Tag: new-construction

  • This New Old House — Part 18: The Kitchen

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    Layout and Flooring The kitchen is where you spend most of your waking life in a house. Jennifer did the layout and it works — the flow is right, the dining area sits just off the kitchen where you can see into it without being in it, and the whole thing makes sense in a…

  • This New Old House — Part 17: Exterior, Siding, Roofing & Trim

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    Siding By the time we got to the exterior, the siding decision came down to two options in the Connor package: cedar or HardiePlank. Jennifer would have preferred the cedar — she always gravitates toward natural wood — but once we actually looked at what HardiePlank offered, it wasn’t a real contest. HardiePlank is fiber…

  • This New Old House, Part 16: Chim Chimney, Chim Chimney, Chim Chim Cherooh-Noo

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    Some mistakes cost money. Some cost time. The chimney cost both, repeatedly, for years. If you’ve been following along, you know that this build had its share of “we didn’t know what we didn’t know” moments. The windows. The spray foam learning curve. The drywall saga. But the chimney — the chimney was different. Those…

  • This New Old House Part 12: Insulation and Air Sealing – When Tight Isn’t Right (Or Is It?)

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    When we decided to build our Connor Homes kit house, we had visions of a super-efficient, modern home wrapped in the latest insulation technology. We’d read all about spray foam, tight building envelopes, and energy efficiency. We were going to do this right. We sort of did. Maybe. I’m still not entirely sure. The Plan:…