Please GoTo The TallyAwards Site and Vote for Gary Shiver as the Best Builder

Our new home is about 80% done. Usually by this time owners are ready to strangle their builder - but they can't find him.

Gary Shiver has been building in Tallahassee for 35 years. He does 3 or 4 homes a year. For the last 3 months he has been building a home for Lulu and I. We absolutely love the home and Gary too.

Gary is honest . He is on the job site ever day at 7 AM. He does not get lost - driving around in a shiny new pickup truck. He stays on the site - and watches over it like it were his own. We have not had a cross word the whole time. I like this quote - I can build anything you want but here is how I would do it.

So far - our project is on time and under budget. As a matter of fact I have had to slow him down. For tax reasons we want to finish in January. Lulu says things are moving so fast - she does not have enough time to pick out things like countertops - tile - fixtures - etc.

The firm is basically 4 men - Gary Shiver - Gary Wayne Shiver - Joe Shiver - Josh Wells. There are 5 if you count Cindy Shiver - she does the books and handles the cash.

Please go to tallyawards.com and vote for Gary. All the rest of the candidates are big firms - Gary is a vote for the little guy.

Gary Shiver gets my full endorsement as a builder. If you need anything built - call Gary.

House Day 74 - Shelves - Cabinets - Tile

The pantry is lined with shelves from floor to ceiling. There is also a slot for a freezer.

It cooled down in Florida today - never got up over 60. Good thing there is plenty of work to do inside the house. 

Today Lulu and I went to Home Depot and brought all of the electrical fixtures - outlets - switches - switch plates. 

Rainy Day At The Work Site - House Day 73

The pouring rain gives you an idea of the lay of the land. Water is contoured around the house and away from the house. The concrete foundation will be one foot above the ground level - high enough that water will not ever threaten the house - but low enough so no porch rails are required. A small ramp will easily allow a wheelchair to roll into the house. All thresholds are level - the doors are 36 inches wide. the attic can be ADA designed with a chair elevator.

Tuesday - it poured on the work site since midnight. nothing could be done outside. The tile man moved all the tiles and mud indoors. Tomorrow morning they will start tiling the bathrooms - kitchen - and laundry room. Do not forget the 2400 feet of tile on the porches. 

Gary and Gary Wayne continued doing woodwork inside - closets - baseboard - etc.

This is the porcelain tile that will cover both porches. My foot is there for comparison. It is colored all the way through in case it ever gets knicked or scratched. It will be set in tan grout. The brick work on the foundation will match this tile in color and grout. The tiles are 16 by 16 inches. the tile is frost proof an slip proof. 

The cabinets in the master closet were primered.

This is the tile for the bathrooms and kitchen. Lulu exclusively selected all the tile. 

This is the tile for the back porch - 600 square feet.

This is the tile for the back porch - 600 square feet. That is Gary having lunch on the front porch - watching the rain. The floor are tiles packaged about 8 tiles per box. 

Day 72 - Gary Wayne Was Busy Building Closet Cabinets

Monday - The big closets will have plenty of wood shelves - cabinets - and clothes hanger rods. When they are caulked and sanded they will be painted white. 

The weather was cold and windy outside - but it was warm and toasty inside thanks to the SucraCell insulation. Tomorrow has an 80% chance of rain. 

The painters continued working on the exterior and interior trim. 

All of the tile arrived for the porches - the bathrooms - the kitchen - and the laundry. They will start installing that tomorrow. 

Bedroom 1 - the closets have 10 foot ceilings. Bedroom 2 will have the same. 

Lulu's side of the master closet.

Harry's side of the master closet. 

Lulu's closet shelves.

House Day 70 and 71 - Painting and Cabinet Building

Primering the keystone in the window trim. All exterior trim is made of Hardiboard.

First coat of paint on the fiberglass columns. 

All that is left to do outside is painting the siding - tiling the porches - and installing the soffits. The siding is Nichiboard - a fireproof concrete product. The only exposed wood outside is the porch ceilings.

