Makin’ the Shade

It’s been a long time coming but the shade over the south patio finally got installed on Thursday and Friday. This was the last major thing to be done on the exterior of the house. (Some of the cabling for the railing on that patio still needs to be run–more on that later–but by comparison, that’s a small thing.) So what does it look like?

Let’s go back and take a look at the big hole that was. This was one side…

And this was the other.

(It’s harder taking a picture of a hole than you might think! )

With that portion of the roof wide open, the patio below was very bright.

But now that the slats are in, things are A LOT different. This photo captures how different they appear, even though they’re all installed at the same angle relative to horizontal. It does a good job of showing how they’ll let some light in on an angle while blocking the more intense light from straight overhead, which is especially important now.

Seen from the great room, you can see how much more shaded the patio is now, yet light will still come in.

I even got a little artistic, catching the reflection of the beams from the great room windows, while looking through the windows to a cloud visible through the windows on the other side of the house.

In short, this covering is going to make the patio much more usable during the summer or during the middle of the day at any time of the year. (They might even get us a LEED “innovation” point because they’re angled to bring in winter sunlight while blocking summer sun.)

Earlier I mentioned the cable railing for the south patio. Here’s a close-up.

The cables provide the right combination of safety–the ground is as much as six feed down!–and visibility.

In other news, most of the right wall switches and cover plates are now in (only the 4-way switches have yet to be installed). We’ve gone from this…

…ugh. Seriously? To this….

MUCH better!

And speaking of covers, the cover for the kitchen vent hood exhaust pipe is now in place.

That looks much better too. I’m hoping this week the tile will go up on the wall below the hood and cabinets. Then the lighting for the counter tops can be mounted under the cabinets and the kitchen will be close to done.

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