Almost Ready for the Framing Inspection

The long-awaited framing inspection might happen this week. We are just about ready. This inspection is a big deal because after we pass, we can start putting in the drywall, and the cabinetry, and the flooring, and the counter tops, and the appliances, and the electrical and plumbing fixtures, and the interior doors, and do the finish carpentry work, and the painting, and I can't remember what else. I sure hope we pass it so we can get going with all of the really fun stuff. Wish us luck!

And now.....it's picture time!!! Personally I find these pictures to be not that interesting. But that is perfectly in line with what's been going on at our house for the last month.


This is one of the central vacuum outlets. You hook a hose up to it and vacuum the room and all of the dirt and dust goes through pipes in the walls to a giant canister deep in our basement which we only have to empty about 3 times a year, supposedly. Doug thinks this is fantastic. I remain skeptical.


So for about the fifth time after I've once again gotten the grass growing they are digging up my yard again. They are laying down conduit so the electrical wires can come underground from the telephone pole to our house. They are putting in the Fios stuff at the same time.


A Study in Orange and Green, featuring a hard hat, Fios, and very dry grass.


The trench has been dug and the conduit is about halfway installed.


This is what it looks like when you get 3 phase for your house. It's pretty hideous looking, but fortunately it is on the least visible side of the house. Unfortunately it is on the front end of that side. I'm trying not to look at it too much because it does not make me very happy. I think someone might need to build a cute little bump-out on the side of the house to contain all of its ugly bits.


We are starting to figure out the front porch. (That means I'm telling Doug how I want the front porch to look.) He has built the steps and we got a great deal on "Railing in a Box" which was naturally offset by getting way more than we need, because "you never know and it's such a fantastic bargain." But it's going to look really nice when we get the flooring in and put "Wrap and Snap" on the columns.



Also this month our friend Gary came over and he and Doug spent a few days routing all of the telephone, cable TV, and internet wires into various rooms throughout our house. Later we will put in the speaker wires. It's going to be nice and tidy having all of the "media" wiring contained in the walls, instead of being loose everywhere.

Trombonists in Dupont Circle

I have been very lax in posting about our house progress recently. Let me just say that none of the progress has been particularly exciting, even to me. But we finally got our electricity hooked up and now we have a big inspection coming up next week. Or so I've been told. I'll try to post something relevant in the next few days.

In the meantime, here is something to entertain certain of you in particular who might happen to be visiting this here blog. Since there was a bass already there at the theater where I was subbing, I was actually able to take the Metro to my gig tonight for a change. This is, I believe, a fairly typical Friday night at the Dupont Circle metro station in DC. Pretty cool, huh?

Sorry these clips are so short - it still takes forever to upload them.

Also, what is wrong with these people, only one of them uses a DE mouthpiece?

Oh that's right....they couldn't buy one even if they wanted to.

More Odds'n'Ends

No photos this time - unfortunately the appearance of our house has not changed much during the last month. Things are kind of poking along and hopefully that will change as soon as we get our big inspection.

Doug wants/needs a 3 phase electrical hookup for his mouthpiece equipment and although we applied, paid for, and received permission for a residential version of this, the power company sent out a commercial inspector who wasn't familiar with residential meter applications and we had to redo everything to meet commercial requirements. We have to add some extra things to the box on the outside of the house and it's been kind of a pain for everyone involved.

In the meantime we ordered the replacement basement steps from the same excellent company that made our upstairs stairs. Doug installed them and they look great and feel really solid. They are at the correct steeper angle now so we have more floor space, more clearance overhead, and more useable room underneath them. Doug is going to have an excellent office/studio area now.

Doug finished up with the bathroom exhaust vents and is almost finished with the central vacuum. I still can't believe that we are having such a thing in our house. It wasn't my idea. We saw it at a home show and Doug went nuts and bought one immediately.

There are two outlets on each floor and the hose stretches (hopefully) to all corners of the house. There are also going to be two plates at floor level in the kitchen that kick open with your foot that will suck up anything that you sweep up to it. Supposedly the system is very quiet and the suction is greater than any normal vacuum cleaner. All of the dirt goes from the hoses down through pipes in the wall into a can in the basement that gets emptied out every couple of months or so. I don't think we need something this fancy, but it will probably be fantasically convenient after I get used to it.

