Back in the house with my tools

As to be expected, things are slowing down a bit. Supposedly MOC has worked through some items on our punchlist, but I can't say I noticed much of anything while at the house yesterday other than nail holes being refilled with the proper putty color. Actually, there was some dry wall work done too.

I did get one thing done this weekend though. We finally pulled the trigger on a closet system. We didn't build this into the contract with MOC, so we were on our own. We had Closet Factory build the master closet in our house now and while it's worked out great, it just seems like we should be able to do something very similar, but cheaper.

Before doing anything, we had Closet Factory come out and quote the new master closet just to get a feel for where they would be at. It was a lot...something close to $3K for a walk in closet. So, time to look for alternatives.

I wasn't really happy with what I was seeing from the big boxes like Home Depot or Lowes, nor were we really into the wire closet systems from IKEA or the Container Store. I happened upon EasyClosets.com in a search, was impressed with their design system and while it might have been on the spendier side, it wasn't $3K. And besides, they cut everything to size, which means less for me to screw up.

Instead of going all in, we decided to buy something for Cailin's closet. A test run, I guess. After designing the system fairly quickly, I placed the order last Monday night and had all nine boxes show up at the house on Friday. I got a couple hours in on Saturday and then finished the whole thing up with another hour on Sunday. It was fairly easy once the support system was in. Pretty much like working with legos after that. And I think it turned out well. It seems sturdy and looks good. At least as good as what Ann and I have in our walk through closet now, and that's held up perfectly over the 5 years we've had it.

Here's the end result:


We'll see how things look once Cailin gets a hold of it, but looks good for now.

We took the plunge and order up a system for Evan's closet and our Master as well. I guess I know what most of my next weekend will look like.

Actually, one other thing of note, we did spend Saturday talking paint colors with Nicole. We don't have them all selected, but I'm encouraged with where things are going. Of course, we still have to apply the paint. Hopefully, things go better than with the ceiling. Just remember, even rolls and don't spread the paint too thin.

A Quick Update and More Pictures

Compared to last week, it's been a pretty slow week at the house. I think we've only been over there once and the only thing that had changed at that point was a door stop had been installed for the closet by the front door. Exciting stuff, I know.

Apparently though, today was supposed to be a busy day. All sorts of subs were supposed to be out going at the punch list. I'd hate to be the guy responsible for addressing all the putty issues. I can't tell you how many pieces of tape Ann and I put up on all the woodwork where either the wrong color putty was used or no putty was used.

We do have a couple lighting issues to deal with. Not that you'd know, but there's supposed to be pendants over the bar in the kitchen. They finally will be showing up tomorrow. We're also trying to decide on trac heads above the stairway going upstairs.

Well, I suppose I should get back to some pictures. In the last post, we started at the front door, looked at the music room and then into the kitchen. If we step outside the kitchen and into the living / dining area, we don't see much that has changed. These shots show the area cleaned up and with lights on. We still need the pendants installed where the dining table will go, but that's probably won't happen until they're delivered next Tuesday. Oh and btw, that bracket on the fireplace is for the TV that will go up. I know, we're covering up the stone, but trust me when I say that it's really the only spot for it to go.



Actually, as I look at these shots, they're more of the kitchen or fireplace than the dining / living area. Oh well....moving on. The bedrooms aren't very exciting....four walls and carpet or hardwood, but I suppose to get to the master bath, we've got to go through the master bedroom. The first shot is just after the carpet has been put in and the second is after the ceiling pendant is installed.



From there, we go through the walk through closet and into the master bath. The first two shots are a week apart, but a big difference visually.



And here's the shot of the vanity



If you're still with me, we can move to the guess bedroom slash office. Kathleen mentioned that when we got to this room and the excersize room, we got some flack from the inspector regarding the window type or size. Apparently code requires an egress window that allows firefighters to get in. But, because we were working with existing window openings, we didn't have a lot of choices. Luckily, the windows are able to "un-hinge" from the frame so that they can open all the way. It also helped that Kathleen didn't tell the inspector about the murphy bed in the office...so it was just an office to him. Here's a couple steps in the murphy bed process...