Thursday and Friday - The painters were busy painting inside and out. The first coat of color was put on the inside walls. Lulu chose blue for the master bedroom - green for bedroom 1 - off-white for bedroom 2 -and the great room is light khaki. The inside woodwork received its first coat.

Outside the first coat of white paint was put on the trim around the windows and door. The columns received their first coat of white. The porch lintels also shined. 

Meanwhile Gary Wayne was building the cabinets in the master closet.

Day 69 - Trial Shutter Installed - Lulu and the Garys Plan the Closets

There are 5 closets in the house. All shelves and cabinets are made from scratch. Believe it or not - here Gary - Gary - and Lulu - are in the master bedroom closet. They are laying out the fixtures. The master bedroom - bathroom - closet - laundry room - are all painted a very light blue. I think I was asked to leave the room here.

The Louver Shop hung a demonstrational shutter today. All 28 windows are 3 feet by 6 feet. Jim and Burkett thought it would be wise to hang one set of shutters before they built all 28. Good thing they did - because the tilt-in feature of the windows would not work with this shutter hardware. We have to come up with another solution. Of course Gary is champing at the bit to install them himself. He takes great pride in this house. I often say, "he don't want anyone hanging their balls on his Christmas tree."

The shutters are beautiful. The louver shop installed 4 sets in our present house about 7 years ago - and they still look and work great. On the inside you can see there are four sets of slats - two up and two down. East set of slats can be controlled independently. The divider falls right in line with the window sash. The slats are 3.5" wide. The shutter are all filled plastic - so they will not warp - discolor - rot or swell.

The shutters from the outside looks great. Remember the Hardiboard frame will be painted white. The Nichibord siding will be painted medium dark khaki. With the shutters - there will not be any curtains in the whole house - and no blinds. 

While this was going on - the painters were caulking. 

House Day 68 - Building Doors From Scratch - Caulking and Painting

The painters were caulking outside when the weather allowed. They also have a first coat of paint on the inside walls and two coats of white on the ceilings. They will be doing the inside woodwork soon and then tackle the exterior.

Gary Wayne and Gary worked on the scuttle doors. 

Monday - It was cloudy and rainy. So most of the work was done under the protection of the porch or inside. 

Gary and Gary built 5 scuttle doors from scratch. Gary had some surplus pine bead board in his garage. We tried to build some doors that were similar to the scuttle doors in the Murat House. Scuttle doors are some opening that allow you access to the rafters - infrastructure - HVAC - etc. Up north we called them cubby holes. 

The painters put the first coat of paint on the inside walls in colors of Lulu's selection. Outside they caulked the cracks on the porch and around the eaves. 

Tomorrow a sample shutter will be installed. 

All the colors that Lulu selected are very light.  This is the master bedroom in light blue. this is looking east.

This is bedroom 2 in pale green. The is looking southeast.

 This is also looking southeast to show a closet in bedroom 3.

They constructed 5 scuttle doors from surplus pine bead board. Everything is glued and nailed to keep its shape for years. 

Here is a scuttle door in place. They are about 2 feet by 4 feet. One scuttle door covers the tornado room.

Saturday Morning - Caulking and Painting

The casements above the windows are made of Hardiboard. The siding is Nichiboard. both products are made of concrete. Note the Keystones above each window. They remind us of our friends back home in the Keystone State. The exterior wood trim will be painted white. The siding will be painted dark khaki. 

This morning I carted down to the house site - expecting to be able to clean up a bit. I was surprised to find 5 painters there caulking and painting away. They had masked the interior and were done painting all the ceilings white. They had covered all the vents and lighting fixtures and the second spray coat was drying. The rest of the house will be brush painted.

Another painter was outside caulking - a second one was inside caulking the windows and baseboard. Controlling a caulking gun is an art. 

I guess the next thing they were going to do was paint the inside wood trim. I did not stick around - I got paint on my sweat pants and wanted to shout it out. Now to get my shower and go to the Syracuse at FSU football game - Bobby and the 1993 Championship Team will be the guests of honor. 

