The trim arrives, tile shower begins to take shape!

(just a note here.. I've created 4 posts here covering the last 4 days of progress on-site. Enough has been going on that I needed to dedicate individual posts for everything, so please make sure to check them all out!)

Today (Tuesday) we saw the interior wood trim has arrived!

We got a call this morning asking us to meet with Dennis, Joe, and the finish carpenter on-site this afternoon to go over all the work that he has to do. We talked about the columns on top of the half walls in the living room, trim pieces on the nooks up high in there, and the girls' window seats (among other smaller details)

He told us he was going to start with the trim around the windows first...

pile of trim and base pieces

master bedroom window

At the same time, the crew from the flooring supplier was here to begin their week-long job of building the ceramic tile shower. They poured the "leveling grout" on the floor and began installing the tile on the walls. They also got the little nooks (two of them) installed inside the shower and the corner "seat" as well.

three rows of the glass tile inserts are in place

see one of the nooks?

Today also, the mound system was completed... You can see in the foreground left the three access caps for the underground septic tank. In the background you can see the completed mound system (see the little white vent pipe sticking up?)

The plumbing installer was back today doing more plumbing, including installing some sinks.

laundry room sink

Unfortunately, that led to the discovery of another "oops".... the sink in the half-bathroom got installed today, but the faucet was the wrong finish (it's supposed to be a dark bronze instead of a stainless steel)

The air conditioning unit arrived and was installed on a pad in the back yard today.

...and the masons were back again today. They basically have the walls done all the way across the front now and have started on the columns and entryway canopy.

Also today, Matt (security) was back at the site while we were there meeting with the finish carpenter. He completed his installation of the security system and tested it out. He then gave us a very brief run down on how it worked (we'll get a more in-depth lesson just before we move in), and set off both the fire alarm and the burglar alarm (they're both VERY loud!! lol).

The granite countertops in the kitchen are schedule to show up next week, so they had a guy out there today as well to measure up the cabinets. For the granite, they have a single big slab of granite back at their shop. Being that it's a natural product, every slab is a little different. So we chose ours slab, and then they measure the cabinets after they're installed. Then he takes those measurements back to the shop where they do all the cutting.

The granite for the kitchen countertops will show up in two massive slabs and that's it. The backsplash will be smaller pieces of course, but just two huge slabs for the countertops.

Tomorrow should see even more exciting progress!

Paul

Septic and mound system

The biggest new arrival today (Monday) was the beginnings of the septic system and mound system in the back of the house....

Dion's crew arrived today and began digging a hole for the septic tank (a 6'x12' underground tank), the trench for the piping from the house to the tank, and the mound system in the back of the yard.

While they were making a mess in the back yard, the cabinet installers were very busy installing yet more and more cabinetry, including alot of doors and drawers.

living room built-ins

master bathroom almost done

kitchen...now with doors and drawers

kitchen.. there's even some glass

kitchen... soon a sink will live there

half-bathroom with cutout for the sink

lockers in the hallway

We also found two "oops" situations with the cabinets today...

They did a cutout in the countertops of the girls' vanities.... you may recall that we have "vessel" sinks there, which sit on top of the countertop, not set inside of it. 

This was due to a miscommunication between the plumber and the cabinet installers. The installers asked the plumbers for the template to cut out for the sinks and he didn't specify that these two cutouts were actually for the master bathroom, and not the upstairs vanities.

So, at the plumber's expense, the cabinet installers have to take those two countertops off, build new tops, and replace them in about a week.

Also, the built-ins in the living room are supposed to have glass doors on two out of the three doors on each cabinet so that the tv remote (etc) can communicate with the equipment. The cabinet installer will be fixing those (easy fix: they remove the panel on the doors and replace it with a glass panel) themselves.

 I wonder what Tuesday (today) will bring!

Paul

One month to go??

Could it be true??

I was talking to Joe earlier tonight and he mentioned that the final inspection is currently scheduled for August 6th. That final inspection is when the inspector walks through the house and looks at everything that he hasn't looked at before. If/when he signs off on the inspection, that's when the house is done! The Parade of Homes is that following weekend.

This week the electrician and the flooring contractors have been spending alot of time at the house... as has the siding guy.

The flooring guys have all the hard-surface floors installed now and should be starting on the tile shower in the master bathroom next.

entry foyer flooring (ceramic tile)

master bathroom (ceramic tile) - staggered pattern

master bathroom

The electrician has been busy all week, installing the ceiling "can" light fixtures and the outlets, switches, and cover plates. He has most of them installed now, and has asked that we deliver the exterior light fixtures (flood lights in back yard and garage lights in front) to the site by the end of next week.

lights going down the stairway

The siding guy has been busy all week in the high-90 heat putting up more siding. He now has most of it done.

You can see that the garage doors also were installed this week... The steel mesh was installed today over the blue tyvek paper just below the siding line on the front of the house, and if you look closely to the right of the entryway there's a layer of brown mortar that was applied today in preparation for the stone to start going on (tomorrow?).

The cabinets didn't arrive today, so we're still expecting them any day now.

Also in my conversation with Joe today he mentioned that the interior doors and trim will arrive next week Thursday....

We're close enough now to the "end game" of this entire process that the plans are getting pretty solidified for the remainder of the project:

• Dion will be installing the septic/mound system on Monday of next week....
• The cabinets and tile shower should be done between now and the end of next week...
• The plumbing fixtures would go in after the cabinets are installed
• The interior doors/trim should start late next week.
• The excavator will have next week or the week after to complete his finished grading work.
• The owner-supplied (i.e. - non-"can" fixtures) light fixtures will go in in the next 2 weeks
• Ken Stencil from Denmark will be out on the 23rd to pour the concrete driveway slab
• The landscaper will be out to put in the lawn around the same time Ken is doing the driveway
• The carpeting will be installed

As you can see there's alot of very detailed items to be completed yet, but we still overall have almost a week of cushion built into the schedule in case something unexpected comes up.

