Bringing Down the House: 2011

Monday, December 26, 2011

Finishing Stages:The Next Steps

Week 33: This week started off with the carpet being installed on Monday and the painters returning to finish up the kitchen/dinning room/foyer. They then will go back and do all the touch up that needs to be done. Once they have completed, then the electrician and plumber will complete their last bit of trim work. The electrician was there on Monday doing some of his work and came periodically throughout the week to finish up some of his items. He is installing the master bedroom fan, under cabinet lights, the doorbells and chimes, and the whole house surge protector and other odds and ends. The plumbers came and installed the sump pump battery backup system and the recirculating hot water system. The painters have been working and we had to have the drywallers come back out to make some corrections. We noticed many of the screws were starting to show due to the drywall shrinking as it dries out. Needless to say, the painters had to redo many of the walls that they had already completed. The range hood has been completed as has many of the rest of the appliances. The doors are hung and are awaiting the painters. AT&T was out on Friday and they installed our phone and Internet and Anne and I punched down the data outlets to our data center downstairs. We will be working on the voice outlets next week. The final pieces should be done by our intended final inspection which is set for Wednesday. If we get our occupancy permit then we can start moving in. Anne and I spent a good portion of the week going through the boxes of stuff that was stored in the garage after the flood. We have made several trips to the Salvation Army and Goodwill to donate items.

Here is the transformer for the doorbells.

The doorbell chimes.

The new whole house surge protector.

Here is the mudroom light.

The outside lights illuminated.

The master bedroom fan. The control is built into the light switch.

The foyer in floor lights.

Here is one of the many data outlets we have installed. Anne and I punched the other ends down to our data rack downstairs.

Here is the LED lights in the overhead foyer light.

Here is the carpeting installed in the main common room upstairs.

Here is the painted kitchen/dinning room.

The foyer painted.

The final look of the family room.

One of the walls that had to be re-done because of the drywall screws.

Here is another wall. I went around to all the walls and had to mark any imperfections and it took awhile to go through every wall.

Here are the finished balusters for the main stairs.

Here are the ones for the kitchen that overlooks the basement stairwell.

Here are the painted risers on one of the stairwells.

The new address numbers. They were purchased from artisans who use Etsy (http://www.etsy.com/).

The final range installation.

The refrigerator is installed and ready to go.

Here is the battery backup for the sump pump. We will be putting it up on a shelf this week. The device on the wall is the charger for the battery.

Here is the AT&T NID hookup to the house.

Finishing Stages:Floors

Week 32:The name of the game this week was floors. The hardwood floors were sanded and then stained. Since it was a meticulous process, there wasn't any other inside work done. The upcoming week will bring the installation of the carpeting and then the finishing stages of the painting. The last stages for electrical and plumbing will wait another week rather than try to hurry to get it done. We decided that the move in date will be Martin Luther King Jr.'s holiday. We are starting to go through all the boxes of 10+ years of stuff in the garage. We do not want to have any unusable items stored away in the house anymore. We made good headway and have already donated a bunch of items to the Salvation Army. We will continue to do that until we have gone through everything at the house and the rental. The shower doors were installed and look great and Joe has finished up the balcony and created our temporary stairs. We are contemplating having the garage siding replaced sooner rather than later. There may be enough siding left over that it can be done and at a lower price since the supplies are here.

Here the guys are using a industrial strength sander to smooth out the floors. They are working on the guest bedroom.

Here are many of the bags (not including Abby) of sawdust they sanded up.

Here is the dininig room floor. Still needs one more coat.

The basement stairs.

The master bedroom.

Abby's room.

Kathleen's room.

Stairs to master bedroom.

The study.

The stairs going to the second floor.

The same stairs going down.

Here is the carpet awaiting installation on Monday.

Here is the guest bathroom sliding shower door. This has 1/2" thick glass and seems very sturdy.

Here is the master bath shower door.

This is a shot of the mirror in the girls bathroom. It is a wall to wall.

Here are the balcony railings.

The completed balcony ceiling.

The completed balcony floor and railing.

The temporary stairs until the deck is installed.

Monday, December 19, 2011

Color Scheme

Feel compelled to post to the blog but really too tired to write. I've been wanting to post about our paint scheme and have written a partially epic post about how we got to the colors we settled upon. Maybe I'll post that sometime but not tonight. So how about I just give you color swatches?

The primary color scheme in the house (all paints are Benjamin Moore):


Caliente AF-290	Citrine AF-370	Pashmina AF-100	Cinder AF-705	Amsterdam AF-550

80% of the house is Pashmina with the other colors being used as accent colors as illustrated below. The master bedroom mixes this up - three of the walls there are Cinder with one accent wall in the Amsterdam blue.