Creeping Forward

Site Supervisor II was here today to change out the door handle set on Little Starlet's exterior door, so that's another small thing ticked off the list. While he was here, he also spent half an hour crawling around under the house trying to identify the strange knocking sound that has been keeping us awake at night for the past few weeks. (We tried turning off the attic fans and the water circulating pump, but neither of them changed anything.) SS2 was pleased to announce that he had found six places where the pipes were knocking against other pipes or the framing, so he tied them in and put some insulation (aka paper from our recycling) around them to keep them quiet. Maybe we don't have a troll under the house after all. (That was his alternative theory.)

In the landscaping project, the men spent some time today digging more holes and smoothing the soil. They will allegedly begin planting the plants tomorrow, only a week after they arrived on site. We are missing a few items. They will apparently be delivered "soon".

Catch up post

I can't believe I haven't posted since Wednesday. Blame it on the children who were off school on Thursday and Friday. When they're here, it's hard to get onto the computer.

The dishwasher went into gush-mode on Thursday during our weekly site meeting, which was handy as Jim himself was able to witness the food particles spurting out of the sink. A plumber was called (the third time the dishwasher has needed TLC since reinstallation). Speaking of sinks, the laundry sink and countertop was ready for installation, but before cutting the hole, the granite guy called Site Supervisor II and explained that there wouldn't be space for the faucet at the back of the sink - it was too big. We gathered in the laundry to watch SS2 draw the sink on the hardboard top and agreed that, yes, it was too big. A new sink is being ordered. This will delay the completion of the laundry.

In the office, Hubby noticed that the wire management trays do not run behind the upper drawers in the cabinets, which seems to defeat the purpose of having them. Appropriately sized holes are there - the top drawers are not as deep as the bottom ones - so it looks like something has simply not been installed.

In the guest bathroom, the tile is going into the shower, and it looks really splendid. I'll try to grab a photo tomorrow.

In the guest bedroom, nothing has happened recently except the addition of handles to the dresser drawers. This room has become a storage area to keep things out of the rain.

We do, alas, have a problem in the family room. The cabinets which have been built for the TV cabinet have been put together in alder instead of paint grade wood. This turns out to be our architect's fault, for not properly communicating the wood choice (which I was able to demonstrate we decided in November). So she is offering to suck up any additional cost to change the cabinets. Fortunately (though it didn't seem so at the time) last week it turned out that the cabinets had been made too large anyway. Site Supervisor II was onto the cabinet makers to replace some of the units they had brought over. I am hopeful that they haven't started remaking them and perhaps at least some of the units can be changed at no additional cost to anyone (except the cabinet guys who got the measurements wrong in the first place).

Lastly we have selected paint for the new rooms: Grant Beige (warm grey) for the family room, Engish Hyacinth (lavender) for the guest bedroom, and White Mist (off white) for the bathroom. We're going to repaint the exterior grey-blue but can't yet decide on the shade. SS2 is asking the painting subcontractor to paint out tester panels in our top three picks.

Good weather Thursday, rain on Friday, nice this weekend. Our concrete is officially dry and walkable.

Goodbye to the Closet, Hello More Cabinets

I can hardly contain my excitement about the progress in the landscaping, so I could go on and on about that; but I'll mention the wonderful progress inside the house too.

The pocket door is completed in the kitchen/study (except for the insertion of the actual doors, which haven't arrived yet). Since the drywall has been done, we are now in position to complete the kitchen floor tile and install the cabinets for the wine fridges (which have been living in our dining room in huge boxes for over a month.) Lots of cabinets have arrived and the slow process of installing them all has begun. Photo here of the cabinet that fits between the wine fridges going in. Also a big heap of drawer units and bookcases in the office.

As it was our weekly site meeting today, I got a peek at the bedroom/bathroom addition. (We may get more than a peek soon, as Site Supervisor II says that the dust wall will be coming down in a day or two.) The inside of the shower has been prepared by the tiler and is currently drying. I was hoping that some of the mosaic tile would have been installed so I could get a look with the paint in mind, but no luck. Well, you can't have everything. The valves for the tub faucets are in. The cabinets have also been installed in the bathroom and are looking good. We had a fairly detailed conversation about where the handles and pulls should go on the cabinets. It's amazing how much time you can spend on an item like that.

In the master bedroom, there has also been progress on the closet reworking. The drywall and "mud" has been completed. When we started on the closet, I assumed that the interior - the hanging space and shelves - would be ripped out. Then I had a conversation with SS2 who said we should keep them till we had chosen our new layout. Well, the net result of the reframing and drywalling is that the closet interior has been wrecked. (I never really expected anything else.) I told SS2 that they might as well rip it out and dispose of it for us. The doors for the closet have not yet arrived on site. I guess we'll be living with our clothes on wonky IKEA hanging racks for a while longer.



Time to call California Closets?

Have you been paying attention? Finish this sentence: "Another Day..."

