OK time for another update....yeah i'm a bit late but I have been busy.

Here is one of the spare bedrooms:

http://i121.photobucket.com/albums/o...g/P1000527.jpg

The same color is on the wall in both non master bedrooms.

Here is the color of Dining room/Living room/Kitchen:

http://i121.photobucket.com/albums/o...d/P1000523.jpg

Master Bedroom:

http://i121.photobucket.com/albums/o...d/P1000524.jpg

Master Bath:

http://i121.photobucket.com/albums/o...d/P1000526.jpg

Other Bath:

http://i121.photobucket.com/albums/o...d/P1000532.jpg


So thats where I am at so far. We are working on flooring now and have to repaint the living room area again due to running out of paint and new gallon didnt match correctly. I will post again once we get a little farther on the flooring. It is going well just getting burnt out lately it seems. To much work and to little time.

Time for another update. It has been going....fairly slowly but still progressing. We are working on the tile floor and here are some pictures...


Master Bedroom:

http://i121.photobucket.com/albums/o...g/P1000553.jpg

http://i121.photobucket.com/albums/o...g/P1000559.jpg

Dad asked me if I was into self punishment by doing this to myself. I swear I spent days at the tile saws.

Spare Bathroom:

http://i121.photobucket.com/albums/o...g/P1000537.jpg

This is the flooring that will be going into both baths and kitchen. Only the spare bath is done so far. It goes alot faster than the slate since its all even.

Freshly washed spare bedrooms:

http://i121.photobucket.com/albums/o...g/P1000540.jpg

http://i121.photobucket.com/albums/o...g/P1000542.jpg

Anyways thats it so far. We will be starting the master bath next weekend then the living/dining room area with alot of pattern work. I can't wait to move onto trim thats for sure.

Been contemplating slate... just not convinced on the longevity of it. Why did you decide on it?

My grandmother had it in her entryway for as long as I can remember. As long as you get all the lose flakes off before sealing it good it should last a lifetime. At least what i've experienced with it. Plus I like the variations and textures.

The bathrooms in Korea have a very high threshold in the dorway (about 6" high--same hight as a tile). They all have a drain in the middle. All tile walls over areated concrete block. Easy cleaning with a shower head that detaches. Only problem would be designing for old age--if you ever were in a wheel chair or had a walker it may be a problem.

All the bathrooms at our house here in HU have a drains in the floor, as well as a spigot comming out of the walls about knee height. It's so much easier to fill a bucket of water!! And the floors drain (yes, there is an ever so mild "tilt" to the floor, but you don't notice it)...an important feature with our 9yr boy, he just all boy!

Our family is so enjoying watching this one go up. We dream of building our own earth shelterd home in a few years, so we have enjoyed and learned along with you. The people here ask great questions, we have learned things we didn't even know we didn't know!

Keep the updates coming.

If you cut all of the slate 'corners' off, for the little diamonds to fit in, I reckon you did spend days at the tile saw. What brand/model of saw did you use. I've only used the el cheapo saws in the past (because of the smallness of the jobs)... when I ever get around to the flooring stage of my home (right... that might be a year or more away, at my current speed) I'd like to get a nice saw...

Well actually I ended up using 2 wet saws. Both chinese crappy ones. One was a 10" that I borrowed from my brothers and the other is a cheap 7" that we made a jigg for to cut off all the corners. It worked well but man does it make a mess slinging water everywhere. Anyways both are cheap crappy ones but works well enough for doing an entire house in tile I guess.

Mallow,
Very nice work!
If you didn't do it yet make sure you seal the stone beofre grouting.

Mallow- the land looks beautiful- and I can really invision the home shaping up! It's going to be beautiful. You've done alot of things that I hope to do in my future home someday.

I think we have the same tast in tile too! I have a very similar slate on my fireplace and backsplash- it came out great. I painted the walls behind the slate a warm orange and it really looks great. I know orange sounds crazy- but it looks beautiful and it's just an accent color. My other walls are a dark greyish/ greenish/ taupish color, an apple green accent wall, and muted turqouis in the entry. Like I said, it sounds wild and too dark- but it looks great.

I would love to see photos of the bath as you get the tile going... I am hoping to remodel my bath, but I was afraid the slate would be too dark and masculine in a small room, so I was considering doing something else...

You're really getting my creative juices going!
Keep up the great work!

Yeah the plan is to clean it and get all the residue off it. Seal it really well. Grout everything, clean it all again, then finally seal it again. Hopefully this will work out well.

bump.

Wow, great house! Any updates?

