Completion!

First of all, still no action by the neighbors. Not even their tree protection has gone up. We are gloomily wondering whether they won't get started now till March or so, meaning that next summer will be affected by their construction. In better news, the sidewalk repairs have been completed. The city decided that our path was obviously in the right place, so they have leveled the sidewalk along it; thus removing any need for us to get the hardscape guys back to make an adjustment (and spend more $$). We are now waiting for the ashphalters to get round to repairing the road surface. Should be all done by Saturday.

And last week we had our final bill from the construction company for $1,000, which we have now paid. Site Supervisor II came over and finished the little list of items we had outstanding; and even the electrician showed up and stayed till everything was working.

I think we may be officially done. Hard to believe!

Maybe a third of one percent away from completion...?

Gosh, I see it has been two months since I last posted on this blog, which is a sign that the house really is so very, very close to completion that there isn't much to say.

We went away on our UK vacation in August, and returned to find the house apparently finished. All the outstanding items on our punch list had been taken care of, with the exception of the exterior lights snafu at the front of the house. We can only have the motion sensor light on if the two garage lights remain switched on; so we end up with the garage lights on all night in order to ensure that the motion sensor light - essentially a fancy security light - would come on if someone approached the front door. The electricians who worked on the house deny having tampered with this electrical circuit, and so fixing this is seemingly outside the scope of the job. (The fact that the lights never had that problem before also seems to be immaterial.)

So we have been living with the house for a month, picking up little things here and there that need fixing. Nothing too major, I hope. The motion sensor light in the back yard isn't working at all. The motion sensor light outside the laundry room door only comes on if you approach it whilst waving your arms in the air. Then there is a bunch of small carpentry items: creaking or rubbing doors, sticking drawer, misaligned bolt, that kind of thing. I hope that Site Supervisor II will be able to tackle most of them pretty quickly, though I wonder whether the electricians will deign to visit us for the electrical fixes.

We had a "duh" moment today. The light in the pool stopped working and we couldn't understand why, as it had been working just fine. Anyway, in an email, SS2 mentioned "the exterior GFI", so I had an "ah ha" moment...took Hubby out into the back yard with a flashlight...found an outlet in the exterior wall and got him to inspect it. Sure enough it had a reset button, which we duly reset and - ta da! - like magic, the pool light came back on. What a team we all are.

Can't Get Enough of That Outdoor Living Thang

I've been spending money again. Today I ordered another extending patio table - this one extends to 130", a full 20" longer than the last one - with six chairs, a 10' by 13' rectangle patio umbrella (in taupe Sunbrella fabric), and an umbrella stand capable of stabilizing 70lbs of weight. As the umbrella is custom made, it won't be ready for about four weeks (i.e. the end of the summer), but the table and chairs will be here next Tuesday. This will give us dining capacity for 22, which is about what we need.

I've also sent my three old teak chairs - purchased about 13 years ago in England - to the patio furniture vendor to be refinished to their original brown color.

Meanwhile, back at the outdoor kitchen, the appliance guy was here again today to tweak the warming drawer, which is now straight in its space.

Inside the house, SS2 was here this morning with Dave the Bath Vendor, who started refinishing the tub in the guest bathroom. It stinks.

Remaining items:

The House:
- two exterior lights are not working.
- screen doors will be coming in about 10 days
- one sliding screen door is loose on its track

The Garden:
- still some plants on site needing to go in
- waiting for some plants to arrive, most notably two espaliered mandarin orange trees for the fence
- grass to be laid in the back
- mulch to be added everywhere
- landscape lighting to be installed (waiting for lights to come)
- the pool cover is still not closing properly every time (small gap on one side)
- pool light is not working, and different subcontractors are currently blaming each other
- mastick around the pool
- cleaning and re-sealing of the stone patio(to combat the redwood staining)
- doors under the outdoor kitchen sink need adjusting (one has sagged)
- fence repair where a couple of planks have fallen down
- creation of gate next to the office, for the "dog run" area
- a stone has fallen out of the hardscape and needs to be glued back in

The End Truly in Sight

Around the house there is very little left to do.

Site Supervisor II finally confirmed - with the help of the Velux rep - that the remaining problem with our kitchen skylight is a bad blind, so a new one is on order. The door screens for the french windows are supposedly arriving tomorrow and will be installed on Monday. The three missing exterior lights came yesterday and should also be installed on Monday. SS2 owes us a bit of caulking in the kitchen around the sliding door threshold. We are also owed a few bits of touch up painting inside the house, nothing much.


Outside, the exterior paint job is looking good, and minimal touch ups are required. The painter said he'd return when the landscaping was complete, so that he can touch up anywhere the landscapers have spoiled. He also needs to come back to patch and paint the front door where the hardware changed.