Paul

Flooring and more!

It's been slow going.... more or less... as interior items get worked on.

Alot of the interior stuff is pretty labor-intensive so it appears to go pretty slowly on the surface. But they can be very substantial nonetheless....

The last few days on-site have seen the exterior (and fireplace) stone arrive and the beginnings of the "hard surface" (non-carpeting) flooring being installed.

We're going to have stone on the exterior of the house up to the siding level just below the windows, and only on the front face of the house.

Late last week large crates of stone and mortar showed up on-site....

...and here's a small stack of the limestone sills that go beneath the windows, they showed up the same day as the stone.

Also, the flooring began to be installed. They started with the largest single selection of flooring that we chose. This flooring extends throughout the kitchen, dining, adjacent hallway, half-bath, and laundry room. This first flooring type is an LVT (Luxury Vinyl Tile)... really the only difference between regular vinyl composition tile flooring is that LVT is patterned to look more like natural materials (i.e. - wood, granite, etc).

looking in from the entry foyer

main hallway

kitchen and dining areas

laundry room

They also installed the flooring in the girls' bathroom upstairs. (also LVT)

Robin brought the rest of our flooring samples out to this house this day as well.. She placed them in their respective positions next to the painted walls and tile already installed.

foyer flooring sample - ceramic tile

living room carpet sample

office carpet sample

master bedroom carpet sample

master bathroom sample - ceramic tile

Lyndsey's bedroom carpet sample

Rachel's room carpet sample

The flooring is scheduled to be finished tomorrow (Tuesday), and Joe tells us the cabinets are schedule to start being installed on Thursday.

While that is going on, there should be two guys from the flooring company working on the master bathroom's tile shower (for 5 days or so).

Also, the stone should be getting started being installed some time this week. And depending on when he gets the permits back from the County, Dion will build the mound system in the back yard.

The electrician is also slated to begin installing outlets, switches (etc), and temporary light fixtures very soon.

Things to come later this month:  The concrete driveway is schedule to go in some time after the middle of the month, and the lawn is schedule to go in about a week after that. Some time between now and then the excavator will have to show up again to do the final grading too.

Paul

A little bit of (interior) color...

It's time for interior paint...!

Our early Monday morning meeting with the painter was very informative, both for the painter, and Robin and I.

There were some.... incorrect ideas between us, the builder's on-site guy, and the painter on how exactly the painter goes about his business.

Rather than him just spraying each room one color (ceiling color), he actually sprays the whole room the ceiling color and then comes back and sprays the walls the wall color of choice, with only a small-ish area of overspray of the wall color on to the ceiling.

Due to the covering ability of the paint he's using, touching up the overspray on the (lighter colored) ceiling isn't a big problem at all.

So we've gone from having to paint the entire wall surfaces in three rooms to just having to do touch up/cut in work on the ceilings.

Anyway, the painter was able to do all of this in one day.... and here's the results (you'll notice the overspray areas on the ceilings...):

the garage color.. "sawdust"

the tray ceiling in the master bedroom

the master bedroom

Rachel's room

Lyndsey's room

the living room "nooks" above the fireplace

the office

the kitchen/dining area

the living room

the laundry room

stairway to the basement

master bathroom

entry foyer overlook

 

In those photos above you'll see there's still plastic covering all the windows. That makes the colors look a bit "off" from what they really are. It's pretty cool to see all the color added to the interior now though!

While the painting was going on, the siding guy was outside working on the siding some more.

During the day on Monday I found out that the hvac guy was there measuring up for the ductwork, the plumber was there a bit, and the mason (stone) was there discussing the front of the house with the siding guy.

Tuesday came around and after the meet-up between the siding guy and the stone mason guy, they siding guy started working on the front of the house in anticipation of the stone arriving on site for a probably Thursday start to stone installation!

You can see the siding on the front of the house only comes down to the bottom edge of the windows. That's because the stone we selected will be installed from that line to the bottom of the front wall

While I was out there today, I wound up fielding a call about the excavator. It sounds like he's getting ready to come back to do the finish grading.

I also wound up fielding several questions from the plumbing contractor, and Dion the septic system installer was out there today as well. We spent some time marking off the proposed location of the septic (mound) system, only to find that as preliminarily designed (6 feet wide by 90 feet long) it would wipe out too many mature trees. So we marked off a shorter and wider (roughly 7 feet wide by 70 feet long) mound system design that'll minimize the number of trees (1 mostly dead one) that'll have to get cut down. (that'll be this weekend I'll go out there to do that) He'll submit the redesign to the County and he should be able to install the mound system next week he's hoping.

The plumber was out there today too. He ran/finished up running all the white pvc drain piping throughout the house. He said tomorrow he'll be back and run the bulk of the hot and cold water piping.

There was a large-ish purchase order submitted through Robin's office by the electrical contractor for all the switches, outlets, and faceplates with a delivery of tomorrow. So it would seem he'll also be out there tomorrow working on those.

Tomorrow should see the siding guy finish up in the front of the house. They'll also be building the "step" that'll go underneath the washer/dryer tomorrow too.

Thursday is scheduled to see not only the stone mason begin work on the stone (that same stone is also facing up the front of the fireplace too), but the flooring supplier will begin installing the hard (non-carpeting) floors that day as well. (I'm told the hard flooring install will take through Tuesday of next week to complete)

Paul