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.

Merry Christmas and Odds n' Ends

A belated Merry Christmas to all our readers! What I should be blogging about is the Christmas snow we received and the fun I had with my new snow blower at the house. With a driveway, there would have been a lot of shoveling, so it was time to step up and bring in some horsepower. We got a 28" two stage Craftsman and man, did it make easy work of the snow we got. I didn't think to snap any pictures, so I'll least have to take some of the snow covered house next time we're out.

Which was actually today, but didn't think to get that shot until after we left. Nothing's changed on the exterior after all. Ann and I made a trip to the house to do a little homework. We had to mark our final changes to the master shower, mark where we wanted dimmer switches, figure out the sizing of the cabinet pulls and look at the stone.

The cabinet pulls were the primary job. Not very exciting, but we've been looking at this pull from Top Knob, which comes in all sorts of lengths. It's was one thing to sit and look at plans and spec out the measurement, but once we actually got in front of the cabinets, we ended up changing quite a bit. Of course, we ended up going for longer pulls, which of course will mean more money, but hopefully we're talking a change of less than $100.

Figuring out the dimmer switch location turned more into an exercise of trying to remember what switches did what. We honestly couldn't figure out the kitchen...hopefully the electrician can!

The biggest pain was the stone work. Everytime I look at the stone, I see the gaps between the pieces. While it's natural stone, it come in rectangular pieces that are dry stacked, which means no mortar in between. Unfortunately, the mason just didn't get the pieces tight. Kathleen has asked us to mark every gap we'd like him to fill in, but honestly, I see every single seam, so I'm not sure how we're going to fix that. I'm a bit stumped and frustrated.

In the last post, I mentioned the house was all full of paper to protect finished surfaces from the coating being sprayed onto the wood. Here's some updated pics of that.



And these are from a few days later and during daylight

Poof! and cabinets appeared

It's a couple days before Christmas, I've got the day off and I'm stuck here waiting for the replacement dryer to be delivered. Oh well, I could be at work.

So, while I wait, let's talk about cabinets. They've started to go in and it's another one of those steps that gets the excitement level up. Sure, they don't have drawers or doors on them yet, but especially in the kitchen, you can start to see the rooms come together.

They're all Doug Fir wood with melamine interiors. The doors and drawers will be the Doug Fir as well. This will match all the Doug Fir we reclaimed from the paneling, which then got planed and cut down into trim pieces. (btw, it never occurred to me until picking out our xmas tree this year, but half the trees out there are firs and a bunch of those are Douglas Fir. So, I guess we've got xmas trees throughout the house!)

Let's have a look at the kitchen...


The middle two shots are kind of fun because they're the before and after. There's one uninterupted 15' run of granite that will go one side and then the rangetop and sink will go on the other. That last shot shows were the bartop will be, which is over and extending beyond the sink.

Here's the music room coming together.


This room will be fun with space for guitars (hanging above the desk), an amp (in the cabinet in the first pic) and then the bench sitting right in front of the tall windows. With the 10 foot ceilings, this room will look really nice once it comes together.

And here's just a quick, unexciting pic of the kids bath:


Overall, I think things are coming along really well. The painters have been at it for the past couple days coating, sanding and then second coating all the wood. It looks like a disaster zone in there with that varnish and saw dust soaked and stuck to all the tape and paper covering the floors, walls and ceilings.

Supposedly some of the granite counters went in today, but we'll see. I'll snap some pics of the mess if all the paper and stuff is still there. The cabinets in the mud room, which will be out of laminate are delayed, so it will be a while before those come through. We'll see what Kathleen and Mike can do to get those sped up.

Fireplace Door $election

In our latest round of negotiations, we selected and moved forward with fireplace doors today. I can tell... you're really, really excited about that. Well, we've got to blog about something, right?

There's all sorts of stuff going on at the house right now such as cabinets going in and woodwork getting stained. And tomorrow, some of our counter-tops get installed. Now, that's exciting.

Anyway, we had to put new fireplace doors in. In part because what was there was merely a screen and that both seemed unsafe and well, yucky. Also, apparently to get our LEED certification, we needed to close that opening. And to be honest, that matters more than just a certification. That's a big opening and the air flow has at least got to be significant.

I took a look back and amazingly, I don't have many picks of the fireplace. Here's a good one of what it started like and then where it stands just before the doors go in.



Apparently because of that L shape, we're immediately into a custom situation. MOC pointed us right to Fireside Hearth and Home and from there right into a single product with a few different style differences. Not much choice doesn't sound like a good situation for getting a good price.

We were recommended to go to with Stiletto style. It seemed fine, but I couldn't resist the opportunity to talk with the sales guy about price. We had a good conversation and after a couple back and forths, he claimed he put the wrong labor code in the original estimate. Hmmm, really!? Anyway, he adjusted and saved us ~$300. Not a ton, but it's something.

And guess what, that only took us a week to figure all that out! OK, not as good as a few days, but it's done and for that to be off the list, I'm relieved. Up next, the master shower doors and granite.