Spray Foam Insulation

When building (and reading about building) a house, there seem to be two main things that are always listed as the two most important parts of the building process---windows and insulation. After a lot of research, we decided to go with a method called "flash and batt" for our insulation in our Cooper Cottage. Flash and batt insulation is where they go through the house and spray closed cell foam everywhere that you would normally put insulation. Then, they cover the spray foam with a layer of conventional R13/19/23 batt.  

I discovered that spray foam is still a controversial topic. I ran across a lot different opinions when researching it on the Internet and taking to builders.  Because of the mixed reviews, I really did my homework on this one.  Everyone honestly had different feelings about it, both for and against.  Builders and home owners either seem to love it or hate it. Here are some pros and cons that we would like to share with those also curious about the spray foam process:

*Saves you money on your energy bills

*Spray foam is strong and will make your house stronger

*Does not allow water and moisture infiltration

*Helps reduce dust and pollen infliltration

  

*Spray foam MUST be installed properly. 

*Some have reported that air leaks have caused wood to rot

*More expensive

The installers sprayed a cardboard box before the walls to set their spray gun and once dry, I could jump up and down on this box and it would not budge.  Multiple YouTube videos also show how much force it takes to pull boards apart when sprayed with closed cell foam.  This foam has made our house extremely strong. With our house built on a hill, we get a lot of wind. We have stood in the house during heavy wind and can barely hear it thanks to the spray foam. 

This is our master bath, and you can see how it covered around the water pipes.

In the upstairs bedroom, you may be able to notice that there is part of the roof line that will be  part of the ceiling in the bedrooms. In these areas, we used open cell foam in order to get the most insulation possible against that black metal roof!

If it was a wood area, I had them spray it.  This was to help with any small holes that may have been left from the framing stage. 

Here you can see them putting in the "batt" part after the spray foam, they used different levels of R-value insulation depending on where it was going in the house. 

Here is the open cell foam I mentioned earlier.  

At the end of the day, we are really happy with how it turned out!

-David 

Cooper Cottage Room Inspirations

Now that the drywall is up, kitchen cabinets are to be delivered soon, appliances have been ordered, and our contractors are ready; we have been working hard to piece together the flooring, paint colors, and other room components. 

Here is a peek at some of our inspiration boards that we used to help us match up our flooring and paint choices with our overall room themes. 

 This was hard, y'all! David and I were NOT born with the gene to "see" or just "know" this stuff so we are relying on our gut instincts to see us through! If it feels right then we go with it. 

We settled on a color palette that was full of varying shades of soft gray, rich whites, and calming accent colors such as the sea salt. Our flooring is a solid hardwood hand scraped oak. 

 Our lighting resembles a hodgepodge of "industrial" meets "farmhouse" meets "we liked it so let's go with it"! :) After all, you have to pick what makes you happy. YOU are the one living in the house all day and night.

 I(Sarah) am currently obsessed with anything gold, black and vintage school house. So dreamy. Deer antlers, big calligraphy, and flowers are all mixed in there as well. I am sure there is a poor designer and interior decorator out there that would freak out if they read this. Hehe.

The wallpaper I would like for our guest bath makes me DROOL! Like I can't even tell you how obsessed I am with it. You can check it out here. I would love to put the wallpaper on the wall where the sink will be with a wood planked wall on the toilet side of the room.

Framing and Electric

Lots of work has been happening on our Cooper Cottage. The framing stage is complete so we wanted to share some photos from that phase. 

This is the view of our stairs to the second floor. Our living, dining, and kitchen area is an open concept layout so this specific part of the room will be where the dining table will be. The hubs and I are building our table on our own so that it fits the space perfectly. <3

I am so excited about having a mudroom. Our mudroom will be right off the garage. The stairs actually lead up to another room above the garage. We are going to leave the room above the garage unfinished for now, but we already have big plans for it in the future!

(Another view of stairs leading up from the mudroom)

(Bonus rooms above the garage)

The hubs loves to use his GoPro to take shots of the house like this one that shows the electric, AC, and plumbing in the ceilings. 

Our two car garage had the concrete poured recently as well! We have never had a garage to park our cars in before so we are pretty excited about this space. 