The landscapers are working hard on the garden. Yet more dirt has been delivered. The guys move it around in wheelbarrows, it looks like hard work. The big excitement of yesterday was the delivery of a very large quantity of plants. They are currently sitting on the area that will become our lawn. Hopefully they will be planted in the near future. Just their arrival in pots has really perked up the garden.

Sealed in a Plastic Bubble

The painters are doing the outside of the house, at last. Interestingly, they do not use paintbrushes or rollers; they use spray guns. First of all they covered every window and door with plastic, and used the spray gun to paint all the woodwork white (eaves, gutters, downspouts, window frames, doors and door frames. Then yesterday they spent a while covering all the openings with plastic so that today they can spray the walls. It was pretty horrible in the house last night, with every potential ventilation opening covered in plastic film.

We also had a slightly comical moment yesterday afternoon when it appeared that there was no longer any way to get out of the house. This was solved by bursting through one of the garage doors.

In other news yesterday, Site Supervisor II was here for an hour with the Velux representative, and they got both openable skylights in the kitchen to work, and they also got five out of the six blinds to function correctly. It seems that our sixth blind is "bad" (even though it is brand new) and the Velux man has ordered a replacement to be sent directly to us rather than through the local dealer. SS2 says he is literally dreaming about our skylights; and I told him that he is now, of course, on an Arthurian-style Quest to get them fixed.

More action, more problems

Today the sun is shining, though there are ominous black clouds. The forecast is for dry weather until next Friday, when yet another day of rain is apparently due. Unbelieveable!!

Our stone mason says he will be finished by the end of today. The men are busily grouting the back patio. I asked him for his card. As he is a subcontractor he didn't want to give it to me. They're all terribly ethical, these workers. I prised his website out of him - and of course just at the moment that he was handing the bit of paper back to me, the hardscaping boss arrived, and we both looked guilty. I hope I didn't get him into trouble. I was just thinking of friends of ours who want a small patio built, a job that's really too small for the main hardscaping company to want to bother with.

The stone fabrication guys were here today to look at the outdoor kitchen. They said that someone else has to attach plywood to the walls so that they can put the counter top on, and then they went away. Mentioned this to the handscaping head, who looked blank and said that they never do that piece - it is always taken care of by the granite folks. So that'll be a phone call taking place later today.

Got an email from the pool servicing company to say that our solar panels have sprung a leak. They say that it looks like one panel is damaged and needs to be replaced. Bah.

The sheet metal fabricators are also here today, installing the downspouts.

Slow progress...but will it never end?

Welcome to week 29 of our remodel.

I know things have been quiet in the Cardboard Box's blog recently. Well, there's not been a whole lot to report. First of all, we've had rain again. Bah. Second, we've been waiting, and waiting, and waiting...for subcontractors...for supplies...for an act of God maybe.

Site Supervisor II had a bit of a triumph last week on the kitchen skylights. He finally found someone who actually knew something about Velux windows. The diagnosis was that we need insect screens which will keep a magic button depressed, thus enabling the windows to open. They are now on order and, in the meantime, SS2 has put a stick pressing one of the magic buttons, and we now have an openable window. Yay! He's installed the new blinds too. We're waiting on a new transformer and new keypad, and hopefully that will result in the skylights being fixed.

The electricians came back yesterday to install the exterior lights. (We still have a couple on back order.) They also installed a couple of new telephone plates inside - with the result, it seems, that our phone is now out of order.

It would be nice if we could finally get the interior of the house fully complete. We have new furniture on the way for the family room, and we particularly don't want painting to be done after it arrives. We've not seen a sniff of the painters and the majority of the outstanding work is now for them.

Alas, SS2 has gone off to start supervising another job which is not so close to completion. I fear this will result in a long slow tail of our unfinished items being polished off.


On the landscaping, the inclement weather has not put the hardscapers off. They can't grout when it's wet, but they have finished laying all the ashlar paving. They've done an amazing job of laying out the crazy paving, and are waiting for the weather to improve before mortaring it. In the meantime, they've moved on to the stone cladding on the back wall, under the redwood trees, and the walls of the outdoor kitchen. I'll take photos tomorrow when it's not pouring with rain.

Just paid a bill for almost $8,000 for the granite countertop for the outdoor kitchen.

Finally, a prize to anyone who can explain why we have this little witch's hat on the roof?

From Crazy Paving to a Good Night's Sleep

On Friday, SS2 was hardly here at all, and it was peaceful inside the house. The one piece of bad news that he did bring was that the electricians had thrown their hands in the air in despair and declared that the skylights in the kitchen could not be repaired; and that the construction team would now need to deal direct with the customer service people at Velux. SS2 views this prospect with a sinking feeling, having had poor experiences with other manufacturers' customer "service" departments.

Progress on the hardscaping and other elements of the exterior work has picked up the pace.