Also this month Doug did a week long tour and went to the trombone festival in Salt Lake City. I'm glad he got a break, even though it always delays the progress when he goes out of town.

I should talk.... I really haven't been helping much lately. Between gigs it's all I can do to keep the grass mowed. We didn't used to have so much grass, or maybe it's that grass takes longer to mow than weeds. I had a nice break last week playing at the Glenn Miller Festival. As soon as Doug is finished generating sawdust I will be scraping off all of the foam that has seeped through the cracks and doing a thorough vacuuming of all surfaces in preparation for wallboard. That's a bigger job than you might imagine.

But I really really really mostly want to hurry up and start putting the rest of the siding on. I will be so happy when that happens!

a few pictures....

This scrawny looking tree is a London Plane tree which is very similar to a sycamore, but is supposedly not as messy with the twigs, leaves, and seed pods. I really love the white bark that sycamores have and unfortunately the London Plane has bark that is more tan in color. But it will be an excellent shade tree and it is supposed to be very strong in addition to growing very large very quickly. We have them on each side of the front of our house.

We are planning to put this granite veneer over the cinderblock foundation and garage area. It should look pretty nice with the gray siding, the white trim, the green roof, and the purple door.

Look at this amazingly green grass in our backyard!!!

And this cute little baby bunny rabbit in our backyard!!!

Odds and Ends

The work for the past month has been a little bit of this and a little bit of that. We finished planting all of our shade trees - two white birches, two London plane trees and a weeping cherry. I've mowed the lawn 4 times already. It's looking greener than it ever has, except for one area which did not receive the proper topsoil last fall. We added a bunch of ComPro and Leaf Grow and seeded it again so that area should be looking better soon, especially with all the rain we've had recently.

We ordered a new set of basement steps from the stairbuilding place. These will replace the screwed up steps that our former carpenters built last June. The downward slope was too gentle and it resulted in not enough headroom in one part. It wouldn't have passed the inspection. The new steps should arrive sometime this week and Doug will attach them, hopefully before he goes off to the trombone festival.

The electrician started working in the basement which caused Doug to realize that it was time to finish the framing work down there. It is also time for him to wrap up all of the final bits of framing so that we are ready for the inspection as soon as the electrician finishes. The electrical rough-ins are almost complete, but the electrician is on vacation this week.

I've been busy with a lot of miscellaneous gigs so I haven't been around to crack the whip as much. It seems like when I'm over there a lot more work happens. Unfortunately I have finally gotten used to how long this whole thing is taking, so I'm not pushing as hard as I had been previously. The sense of urgency and the energy that it inspired has dwindled quite a bit. It is certainly a lot easier and more fun and more profitable to play a gig than it is to work on the house.

I'm really looking forward to putting up the siding so the outside will look finished and we can take that scaffolding down and get rid of it. The yard looks great now. Except for the 20 foot high tree stump from last October that Doug still thinks looks really cool. He says he wants to carve it into a totem pole. Won't that look nice? I think I'll carve it into something else. Obviously he will not decide it's time to chop it down until I've already made arrangements for someone else to do it. Maybe I'll have it chopped down while he's at the trombone festival since I've decided to not repaint the front door. We'll see.....

On the other hand, maybe I'll just chill for now since I don't want to see any unpleasant surprises when I get back from the Glenn Miller Festival in June - ha ha ha!!!

Let's see - what else? Doug has purchased the materials for the outside steps and he decided to upgrade the porch flooring material to tongue and groove. It looks nice but is very expensive.

I have mostly been working outside in the yard and trying to organize the cleanup inside in preparation for the big framing and rough-in inspection. It is a challenge because "organize" and "cleanup" are foreign concepts to one half of this couple. Every load of construction trash that I take to the dump feels like a victory of some sort. I'm really looking forward to a few more trips in the next week or so. I guess that covers it for now.

LOOK!!! I got my magnolias!!!

