To tank or not to tank... that is the question.

I found out a few weeks ago that the closet my mom drew in the plans for the furnace and hot water heater was not large enough for the hot water heater. She designed the closet with the standard sizes for both things, but for some reason the furnace took up too much room... I guess it was the cold air return? I don't know.

Anyways, by the time we realized it, it was too late to do anything about it so we then had to decide what to do about it. We'd considered from the begining getting a tankless / instantaneous hot water heater, but they're more money to buy, and as it turns out, also more expensive to vent in our situation. The instantaneous hot water heaters are A LOT smaller than a normal hot water heater. They can be hung on the wall and are fairly small... maybe the size of 3 shoe boxes side to side, but thinner.

It came down to spending extra money and getting the instantaneous hot water heater or putting a standard one in what was supposed to be my coat closet under the stairs. I just decided now that taking into account the money they save (you only heat the water you need as opposed to a normal tank of hot water which just sits there hot) and the space I would lose in an already space-tight house, that the tankless was worth the expenditure.

I'm planning on getting the Noritz N023, which can heat 6.3 gallons per minutes, etc etc. This means I can use two major appliances at a time (shower/dish washer/washing machine) and have hot water forever. I could take a 2 hour shower.

Hell, I could even take a shower with cower for an hour with some soap that smelled like sour flowers.... now that's some power!

Name My House

Sooo, I need a name for my house.

Anyone got any suggestions?

Siding is here!

The siding arrived today and I'm very happy with the color choice. Hopefully all the people that weren't fond of the red will agree.


It's funny how hard it is to represent a color. The inside and outside pictures look really different, but I think you can at least get an idea of the color and you definitely can get a better idea of the rib pattern I chose (Max-Rib).

The aluminum windows came a couple weeks ago, but I hadn't gotten a chance to take a picture of them yet. It's tough to get a good picture of the finish with a flash, but if you click the picture to enlarge it, that should help.

Framing N'at

I've been talking about the siding choices and other stuff for a while now and haven't really included much of the progress that's going on inside.

The most obvious difference from the outside is that the window box has been framed. It doesn't seem to be placed correctly unfrotunately. It was supposed to be 1' from the right side, but looks like it's more like 9". I think it looks fine though so am not too concerned.


The HVAC work was begun last week and as of Friday the furance was installed and the duct work was begun. I got a two-stage 95% efficiency furnace. Two-stage means that it runs at a low speed all the time, but when it needs to, it turns on at full blast.

The furnace:

Some duct work:

The stairs have been put in too (no more climbing up a ladder to get to the second floor). The steel beam is currently going right across the landing, but that will be cut in the not so distant future.

All the walls on the second floor have been framed out and the bathtubs were put in their places, though the pipes for them haven't been installed yet.

View from the bedroom. Two pocket doors will section this off from the rest:

The kitchen area's been framed in:

I chose a single piece fiberglass tub for the bathroom off the living room because it's cheaper than a real tub with tiled walls. I thought this one was pretty decent looking:

Future bedroom, bathroom and closet:

View from the back to the front:

This is a pic of the first floor entryway before the stairs were put in:

Change of Thinking

Well...

The Roman Blue in real life looked too pastel... the charcoal seems like just adding too many medium tones to it... so after my mom and I looked at some samples next to the wood and block....


Blam! Autumn Red.

It's deifnitely bold... but I think it'll be pretty sweet. Whatdayinzthinkn'at?