House Day 67 - More Woodwork Done - Painters Started Inside Because of Rain

Friday - the carpenter crew worked a half day - doing woodwork inside. Window trim - baseboard - steps trim - door trim - were the order of the day. 

The painters were outside caulking the house. Those guys can really control those guns. I am amazed they don't get that stuff all over themselves and everywhere else. When the rains started - they came inside and started masking for painting the ceiling. 

The ceilings will all be painted white. It is ironic because they are already white plaster - which is pretty enough for me. Since they are spraying the ceiling - they have to mask off all the windows and doors. 

We do not plan to paint the attic. When they blue walled the house - they put a skim coat of plaster on the entire wall. It looks very nice. 

The carpenters were busy trimming the windows - doors - baseboards - steps - closets. the above window is in the northeast corner of the attic. Notice the attic walls and ceiling are white from the plaster skim coat. We do not intend to paint the attic. It would be very easy to spray the attic - just put plastic down on the floor and spray away. There is nothing in the way.  You could do the ceiling and walls all at once. 

This is the master bedroom - they have masked off the windows to spray paint the ceiling. I think th painters will work over the weekend. 

Since we plan to stain the front door - they were careful to mask it off too. I think the living  room - kitchen - dining room will all be painted tan. 

House Day 66 - We Went Inside To Do Trim Work

House today a 4 PM - Quitting Time.

Thursday - the house is 75% complete. Good thing we were working indoors today because at 7AM it was 40 degrees at the site. The workers started by finishing out the attic. They installed the baseboard. They cut in 4 cubby holes or scuttle holes - simply - little doors that allow you to service the HVAC and other hardware. then They finished off the knee wall railing. Next - they did the window trim up there. All that is left now is to install the 4 basic ceiling light fixtures and a switch.

After doing a window trim sample - then sending pictures to Lulu for her approval - they started finishing 28 window. The trim includes side rails - a window sill - the support under the sill - and finally 3 pieces of trim to make the profile cap. 

8 inch tall baseboard was started for the first floor.  

Joe Shiver works one of the miter saws to make intricate fine trim.

Gary was trimming out the steps.

Josh was installing header profiles. 

Gary Wayne was making window sills and baseboards out of 8 inch pre-finished stock. All they need is a little caulking and a final coat of paint. 

Outside - the house needs - paint - porch tile - soffits - and brick trim around the basement. 

This is the header profile of a master bedroom window. Notice the porch ceiling outside.

The window sills are 8 inches wide. It is made of solid one inch thick pine. The shutters will be installed inside the frame. 

ProBuilt - our supplier - picked up the excess Hardiboard and NichiBoard for full credit. 

Pine wood caps were put on the knee walls to protect the steps.

4 scuttle holes will be covered by doors made from scrap tongue and groove yellow pine boards.

Burkett Carver Of The Louver Shop Measured Today For Plantation Shutters

Burkett Carver - The Louver Shop

One of the classic features of a Florida Plantation Home is interior shutters. The shutters allow you to control how much light enters your house - from complete blackout to completely wide open. You can vary light by opening moveable slats. You can also open the top half or bottom half to provide different degrees of privacy. The shutters also prevent sunlight from fading furniture and carpet. 

Today the representative of The Louver Shop - Burkett Carver - visited our site. Although we have 28 three feet by six feet windows - he measured each window individually. Gary and company did a great job of installing the windows because there wasn't more than a 1/8th inch difference among the whole set. 

Because we wanted a plain frame to match our Florida Cracker Motif - and all the frames offered by the Louver Shop had decorative mill work on them - we chose and "inside install." The shutters are installed inside the window opening. Then we can put whatever style trim we want on the frame. We can put any style cornice - pediment - frieze - window sill - scrolling - keystone - we want or none at all. Gary can use stock that we have which matches the baseboards and the interior door trim. 

The Louver Shop had provided shutters for our present home about 8 years ago. They are still in excellent condition and they never warped. 