I cannot wait to get our gas fireplace lit for the first time. We have the option to burn wood or use the gas and we also added a blower to help us disperse the heat throughout the main floor. 

This is our master shower. It will have a tub inside as well as three shower heads. This was the one room that the hubs went crazy on. It has also been one of the hardest spaces for us to design! 

One other major change has been the construction of the retaining walls. Due to the large slope of our lot, we have had to create multiple retaining walls. 

Insulation and drywall is next! <3

A Quick Weekend Update

Hi y'all! We are posting a super quick weekend update today! We plan on taking more pictures at the end of the upcoming week with the current progress but wanted to get these pictures from the past month posted before then. 

There has been a lot of activity on the lot during the past month! The siding has gone on, the roof and gutters have been added, the rough electric and plumbing have been completed, inspections have been passed, and the concrete for the main level garage and porches will be poured tomorrow. 

The siding color is called Harvard Slate. We had planned on going little bit darker but ended up picking this color! We are pretty happy with it!

Who knows...I may even get around to painting the front door this week on my day off! 

September Days are Here

When we set out to build this house, we began the process knowing that it was almost impossible. Our budget was already very tight, and we knew that we would go over budget....that is just part of the house building experience. 

Our last blog post was August 6th, and we told you we hoped to be done with framing that week. Now, it is September 25th and we are still not quite done with the framing (although we are SUPER close! <3) 

 We have held back posting anything because our lot became a ghost town for a few weeks while we worked with contractors, redesigned our budget, experienced every emotion possible thanks to this project, and then got ourselves back on track. 

Watching the house move along and actually start resembling a house is a lot of fun. We get so excited to turn onto our driveway and start driving down the hill, because we know that there will have been something new added to the lot. 

Most of our windows and doors have arrived and been installed.  We are loving the big windows and all of the natural light that this house is going to have. 

I (Sarah) am super excited about our front door. We got as close to my "dream door" as we could for our budget, and I am going to finish getting the door looking how I would like it. We went with a metal door, and I am going back and forth on what to actually paint it. I love the stained wood look, but I am also obsessed with the teal/light blue doors. 

So...it will be a surprise to us all when I finally decide what to do with it! 

The roof should be delivered and installed this week. We went with a black metal roof. So many folks  have asked us about the color choice. Doesn't black absorbs sunlight? Won't the house get really hot because of the roof? Those are extremely valid questions.  We did our research and came up with a lot of information about metal roofs, color, and heat absorption. Yes, it might potentially make it a little hotter, but how the house is built and what material is under the roof is what actually makes the biggest difference. 

Ask me that question again in a year, and I will let you know if we agree. :)

They worked extremely hard to get the porches completed last week. The white support beams, which I (Sarah) begged for, look stunning. The decking is done, and we are now waiting for the rest of the posts to arrive so that those can be installed. I have dreamed of a wrap around porch and cannot believe that my dream is going to come true!

And, we had to share this picture. Can you say gross and cool all at once?!?! David sent me this picture earlier in the week, and I about died. The wildlife out here is in full force, and I LOVE that. But the snakes can stay hidden. Good snakes, bad snakes, any snakes...please stay off our porch! :)

This is the most up to date photo of the house. I (Sarah) look at it and want to bust into tears. The porch is beautiful. I am in LOVE with our view. The french doors are gorgeous, and the upstair bedrooms already have such a great vibe to them. We will have a massive laundry room and craft room, our cars will be to be parked in a garage, our puppies will have plenty of room to run,play, and I could keep going on and on. 

This process is an emotional rollercoaster, but it is going to be worth it. We are so grateful that we are on this journey, even when it is bumpy and makes us question the entire process.  I mean...with this view...how can you be upset? 

Moving Right Along

The end of July/beginning of August has brought a lot of rain and extreme heat laced with humidity. 

The weather has slowed the framing stage down a lot, but we are back on track and moving along now. 

The goal is to be done with the framing stage by the end of this next week. Hopefully the weather holds for us. 

Update--We are posting a lot of our photos and house updates on our Instagram account. You can find us here.