Switching sides of the room, here's the desk. We've got a nice set of file drawers on the right. It did occur to me just the other day that we don't have any drawers for office supplies. Hmmm, I'm not sure what we're going to do about that. Doesn't sound cheap though.



So, I think that's it for this post. It's almost my bed time and that's enough writing and pics for one post. Ann's got the moving bug and is down in the basement (here at Portland Ave) going through who knows what and sorting in to keep, toss or donate piles. Let her go... she seems to be enjoying it.

Post Walk Through and Many, Many Pictures

It appears that I may have been skimping on pictures lately. I don't know if it's that we took a bunch in the past few days or if I'm somehow had so much to write about that I was skipping stuff. Probably both.

We had our walkthrough with Kathleen on Friday. I can't say it's was the most efficient two hours. We got through most of the house, but there were still workers doing things and a cleaning person going through the house. We walked out at the end of the two hours with the laundry room, garage and exterior still left. The laundry room's not even done yet (no counter), the garage is still full of MOC's stuff and I'm not sure if you realize this, but it's cold outside....

In the end, the punch list wasn't too bad. The most difficult thing was probably the light switches. Between some of them clearly being wrong and Ann and I forgetting what some where supposed to be, we spent a couple trips trying to clear that up.

So, MOC now has 10 working days to resolve everything on the list. That also means we've got a few days left here to add anything to the list.

Anyway, I said pictures, so let's get some pictures in here. The front of the house is a good place to start. These are only a couple days apart with the first shot pre-lights and sidelights around the front door.



With the exception of the tape around the glass on the front door (for painting), the exterior is basically done. I guess we need to figure out a mailbox, but we're really, really, really close.

If you step inside the front door and look left, you'll see the music room. You could say this room appears finished, but there's still quite a bit left to go before the music aspect is obvious. Our sliding doors are still on the way (you may notice the track in the floor and ceiling), and we'll eventually get things like guitars on the walls. But, here's a few pics over the past few weeks.



If you look right as you come in you'll see the stairs. They really haven't changed much over the past several weeks. They had to clean up some dings in the redwood, but that's about it. I guess the one part of the inspection that we "got away with" was the stairs. Apparently we have too much space between the treads, but the inspector didn't catch it. We were just going to throw up some trim under each tread to close that gap and then take them down later, but hopefully we'll not have to do that.



I threw that last shot in because it's another view of what you see as you walk in the house. Which reminds me that I don't think I've ever taken a photo of what you see directly in front of you as you walk in. Hmmm, I may need to change that.

The last kitchen shot I posted had the counter-tops installed, but still covered in paper. Here's the next step, which goes along with the "house like a beehive" analogy. You'll also notice through the work that the appliances have been installed, but are still covered up.



I posted a shot of the cabinet hardware the other day, so we'll skip that stage. After that, it was basically coating the cabinet doors, etc that hadn't been done, removing the paper from everything and cleaning. Oh, and the other thing you'll notice here is the lights are in and work.

So, somewhat final kitchen shots....



So, I'm going to let everyone sit on that for a bit. It's MLK day and I'm home with the kids, so I suppose it's time to check them out... they are quiet... hmmm, good or bad?

Whirlwind of a week

As Stu alluded to in his earlier post, this last week was a whirlwind of activity. The house was buzzing with activity. At one point I counted...

2 plumbers
2 electricians
3 carpenters
1 HVAC guy
2 cleaners
3 cabinet people and
1 project manager in a pear tree!

...all working in the house at one time!!! I'm surprised that there were no punches thrown. ;-)

It really is amazing how much they got done this week: hooking up the electrical panel, installing all the lights, laying carpet, finishing floors, installing railings and closet shelves, installing cabinet and door hardware, installing the front door and finishing up cabinetry...plus other stuff I'm sure I didn't notice yet. With everyone practically tripping over each other, I started to wonder why all this stuff was left to the last week. Oh well...

With all this activity, Stuart and I made multiple trips to the house. In fact, on Wednesday I made three trips in one day trying to sort out the puzzle of our cabinet hardware. As fate would have it, I was home that day with Evan because both kids had come home from school on Tuesday with lice. Lucky us! Cailin was OK to go back to school, but Evan's daycare requires that he stay home for 24 hours. So, Evan and I schlepped over to the house three times in one day...and he was GREAT! I was really proud of how patient he was.

