still working hard

Well, things seem to be happening fast & furious.

We poured the driveway last week. There were a few anxious moments getting the trucks up the hill but in the end they did, thanks, in my mind, only to divine intervention. The air conditioners got started up. Gas service was hooked up. The exterior painters finished. The front porch handrails were finished. (As mentioned previously, the front porch columns will be done after we are in the house; the skinny black steel columns in the picture are only temporary).

The hardwood floor finishing crew starts tomorrow and I'm meeting with the landscaper as well. Carpet is due on Thursday, as are the appliances. Countertops are due on Friday. Hopefully, the electricians will hang the final fixtures and hook up the appliances on Friday as well. And the furniture for the rooms with carpet is expected on Saturday.

Hopefully, a week from tomorrow the plumbers will hook up the kitchen sink and the dishwasher and the floor finishers can put on their final coat of finish. So, stay tuned; we are getting close.

What a week!

Much to report, or so it seems.

The biggest accomplishment was electricity! This was huge, up there with sheetrock in terms of major accomplishments. After nearly three weeks of waiting and a week after the scheduled date, as evidenced by the attached picture we got power.

And the exterior painters started ("warm stone" with "agreeable gray"
trim). And we got shower walls ("biscuit" with "mexican sand" highlights, I think). And we started on the porch handrails (1x2, 1x4 and 1x6 pre primed spruce and some 5/4 southern yellow pine).

The porch and step handrails have been an item of great discussion. I finally built a mock up of a section of railing which helped the trim man see what I was talking about which answered some questions about the handrail sections but not the step columns. Finally he had a dream (I didn't ask him if it was a good dream or a bad dream) about the step columns and came and built and installed them (the picture was taken before the step columns were built). The porch columns are going to take more work (the black steel porch columns will eventually be covered with some bigger wooden ones) but we'll worry about that once we are in the house.

You may notice some plastic covering where the driveway goes in the picture. We've been needing rain in a big way and we got a lot of rain this last week. Actually, we got rain every day, which has turned the red clay into a big gooey mess. The concrete guys came after the picture was taken and removed the plastic and spread the dirt a little in an attempt to get it to dry out. With no rain predicted until Monday night (but rain predicted every day after that for the next week) we are scheduled to pour the driveway Monday at 7:00 AM. Hopefully the weather will cooperate and not only will it not rain until the concrete sets up but also the dirt will be dry enough for the truck to get up the hill.

In addition, to the driveway on Monday, supposedly a gas meter will be set, which should allow us to have hot water and eventually cook once the cooktop arrives. In addition, a HVAC crew is scheduled to come on Monday to start up the units. This is also very significant in that the flooring crew cannot start finishing the hardwood floor until the air has been on for a week. So, a lot is happening.

continued progress, although it appears slight

We were out of town most of the week and progress was limited.

The hardwood floors were installed and will be sanded and finished once the air conditioning has run for a week. The power company, who was to run the new power line from the street on Tuesday, finally showed up on Friday and installed the conduit but not the wire. Hopefully they will return next week to pull the wire and set the meter although no promises were made. More of the kitchen cabinets were installed although we are waiting on additional cabinet parts before the installation can be completed.

The driveway is going to be a challenge. The power company was adamant it would only run power to the new house if they could install in a new conduit for the wire. This would have required removing more trees, which we did not want. However, the old driveway was in sad shape before the fire and even worse shape after the concrete trucks and lumber trucks and sheetrock trucks so we agreed to remove it, let the power company bury their new conduit, and then replace the driveway. With a promised installation date of last Tuesday, we removed the driveway the Thursday and Friday before. Now it has rained and rain is forecast for most of this week which is turning the red clay to gooey mud, which will make it very difficult to get a concrete truck up the hill. So this may be an issue.

Hopefully, this week we can get the power wires run to the house and the power on so the A/C can start running so the floors can be sanded and finished the following week. In addition, the exterior painters expect to start.

Off to a wedding!

There was a time when not only our children lived at home but several of their friends did their best to live there too. This picture was taken in the old kitchen, the one that burned, taking with it the clock on the wall that silently watched our children come home from the hospital and grow up, and the vintage kitchen table and chairs that we ate dinner every night at for years, and the old hoosier cabinet that came from a garage sale and was carefully refinished by my wife and those glasses that we really liked that we can't find anymore of. All those things are gone now, burned up without a trace. Fortunately, the real treasures in the picture all seem to be doing well.

I'm not too sure when it was taken but several in the picture are now out of college and one has been married for a year or so. Another is getting married this weekend in Malibu, California, at a home overlooking the ocean. We've been invited so we are headed that way.