WE HAVE BIRCHES!!!
Doug deviated from the original plan for the trees. He was out looking at tulip magnolias without me one day when he came across a couple of white birch trees that he just had to have. As usual, I went along with it. They weren't cheap, but they are very beautiful. The one below is in the back yard and there is also one in the front. Check out that super green grass. I planted it last fall, and now I have to mow it. FUN!!!

We put the triple-trunked one in the front yard. I think it will look nice against the eventual gray siding. I'm really starting to like the purple door now. I think the color has darkened somewhat. So maybe I won't repaint it when Doug goes on his short little tour next month. Or maybe I will!!!




Here's what these baby birches will look like when they grow up.

WIRED!!!
Our electrician has been doing a fantastic job, as far as I can tell, and he's also super nice. Here is a sample of his handiwork:



He had to thread all of the wires on the exterior walls through the drilled-out chases in the foam core panels. To make his job a little easier, I tried to put as many outlets, lights, and switches as possible on the interior stud walls. On the exterior foam core walls I put them directly over a chase whenever possible. He still had to do some digging though, and so I'm still sweeping up bits of styrofoam. Here are the wires from all over the house hanging in the basement waiting to be connected to the circuit-breaker box.

LEADED GLASS IN THE PASS-THROUGH!!!

I found two matching leaded glass windows in an antique store and we have decided to put them in the wall above the opening between the kitchen and the dining room. These windows are in great shape and they have beveled glass. They will bring some southern light into the kitchen by way of the dining room, I hope. They look like this:



And here they are in their positions above the pass-through. They are kind of big, and it's hard to tell how they'll look after everything is in. Doug said if they look funny, it's no big deal to take them out and put in wallboard instead. I'm glad he thinks so! I was doubtful about the proportions, but I've gotten used to how it looks now. I think it will look especially good from the dining room side. This photo is from the kitchen side.



Here is a sketch that shows them with the cabinets. Unfortunately I didn't draw the windows big enough so they don't look as big as they do in real life. I can't wait to get my cabinets installed so I can find out whether this will look okay. I hope it works because the windows themselves are pretty cool looking!

SPRING IS HERE....AGAIN

And this time there are no carpenters - just a couple of robins. We are still working on our house while we live in the rental house which is behind the fence.

This tulip magnolia tree is the best thing about our rental house. I definitely want one!!!!!

Our electrician has been installing the lighting rough-ins. This is what I did in the kitchen to show him exactly where we want the lights to go:

Kind of festive, isn't it? But it served the purpose. All of the lights that he put in are in exactly the right places.

Things have slowed down somewhat during the past two months as we've become busy with other things. Doug continued with the miscellaneous carpentry work. Cyndy finished plotting out all of the outlets, switches, and light fixtures, and the electrician has begun installing the rough-ins. That work will take another month and then we can have our framing inspection. The HVAC people also came back and finished everything they needed to do for the inspection.

After the framing inspection happens we can start putting up the drywall and install those kitchen cabinets which have been sitting in boxes in the basement since last May. I really hope we will be hiring professionals to do the drywalling. Please cross your fingers for me on that one.

If we get people in to do the drywalling then we can work outside on the siding at the same time and not be in their way. We haven't decided yet whether or not I will be doing the inside painting. Knowing Doug, he will want to do all of the finish carpentry while I paint.

So the big things that we still have left to do are: finish the electrical rough-ins, put in wallboard and kitchen cabinets, install the radiant floor heating system, install the flooring, tile the bathrooms, paint the entire inside, put in the appliances and plumbing and light fixtures, replace four more windows, and put on the siding. That seems like a lot, but it's a relatively small list compared to what we've done so far and I think it will all happen fairly quickly, especially the stuff we hire people to do. I am hoping we will only be doing about half of the work that remains by ourselves.

FRONT DOOR INSTALLED, BUT NO SIDING UNTIL SPRING


We finally installed the new front door which I had painted way back in June. I’m still not so sure about this color. When I originally suggested purple I was thinking of a darker, duskier color....actually exactly the way it looks here in the shadow.

