Until last Friday’s storm, the last few weeks of good weather have let our great framing crew make excellent progress. In the main photo above you can see the original house, the new first floor, and the end walls of the master bathroom and master bedroom on the second floor. This next photo is the exterior of the garage, fully framed in. The opening on the wall facing the house is where the landing in our two-story breezeway will connect the garage suite to the first floor mudroom. This large, light-filled yoga room will be a great place for solitude, or with the attached bedroom and full bath could be an in-law or au pair suite. The rendering shows how it will connect to the main house at the mudroom.
This next photo is of the basement looking towards the southeast corner from the mudroom. One of the benefits of replacing the original foundation wall was the opportunity to make the basement deeper and to add more windows (and make some of the original windows larger). The gaps in the concrete floor footings are where the interior radon mitigation system will be installed. Although we’re only required to install ducting for a passive radon system, we’ve designed and will install an active system. This means an external fan will always draw a slight vacuum on the ground below the basement slab, forcing radon outside instead of letting it infiltrate into the home. We don’t actually anticipate high levels of radon, based on the site, but finishing the house with an active system ensures it won’t be a problem in the future. The radon capture pipe (and drains) will go in sometime the next few weeks and then the fan and exhaust will follow after the envelope is completed later in the summer.
