Seven is my favorite number. Turns out it’s my lucky number too. We’ve started our build, seven years after buying our land, Majestic Meadows. Where there was once dirt, rocks and wildflowers, now sits the bones of our house. In today’s post, I’ll share an update on trusses, framing, flooring and cabinet choices. Plus, I have a positive update on our existing well.
The Bones – Trusses and Framing
We’ve wanted to move to the mountains since our first trip to Northwest Montana in 2008. It’s exciting to finally see the house becoming a reality. In my last post, I talked about our crawl space foundation. Once the concrete was set, the guys placed the floor trusses. Rather than placing the trusses on top of stem wall, we used metal brackets to hang them level with top of the stem wall. This avoids additional stairs to reach our final floor level, keeping the house close to grade. Next came the house deck or subfloors. Now, they were ready for the “bones” or walls of our house. To avoid potential weather issues, the house framing was built offsite and maneuvered into place with a crane. The walls consist of sole plates anchored with anchor bolts to the concrete foundation. Studs are nailed to the sole plates and top plates are nailed to the studs.
Pro Tip: We used 2′ x 6′ studs instead of 2′ x 4′ for our external walls. The larger studs provide more room for insulation, which we’re going to need in this cold climate.
If you want more information about framing, check out the site below:
Montana Weather
As you can imagine, NW Montana gets cold, and it snows a lot. In fact, we can expect temperatures between 59 and -10 degrees most of the year (212 days). Our area will get warmer temperatures between 60 and 100 degrees for the rest of the year (153 days). We expect around 54 inches of snowfall a year, averaging 41 snow days a year. There will be snow on the ground about 28% of the year. We’ll have more cloudy days than sunny, with approximately 151 days of sun per year.
You might be wondering, how a South Florida girl, who grew up at the beach is going to handle living in a cold climate. Although, most retired folks move to places like South Florida, we are tired of the oppressive heat and humidity. We’re tired of the busy streets and overwhelming crowds in restaurants, beaches and parks. We’re ready to live a life we’ve only been able to do when we’re on vacation. A life filled with outdoor adventure and Montana is the perfect spot for us!
Mono Roof Trusses
We thought a lot about our floorplan design. Over the past seven years, we have obsessed over every detail, from the flooring choices to the mono slopped roof. These modern slopped roofs are becoming more popular. We love ours because it’s simple and a nod to Mid-Century Modern design. As you can see from the pictures, our roof slopes away from the front of our house and garage. We planned it this way, so the snow from the roof falls behind the house and not in front of the garage or entry.
The mono truss system is a one-sloped truss that forms a right-angle triangle. This type of roof allows for more sunlight and visual space, proper drainage, and is relatively cheaper. In South Florida, we’ve got to worry about wind from Hurricanes and tornadoes. In NW Montana it can get pretty windy, but we also need to consider snow loads, which adds a considerable amount of weight the house needs to carry. Our builder, Jason (J Martin Builders) worked with a local truss company to calculate the appropriate design and pitch.
Check out my post below to learn more about our foundation build:
Flooring and Cabinets
Our flooring selection – Johnson Flooring’s Grand Chateau in Alswick provides stability with its engineered European Oak. The 7″ wide plank and varied lengths (Max. 6′) provide a high end look without the cost. The style is just rustic enough to work with our Mountain Modern design. The hardwood flooring will be installed everywhere, except the bathrooms, laundry, and storage room.
Our cabinets – DeWils Fine Cabinetry in black walnut works well with our design style. Both the walnut and the flat cabinet style were used in many Mid-Century Modern homes in the past. We chose the Horizons Sonoma Trifid style with vertical grain match. As you can see in the picture below, the wood grain runs vertical and lines up with the cabinet above. It’s a beautiful, timeless look for our custom kitchen cabinets.
Pictured below are samples of our flooring, black walnut cabinets, Cambria quartz, and wallpaper:
In the picture above, you also see chocolate-colored Delamere quartz by Cambria. The Delamere is gorgeous, but we want to make sure the kitchen won’t be too dark. It also shows Cambria MacBeth quartz, but we are still looking at other options to find the best fit. We’ll also ask our design team, Joni Stoll Designs to help ensure our final choices are cohesive and look fabulous!
At the moment, we’re leaning towards the lighter MacBeth for the backsplash and perimeter counters, then the Delamere for the island counter. Take a look at both of the kitchens below and let me know what you think in the comments below.
We are using SketchUp 3d Rendering to install the actual finish materials in our design. Unfortunately, sometimes colors and finishes online are not always accurate. Once we chose our cabinets, we tweaked our cabinets in the model to resemble black walnut. I then uploaded our rendering to the Johnson Flooring’s website to add our flooring selection. The picture below is what the website rendered:
Did you notice the floors online and renderings look different than our sample picture you saw earlier? Online our floors look less brown and more orange. Below is another Johnson’s website rendering of our wood floors. Again, the Alswick color looks off compared to the sample. These two pictures are good examples of why you order samples and do not pick your finishes from online photos or renderings. It’s important to see and touch actual samples for the best representation of the product.
Pro Tip: Pick up or order samples of all your finishes. They are pretty inexpensive, but crucial for a successful design. Combine your samples until you find a combination that you love.
Good News
Our property came with septic approval from the county and an existing water well that was capped. Before buying the property, our realtor and attorney checked property details like the existing well logs, property access, and title. Oddly enough, there were no well records for the existing well on our property. The realtor found and shared our neighbors existing well depths and flow rates, which all looked great. We were confident we could find water, but we weren’t sure we could use the existing well. If not, we would need to drill a new well. I’m happy to report that the local well guy, (Oh, Well) found water in the existing well at 220 feet. We also have great water flow at 43 gallons per minute (GPM). That bit of good news saved us about $15,000!
We’re grateful to have wonderful build partners, J Martin Builders, as well as design partners in Joni Stoll Design. They have made this whole process fun and less stressful. Next time, I’ll share updates about our onsite mechanical walk through, which includes lighting, electrical, plumbing, and HVAC. We should have the counter and tile selections finalized by then, so you’ll see those in my next post too.
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