Doug "felt strongly" that the color needed to be lighter because if it was too dark it would heat up too much in the sun and the door would warp. The current color will probably look lovely when we get the gray siding on and get some purple flowers happening out in front – maybe some crape myrtles, or a butterfly bush. That's the plan anyway. Maybe I'll get used to this light lavender, but judging from some comments we’ve received, it is perhaps a bit too bright for our suburban neighborhood. Although some people like it. Doug definitely likes it. I'll probably get used to it, even though I wanted it to be darker.

So the next time Doug goes off on a cruise or tour before we finish the house, maybe I'll just find the time to paint it a darker and more subdued color. Ha, Ha, Ha - won't he be surprised!!! Sorry Doug. But in the meantime it is just going to be a garish winter for everyone who is stuck looking at it. I know we are not your typical homeowner-neighbor types. But how many of you would paint your door this color? Just wondering….

We put up some Tyvek on the front of the house, but now it is too cold for us to put up the siding. I KNEW this would happen. So the scaffolding will stay up all winter now. Anyway Doug’s been working inside, putting in framing for some pocket doors and making what was going to be a walk-in closet into a sewing nook for me. I will be able to close it off with pocket doors. It is going to be great to have this space. We hadn’t figured out where I would do my sewing until just this week. There is an area next to it that will become a three section closet, opening into different areas. One of the sections will be used to store music stands. It is hard to describe, but it is a unique and clever use of space and I am absolutely delighted with it.

While Doug continues fine-tuning the carpentry, I have been going from room to room making lists and figuring out where all of the lighting, outlets, and switches will go. It is a pretty tedious process, but so is everything else. I’m putting post-it note squares at the outlet and switch locations and up on the ceilings for the lights so the electrician will know exactly where we want things.

WORK WORK WORK.....MORE AUTUMN ACTIVITIES

After they finished with all of the driveways, sidewalks, and final grading, I immediately got right on planting the grass seed – AGAIN. Didn’t I do this exact same activity just last fall? It was a little later this year. Fortunately it all still sprouted.

Doug built a little retaining wall at a spot where the slope is particularly steep. You can see it in the picture below. Isn’t it cute? It will be great to no longer have mud running across our driveway. I can't even imagine what that is going to be like.

I decided that I wanted to plant some liriope (groundcover) on the steeper slopes so that I wouldn’t have to mow grass there. Doug figured out that we needed 2500 plants to cover the area. 2500!!! I would have said never mind, I’ll just mow, but he had already ordered them. It was exhausting planting those stupid things and it took about three weeks to get them all planted. I think we got them in just in the nick of time before it got too cold. I can’t wait to see how they do next spring.

There was a huge unattractive rock pile under our cedar tree. I don’t know who thought it would be a good idea to have one there, but it tripled in size over this past year with various rocks that had emerged during the grading process, huge chunks of cement, and miscellaneous pieces of cinderblock and bricks. I finally couldn’t take it any longer and I spent an entire week moving that damn pile, first down to the driveway, and then into Doug’s truck. And then to the dump in about six 500 pound trips. One rock at a time. Rocks are heavy. I just love my life right now. But now the cedar tree has beautiful liriope planted under it and it looks quite elegant.

The electric company had been snipping away and totally deforming our Norway Spruce near the power lines for years. It was looking really ugly as a result. We knew it was time for the tree to go away so Doug called them up and said told them it would be okay with him if they cut it down. They said they would do it for free, but they would leave everything there for us to clean up. So I spent a week sawing all of the branches off of the trunk, loading Doug’s truck with the branches and the trunk chunks, and taking it all to the dump. It was about 6 truckloads of branches. Unfortunately a large part of the trunk is still standing. A totally bare trunk that is about 20 feet high. It is more than I can handle by myself. I wonder when we will finish cutting the rest of it down. Anyone want to place bets? One month? 3 months? 6 months? Longer than 6 months? I know how our neighbors would bet.

This has been an exhausting fall, but now we have a cute little retaining wall and tons of liriope.

PHOTOS: NEW DRIVEWAY and NEW ROOF
Some big changes occurred this fall. We got a U-shaped driveway, a sidewalk, and a patio/landing for the front steps. All of the final grading has been done. The circular driveway in the back has been paved. It all looks great and is very convenient.


