An ominous cloud of smoke announced another Boulder Canyon wildfire this morning. Again the town was covered in smoke.

The fire fighters immediately began aggressively dropping slurry and are working hard to limit the damage. We are hopeful the fire will be contained and won't spread into town.

The insulating team of Colorado Energy Savers arrived following successful rough electrical and mechanical inspections this week.

The guys already started spraying the insulation.

Greg and Zane and the rest of the framing team will soon take a break from this job.

Two new patio areas will be accessed by these stairs.

Extensive retaining walls, built out of native rock, stabilize the north side and rear of the house and allow safe passage between patios and decks.

These two inverters, mounted on the rear of the house, convert the solar energy collected by the PV modules into AC electricity to power the house.

The solar modules will off-set a significant portion of the home's electricity useage and are visible mostly from the roof.

Fall has arrived in Boulder and the leaf colors are glorious this year.


The first 3 rough inspections (fire sprinklers, plumbing and structural) are successfully behind us.

Another load of stone is awaiting transport up to the house.

Roy covered all of the openings with thick plastic (a big project) to keep out the elements until the windows arrive.

The steel for the new entry porch roof arrived and was installed this week.

The top will be covered with a roofing membrane and the underside will receive siding matching the underside of the decks. The steel edge will stay exposed to match the other exposed steel members.

The steel header for the garage was lowered into its correct position.

John Hickman framed in a possible solution for the rock outcropping at the second set of entry stairs. He proposes carrying the stone from the stairs over into a 3-tiered water feature and to copy the same design on the other side.

Grace's suggestion for the entry loft ceiling has been realized and looks great.

The newly added knee wall at the kitchen/dining powder room will make that little landing feel more contained.

In lieu of railings, perhaps we should use a knee wall at the entry loft as well to make this area feel more contained and room-like?

The pocket door to the study has been framed in.

Jeff learned the hard way that you can't park on the leach field road after a heavy rain.

Saturday was an all day session to select interior finishes. Bertram of Genesis Innovations, LLC helped Peter, Colleen and Roy review all of the choices in a drafty setting.

The stone choice for the entry flooring and stairs, and the stone of the Great Room fireplace wall.

These are some of the selections for the master bath cabinet finish and tiling.

It was a long, productive day.

After several crane operators told us it couldn't be done, H&S made crane operation on the narrow driveway look like child's play.

Here the steel for the 2-car garage is being installed.

We took advantage of the crane to lift the solar thermal and solar electric (photovoltaic) panels up to the Great Room deck. From there, the transport to the roof was easy.

The solar themal system is in place!

close-up (side view) of the thermal panels.

The stand-offs for the PV panel racking are also in place.

The first batch of kinnikinick is being installed in the retaining wall. The hope is these xeric plants will take root and eventually hide the wall's concrete framework.