It is Monday. Welcome to week 21 of the remodel. Guess what joyful occurrence has gladdened the hearts of the Cardboard Box dwellers today? Yes, a new hole in the front yard. In fact, to be specific, two holes. The first hole is involved in a sewer relocation connected to the "outdoor kitchen" we are building in the back yard. The second hole is to accommodate a pipe that was the subject of installation in a previous hole. This landscaping crew is worthy of employment with BT or British Gas or one of those wretched utility companies. Site Supervisor II says he tried not to notice what they were doing, it was too painful to watch.

Inside the Cardboard Box, the dishwasher finally came back to life today. Unfortunately it leaked into the cabinet under the sink. Turned out to be something to do with gravity and one of the pipes having a dip in it. Anyway, SS2 called the plumber in to fix it and told him very sternly that the whole kitchen remodel was predicated on eliminating the leaking faucet and water damaged sink cabinet, so it had better get put right. SS2 is a pretty mild mannered guy, so it's easy to see when he's not tremendously impressed. While he was here, the plumber also swapped the Insinkerator (garbage disposal) around from the big sink to the small sink, and installed the second Insinkerator in the vegetable sink. Houston, we now have total sink capability.

We've spotted various little fixes that are needed around the kitchen, but we've decided not to moan on about them just now. We'd rather the guys get on with some of the remaining big stuff than spend their time fiddling with the little stuff. That can wait for the punch list at the end, if necessary.

Our whole house fan was working over the weekend, but isn't now. We discovered that the attic fans had been left switched on, so we turned them off at the subpanel. SS2 said that the thermostatic controls for the attic fans would be installed today. Quite what actually happened I'm not sure: The attic fans are still permanently on, while the whole house fan is no longer working. It seems like that with all our electrical work: One thing gets fixed and another stops working. The electicians claim that we have funky wiring (and I can believe that) but even so, surely this isn't absolutely necessary.

The carpenters continued working on the windows today and seem to be close to finishing.



In other big news, the pocket doors for the kitchen/study wall have arrived. Yay! A couple of the guys from Jim's Bunch started to install the pockets this afternoon. This is arguably the last big piece of actual construction needing to be done. When the pocket doors are in, they'll be able to finish the drywall in the kitchen, the tile floor, install the last cabinet, and take the blessed wine fridges out of the dining room at last. All good stuff.

Now, to return to yesterday's important question about the light switch in the living room, here is a photo of it. Would you have it moved or not?

The heat is on

More rain today, lots of it. Big puddles and getting bigger all the time. The road outside the house is semi-flooded. This weather is forecast to continue through next week.

Still, there is activity at the Cardboard Box. The HVAC guys have just arrived with the new furnace for the bedroom/family room end of the house. They carried it with enormous difficulty across the muddy patch that used to be our front yard, eventually having to take it out of the cardboard container which simply disintegrated in their hands. Tomorrow they will be under the house installing more duct work.

Ron the Plumber also came in today to discuss gas lines - apparently we will be pulling 100,000 BTUs for the BBQ grill island, which means we have to upgrade our gas lines. The Landscape Designer thought maybe we could have that tagged onto the line for the pool heater, but it's not big enough.

The windows are waiting for the rain to stop for installation. The faucets are all ordered and some have arrived too. The door furniture order is about to go in. We finalized the plans for the family room TV cabinet and the study file drawers this morning too. In order to get the kitchen cabinets, and to pay for other things, of course, I wrote a check for the fourth installment of the construction company's charges this morning: $82,000 and change.

On the landscaping, more deliveries this morning: many white plastic pipes and an enormous black one, which The Architect thinks must be the dissipator for the back lawn (i.e. the key part of the drainage). Apparently this gets sunk in the ground, filled with gravel and all the drainage pipes attach to it. We could do with a bit of that right now.

Catch Up Report

Hello, dear readers (that means you, Anthony). I know you will be worried that my lack of writing will be a reflection of lack of progress, but how wrong you are. Even over the holiday period the guys have been working away, and things are going very well (at least to this amateur's eyes).

Landscaping:
The back yard is now a wasteland. All the concrete has now gone, except for a small piece around the pool which they have clearly decided to leave and concrete over, as part of the raising of the grading of the backyard. This was an exceptionally noisy and intrusive part of the whole remodel experience, with three BobCats in the yard at one point, one with a jack hammer attachment, the other two with different kinds of scoops; plus numerous guys with hand-held jack hammers and shovels. The planters are gone, the wall under the trees has gone, the lawn has gone. We have a big pile of mess in the area that used to be designated lawn, including all the loungers and chairs that Hubby wouldn't let me dispose of, and the old pool cover.

The pool has had its coping and water line tile removed, there are several holes punched in the bottom, and the light has been taken out. The bottom of the pool is full of shards of stuff. One of the pool's wall steps has been broken.

(Hold on, a man has just appeared in the hallway.)

(Just the electrician looking for the sub-panel.)

The wood framing for the concrete pouring around the pool has been erected, and rebars have been inserted around the top of the pool, presumably to hold the new coping. That is supposed to be arriving in the third week of January.



