Sprinting to the Finish

We've moved in fully, so I wanted to give a tour of the finished product. There's some miscellaneous projects left to do, but for all intents and purposes, the interior of the ADU is complete. We've moved our stuff in, including furniture, decorations, and tons of other stuff.

Each time I move residences, I always groan at how much stuff I own, most of which I rarely use. This move was no exception. Except, this time, the limits of the small living space forced my partner and I to be more deliberate about deciding what items enter through these doors. Only the best of the best stuff gets through. Hopefully, we'll sell many of our remaining items this fall.

Part of the push to get fully moved in and decorated was in preparation for a news crew that used the ADU last week as their set. KATU, the local news station, came to film a short piece about the Build It Green Tour that will air on Tuesday, September 20th, at the 5 o'clock news hour. They said that they'd be posting the piece online afterwards; I'll link to it once it's posted.

KATU filmed a promotional piece for the Build It Green Tour

Here's a five minute walk through of the finished ADU. I am very happy at how everything is looking. It feels like a home now, and the most luxurious home in which I've ever dwelled. After a week, I can say that I love being in this space.



Meanwhile, I've decided to rent out the main house as a fully furnished, self-hosted, Bed and Breakfast on AirBNB. I am going to give this a try for a month or two to see whether it works better than a normal long term rental. It's a great house for groups of 4-10 who are coming to visit Portland and would prefer to stay in a sweet old house for less than staying in a hotel.

The Home Stretch and More Miscellaneous Fun Finish Work Projects

There's so many finish projects happening all at once. We're expecting to have our final plumbing on Monday, and then have our certificate of occupancy inspection later this week.

This video is showing off some more finish details; it features a custom made blue pine door, the finish lighting work, the water heater, and the gas meter hookup.

Update on ADU Building Progress: Lighting Design and Electrical

Now that the building shell has gone up, the changes made each day are inside the building structure and don't look as significant. Two weeks ago, we did plumbing. This past week, we completed electrical and have started to install the Heat Recovery Ventilator (which I am going to cover in more depth in a future post.) Here is a little information about lighting design and the video below provides a general status update. 

Before beginning the electrical work, I thought through where the lighting should go, and what type of lighting was needed. Here is a diagram of the lighting plan that I put together with my architect and builder for the first floor.

Lighting design should take into account task lighting (eg. under cabinet lighting for cooking), accent lighting (for showcasing pieces of art etc), perimeter lighting (for helping to guide your eyes around a space), and ambient lighting (for general space lighting). Most of the lighting in the ADU is task and accent lighting. I de-emphasized the use of ambient lighting since most the ADU will be completely lit by daylighting during the day, and at night, the more focused task lighting will be better and prettier than ambient lighting. When the house is complete, I'll write a post about the lighting design and show off how it's been designed with the space in mind. 

Lighting plan for first floor

Here's the general update on the various things that are happening in the ADU.