Status update

We still have a few small items left on our punch list but we are essentially done. Except for the landscaping, window coverings, blah blah blah. The heavy equipment is here to establish (dig)the terraces and final grading, then we can install the sprinklers and start planting.

Our big celebration is still in the planning stages. Most likely we will shoot for a late summer party so plan accordingly.

Richard, our number one blogger on the site will receive two free airline tickets so he and his wife can attend. Bring your tux buddy and plan to stay in the butlers pantry!!

A brief comment on how it has worked out so far. On budget, on time. The house feels bigger that we expected and the noise carries because of the high ceilings and all hardwood floors. The audio/video/lighting system is beyond belief, truly fabulous.

Deck railing installed

We have been patiently, ok not so patiently waiting for the deck railing to arrive. Here it is!

Garage and exterior doors painted

The exterior doors, including the garage was painted today. The weather was perfect, especially since it snowed yesterday and was 45 degrees.

Exterior doors require a bit of thinking when you paint them. The inside and outside are different colors and require a different type of paint, latex vs. enamel. In our case we had two different painting contractors. So who paints the side of the doors? In our case it appears that no one does! The interior painter just finished all the touch up yesterday and will have to come back to paint the sides of the exterior doors to match the interior paint colors.

Garage floor painted

I have always wanted to paint our garage floor and we finally did. The process is a little more involved than painting a wall. To paint a concrete floor you must first completely clean the floor of everything, including oil that leaks from cars. If there is any petroleum based deposits then the paint won't adhere. In our case the floor was free of oil drips so the cleaning process took an hour. Then they grind the concrete to make the finish rough. There are big grinders and hand grinders but all of them have industrial diamonds to scratch the concrete.

We used a two coat process of epoxy for the first coat and then an epoxy sealer with an aggregate thrown over the final coat for grip. Each coat takes 24 hours to dry. I assumed that we could chose either grey or grey since those are the only colors I have ever seen on a garage floor. Heh Heh. They gave me a paint sheet with hundreds of colors so I chose a matching color to the exterior trim. The aggregate is essentially miniature glass beads that keep the floor from getting slippery and reflects light similar to the way paint on roads a streets reflects your headlights.

Ladder

One thing we learned on the first day in the house was how high the ceilings and cabinetry are. We've been using a metal stepladder to reach the top shelves in the kitchen and library. Kim bought this three step wooden ladder and so I put the gross outdoor ladder back in the basement.

More deck shots

The stairs on the deck are done. Just waiting for the railing for another week.

Audio/video

We have now completed the audio - video - lighting - thermostat - alarm hook ups. All of them are controlled by

A: the TV screen

B: two touchpads located at either end of the house

C: two identical remote controls

We received about a dozen remotes with all of the components and we only use two master remotes. Very powerful and fancy. We even took the batteries out of the new remotes. Now I can adjust the lights throughout the house from our bed! Same is true for the TV and the audio.

The digital audio controller has a 160 GB hard drive which should hold all the movies ever made. For now we have shared our ipod music library so all of our music that we have "burned" is on the system. We can now listen to all of our music throughout the house and have various playlists in different rooms.

The important thing about this set up is that it is easy to understand and to use.