I've done a lot of sheetrocking over the years. For our house we parged the interior and the exterior with fiber concrete. For walls we wanted white we used white portland cement in the mix. For other walls we used the white with tinting pigments to get earth tones. The results are beautiful, rugged, durable and washable. Just don't go trying to punch holes in the walls - they're 4" to 12" of concrete... :) Difficulty-wise it was about the same as doing sheetrock but much more flexible. I'm about to build another structure and will do the same thing all over again.

Cheers

-Walter
Sugar Mountain Farm
in the mountains of Vermont
http://SugarMtnFarm.com/blog/
http://HollyGraphicArt.com/
http://NoNAIS.org

We heat entirely with wood. We also get enough passive solar gain and have enough thermal mass (>100,000 lbs in 252 sq-ft) that even if we didn't heat the house it will still stay well above freezing up all winter here in the mountains of northern Vermont. We haven't even bermed the house yet - when we do it should perform even better. Right now we get hit by the north-west wind in the winter on the back side.

However, we do have one of those portable oil filled electric heaters for emergencies to keep the insurance company happy to make sure that if for some reason we were gone for days in the middle of the

As to wood heat being an issue, the agent told us they are looking for you to follow standard safety practices for distances to combustible materials and chimney height (3') above the highest point of the roof within 10'. These are all good basic design criteria that I follow anyways. This isn't to say there aren't some insurance companies that just don't get it and simply ban all wood heat. I've never dealt with one of those probably because we're in Vermont where most people have wood heat.

Speaking of insurance our old agent (AllState) told us that we could not get a break for having built an all concrete, stone and brick house that was inflammable. Yes the contents could burn, but our house can't and that slows a fire down a heck of a lot and makes it do a lot less damage. I found that another insurance company (Farm Family) will give us a massive break for the method of construction. We switched companies and now pay far less for much better coverage.

Cheers

-Walter
Sugar Mountain Farm
in the mountains of Vermont
http://SugarMtnFarm.com/blog/
http://HollyGraphicArt.com/
http://NoNAIS.org

I will be posting an update next weekend. We are finally finishing up the master bath tile work. We have been sort of stuck in there for way to long.

Mallow a quick suggestion
 

To seal your slate floors.. I used a product from "Quickrete" Called wet look sealer. man does it leave a nice durable acrylic finish. Our slate has been down since middle of the winter and the gloss still shines like the day I put it on.http://www.pbase.com/ericjeeper/image/90982905
House is looking great. I laid all my own ceramic tile. I saved enough in labor cost to just about pay for the time I took off work to build the entire house. Labor for tile around here is 3.50-4.00$ a square foot. I have over 1900 square feet of ceramic and slate in my house.
http://www.pbase.com/ericjeeper/image/90982905

Yep thats what I ended up going with. I tried the "Pro Sealer" from the same company and it was horrible. Went back and got the High Gloss version and it looks awesome. Going to be grouting some next weekend.

Ok time for the promised update. Man things seem to be going slow but here goes....

Flooring

Sealed the two spare bedrooms with High Gloss acrylic sealer:

http://i121.photobucket.com/albums/o...g/P1000581.jpg

http://i121.photobucket.com/albums/o...g/P1000583.jpg

Master all cleaned up ready to be sealed but had to wait till it dried out enough:

http://i121.photobucket.com/albums/o...g/P1000595.jpg

Master Bath

This has to be the longest we have spent on any project for the house to date:

http://i121.photobucket.com/albums/o...h/P1000600.jpg

http://i121.photobucket.com/albums/o...h/P1000604.jpg

http://i121.photobucket.com/albums/o...h/P1000609.jpg

We still have to put the chair rail on top of the lisetto border and finish up the walls in the shower stall.

Sola Tubes

I wanted to just put in a quick note as to how happy I am with them after putting up the final peices and the Fresnel diffuser. They make an amazing difference:

http://i121.photobucket.com/albums/o...s/P1000603.jpg

The light in the picture is a 16w CFL not sure how many lumens but you can see some comparison.

http://i121.photobucket.com/albums/o...s/P1000593.jpg

These 2 are in the back of the kitchen. I need to take some without the flash...maybe next weekend.

Here is the glowing spare throne room.....

http://i121.photobucket.com/albums/o...s/P1000585.jpg


Anyways thats all I have for everyone at the moment. Hopefully get some tile grouted and finish the master bathroom tile next weekend since its a full 3 days for me.

-Mallow

Wow, I really like those floors.

Another quick update. We finished the tile work in the master bath.

http://i121.photobucket.com/albums/o...h/P1000619.jpg

http://i121.photobucket.com/albums/o...h/P1000627.jpg

We did the grout last night so its a mess in there right now. I will take another pic once we get all the haze off the tile.

photobucket has this awesome feature now that allows a person to RESIZE the pics to a reasonable display size...all at once! if you RESIZE the pics, folks would be able to view this thread without scrolling from side to side to read the text. if people RESIZE their pics to no bigger than 800 x 600 before posting them on a thread, it makes viewing the post so much more comfortable.

