July 29, 2005 - Friday - Ever forward thinking...we had a flush mount power outlet installed above the fireplace in case a future owner wants to mount a flat panel LCD (liquid crystal display) television in this location.  Since a TV here would also need a video signal, we installed a box directly next to the power outlet which has a conduit running to a matching box on the south wall of the living room.  We decided on this approach so we wouldn't be locked into a specific type of cable as technology moves forward.  If a TV is ever placed here, the owner can simply "fish" whatever type of cable they chose from the south living room wall location where a DVD or other video source might be located, up the TV above the fireplace.  This type of "extra" costs very little to install but will be a truly great feature for those wanting to use it.  Thanks to Jeffrey's alter ego as an audio recording engineer, he thinks these type of "extras" are mandatory.

    July 29, 2005 - Friday - The ceiling height in this home is just over 9' 4".  We wanted a high ceiling to give what many consider a small home here in the USA (approx. 1356 square feet), the feel of a larger home.  At the same time we wanted to use an even number of ICF blocks for the height of the exterior walls.  This means we did not want to decrease the size of the top course of block (by horizontally cutting them) in order to get a specific ceiling height.  We simply made our walls eight courses high.  This total wall height of 10' 8" (8 courses with each course being 16" high) allowed us to come right off the footing and still have a finished ceiling height over 9 feet...and we really didn't care how much over 9 feet the ceilings were.  As always this is probably more information than you wanted to know...but it will help explain why we used the sheet rock we did.

If our ceiling was an even 8 feet high we could have used two four foot wide sheets horizontally and been great.  If our ceiling was an even 9 feet high we could have used two 54 inch wide sheets horizontally and also been great.  Since our ceiling is 9' 4" we had a few options.  We decided to use 54" wide sheets horizontally on the bottom, and then 1/2 of ten foot long sheets vertically on the top.  Professional sheet rock installers might call us crazy but this seemed the easiest to us.  This picture shows the 54" wide sheets being installed in the hall and the two small bedrooms.

    July 29, 2005 - Friday - This shot shows the 54" wide sheet rock installed in the kitchen, on the wall where the stove will be placed.

    July 29, 2005 - Friday - More 54" wide sheet rock installed where the computer desk will go, outside the kitchen.

    July 29, 2005 - Friday - Wall sheet rock installed on the south wall of the living room.

    July 29, 2005 - Friday - This picture shows the back side of the previous picture with sheet rock installed on the north wall of the master bedroom.

    July 29, 2005 - Friday - Before sealing up walls by installing sheet rock, it is important to seal up any penetrations in the floor slab or the exterior walls.  This shot shows the drain for the master bathroom sinks going down into the slab.  We use low expansion foam to seal these areas.

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