Burkett lives in Albany GA. The shutters are manufactured in Dahlonega GA in the good old USA. The president of The Louver Shop is Jim Tortorelli. 

In other new on this Day 65 - we completed the outside trim. All that is left to do outside it - paint - porch tile - foundation brick trim - and roof soffits. Josh installed some 8 inch tall baseboard. Nick did some wiring on the main electrical panel. 

House Day 64 - Finish Siding - Started Inside Woodwork - Insulate Soffits - Pick Paint Colors - Wash Windows

Finishing the siding. All that is left outside now is - paint - porch floor tiles - and soffits.

The SucraCell applier is getting suit up up to insulate the soffits. They returned to do the soffits as promised.

Gary and Lulu work well together. She says what she wants - he tells her how good it is - she gives him the paint color list - he immediately calls his painter and he shows up within the hour. Today Kevin the cabinet builder brought sample of the cherry wood with 5 different stains on it. I will be visiting his shop to see the cabinets in construction. 

Gary Wayne used the cherry picker to finish the siding and trim the top windows. I used the cherry picker to clean the top panes of the top windows. 

Here you see the cherry picker and the insulated soffits. The actual soffits will be installed after the house is painted. The unvented soffits are pre-colored and we do not want paint to get on them.

Josh was busy installing the prefinished wood trim around the 28 windows. Gary did all the cutting - Josh leveled the trim and nailed it up. Notice the pine bead board porch ceiling. They will be given one more clear varnish coat. Tomorrow the plantation shutter installer will measure and survey the job - offering us options. 

The pre-primed baseboard and window trim was delivered. It is pine with a white primer. 

Here you can see the rear of the house with a sample of the house color between the two left windows. It is a dark khaki. The columns - the window and door trim will be white.

Today I finished washing the windows. It took me two days because there was paint - stickers - and plaster on the glass. Every window inside and out was cleaned using a razor blade. Then they were washed and squeegeed. You can see our Pennsylvania Keystones over each window. 

What a Difference A Week Makes

Friday - Today we scheduled a 4 day vacation for our crew to recharge their batteries. I am sure they stayed up to watch Stanford beat Oregon opening the way for the Seminole to be in the national championship game.

While everyone was away it gave me a chance to clean up the work site a bit.

We have got a lot done in the least week. Here are two tours - one done on October 29th - and one done today. Lulu calls me "one take Harry" because I seldom go back to clean up a video - you get the unvarnished story just the way I see it.

Try to start these two videos at the same time - you will be able to see the one week of progress.




October 29th.



Nov 8th.

Siding the 4th Side - Day 63

Nichiboard is a fantastic siding product.  Make of concrete - when you cut it with a saw - it gives off a lot of dust. The workers must wear masks when working around the saw. Today the crew did the south and final side of the house. All that is left is a little siding up in the eaves. On Tuesday we will have the cherry picker to complete the eaves and the soffits.

75% of Siding Done - Day 62

The North Side

The West Side - note the pine bead board porch ceiling. 

The East Side front porch facing the street

Today they completed the west wall siding. We are using Nichiboard - a product which is made of concrete. It is impervious to rot and insects. Water and sunshine do not affect it. The boards are 8 inches wide - with a 1 inch overlap. The boards are 12 feet long and prime red gray. It is applied over a plastic moisture barrier and the nails are driven into the ¾ inch thick plywood walls on 2 x 6 studs on 16 inch centers. The walls and roof are insulated with SucraSeal - an open cell foam product that is applied in a liquid spray from. 

The trim that looks yellow in the pictures is HardiBoard - another concrete product. All of the trim pieces are 5/4th inches thick - yes - they say 5/4th. The little keystones above each window and door are made of hardboard.

All of the trim and columns will be painted white. Right now - we think we are painting the siding dark khaki. 

The porch walking surface will be finished in a tile with a rough surface to prevent slipping. The foundation and steps will be covered with brown brick. 

All doors and windows are 36 inches wide. Thresholds will be flat for handicap access.