Progress report

Yesterday and today were disappointing. Very little seemed to get done on the house. There are a few reasons.

First, the floor coating meant that no one could get inside the house with shoes on. You know what that means.

Second, the granite guy needs to finish installing the two remaining counter tops and then drill out the faucet holes in the granite so the plumber can install the fixtures. The granite guy is waiting on one final copper sink. Where is it? The idiot from the fixture company said she already sent it. Actually she sent one and we ordered two. Monday this will get remedied.

Third, the stone fitters are no where to be seen. Until they finish the exhaust hood nothing can get done in the kitchen. Monday also. hmm

Fourth, the house across the street is also being built by our contractor and subs. Today the finished the inspection process and move in tomorrow. Which means that most of the subs should be available to rock and roll on Monday also. We shall see.

Think we can move in two weeks from today???

Floor show

Here are three pictures of the floor with two coats of oil. They look stunning. The photos do not do them justice.

Light fixtures arrive and installation begins

More bath hardware

Wood surround for exhaust fan

All that's left is the stone work.

Floor work continues

Although you can see our footprints, the floor looks great. We are using oil, not any poly stuff to finish the floor. We have a great friend who lives in Atlanta and owns a wood flooring company. He gave us the recommendation to finish the floor with a product that is oil based and contains alcohol and a dark tint. When the floor is completed is will look like the doors, trim and the rest of the wood in the house.

Floor finishing begins

The hardwood floor finishing has begun. The first thing they do is dig out all the knot holes and put in epoxy. We chose black epoxy because we have it in our current condo and it looks great because of the contrast.

The next thing they do is shave/sand the edges between the pieces that are not even. With 8" wide planks there can be quite a difference in the height of each piece of wood. Next step is to clean the wood. Then they buff the floor with what looks like a professional circular floor wax machine like they use in grocery stores to wax the floor. Instead of sanding, which would eliminate the rough texture that we chose, they will put a screen on the buffer/waxer and rub or polish the floor. The purpose is not to sand the floor even but to smooth out all the rough patches so they wont grab your socks.

The next step is to put three coats of a dark tongue oil on the floor. That's it. Takes a week.

Basement wet bar installed

The wet bar in the basement has been an on again, off again project. We initially put in the plumbing but decided to wait a few years before we did anything. Then we met a carpenter who needed work but was not a cabinet maker. He said he could match our pine corner cabinet that we bought in Finland and drove back to Germany on the top of our car. Long story but the corner piece is very cool, and very old. Anyway the carpenter has been promising it to us for over a month. Kim drove to the house three times this past week to meet with him but he was a no show. Today he showed up and installed the cabinet. Look just like our antique cabinet. And it was very low budget so apparently time is money!

The granite counter top will get measured and be delivered in a couple of weeks. The right side opening is for a fridge. The openings on the left side are for a microwave and something else (I forget).

Rain gutters and downspouts

Finally, after the snow has almost melted, we have rain gutters and downspouts on the front of the house. The snow should be gone from the back (north) side of the roof in a couple of days so we expect for the gutters to be installed, AFTER we need them. We have had water leaking into the house for two months, because the water drained off the roof and ran down the side of the house. We are told that this is part of the construction process. Great, just great. You should see the drywall on some windows, which will need to be replaced next week. As a bonus, you can see how the paint colors look and also catch a couple of great views.

Progress Report

We are scheduled for a final inspection on April 10th. The inspector is from the county as we are not inside an city limits. The movers are scheduled to deliver our furniture, which has been is storage for 3 years, on the 11th and 12th. The inside of the house is ahead of schedule and the outside is a little behind schedule due to the heavy snows. We expect to complete most of the exterior work right before the inspection. The deck railing will be a few weeks behind because they can't measure the railings until the stone is installed.

LIBRARY LIGHTING
We have been having an "interesting" time with out lighting experts. In the library I want to have three distinct sources of light, incandescent, halogen, and quartz (I hate fluorescent, especially those CFL's). The purpose is to cover the visible spectrum with frequencies of light that allow for easier reading. We are almost complete with the light sources but I can't seem to find anyone in the lighting business that understands the light frequencies that they teach in high school physics.

TV's
I went to a class on HDTV's. It was offered by a big store and supported by a local TV station as part of the digital conversion in Feb 2008. Before the class I researched as much as possible on the same subject. After class I went to our home automation expert and we ordered TV's. Here is what I know: HD comes in 720 and 1080 lines of resolution, similar to the old CGA and VGA computer screens. If you want to sit close to the TV and the set is over 55", then you need 1080. If not, then a 720 is fine. Note: the sales folks will not tell you this. LCD costs a little more than plasma. Plasma reflects light more than LCD's because the LCD's use a matte finish on the outer glass. The refresh rate for LCD's is 60hz, The top Sony adn Panasonic LCD's now have a refresh rate of 120hz. The refresh rate for plasma is about 500hz, or eight times faster than most LCD's. The refresh rate is important and if you want to watch sports then plasma beats LCD's. We ordered two 720 plazma's, a 42" for the bedroom and a 52" for the living room. If any one is interested in more data on the TV's drop us an email.