Actually, I have been tremendously proud and thankful for how patient both kids have been with this whole process.

We have dragged them along on countless trips to pick out appliances, faucets, cabinet hardware, doorbells, etc. and we haven't been kicked out of a store yet. :-) They have also tagged along to construction meetings and discussions with our architect. Cailin always has a good question to ask or a pretty wise observation to make for someone with just 7 years under her belt. And most of all, they have put up with two parents who are often tired, stressed out and generally preoccupied with "house stuff". I don't think we could ask for better kids.

So, with just a few weeks before we move in, we keep plugging away at our "to do" list while trying to maintain that delicate balance between building a house, being good parents, doing good work, and staying married. It's not easy, but someone we've managed to not completely lose our minds...at least not yet!

Morning before the Walkthrough

It's Friday morning. I'm at home because the boy has lice and he can't go to daycare today. I'm also trying to work, so my friends Dora and Diego are babysitting right now. I'm also thinking about the walk through we have at the house today. We've set aside two hours to go through the house room by room and develop a final punchlist. We were supposed to get all the final permits dealt with yesterday, but it sounds like there were several issues. Nothing major...hopefully. The biggest items were around needing another cold air return in the house, the inspector didn't like the lights in our closet (ceiling pendants with open edges) and apparently, the stair-rails can't have open ends.

That last one is kind of funny, or maybe not if you're a firefighter. Apparently code says that we can't have these open hand rails (see pics below) at the end of each rail because should firemen with hoses rush into your house, those hoses could get caught and snagged on the rails. I get it, but... really!?



Another quick update is that the cabinet hardware issue that I blogged about on Wednesday isn't quite the disaster I thought it would be. The order was wrong, but only for one side of the kitchen. I don't have a close up, but we're fairly pleased with the hardware. It's that bar style, but somewhat different and substantial enough that it works well with the big drawers and doors in the kitchen. And I literally mean big. We ended up being surprised with the size... in a good way of course. For example, all the drawers on the same side as this pic are ~36" wide. 36 inches for silverware? Wow....



What else? Lots of finished coating for the cabinetry and wood work that's been installed over the past few days. So, there's lots of plastic hanging around with guys inside spraying. I'll be interested to see how things look later today.

We also got to see the laundry room cabinetry for the first time this week. We didn't go with the Doug Fir wood for a couple reasons. First was the added expense. Second, that stuff is soft. I've already put a couple real small dings in places, so we opted for a laminate (Shaker Cheery, I believe). Here's a couple shots a couple days apart.



We're still missing a countertop in this room. That's actually probably the biggest missing component in the house, which if you think about it is pretty good in terms of MOC meeting there timeline.

I think I'll leave it at that for now. At the moment, I'm not feeling so overwhelmed, which is good considering the two hours of punch list we have in front of us today. It seems to change by the time of the day though. We've been at the house every day this week and there's always something. Whether it was walking around in the dark Monday night or meeting the Closet Factory person yesterday, there's so much going on, we just have to be on top of it best we can.

It's amusing that earlier this week we had to move our regular Tuesday meeting to Wednesday. Kathleen asked that since we had our punch list meeting on Friday, if we even needed our weekly meeting. right.... every time we stop by, there's always a few questions. I've said this before, but it always makes me wonder how they're making decisions when we're not there...?

2 Days and Counting

That's right, only two more days until punch list day. I really can't believe that we're only a few days until the house is mostly finished and livable. To think we bought the house 17 months ago and have been working to get to this point for basically that entire time, it's going to be weird not having that process front and center any more. Ah, who am I kidding... this doesn't stop on Friday. We've got a couple weeks worth of punch list clean up. We've got the moving process. We've got new furnishings, etc to deal with... paint colors, window treatments, etc... we've still got a couple months of "stuff" to work through.

We did have a construction meeting this morning and wow, the place was like a beehive (in the words of Ann). Probably ten or so cars parked around the house, all sorts of subs buzzing around inside. There were electricians, plumbers, painters, cleaners, etc.

