. I preferred that they climb up on the roof and work on the scaffolding to install the flue.
Installing the exterior stove pipe


Jotul 400 Wood Stove and Flue
We did a good job of aligning the hearth, the wall, and the wood stove. Everything went together as it should. The flue goes straight up through the roof. It is about 25ft of flue, mostly double wall flue pipe. Only the first four foot section is single-wall stove pipe. The fresh air intake works great, preventing warm inside air from feeding the fire. It will also prevent the cool inside air from leaving the house in the summer. We have a big pile of scrap lumber and the wood stove is how we intend to use it - heating the house. I think it is going to warm up enough that we won't use much of the scrap pile this year. I'll cut it up and put it on the wood rack for next year.

Warming the house with wood scraps

Interior framing has been proceeding nicely. Pictures are likely to show much more than a description. The stairs in these pictures are construction stairs. They will be removed when the real stairs are installed.
Looking towards the office and sewing room
Looking towards to bedrooms and wood stove
Powder room and laundry
We've been busy finalizing selections for various things like kitchen cabinets and bathroom tile. We had some bathroom fixtures from the old house, but we needed shower controls. A brief list of things to select includes plumbing fixtures for bathrooms and kitchen, bathroom vanity, tile, flooring, stonework,  exterior siding style and color, ceiling style and color, wall paint, lighting fixtures, electrical outlet locations, switch locations. Don't forget the most important part: toilet roll and towel bar locations so the carpenters can install wood blocking to mount them. 😉
The selection process is the part of house building that most people have difficulty handling, simply due to the volume of decisions. It can be mentally tiring to go from one decision to the next. This is why there are consultants for making these choices and is why HGTV's stars of home renovation get so much attention. They make it look easy, but it isn't. This is often why new home construction seems to grind on forever. People have problems making decisions and the result is that the project grinds to a halt while waiting on a decision. Or the project is waiting on the receipt of materials that were selected too late to keep the project moving. It helps to make a lot of the finish detail decisions early in the process, spreading out the decision making process over more time.
There is often a problem sourcing just the right thing. We've been looking for a black porcelain tile with white veining to use instead of Brazilian Soapstone. We found marble and granite, but would prefer something that doesn't require as much maintenance. We finally found a source yesterday. We need the tile in about three weeks. Hopefully, it doesn't have a 4-6 week lead time.
The trade inspections should happen next week and insulation installation the week after. Drywall, flooring, and tile can then be installed.

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