Work

I've been attempting to clean the house after the workers leave their messes Each craftsman that comes seems to leave a pile of sawdust, mud, or something. In my view, if the house is clean then the workers will at least give a small attempt to be a little cleaner when working and also clean up after themselves. So far the results are, um, mixed. The weather has changed and the snows are melting. The average daily high temperature is in the 50's ans sunny. The snow is melting and since we don't have any grass or landscaping done yet, we are going to have a mud bowl in a few days. The mud is deep enough to bury a small car. I also borrowed some carpet scraps from a neighbor to use as door mats to help with the mess.

Stair railings installed

All that remains is to stain the newel posts and the railing. The balusters are metal and only take a few minutes to install.

Covered deck paint scheme

In a few days the decking will be complete. Here is a photo of the green paint on the side of the house.

Decking material arrives

The deck material is a wood composite called Trex. It lasts longer than wood, comes in various colors and finishes (plain wood grain, etc). It should be completely installed in a few days.

Master shower, another photo

Stove exhaust hood gets framed

We had the exhaust fan for the stove framed finally. We did not frame it earlier because we, the framers, contractor and the stone guys, were not sure if we could build it to code and install the same stone on the surface that covers the fireplace. We had to figure out what the stone and cement weighed and then see of we could attach the frame to the wall of if we needed to attache it to the roof trusses also. In the end we did both and it probably will hold a few thousand pounds.

The gap between the counter and the wood structure will be filled with the same big beams that we used for the fireplace mantles.

The vent louvers will be about 30" above the stove but the exhaust fan will be mounted OUTSIDE the house (above one roof line) so the won't have that awful fan noise when we cook. Sine we have been married we have always argued about using the stove fans. Kim said they were too noisy and I said that we needed to get the moisture and smells out of the house. Now we can both be happy(:-)

Pegboard

After living in more than a dozen homes, we finally have a workshop that is designed for storage and flexibility. I remember spending hours and hours trying to organize our stuff in various garages over the years. NO MORE.

I had the contractor install peg board on all of the walls, floor to ceiling. I figure I can buy the little hooks and store what ever I need -- tools, extension cords, skis, etc. I also had both 120v and 220v plugs wired into the workshop and all of the plugs are four feet off the ground so that when I build work benches the plugs will be easy to access.

Wet bar cabinetry installed

The lower cabinet of the wet bar in the kitchen was installed a few weeks ago. Now the top piece is also done. The combination of the two reaches nine feet high (can anyone say ladder?). There are four individual cabinets, each four feet tall, enclosed by two pillars. The wood matches the door trim and the two swinging doors into the pantry and office. They look beautiful and appear to be designer furniture instead of a wet bar. Kim and the cabinet guy designed them for months until finally agreeing on them.

Cabinet hardware installed

Cabinet hardware sounds like an easy thing to pick. heh heh. Would you like the $1 version, the $3 version or the $12 version of a drawer pull? Twelve bucks? Yep and they go higher. They come in about six thousand different finishes and each one has a special fee associated with the finish. Kim picked out simple ones that match the color of the faucets in each bathroom, etc. They are all some type of version of oil rubbed bronze. I think that there are a dozen varieties of oil rubbed bronze. If you have any questions please forward them to Kim. I was happy with a shoelace.

Entertainment center done

The entertainment center is finally done. It has a solid wood top with a thick edge and looks wonderful. It is 43" high and we hope that this makes it easy to set a beverage done while standing at the piece. The TV will go directly over the center and there is ample room for collecting junk. However, I am advised that there won't be any junk or clutter on the counter top.

There are 4 sets of doors that open for access. The right set of doors open completely from the floor so we can roll an electrical component rack in and out for easy access. There are vent slots on the side of the cabinet for airflow and also a return air duct behind the electronic rack that will provide continuous airflow to cool the components.

More photos of the stairs

Newel posts installed

The newel posts are at the top of the stairs and the landing. They will hold the handrail and the balusters. We will stain them once the baseboard is installed.

More granite countertops installed

We now have only three counter tops that are not complete. Two are wood and one is granite. You can see the desk and the master bath along with the mirror frames. We'll get the mirrors soon.

Miror and window framing complete

We mentioned a week or so ago that we had leftover wood that was already stained and matched the rest of the door and window trim. The carpenter built mirror frames for all of the bathrooms and was able to frame all of the basement windows in wood also. They are now completed and look great. We are still looking for someone who needs five doors that are extra!!!!!!!

Exterior stone work continues...slowly

Exterior paining done