WET CEMENT

Doug really likes having scaffolding up around our house. It makes the house look "manly" don't you think? We had scaffolding up around our house for years, and now it's back. Who else do you know who owns their very own scaffolding? It is much safer than a ladder for working on siding and the trim around the roof areas.

We had the 12 year old roof taken off of the addition and a new roof was put on the house and the two porches.


They toss the old shingles down into the truck.
You can also see part of the giant rock pile.



Looking down at our driveway, 3 stories below.


We like being way up in the air! And look - there's our newly paved back driveway.

DOUG TAKES OVER THE CARPENTRY WORK
Doug spent a lot of time this summer doing some fairly big carpentry jobs since we apparently no longer had carpenters coming to our house. He did a lot of preparatory framing for the plumber, such as building the shower, tubs, and vanity and adding all kinds of cool touches like nooks for the shampoo and soap. I’m sure the tiling people will just love what he has done. I know we will enjoy having all of these great details.


When Doug first discovered the faulty basement stair work, he decided that we could not have these carpenters do the main stairs. Stairs are pretty complicated and require extreme accuracy and a lot of experience. We went up to Taneytown, the stair-building capital of Maryland and visited three different stair-building establishments there. We found a place that could build us exactly what we wanted. The guy came out and measured and we waited eagerly for the stairs to arrive. They came in three sections because we have two landings. Doug put them in. They are very beautiful and fit in the space perfectly. And they are wide – perfect for carrying my bass upstairs.

So we finally no longer need to use the wooden ladder to get up from the first floor to the second floor. We can just walk up the stairs. It is amazing. We’ve been using this same ladder for 15 years and having stairs feels like a miracle. And they are gorgeous, aren't they?
NO MORE LADDER TO GET UPSTAIRS!!!
YAAAY!!!

The plumber has finished all of his rough-in work. The HVAC people need to come back and do one more day of work to be ready for the inspection.

We are still waiting for the electrician. He is on another job that is taking much longer than expected. That’s probably where those mysterious carpenters are too.

disappearing carpenters

While Doug was waiting for the carpenters to come back to finish the steps, he did a bunch of miscellaneous things, like framing the attic floor and some doorways, more window installation, and installing a patio door into the porch. That is when he fell and CRACKED ONE OF HIS RIBS.

We had such a fantastic experience with the kitchen designer that we decided to get some advice from a lighting designer as well. We have mixed feelings about that experience. We did learn a lot, but it was expensive and more complicated than it needed to be. I wish we had researched it more and figured it all out on our own. But we did get detailed lighting diagrams done for the electrician who was due to start work this month.

I spent a lot of time this month sanding and painting a bunch of doors. These doors all have multiple window panes in them. It was a real pain to paint these doors, but they look really nice. Except that the front door color is not exactly what I had in mind – it’s what Doug had in mind. Maybe I’ll be able to do something about that later, like the next time Doug goes out on tour. The door is very pretty, but maybe just a little too pretty for our particular neighborhood.

Next we had to pick out and buy all of our plumbing stuff so that the plumber could do the proper rough-ins. I hate picking stuff out – it is so hard to decide what will look the best in all of those rooms that don’t even exist yet.

I got awesome deep bathtubs and beautiful medicine cabinets. Oh, and my kitchen sink is named “Orca" - not by me, but by the manufacturer. Doug selected some pretty cool looking faucets and a really girly sink for the powder room. If I can stand what he likes, I let him pick stuff out. I still don’t know about that door color though.

The pretty sink that Doug picked out



This door certainly is purple

STAIR TROUBLES
Around the middle of May, a different set of carpenters showed up to start building the basement stairs. Doug was going to the ITF in Las Vegas, but Cyndy decided to stay home so that she could let the carpenters in - hoping that they would continue working on the steps while Doug was gone. On their last day of work they left early while Doug was out buying additional lumber for them. They didn’t come back - ever. So I stayed home from Vegas for nothing.

About a month later we realized that they had made a significant error with the basement steps and probably just didn’t want to have to deal with fixing it. Their excuse for not coming back was that Doug was tardy in supplying some of the materials they needed. They actually left and never came back while he was at Home Depot buying the additional wood for them.

