Holiday Color Tour

At our last tour, 8w ago, we were about to start sealing up walls. 8w from now we should be complete!

Get a preview with the color already added in time for this Holiday Season!

Holiday Color

Just in time for the Holidays, our house is getting color.

Outside, the exterior rock facing is up on both wings. The construction fence and storage container are gone, and curb appeal has begun to appear!

Inside, base board trim has started to appear. And, the paint crews were busy today in the east wing. They'll finish there over the next week, and move into the west wing. As they do, the tile sub will return.

Curb Appeal	Painting

We also learned a little remodeling color this week. John Hammerschmidt, Sean & Bernie were wrapping up our weekly meeting early, just as the paint crew knocked off for lunch at noon. One of the crew carried the outlet end of their loooooooooooong extension cord from the sprayer to inside their truck in the driveway. Sean and John looked knowingly at each other, then said to me, "Must be lunchtime. Time to fire up the microwave." John went on to note that they rarely wind up scrapping working microwaves from projects going through demo. Instead, the various crews hang onto 'em and use em on job sites until they break. Who'd'a thunk, huh?

By our meeting on December 5th, we expect notable progress: a trench for the gas line and driveway prep in the front; paint up and some tile floor in the east wing; and paint going up in the west. Looks like Laura & I need to get cracking on picking out towel bars and doorbells.

Cobbled Together

During demo, cobblestones from the front were salvaged and piled just inside the construction fence. It hit me today that folks might mistake the pile for scrap once the fence is removed Tuesday. I figured it'd be good for me to get some exercise by moving them to a less exposed spot. I figured it'd take a hour.

Boy, did I underestimate. With no wheelbarrow, it took 3h for me to carry cobbles and stack 'em in this less exposed spot.

Solid Impact

We got another unexpected treat today. We stopped by to pick up the mail and found exterior stone work in progress on the garage.

This was more impressive an impact than we'd imagined. Laura & I are both glad that our builder, John Hammerschmidt, suggested facing the entire front of the garage. Our original plan was for this stone to be wainscotting along the entry courtyard.

Wow. We're now super eager to see it appear on the east wing faces. With rain forecast for Tuesday and Wednesday this week, the sub is getting things in on the weekend to allow time for curing before the weather.

Found our Marbles

Not that we'd lost them. And it was granite that got installed, rather than marble. That's the same, right? They're both rocks, right?

The big sign of week on week progress inside was the installation of the granite. All 4 types are now installed. The big remaining choice made today was on the location of the hole for the air gap for the dishwasher.

Kitchen Counters	Kitchen Island	Tack Room	Master Bath

Bunches of finish details are now showing. The keystone over the living room door in the entry is in. Tile grouting of the master bath and hall bath floors completed. The hall bath floor is so nice, I think a few years down the road we'll need to return and adjust the shower surround in that room. The top for the guest bath vanity is in. We'd gone with an unusual color of Ember. Getting to see it directly, we're really happy with how it will accent that room.

Entry Keystone	Hall Bath Floor	Shower Curtain Rods

Laura found some innovative shower curtain rods online. Not only are these curved to give a little more of a feeling of space in the shower, but they also have a towel bar that parallels the rod. Orders for accent tiles for the tack room were placed this week, too. Yes, even the dogs get decorator touches!

The storage container is now empty! We're able to store all the remaining materials inside the house itself now. The container, along with the construction fencing should leave the site next week. Also, Sean's projecting that the east wing should get interior paint next week. That opens the way for the tile sub to return and start floating the floor there, while the painters move to the central and west of the house.

The rocks for facing the front of the house and the fireplace in the great room were expected in later today. The Hammerschmidt team has a plan for that outlet in the living room that overlaps the fireplace mantle - eliminate it! When installing the mantle, they'll open up the wall and fish a new electrical wire to replace the ones entering this box, then remove the box itself and reseal the wall.

With paint and floors going in, we're really heading towards the finish. We can almost count remaining tasks without removing our shoes. Beyond the above tasks there's: driveway concrete and pavers; trenching and installation of a new gas line; refinishing the wood floors; installation of the on demand water heaters; installation of the electrical fixtures and plumbing fixtures; electrical hook-up; fencing; and removal of the inevitable portable toilet.

How many of you readers are ready to come celebrate Boxing Day with us this year?

Lucky Dogs

Some surprises are good. We got two good ones this week.

First came the final selection of the granite. Our selection list had been to use the same type of granite in both the master bedroom and the tack room. Lucky dogs, huh?

Then Lynn Hammerschmidt and I went to the vendor's warehouse to pick the final slabs. While there, Lynn noted a partial slab that would coordinate with the wall colors picked for the master. Normally, it would be a more expensive style than what was on the selection list. With the current economy, Lynn saw an opportunity. She negotiated it to the same price as the selection.

