We had a wonderful time visiting with some old friends from Indiana for the weekend. I talked their ears off about the house projects. It was so nice to have someone knowledgeable to get their reactions and suggestions. Steve has been in the concrete business for years but also has been a general construction manager. His advice was to tackle the restricted spaces first when putting up walls and then work on filling in the rest.
There is a beam across the entrance to the hallway stairs that I used to run the radon elimination pipe along and that is one area that he thought I should think about first.
Pipe Connection
He suggested that I fill in the area again with a small attic to make a visual break between the clerestory ceiling in the living area and the lower ceiling in the hall and bedrooms so that boxing in the radon pipe would not look so awkward.
Kathleen suggested I leave open the area above the entry and family room to let the nice light continue to shine into the rest of the house. I was thinking maybe we could use windows in the upper walls to achieve the same effect.
Dining With Entry Behind
We looked at the bath layout and Steve suggested I mark with chalklines on the floor where the bed and fixtures would go to get an idea if there is enough room. He said around the doors I had to remember to leave room for trim etc. Sometimes when deciding about walls he said, they would make last minute changes and changes in the architects plans just to make a room more standard or to have room for trim etc. He suggested I just think about moving the tub or leaving it out and putting it in the other bathroom. Hate to do that but also hate to have the bathroom seem really crowded.
Tub in Master Bath
I was glad to get some feedback on the design though. Its good to take advantage of a different perspective.