Tasting Room Construction Project

I realized recently it’s been over a month since I posted an update.

The focus since then has been ALL the drywall work. Like 9,000 square feet of drywall between all the walls and ceilings. So here’s a link to some recent progress pictures, and a video.

Drywall ‘mudding’ should finish in a few days, and then everything gets painted. After that windows will go in, and much more.

Meanwhile, life in the vineyard continues. Pruning is the big focus now. Son-in-law Nate is now the full time Vineyard Manager. With the help of his four legged ‘sidekick’ Annie.

And the ‘interim tasting room’ is open Saturday’s from 11-6.

Last update was on Dec. 31st.
Much progress since then, and since a couple friends have asked, here’s an update!

Short version: Well working w/water in the building! Drywall started, ~25% done. Rough plumbing done.

Nate and I worked on getting the new well connected into the basement of the tasting room. Few pictures taken. As I believe I mentioned previously, the new well is across the road from the tasting room building. So a contractor used a horizontal drilling machine to pull two 1″ polypropylene pipes under the road. So we needed to dig a 4′ deep trench (protect water line from freezing) from where the pipe came out of the ground (and back far enough to where it was 4′ down) at both ends … one end to get a trench to edge of basement, and at other end to get trench to well. Then place the pipe into the trench, connect it to the well (4′ down) at well and house. There were 2 pipes, one for water and one for electric to run the pump. We got the wire thru it’s pipe from the well and into the basement, and the water pipe connected to the pitless adaptor at the well, and run into the house thru the basement wall (a sleeve put there when the basement wall was poured back in August).  And finally last weekend I got the piping and pressure tank and electric connected in the basement and voila we have water in the building! In a week or so the well driller will come and do a 6 hour flow test on the well as required by the country. After that, with the water hopefully cleared up from the well drilling debris, I’ll take samples to be tested for a variety of possible contaminants, as again required by the county. Based on the test results, a water treatment system will be designed. If nothing unusual is found, it will most likely mean standard particulate filters followed by a water softener and a UV lamp (sterilization).

The drywall work started around January 8, and as of today (Jan. 15) they’re about 1/4 done … with the 1st floor tasting room nearly complete. Pictures here.

And if someone wants to take the time, here are 48 pictures taken of all the walls before drywalling started .. to document where all the electric and fire alarm boxes are in the walls.

Although I don’t have any pictures, the rough plumbing work (drains, hot and cold water) finished up last Friday. This also needed to be done before the drywall was installed.

The drywall is planned to be done by end of next week, end of month at the latest. After that will be painting the drywall, the electricians come back to put the outlets and switches in the electric boxes, and the lights in ceiling and walls.  Also about them the new subflooring will be installed throughout the building, probably in early February. By then the windows hopefully will be here, and they’ll get installed in February sometime. After that would be new flooring and trim/molding around windows and the walls at floor.

2023 is drawing to a close, but Airy Acres Tasting Room construction continues, aiming for May opening!

Here’s a series of pictures of the 2023 journey for the house. – https://link.shutterfly.com/1KQdZcJBXFb

And here’s a list of the major work done:

• In January, starting with a ~3500 sq. ft. house full 3 or 4 generations of family ‘stuff’, completely emptied so all the lath & plaster (and 2 chimneys) and some walls could be removed
• In February, with the house empty, the contractor removed all the lath and plaster on the walls, and most of the electric and plumbing in the walls
• Then 3 smaller additions (done sometime after main house built) were torn off – single story kitchen area, an enclosed porch and a screened in porch
• Here’s a video tour in July, after most of the demolition work done.
• After a few months finding the right contractors, the south half of the house, which had only a very shallow dirt crawl space, was set on I-beams so the dirt could be dug out and a new foundation wall built under that part of the house to create more basement space, mainly for storing cased wine
• After necessary supports installed, the old field stone foundation wall separating the old and new basements was removed
• A new concrete floor was poured in whole basement – the combined existing basement space and the new space. Here’s a video of it.
• In October new electric power lines were run underground from the main feed at the vineyard barn
• Then in November our main contractor returned, and finished removing all the old siding and installed new exterior sheathing (with 1″ insulation) over the entire structure – getting the building ‘weather tight’ for the winter
• Then the interior wall renovations began – removing existing walls and adding new ones to create the new floor/room layout. Here’s a video tour, and another video tour.
• About that time a new well was drilled to supply water for the tasting room building (across the road, so horizontal driller hired to install two 1″ polypro lines under Footes Corners Road – one for water from well to house, and one for the power line from house to the pump)
• After that, in early December, the new rough electric was installed throughout the building, and the new fire alarm wiring
• Also in early December a mini-split was installed in the basement to keep it warm enough to store cased wine
• In mid-December, 3″ of spray foam installed on all the walls and roof
• And just this week (Dec. 28) rough plumbing started, Thursday. Most of the drainage mains are done. Next week finish that up and also the hot/cold water lines

Coming next will be:

• Plumbing rough-in that started this week will get done.
• Drywall installation will start the week of Jan. 8, maybe sooner.
• The new windows are on order, should arrive late January, and installed soon after.
• New floors in Feb. or March.
• Come April new siding and deck on the back.