As far as progress on the house is concerned, it hasn't been a real productive week in that July 4^th was right in the middle of it. The hardwood floor guys said they would come on the 4^th, but actually came on the 5^th, at which time the driveway guys told the hardwood floor guys to go home, as their truck would be in the way. (Apparently, driveway guys have absolute authority, not just over what they do but over the entire world as well. I should have asked for world peace). The plumbers did come earlier in the week and set the commodes and sinks but left the water turned off, which begs the question what is the value of sinks and commodes without water? Hopefully, the hardwood floor guys will return tomorrow and not be scared off by the driveway guys, who are removing what is left of the old driveway so the power company can come install their new line on Tuesday.

We'll see what all happened when we return next week.

still pushing!

Wow! What a week!

This was a busy week. In no particular order, the electricians started doing their finish work installing switches, plugs, light fixtures and the like. The interior painters finished up for now; they will return to do a little more closer to the end. The trim man came to build the stairs from the garage to the house, which replaced the 2x4 treads the framers installed. Then he went on to install the wall cabinets in the kitchen. The base cabinets will be installed after the hardwood floors are installed next week. And we started on the driveway outside the garage. And the stone guys finished.

In the end I think we used about 60 tons of stone. The front steps were a challenge but I think they turned out well. Beautiful work by some true craftsman.

The driveway was a real experience. First, understand the order of things. The upper drive, which was removed when the burned house was demolished, needed to be replaced first. Next the lower drive needs to be removed. Then the power company has to run their new line up the hill under the driveway. Then we will replace the lower drive. The wild card in all of this is rain, for rain can wash wet concrete away and, given the hill on the lower drive, can literally wash the hill away.

Given we haven't had any rain in six weeks, I thought we would be okay to start on the upper drive. Once again, my thoughts proved to be dangerous as the rain started an hour or two after the concrete for the upper drive was poured. This made for a very long night as well as the next day but, in the end, we think we were able to save the concrete, although the finish shows it. Hopefully, we can get through the remainder of the driveway project without too much difficulty.

So, hopefully next week; hardwood floors installed, base cabinets installed, exterior paint start and remove the old lower drive to get ready for the power company to run their new line.

Oh, and figure out how to replace those 2x4 front columns with something a little more substantial.

details, details . . .

No major accomplishments for the week but several smaller ones.

The interior paint continued and will hopefully finish this week. The electricians started their finish work with switches and receptacles and the like; they will wait on the actual light fixtures until paint is finished. The tile guys finished all the tile they could; the tile for the half bath is supposedly on a truck somewhere as is one of the bathroom sinks. Most of the new light fixtures are here, except for the two that fell off the truck which are being replaced. All the plumbing fixtures are here except for the kitchen faucet and sink (which we've yet to order) and a lavatory faucet I hope to win on ebay tonight (which is where many pieces of this house have come from).

The stone work has slowed almost to a crawl. Hopefully, they will return and finish what little they lack this week.

I've spent a fair amount of time cleaning up several old ceiling fixtures we found at an antique show last winter. I would call them "school house lights" although I'm not too sure that's the correct name as they were used in many places other than schools. Anyway, the globes all cleaned up nicely and the fixtures themselves have been cleaned and are being refinished. Since we are having to do all of this due to a fire, I thought it appropriate to rewire them as well so I finally found enough new original style light sockets to put them back together.

So, pictures this week include one of a bathroom with tile and the walls and beadboard painted, another of an unrestored school house fixture, and a picture of the great room with a peek at the kitchen colors.

Hopefully, we can have the plumbing fixtures set this week and the interior paint finished and the stone work finished. Then we can move on to the floor as well as a new upper driveway, so we can redo the lower driveway, which has to be done before the power company will run their new lines. And the exterior still needs to be painted. More details to be taken care of, everywhere you look.

still plodding along . . .

Well, when we left things last week I, apparently being the eternal optimist, was hoping for both the stone work and the interior paint work to be finished by this post. Unfortunately, sharp eyed readers may have already observed the picture from this week looks suspiciously like the one from last week.

However, if you look closely, you will see the steps have been started. Recognizing the English language is only a concept (and a very vague one at that) to the stone masons (equalled perhaps, only by my concept of Spanish), our animated and motion filled conversations were finally reduced to crude drawings and pointing to numbers on tape measures. I felt we had reached a breakthrough of some kind since the blocks were starting to look like steps (although not exactly like I'd planned) when the stone masons simply stopped coming to work. After a few days, we noticed we were out of sand, a key ingredient for stone masons. So, more sand has been ordered and hopefully they will return to finish. I'd estimate the stone work to be more than 90 percent complete which is good; what is even better is we have not paid for 90 percent of the work so I am fairly confident they will be back before too long.

The painter is apparently enjoying this job for he is in no hurry for it to end. I told him the electricians were going to start hanging lights this week so hopefully that will speed things along. The tile guy is going to start on Tuesday and install the tile in the bathrooms and laundry room. (California Sand, for those so interested. It was on sale.)

And the kitchen cabinets finally arrived, although the packing list and installation instructions were for another job leaving me to wonder exactly whose cabinets are these? As with most things, time will tell.

So hopefully, by this time next week the interior paint, tile and stone work will all be done and the electrical finish be well underway.