Of course, just because we're finishing, doesn't mean we're issue free. We quickly figured out that our cabinet hardware order wasn't right. We spent time walking around this morning confused about what went where only to later confirm the order was wrong. I really, really hope no one drilled any holes.

We also got to walk around confirming the placement of the pendants will hang in the bathrooms. So, imagine these two bathrooms with ceiling pendants rather than a more traditional wall sconce. Where should they go? How high or low should they hang? Decisions, decisions!



Oh, the other "fun" thing about our meeting today was that we had to take our shoes off to walk around in the house! The carpet is in and the floors have been refinished, so Kathleen is trying to manage the dirt as best she can. Of course we found some melted snow sitting in the middle of master closet (carpeted), so "best she can" seems to be true thus far.

Amusingly, I just got a call from Ann while writing this.... we need to decide how high to mount the hooks in the mud room. Btw, we decided on the fun blue ones in the past post. Anyway, on one hand you want the lower hooks low enough for the kids to reach, but also want them high enough to be useful as they grow. And then, the stair rails are getting installed today too, so they need our opinion there. Here's the view of the stairs pre-rails as it stands today...



So, there you go. Lot's of bees buzzing about today. Lot's of work and work on finishing items. Sounds like a fresh bunch of issues to both get excited about, but peeved about too when they're not quite right.

Monday after the storm

It's Monday morning, I'm sitting at work (probably supposed to be working) and am about to send Ann an email somewhat agreeing to moving dates. I think I'm starting to see that glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel. You're probably thinking that with a week, no wait, four days until occupancy permit, that light should be a lot of brighter than a glimmer. Maybe, but between the to-do's we've still had to do and the things still going on in the house, there still seems there's a pretty substantial list.

But, all that said, we had a productive weekend. We picked up shower rods, a door bell, the duct cover for the kitchen hood and a light for the nook in Cailin's room. Small things, sure, but we got them and crossed them off the list.

Supposedly, we'll have some big milestones this week. All the lights are supposed to be installed today. Tomorrow the flooring guys will be out to put the final coat on the wood floors. That also means all the protective covering on the floor will come off. That might not seem like much, but it's that covering that keeps the house looking like its in that perpetual state of construction. And then finally, carpet should be laid later this week.

I think all the kitchen appliances will be installed too. They got pulled inside to acclimate... I assume... before their installed.

I think the only significant delay will be the counter in the laundry/mud room. Which reminds me, I need to order hooks for the "lockers". I've been looking at two options. This hook is a bit more fun, but maybe too fun? It does come in multiple colors...



This hook is a bit more conventional, but has a nice modern/contemporary look.


So, that's about it. We survived the hectic three-birthday weekend. I need to work some house pictures into a post. Oh, that's the other thing we're waiting for... that damn front door! It's actually in the house, laying in a bedroom with a first coat of paint. Hopefully, that makes it onto the house later this week...hoping, hoping, hoping...

Painting Ceilings

I feel like I've blogged about this before, and I probably have. Reading about it is about as exciting as watching paint dry, but hey, part of the point of this blog is documentation. So, we'll see if we can make it somewhat interesting.

With Ann's parents still in town last weekend and with paper still covering much of the flooring and counters in the house, we figured it was a good time to finish painting the ceilings in the house. We'd of course already primed and had even painted all the bedroom ceilings, but we had most of the first floor left to go as well as the upstairs loft.

With the extra hand of Jake to help paint and with Cheryl to watch the kids, we decided to go for it. It started simple enough on Saturday. Ann and Jake got to the house first and started to cut in. I came in a little later because I needed to get some shopping (and marinating going) for dinner. (Yes, for some reason, even though I knew I'd be spending the majority of the day painting, I still decided it'd be a good idea to cook up a big dinner of chili glazed country ribs, fried beans, a watercress salad and these cheesy, fried torpedo things....not to mention fresh salsa and gauc... yum...)

