How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if...

Lots more woodwork lately, as well as a lot of coordination between all sorts of subcontractors.

Downstairs we have window sills!  I have an image of one of the windows downstairs and a second closer look.
We went with maple for the wood, with a cherry-type colored stain.
Pros for this included that maple isn't very expensive, and it has a nice smooth look to it.  It has grain, but it is more subtle than other species of wood.  
It is also local, which we strive for.

The wood soffits have involved the cabinet makers, carpenters, electrician (for the power and lights in the soffits), and HVAC (for vents that will be in the soffits).
In the image above, you can see the beginning of one such vent. This air return is for the kitchen. Where-ever possible we tried to put any vents, pipes, etc in the interior walls instead of the exterior walls.
Each section attaches to wood "cleats" that are attached to the walls or ceiling.
Each section also has a tongue and groove edge, so that each section fits together tightly and won't move over time.

When we first decided to go with these drop down soffits, I had no idea of the amount of detail and work that goes into them.  Right down to figuring out the direction and behavior of the veneer at joints of sections, building in a platform for cove lighting that at the same time wouldn't let you see the actual lights from across the room, etc.

I know this may sound familiar, however, I am once again so grateful for the skill, patience, care, hard work and artistry of Jesse and his crew at Partners Woodcraft.

The coordination between the cabinet makers, carpenters, electrician, HVAC has been fantastic.
While it takes more time, as each of these groups have other jobs they are working on as well, we can already see the fantastic results in just the start.

While this may sound odd... we were also quite happy when we stopped by one night and saw doors set up in the rooms they would be installed!  
This may not seem like a big deal, but seeing how much activity is going on, we understood right away that they will be getting installed pretty soon.

Also downstairs, between the mechanical room and spare bedroom closet, we had a 2x6 wall.  
This is the location we want to put a Tesla PowerWall on the... well, the wall.
However, electrical code requires a certain amount of open space in front of electrical equipment, and we needed an extra half inch.
So, to play it safe, we changed the wall to a 2x4 wall to make sure we didn't run into any issues later.
Or, you could say we put that wall on a diet;)

Between the soffits, and doors, and window sills, and trim, and the wall downstairs, there was a whole bunch of lumber delivered, so we are glad the floating shelf supports in the master bedroom have proved useful!

​I'm keeping my fingers crossed, but if all goes according to plan, we should have a lot of stuff to show you next week.  I'll also go into more detail about the cool "trim" we are using.