Outside the house, the hardscapers completed the grouting of the stonework in the front yard, and very smart it looks too. They immediately moved on to laying the stone in the side yard and where the pergola will be. Not content with the jigsaw that is the ashlar pattern, we have asked for the pergola area and side path to be constructed of irregular, crazy paving style stones. Amazingly, the main stone guy is doing a fabulous job of fitting it all together. He really is a highly skilled worker.

The stucco subcontractor completed the finish coat on the house and also on the front wall. It's looking quite striking out there, even imposing. The stucco is a creamy white color. I must say that Hubby and I are finding that quite appealing, and wondering if we'd like to leave it light rather than having it painted Brewster Gray like the house.

The technician from Pool Covers Inc arrived and installed a bright blue pool cover. This is, alas, the wrong color. It should be grey. I only noticed him out there at the point when he was finishing the work. To say he was a bit downcast when I told him would be an understatement. Well, this will stay on the pool for a week or so, and then be replaced by the correct color, so no harm done.

The solar heating for the pool seems to be working fine.


This morning I got rid of our filing cabinet through Freecycle. We also had our new bed delivered - moved the old bed into the new guest room and enlisted friends to put it together - and also had the piano moved back into the family room...just in time for Mothers' Day tomorrow. No 6:30am wake up call from Little Starlet.


Hubby finally unpacked his new espresso maker. It may take us a while to really understand out how to use it....

The Creation of Beautiful Smoothness

The theme of the day is smoothness.


Inside the house, SS2 has been working on patching the walls in the living room, following the moving of some of our light switches.


Outside the house, the workers from the hardscaping company are grouting the stone in the front yard.


The stucco subcontractors are applying the final coat to the exterior of the house, and are doing a wonderful job at making everything look even. They are also putting the brown coat on the garden wall out front.


Finally, the pool is almost full of water - and glassy smooth (despite the gunk floating in it!).

Wet and Wonderfully Smooth

It's been a busy day around the Cardboard Box today. Site Supervisor II is anxious to be done with the inside.

The electricians finally showed up fully equipped with their tools. They replaced and fixed most of the small things on the list. The sky lights in the kitchen are still not working, but they diagnosed that the transformers are faulty/defunct. They are going to try to source new ones for tomorrow and come back to install them. They did move the three light switches in the living room that were floating free on the walls, far from the wooden trim; and also installed a new outlet in the kitchen over the wine fridges. Hubby will be pleased as this means he can now set up his new coffee maker.

SS2 has installed the trim strip at our master bedroom exterior door and has repaired the sliding door in the guest bedroom which stopped locking yesterday.

Outside, the stone work has continued. The front is almost done. The fence is complete, all we need is the new gate by the guest bedroom, which has to wait for the wall to be stuccoed. Speaking of which, the wall has been prepped for stucco, with a wire frame added to all the edges.





The big news of the day is that the pool has been plastered and we are currently filling it up with water. We have to leave it filling overnight. If the water is turned off, then a water line will form on the new plaster. (We chose French Grey "Wet Edge" plaster, which is supposedly the smoothest on the market.)

Nice Weather for Ducks

More rain today, just a light shower this morning, but looks like it will be settling in this afternoon.

Site Supervisor II and Azmir have been cleaning up debris from the back yard; the hardscaper was also here this morning cleaning up his palettes and so on. The Landscape Designer is keen to lay out (with paint) the side yard path so we can decide how sinuous it should be; and it's hard to do that with piles of stuff everywhere.

The fence guys returned today and are bravely working through the rain. The back fence is coming on quite nicely: see photo. I spoke to our neighbor - owner of the vacant house - this morning and got his okay to let them go into his yard, and also to cut back any of the trees/bushes that might impede their work. Since he's planning to take out the two trees against the fence (an exceptionally ugly and messy lo-quat and a sadly neglected olive) he was perfectly fine with that.

No action on the patio stone today. It's really too wet. As you walk across the stones in the back yard, you can actually feel them squelch. I presume this is normal.

Also posting a photo here of flowers sent to us for our wedding anniversary from my mom and dad. Thanks!

Exterior photos: The House

Photos here showing the brown coat of stucco, and also the framing for the concrete to be poured for the patio outside the dining room.

C Day plus seven...and we really are there on the interior

Over the past week, Site Supervisor II and the other guys have been working away on all the little bitty punch list items. They really are all pretty small beer, and most of them have been despatched with little effort. I reckon that, of the list we compiled on Wednesday/Thursday, SS2 had tackled about 75% by the end of Friday. We added maybe a half dozen more over the weekend, but it is trivial stuff.

