Wades Beach: Out of the Ashes

We had a big Saturday out East this weekend, with lots to report on building the new house. We shot out early to Greenport for a meeting with Rob Brown, our architect. He had the latest set of plans to show us, and we were knocked out. We are getting very close to bidding this out to contractors, so this set was important. It was a relief just to see highly detailed plans of each room.

We reviewed the electrical plans for each part of the house. Some of the decisions we made are going to impact the overall design and look of the interior. For example, the basement isn’t going to have any fluorescent lights, which are kind of traditional (or typical) in every American basement. We are going to use some type of directional lighting, and compact fluorescent light bulbs. These use 75-percent less energy than standard incandescent bulbs and last up to 10 times longer.

But the big decisions are going to be on the main floor.

The plan now is for exposed-beam ceilings throughout the first floor (except for the two bathrooms). This will mean we will be looking up at the floorboards above the rooms, but we’ll get special nice-looking planks so it will look good. We’ll have directional lighting with exposed conduits, and ceiling fans throughout.

One thing I learned was that glow-in-the-dark light switches are actually required for all enclosed spaces. When we did our apartment renovation last summer, the contractor installed light-up light switches in several locations. I always assumed he was being nice to us; now I learn it is a law! They look great and now we’ll have them in the new house. Other electrical decisions were made about wall sconces, ceiling fans, and where the cable TV will be located.

We also talked about salvaged items we’d like to buy from Demo Depot: windows, doors, cabinets, and lighting fixtures. Some of these I’ve already written about. We want to see about the stainless steel sink that is 106 inches wide; it would sit on a custom-built wood cabinet and be the place where I plan to wash 100,000 dishes for the next 50 years. The round windows are in the plans. So are some doors and the cabinets (for the kitchen island). We are allowing for a couple of special surprises; stay tuned to see if those come in.

On the way home we thought of a couple more things to ask Rob about, so we called him this afternoon (a conference call, double-team style). The most important is the fireplace. Since this is where the fire started and caused us so much grief, we were initially only going to have a gas fireplace. Just turn on the switch, and instant fire. However, we loved having a wood-burning fireplace so much, and making a fire, cutting firewood (really, I did that). Just the whole process of stoking a roaring fire is something I’d really miss. In the old house, Chrissie’s parents installed a manufactured steel assembly, which was bolted together and placed over a “fireproof” firebox. We learned this was not really the best method, as this is where the embers escaped from and caught the walls on fire last year. So… Rob says the only truly safe choice is what everyone going back to the Pilgrims used: bricks and masonry. His ballpark estimate is this could be around $15,000 to build a brick fireplace. Is that too much to pay for the enjoyment of a roaring fire on a cold winter’s night out on Shelter Island? And what if the fireplace mantel was once in a suite in the Plaza Hotel? Even better!

Labels: Electric, Fireplace, Plans, Salvage