Here are the latest drawings of the barter house elevations. I’m also including the proposed site plan and some detailed crops of some of the proposed hardscapes, which include a trellis above the garage door and one located on the patio. The barter house is ready for a landscape plan!
Detailed descriptions of each drawing are included in the comments of the image. The as-built will be slightly different than what is pictured.
Over Memorial Day weekend I was able to get about 95% of the low voltage wiring completed. I just need to place some labels on the end of each run, drill a couple of holes and tack up some clips to hold the cable securely against the studs.
After running the 1,947th foot of speaker cable yesterday - I thought I’d walk around and photograph what needed to be completed in order to begin the next big phase, spray foam insulation.
We bartered the job with a local spray foam installer in Raleigh. Their new website is currently in development and should go live within the next couple of weeks. Here’s a look at their current site and our site in development. I welcome your comments.
Click on the pictures to view details of the request (captions).
Just as the title suggests, the low voltage wiring for the barter house is part do-it-yourself, part barter and mostly bought on eBay.
There will be about 2,000 feet of speaker cable in the walls, probably 4,000+ feet of cat5/cat6 and another 4,000 feet of quad-shielded rg6…. oh yeah and about 5,000 feet of the high voltage stuff (romax) too. I had to melt down about 300,000 pennies in order to get that much copper (follow me?) between the studs.
The Barter House signed up with Carolina Cable & Network Systems Inc. out of Apex, NC to do the install. Connected NC will be creating a new website for the firm in the next few weeks. Thanks to Steve and his boys for going the extra mile (1 mile = 5,280 feet).
What’s playing on iTunes while I’m running cable…
I’ve made several references to music in this blog and this entry is no different.
Outkasts: Building a modern house in a traditional neighborhood can encourage people to talk — usually behind your back. Even 8 full months into construction, people are still complaining about the look of the barter house. There were so many complaints and comments about our modern house that our builder’s sign was nowhere to be found! I guess the lack of plastic shutters, cultured stone and vinyl windows send people into a frenzy thinking *there goes the neighborhood*. Well, I’m sorry Ms. Jackson - I am for real!
Now I know that not everyone in the neighborhood feels this way. In fact, I met a neighbor earlier this week who told me that he liked the house. It’s encouraging to hear it from someone other than a family member, friend, colleague or contractor (who might be bias since they’re making money on the project).
My old college roommate, Frank, was in town a couple of weekends ago and helped me run the whole-house audio upstairs. I wouldn’t have found the motivation to have gotten started without him. By the time we were done crawling around in the attic, neither of us were so fresh or so clean. But the next time he’s in from C-Bus - we’ll be “sittin’ in a drop-top, soaking wet… in a silk suit, tryin’ not to sweat”.
So when they ask, “which one of these is not the others?” I remember being an OutKast isn’t a bad thing - after all we’re the type of people that make the club get crunk!
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