The little lemon tree that the kids bought for Hubby's 40th birthday is still standing bravely in the midst of all this. I tied some "Caution" tape around a couple of bamboo stakes to protect it, and miraculously this seems to have worked. Elsewhere, the drainage plans have been marked out on the ground in orange paint, so we can now see where the barbeque is going to be and also the planting beds near to the house.

House:
Jim says that we have a delay in the windows arriving, and that will slow down the completion of the walls. In the meantime, his guys are working away on the roof. The bedroom/bathroom addition now has roofing felt, and a pile of cedar shingles is waiting to go on. On the office/laundry addition, the shingles are already going on; the roof over the dining room is finished, and the office roof looks like it may be finished today. While we were away at the snow, the new gutters went on. The guys have also started to rough in the plumbing and electrics. Lots of thick yellow wires are strung across the wall framing, and a lovely black pipe indicates where the washing machine will go.

Current discussion is focusing on the kitchen. We have been scheduled to have the kitchen demolition next week, but our architect is now wondering if it can be put off a week, as we'll be away for a few days in February. Personally I suspect that they will over run anyway, so they may as well over run while we're away.

The kitchen toilet is officially history.

Well, dear reader, you may have noticed that I haven't written for several days, which is quite unlike me. Hubby had a cycling accident on Saturday - no major injuries, some cuts and bruises etc - which resulted in us spending most of that day at the local ER, then Sunday was back to back soccer, then Monday we toured the local dentist and optician facilities, then today we were back at ER... So I've been a bit focused on other things.

Anyway. Time to catch up.

The guys from Jim's Bunch, with the assistance of the framing subcontractor, have been adding plywood boards to the floor joists, so there is now the appearance of a floor over the office/laundry addition. They started doing the same at the bedroom/bathroom addition today. Before that, the heating ducts and some plumbing pipes were run under the office floor, insulated, inspected by the City and passed.


The washer and dryer are in the garage and working just fine. Shame the same can't be said for the water dispenser on our fridge-freezer, which stopped working on Friday. I presume that is something to do with the water having been turned off -maybe there is an air lock or some valve needs to be turned back on.


Meanwhile, up on the roof, the shingles are flying off, along with some of the framing. The guys have opened up a big piece of the roof over the dining room, and some over the kitchen, and they have also opened up part of the wall of the kitchen (on the outside only, for now) in order to be able to tie in the framing for the office.


We have a comfortingly large blue tarpaulin over the roof void and a promise of no rain for a couple of days.

Still waiting to hear back from The Arborist about the Monterey Pine.

One interesting side effect of having Hubby at home - the way he looks, he can't go into work - is that the Site Supervisor is not coming in so much to chat. So although there is a lot of noise, there is a lot less disturbance to the day. (I confess to being glad that Hubby is getting a taste of what it is like noisewise.) And, perhaps needless to say, with all that happened over the weekend, we haven't quite managed to choose a washer, medicine cabinet, etc etc. Still on the list. We're both feeling a bit frazzled.

Hammer, Saw, Drill, Hammer, Saw, Drill

Plenty of activity around The Cardboard Box today.

In the new bedroom/bathroom area, the guys from Jim's Bunch have demolished some of the existing framing that separated the old bathroom from the family room, and they have installed a post to hold up the ceiling/roof in preparation for rebuilding the walls.


(The new bedroom starts to take shape.)

Out front, a couple of Latino guys are crawling around over and under the new floor joists of the bedroom addition, hammering, drilling and generally making construction noise which I presume has some overall purpose.

In the office/laundry addition, Azmir (who is Bosnian) and Senmet (who is Egyptian) are installing floor joists under the supervision of the framing subcontractor (who seems to be from Texas). In the kitchen, a plumber and a gas engineer are working together to move our washer and dryer into the garage. There is currently a large man lying on the kitchen floor with his head, arms and shoulders dangling down into the crawl space through the hole that Azmir cut a couple of weeks ago.

Much drilling and sawing and hammering noise throughout the house.

Yesterday afternoon I got a call from the Site Supervisor saying we need to have selected our new washer and dryer by the end of the weekend, so that they know where to put the dryer vents etc. So that's on the list for the weekend, along with making a final decision on the medicine cabinets for the new bathroom (do we want them custom made so they are flush with the wall, or do we want to buy ready made from Restoration Hardware which will stick out a bit).

Over the weekend we will also need to make some decisions about the landscaping. I had a good meeting with the Landscape Designer yesterday. She proposed raising the sides of the pool by three inches so that the grade of the lot can be altered, with the effect that water would drain away from the house instead of towards it, as it does at the moment. (Hm, does that sound expensive to you?) Also, she brought estimates for the work to put the pool cover box under ground instead of on top, which would allow the cover to have runners under the coping and thus hidden out of the way, instead of on the surface so that they run along the coping. (Are you keeping up?) The estimates for that specific piece of work run around $40,000. Hubby swallowed quite hard when I told him that. He was thinking, maybe $10,000...