So, from about 9am, we painted and painted. We broke for lunch and did our traditional DQ, but otherwise, we were focused. We got through a single coat everywhere we intended to and even put a second coat in the main living area. The last person out left around 4pm and we felt pretty good about our progress, but we knew we had a second day in front of us.

One yummy Mexican dinner later, we got back at it Sunday morning. We didn't have as much to paint, but with the errands we either knew we had to run or found out later, things slowed a bit. First, we needed to find painters tape. Sunday morning just before 9am apparently isn't a good time to do that. Amazingly, we found some at Wallgreens. Next, once we got started, we quickly realized we needed new rollers (they didn't save well from the previous day) and tray liners. So, Ann and her dad were off to get those while I applied a second coat up stairs. They got back and we all got going again. Next, we figured out we were going to be short of paint. Well, to keep things moving, we sent Jake to get a couple gallons.

Somewhat surprisingly, we did all that and managed to get all our painting done by 1pm. I guess we didn't have a ton to do, but there sure seemed to be a lot of running around. It's funny, but Jake was a big help not because he did much painting, but because he was there to do things like taping or running errands or there to put a ladder in place so we could paint over the staircase. I guarantee we would have added hours to the job w/out his help.

Once we were done, we were off, back to the house with enough time for me to cook up Sunday's feast of Indian Food (pork vindaloo, coconut green beans and a nice fried okra yogurt salad).

So, you're thinking, hey that's great, you painted! Well, we showed up at the house on Tuesday morning for our regular construction and meeting and were met with a pretty depressing sight. In nearly every room we painted, we could still see the overlap marks from the rolling. Not only that, but that paint we bought on Sunday...apparently different enough that it was pretty obvious where we mixed it with the stuff we started with. So, it was very apparent, we weren't done. It was something we were pretty excited to check off the list and know we not only had to figure out how to fix it, but then actually fix it. I suppose that could be as simple as putting up another coat, but who's to say that third coat would yield the same results. I think a call into the experts is due. Anyway...

Since pictures of white ceilings don't look great or are even that interesting, we have action shots. Actually, we just have one...

One Week to Go?!

For as long as we've been going through this process, there's never been a time where it didn't feel like there wasn't a ton of stuff still left to do. Sometimes they were big things (hire an architect or design the house!) and sometimes it was a collection of smaller stuff (pick appliance or door handles). Over the past couple weeks, the time to completion has been shrinking and it seems to be shrinking fast. With one week to go, you'd think that we'd feel a little better about what's left and that maybe the list of things to do would be shrinking as well. Maybe it is, but wow, it sure doesn't feel that way.

It's Saturday morning right now and we have exactly seven days until our walk through next Friday. The walk through is where we go room by room and develop a punch list, which is essentially a last to-do list for MOC. But before we walk in the house on Friday to create that list, every key item in order to receive an occupancy permit should be done. In other words, even in lieu of the punch list, we could technically start moving in the next day.

Again, it's Saturday morning and theoretically, we could start moving stuff in next Saturday. Whoa.

Ann and I sat down last night and had to create a written out plan of things to do this weekend. It doesn't help that Cailin has three birthday parties and ski lessons over the weekend. Or that Ann has a dinner party tonight. But, I need to go buy a duct cover for the kitchen hood. We need to go pick out and hopefully buy a doorbell and curtain rods. We need to figure out why the ceiling paint that we put up looks like crap and if we can figure that out, I can go repaint. And oh, we need to measure and then order towel bars and toilet paper holders for all the bathrooms. I think we also have to pick out heads for a tract light we forgot to buy with all our lighting. I'm sure there's something else I'm forgetting.

Hmmm, a week left. Don't take all this the wrong way. I'm really not complaining. It's a lot to do, but it's just making sure we get to it all and actually make decisions... nothing life or death, just a lot in terms of quantity. So, do a little relaxing here before everyone gets up, eat some breakfast, grab a soda and then go go go.

Well, I was going to blog about our painting last weekend, but I suppose I should have done that last weekend. Or I was going to blog about having Nicole (Ryan's wife) help us pick paint colors and other fun stuff like furniture. But, I suppose it's better to write about what's top of mind...it's more interesting that way. And besides, I've got the whole weekend to do the rest.