Then there's the molding. In design, we'd chosen a tray ceiling with rope lighting and two rows of crown molding for extra impact in the living room. That came in this week and adds a very nice touch to the room. Molding also was installed on the kitchen cabinets. There the Hammerschmidt team did a great job, feathering the molding in to meet the slope of the open ceiling. The real surprise was molding in the tack room. We'd chosen relatively inexpensive cabinets due to it's utilitarian nature. I'd completely missed that these came with crown molding, too. Wow. Yet again, Lucky Dogs, huh?

Living Room	Kitchen	Tack Room

In other progress, exterior paint was going on and we finalized interior paint selections. With John and Sean, we picked out proportions for a keystone layout that goes over the living room door from the entry foyer. And we finalized selection of pulls in the Kitchen.

There was one less pleasant surprise. It came as we were sketching layouts of the living room mantle with John and Sean. As we measured their proportions on the wall, it turned out there's one electrical box that's a wee bit close to the fireplace, and would get covered by the mantle. This is one of those times where I'm glad we hired a builder, and can let him figure out how this particular bit of sausage making will be accomplished. Lucky dogs, huh?

Bill the Size of a Planet...

...or at least a really big Lexus. Really. Back in June, I'd noted that our weekly progress payments were bigger than some cars. This week's bill was the biggest yet. Laura remarked that it was bigger than some of the smaller Lexus models, and pretty close to what we paid for our 2007 RX400h. I checked. Yup. This bill was only about $2500 less than the entire 400h. It's surreal paying weekly bills bigger than the annual salary (before deductions!) you drew on the first job out of school, especially given the general as well as our personal economy.

And what did we get? Well, interior doors and hardware were more than half the total. Tile, cabinetry and some of the finish carpentry were almost as much. During out meeting with John Hammerschmidt, we did get to see the guest bath surround grout going in. The master shower surround is mostly in, and the grout bed is laid in the rest of that bath.

Beyond the progress in the master (in photo at left), the hall bath tile pattern was mocked up, and Lynn Hammerschmidt had an inspiration for accents there. The hall bath tiles will run diagonal, and some 1" glass square tiles will be cut in at the intersections to add some interest on the floor. With samples of the accent tiles in the hall bath, we were able to confirm the paint color in there, and get close on colors for the remainder of the rooms. We're pretty certain of the paint colors for the great room and the hallways. We looked at paint chips for the remaining rooms to pick the colors for larger brush outs.

At least on the exterior colors, we've only had to pick twice. The selection list for the project is pretty extensive, from materials like the rock and pavers, to models on hardware and fixtures, right down to finish. John helped us put a bunch of effort into boiling the ocean of possibilities early. That left Laura & I at groundbreak thinking we were down to selecting paint colors. As we approach ordering for each finish item, we're being asked to reconfirm the selections. We recognize it's meant to protect our interests, just in case we'd changed our minds over the past few months. Still, it feels like a 'do over' and leaves us wondering why we're spending much of the same effort twice. For the exterior paint, Laura & I had looked at brush outs in mid-October and confirmed the scheme in email to the Hammerschmidt team. Today, John wanted to recover those selections. We didn't change our picks, but John did work in more white on the trim elements for some reason.

We reconfirmed that we liked bringing the exterior stone in to the fireplace surround in the great room as per the selection list. We also learned that the sink in the Kitchen island is a bit bigger than the cabinet. When Laura and Lynn finalized the cabinet layout, John hadn't paid attention that the cabinet under the sink placement had gotten narrower. A sink which would fit in the as-purchased cabinet would be only about the size of a wine spit bucket, which really isn't satisfactory. So an interior wall of the cabinet will need to be shaved down some to squeeze in the sink. Finally, on a pleasant note, John's production manager Sean showed us a couple of alternatives for the placement of the crown molding in the kitchen. That quick demo helped us immediately settle on which arrangement we liked best in there.

Next week, we'll pick the slabs for the granite which'll go in not only in the kitchen and master bath, but also, where would you guess? In that lovely dog tack room, of course!

Month Six - Cabinets and Doors

This month, it's starting to look just like we've imagined. Compare this photo of the kitchen:
with the rendering of the cabinet layout in this posting from late June when we finalized it. It thrills us every time we come through the door from the entry when we make a pop by to enjoy the house.

Changes over the past month are pretty substantial, as you'll see in these slideshows:

Progress	Panoramas

Especially stunning is that just over the past two working days, all the interior doors are in, and tile is going up on the surround for the guest bath and the master bath shower. The tack room is taking shape, with cabinets going in there, too.

The real discovery when taking the progress pictures to close out this most recent month, was the french doors between the east wing with the great room, and the living room and entry foyer. This selection was made on faith.

We'd decided on doors in these spots so that the dogs could be contained in the part of the house that has tile floors. We also wanted to have an open feeling between spaces, so solid doors just didn't fit. In finalizing the selection list, we hadn't paid close enough attention to the doors specified. As doors were ordered over the summer, we discovered the difference. We're fortunate to be working with John Hammerschmidt as our builder. Using the exterior door model in these locations would be a noticable cost increase. We described what we really wanted, and John's team rose to the occasion, finding this model, a perfect compliment to the exterior doors. (The glass panes currently have a protective covering as the doors have only been primed, not fully painted.)