Big Dig Complete

It took 4 days but the hole was finally completed on Friday. All next week should be fantastic weather but you never know. The footings are scheduled to be poured tomorrow. If all goes well, our basement will be done by the end of this week.

Also up this week: meetings with Chris from City View Hardwood for our floors and with Matt from Rosenlof-Lucas for potential landscape design.

The Big Dig Wasn't So Big After All...

With all the obstacles of the first day (slow digging due to not enough trucks, dirt being hauled to Stillwater...), the second day brought a solid 24 hours of heavy rain. The third day (today) saw no digging at all due to 10" of standing water. We hope tomorrow sees the last of the digging as well as the footings poured. But really, who knows what tomorrow brings? Its always something unexpected...

Plumbing Fixtures

Here are some of our plumbing fixtures:

Kohler Cimarron 1-PC Toilet (1.6 GPF)
Chord sinks for master bath (with single faucet hole)
Purist single handle faucet (Brushed Nickel)
Watertiles (qty 3 ) for the master shower (Brushed Nickel)

Low Flow Options for Water Conservation

Roxanne (from ecodeephaus blog) gave a great suggestion to go to the vendors for options so I dug out my Kohler Faucets and Accessories book. Low and behold....low flow aerators were available for all of my Purist faucets. Water flow is restricted from 2.2 GPM to 1.5 GPM....all for the low price of few dollars!

So now we need a low flow showerhead, however, most options are not that attractive for the modern aesthetic. Searching through the Kohler book, I found the MasterShower Relaxing 3-Way Eco Handshower with a flow rate of 2.0 GPM, down 0.5 GPM from their regular lines. Is 2.0 GPM enough to be considered "eco"? Not sure...but I do know that the low flow showerhead used in Motel 6s is the most painful showering experience so maybe the 2.0 GPM is a nice compromise!

Photos from the Big Dig

MN GreenStar

We got the go-ahead last week from GreenStar but need some additional points in Water Conservation. One of the ways is to do low-flow plumbing fixtures and dual-flush toilet. Will have to do more research on this. Any ideas?

The Big Dig

We got the excavation/foundation portion of our permit from the city on Friday so today was the day: the big dig. It started early but got off to a slow start. The excavation company only had two trucks which then hauled the dirt across town to Stillwater. Our contractor was finally able to summon up more trucks in the afternoon. That helped tremendously. At the end of the first day most of the area was dug out but it was only 3'-4' deep. Tomorrow the digging should be finished. Hopefully, the rain will stay away so we can start the footings.

Jason and I have never so excited to see a hole dug in our entire life. Now if we can get the rest of our permit approved....(need more info on the beams).

Will post photos when I find the camera...