:)

I'm a bit jealous. Your progress is great. My own project (at http://www.freewebs.com/stocktonunderground) is going severely slow. I'm glad that you're doing so well and wish you well on getting it completed.

Excellent job.. That shows a man that takes pride in his home.

Time for another update. We ran out of slate and had to order 2 more pallets. The damage / ugly rate was a bit higher than expected but what can you do. So in turn we moved on to doing the kitchen floor and ordered the kitchen cabinets. Here is the flooring that we have done for the kitchen:

http://i121.photobucket.com/albums/o...n/P1000642.jpg

http://i121.photobucket.com/albums/o...n/P1000646.jpg

Thats before any sealer but after grout/cleaning. I will begin to seal it this weekend since the cabinets will show up the following week.

Just wanted to let everyone know that I am still around ;) just moving slowly on the house. Flooring is still taking forever it seems.

Great Updates
 

My DH keeps talking about building another Earth Sheltered Home. I keep reminding him how much work 'do it yourself' construction really is. His answer is always "but we can work on it in our spare time!" I honestly have no idea what spare time he is talking about...

Mallow, it will all be so worth it when you are done. And your photos and updates will be appreciated in the future by your kids, or next owners of the house. Not that you are ever going to want to sell, after all this work!

Looking great!
The drop/waste on slate is always higher as the stone breaks easily and has some serious defects because of the way it is split.

Mallow, I missed the last update but I am in awe of your tile work, it is absolutely gorgeous and really looks first-rate. Keep up the good work, I am sure your house is going to be amazing when it's complete.

well since the last update I have managed to get the cabinets here and most of the uppers assembled.

http://i121.photobucket.com/albums/o...n/P1000685.jpg

http://i121.photobucket.com/albums/o...n/P1000686.jpg

They were ordered online and are maple stained cherry. They come in flat boxes and take about 20 min each to assemble with a staple gun, hot glue and some clamps. So far I am impressed with the quality of the cabinets and the company but will hold off final evaluation till they are all on the walls. I will be doing a panoramic view across the glass uppers with either etched glass or stained (When I get more free time. I knew art classes would come in handy). Anyways thats all for now.

You have a good looking home that shows the results of a lot of love and hard work. The energy savings for a home snugged into the earth for thermal moderating is a concept that appears very attractive in this Texas climate. After about 38 years as a home appraiser, I must make one concern/caution that might serve you well to keep on your mind..TERMITES! Every inground home I've examined was badly infested and or destroyed by termites or their Borer cousins. I'm sure you prepared as best you could, but that large structure/ground contact area may prove too much in your WV climate. I wish you well...Glen

Luckily all that are wood is the rafters/OSB for the roof. The outside walls are all concrete with blue foam insulation on the inside of that. I am sure I will have to watch out for them though coming into the rafters since they are fairly low to the ground. Thanks for the heads up though.

I absolutely LOVE your tile work! The whole house is great! I'll be sure to continue watching this thread.

Just another quick update. The cabinets all arrived not to long ago. They arrived by freight on two long pallets which we had to unload and bring into the house:

http://i121.photobucket.com/albums/o...n/P1000691.jpg

They went together fairly easy. The only ones that took extra work was the lazy susan and spice rack.

The uppers:

http://i121.photobucket.com/albums/o...n/P1000685.jpg

On the walls:

http://i121.photobucket.com/albums/o...n/P1000727.jpg

http://i121.photobucket.com/albums/o...n/P1000728.jpg

Dont mind the dust on the lense on the last two.

Anyways hopefully the other two pallets of slate show up soon so we can finish the flooring finally.

-Mallow

Looking good there, Mallow. Thanks for the update. :-)

Cindyc.

Maybe I missed it, but did you say where you ordered your cabinets? Looking real good so far.

I'd sure appreciate knowing where to order knock down cabinets as well.

That looks great!

I just hate to advertise on forums that I dont know if its politically correct. Since people are asking I dealt with Johnny Scott at http://www.kitchenspro.com/ He has been a great help with the design and changes and suggestions. I have had a few issues with one of the items but they were quick to send a replacement free of charge and free freight shipping for the replacement. If you have all your measurements it only took a couple hours for Johnny to have me a drawing available. I have all glass uppers because I want to do a scenic glass etching in time to come. Anyways I would recommend them in a heartbeat.

You do need to have a few tools available. Staple gun (1/4"x3/4") which i ended up buying a Bostitch air compressor kit (Around $300 with 3 guns and Lowes), hot glue, rubber mallet, wood glue, screw driver. square and some clamps. Also having two people is almost required and I couldn't imagine trying it solo.

If you guys have any questions let me know.