On the exterior, we've been waiting for the brown coat of the stucco to cure/dry. The brown coat is the second coat of stucco, so called because once upon a time it was made from dirt taken from the lot. These days it is a cement mix, but the name sticks. The final, finish coat is due to be applied on Wednesday this week, weather permitting. (Unbelieveably, we are scheduled to have another day or two of rain.) When that has been allowed to cure for a week or two, the painters will be able to come in to do the exterior paint. We're having the exterior done in a combination of Swiss Coffee (white) for the trim and Brewster Grey (a blue grey) for the walls.

On Saturday a subcontractor was out putting gutter guards on all the gutters, to stop them filling up with tree needles etc. He came out with two buckets of baby pigeons that he'd rescued from another job. The kids were entranced to watch him feed the babies with baby rice from a syringe. Little Starlet was brave enough to pick one up.

Wet Weekend Round Up

So little seemed to happen last week that I gave up writing the daily blog. So here's a brief summary of action:

- wood floors went into the bedroom, office, and the base of Little Starlet's closet, and each received their sanding and first two coats of varnishy stuff;
- the gimble mounted lights went into the bedroom and office ceilings;
- the snap-on outlet plates were installed in the kitchen (mostly);
- the baseboard and crown molding were painted in the master bedroom;
- the tile was almost finished in the guest bathroom, except for a small area around the toilet sewer pipe;
- the tub deck in the guest bathroom had the corner rounded to eliminate potentially injurious point;
- some of the cabinets in the kitchen were adjusted (again);
- the shelf inserts inside the main food pantry were installed - but they have to be removed because now the rolling shelves have no way to come out.
- the door bell was repaired, and now plays the first couple of bars of the 1812 overture (not sure this is a big improvement on the last tune).
- wood siding installation began on the exterior of the bedroom/bathroom
- the "scratch" coat for the stucco was installed on the office/laundry and the rear main wall.

That may sound like a lot, but is actually not a great deal. Most days we only had one or two guys here, which is a big difference. There was no action in the landscaping at all, as our stone layer was off with family issues.

In other news, I had a bit of taxpayer triumph. A couple of months ago, Site Supervisor II spoke with the City about repairing our sidewalk and road. The City told him that it would be ten years before they were back on our street, and that we were essentially out of luck. Last week I took matters into my own hands - inspired by new puddled formed by new rain - and contacted the Public Works Department. Long story short, they came to inspect and agreed to add our section to their repair schedule for 2010. In fact they said there were 20 places on our street that needed repair, so they'd be repairing the whole block! Hubby says, maybe they checked the computer to see how much property tax we pay....

Avoidable Delay Due to Sub-Contractor Incompetence

Almost nothing happened yesterday. Senmet was the only person working at the house, and he alternated between the exterior siding and little jobs inside, depending on the rain. Site Supervisor II was away at another project, where they're trying to finish the punch list this week. The wood floor people were supposed to be here - and we severely disrupted the house in preparation for their arrival - but they didn't arrive, despite SS2 phoning them eleven times (so he reported this morning).

The wood floor folks finally turned up today at 8:30am, which was still half an hour late. SS2 is livid because he has had to put all the other subcontractors off while the floor is being done, and knocking one day out of the schedule because of yesterday's no-show has implications for all the other subs and their availability.

Well, at least they're here now, which is more than we can say for the hardscaping crew. It rained a fair bit yesterday, but there is no rain today. In fact we have sun. But no hardscapers.

The stucco subcontractors arrived yesterday after we passed our lath inspection. They have stuccoed the office extension and are currently working on patching some of the small areas around the house perimeter.

Imminent Rain, Little Activity

The sky is black. The hardscaping crew has not come today, presumably because they are expecting rain.

There is a painter in the master bedroom painting the closet doors. I'm glad we didn't add more clothes to the closet over the weekend, as it is a little nerve-wracking having them painting next to our stuff.

We sent yet more exterior paint proposals off to Jim yesterday. We're getting greyer, rather than blue. Our Architect made the good point that the stuccoed wall for the courtyard will be painted in the same color, and if it is all a true blue, then it might be a bit much against the landscaping - a little overwhelming to the plant colors rather than forming a backdrop.

Senmet is outside adding more wood sheathing to the bedroom/bathroom extension in preparation for the wood siding. It is pretty noisy with the hammering. The phone meeting I'm doing at 11:00am should be interesting....!

In other news, I emailed the Santa Clara County Vector Control office yesterday asking for advice on what to do about standing water in the street. They took it upon themselves to come and take a look, which will have been disappointing for them as there isn't any water there at the moment. That's just too efficient - if they'd come tomorrow, after rainfall today, they'd have seen several feet of water. And in my message I did say there wasn't any water at the moment, but that I was looking ahead to the irrigation run off situation in the summer. Ah well. But the man did say (in a phone message) that if we have standing water for two weeks or more, then we should tell the city and the city should put it on their schedule for repair. So that's good to know.