Hello everyone! My wife and I are building our first house (second home) and I figured now would be the time to start getting involved with some forums to make sure we don't have the "I wish we would have" moments after the fact. We are in Northeast Ohio and see both weather extremes, and I especially am all about green/energy efficient building. I work as a construction manager for a commercial mechanical contractor and see a lot of cool stuff in hospitals and schools that I've always wanted in a house. Now's my chance.

To help document the process, I created a website that will act as a hub for all the info: http://www.Savko.House

This thread will serve to have discussions about what's happening and if you guys have any good ideas I haven't thought of, or if anyone would like more info on certain aspects of the build. Also, I'm not sure if I made this post in the correct forum or not so if it needs moved, please let a moderator know. Thanks and hope to get things rolling soon!

Just posted an update to the site here on kitchen design.

Interested in hearing what you have to say about the appliances.

Equally interested in hearing what you think or what your experiences are with hardwood floors in the kitchen. I prefer tile. It can look great and offer unmatched durability. The wife REALLY wants hardwood. I think it looks better than tile but I'm mostly concerned about the nicks, scratches, stains, etc.

New update. They started digging!

Nice blog! Since you've already broken ground, I assume your design work is done. I hope you did your homework on a good design.

I'm finishing up building my own house in upstate SC. I did 95% of the work myself, single-handed. I devoted a lot of time and research to energy-efficient construction, and careful site orientation. Our house is ICF on a walk-out basement. The HVAC calculations were shockingly small, yet the house has been performing at or above what was predicted. Congratulations on starting your build, and I will be following your blog. I don't know what other forums you're on, but the 'Building a Home' sub-forum on Houzz forums is a good place to show your progress and ask questions- mostly aesthetic ones, as opposed to construction questions. There's also a VERY active Kitchen sub-forum there as well.

Thank you and saw your comment. Yes, design work is pretty solid. There may be changes along the way in terms of aesthetics and such but for the most part, electrical, mechanical, and plumbing is ready to go. I had Roth USA do my heat load calcs for the radiant and the home requires about 2/3 the BTUs that the boiler we're using can handle. This will give me room to grow in terms of future snow melting for the sidewalk and driveway if I choose to take it that far.

I was actually looking into being able to be my own GC, however every neighborhood we looked at had a list of pre-approved builders and would not allow an owner-builder in. My wife and I talked about just buying some land and building a dream house on it however having lived in a neighborhood with a youngin and meeting neighbors with kids we realized how important it was to be in a community during that stage of our family. Thankfully, our builder understood my contingencies to have control of MEP services and he's been very helpful in getting information for what will work and what won't in terms of the construction.

I appreciate the heads up about the Houzz forums, didn't even think to check there honestly. The blog will cover a little bit of everything, and once we get moving on more progress you'll get to see some more detailed pictures of installation than just talking about aesthetics.

Posted By Savvv on 30 May 2015 08:08 AM

Equally interested in hearing what you think or what your experiences are with hardwood floors in the kitchen. I prefer tile. It can look great and offer unmatched durability. The wife REALLY wants hardwood. I think it looks better than tile but I'm mostly concerned about the nicks, scratches, stains, etc.

I agree with your concern about hardwood in the kitchen. What about those plank-style porcelain tiles they have now? Some look very much like hardwood if you wanted to go the illusion route (not my thing). But there are others that look like tile but have a hardwood plank shape to them. I think the latter look better.

I've built a number of homes with hardwood floors; it's pretty common these days. Depending on the type of wood, stains and scratches are no worse there than anywhere else, and in general they hold up very well. The one caution is that you use a rug or pad in front of the sink - the finish will wear out there long before it wears anywhere else.

I like wood, coated with Bono Traffic finish, they use it in airport lobbies the finish is fantastic]

I have it 2 1/2 years looks like the day it was done

Posted By gosolar on 07 Jun 2015 01:15 PM
I like wood, coated with Bono Traffic finish, they use it in airport lobbies the finish is fantastic]

I have it 2 1/2 years looks like the day it was done

I'll definitely have to check this stuff out! Thanks for the info.

Also, to the previous poster, I've seen the hardwood look tiles first hand and like them but the wife would rather have the real deal.

BTW, updated the site.

We're thinking about cork floors in the kitchen. A lot of people seem happy with them. I might use several different colors to get a parquet effect. The rest of the house will be reclaimed yellow pine, cut from 100 y/o beams from a local mill.

Question time.

I'm gonna post another update soon showing the progression of the block work, but what I really need to get nailed down are my garage floor drains. Next week they will be stubbing in the downspout sewer drain piping and the orientation of my drains will dictate what they do.

Per my original drawing I wanted to do (2) separate trench drains running the width of the garage. Cars pulling in and out would drive over them, and they'd be located more toward the door than in the center of the garage. My builder suggested they be more toward the center, however in the third bay I wouldn't wanna be fighting the grating with jacks or roller stools. Perhaps a happy medium of not all the way centered, but atleast having 3' of concrete between the door and drain may work out best.

Anyone have any thoughts or experiences on trench drains in their garage?

Another update posted! Block walls are in!

New update posted. Sorry for the delay on this one guys. 1st Floor Framing is complete

Sorry for the late notice but I posted an update to the site last week showing off the rest of the majority framing on 2nd floor, here! It's been a busy week. Gonna start getting into some nitty gritty good stuff on the interior here soon. The 3D CAD model is coming along nicely. 1st Floor is fully modeled, working on finishing 2nd floor. :thumbup:

Sorry for the long break everyone. Was literally so busy that it was tough to get to doing an update. I've compiled a bunch of stuff for a big update!

Enjoy!

We planned out tile floors in the kitchen but have changed our minds on that and are going to go with hardwood. My wife cleans houses and has been asking a lot of people about preferences. Prettymuch all who have tile wished they had hardwood and those with hardwood are happy with it. One downside of tile is if you drop something heavy, you may break a tile. And dropping things in the kitchen is not all that uncommon Hardwood may or may not dent with such an impact.

My .02, good luck.

Posted an Update last night on new progress. We are getting pretty close to having the sanitary system finished, which means more colorful pictures are coming soon other than seeing wood wood wood. Also, updated some info on the Product's page. Check it out!

Hard wood is great in a wet area as long as you do not have a plumbing leak issue at some point. Tile does not care about water while the wood floor will have issues.

Brian

I don't think I remembered to post up last time but there are 2 new updates on the site: One for the sanitary system and one for the radiant tubing.

Morning everyone. Posted a new update over the weekend. Let me know if you have questions on any of the materials being used!