Fortunately these were just the basement stairs, and there was enough room to work around the error – except that there might not be quite enough height where the stairs pass under the header joist. It’s close, so hopefully the inspectors will let it go, if they even notice. If not we’ll have to get new stairs built, or build them ourselves.

These pictures are of our partially constructed back porch.

BUILDING THE FRONT PORCH
PART TWO
The roof is partially on. You can see the famous pulley sticking up out of the roof and the chain hanging down.


Here's a closeup of the magic pulley.


After I take this picture I will go operate the pulley and Doug will guide the panel into place.


Here's a side view


There's the truck which was our work station so we didn't have to deal with the hill and the mud. I'll be planting new grass again soon I guess.

THE NEW FRONT PORCH AND FOYER
PART ONE

The bottom structure is in place and you can see a couple of panels waiting to be installed. Doug decided to use them to insulate the floor of the foyer. I hope they aren't too springy for the tile that's going in there.


This is the glue that creates a seal between the sections of panels, the splines, and the 2x6s that are used for the window framing in the panels.


Here he's digging out a space to put in a 2x6


All cleaned out and ready to go

THE CARPENTERS HAVE ARRIVED AT LAST

Spring is here and so are the carpenters! I finished removing the framing just in the nick of time. In about three days all of the walls were back up in their new locations. The floor plan of our house is going to work so well for us. But the kitchen is scary-huge. I hope I can get used to it!

The carpenters became a little annoyed with Doug when they heard he was going out on tour for a couple of weeks. The main guy said “I thought you were in a hurry.” So I told them they could keep working because I would be there, but I think Doug told them otherwise. Another delay.....oh well.

Now I have a two week break from hard labor. After they finished the inside framing they built the back porch. It is fantastic. We added windows and a patio door to the sides and that will give us a much longer season of use. Now that I’m getting my dream screened-in porch I may never need to go on vacation again! Once the house is finished, that is.

"TOO LITTLE TIME" (OFF-TOPIC)
Although we are now working furiously on our house, there has also been some down time while we wait for various things to arrive and for various body parts to recover from the physical assaults we have been putting them through recently.

I took a jazz theory course last fall and now I'm taking an arranging class. Since I'm pretty much a beginner with the Sibelius program I decided that doing all of my arranging assignments on Sibelius would be the perfect way to get better at it. It's extremely time-consuming but the more I do it the faster I get.

In his "spare time" Doug has been making some mouthpieces and also getting ready for his performance of the Gordon Jacob Concerto which was arranged for concert band by Denis Wick. They also wanted him to prepare an encore and he decided to play the Henry Mancini song "Too Little Time" from the Glenn Miller Story. Doug had previously played an arrangement of this song with the Airmen of Note that he thought would be easily adaptable for the concert band.

Then Doug decided that I should put this on Sibelius for him. I wasn't sure how cool of an idea that was, considering how relatively inexperienced I am. I thought that he was being rather ambitious on my behalf, but I also sort of wanted to find out whether I could actually do it so I decided to go for it. We got the hand-written parts from a friend and then I got to work. It took a really long time to get it all done but it ended up sounding pretty good, and it had a much richer sound than the original because there was a larger variety of instruments playing each part. So although it was a lot of work, it ended up being well worth the effort.

I always forget that my camera can take videos so I neglected to get any clips of the concerto, which is a shame because he played it really well. But then I suddenly remembered about the video feature and I got a pretty good chunk of Doug playing "Too Little Time." One of these days I might even learn how to turn off my camera at the end of the performance! Or maybe I'll learn video-editing. Sure....

Anyway, here's Doug playing "Too Little Time" and the concert band playing the parts I made for them. Cool!

And just to clarify: This is not my arrangement, it is the original arrangement for big band with an enlarged orchstration so that the whole ensemble could play it. I just added parts for the clarinets, oboes, flutes, french horns, etc. Notice how great the bass sounds here - that's my friend Ed Skidmore. I'm also impressed with how well my camera picked up his excellent playing - I had no idea the sound quality would be this good.

OUR HOUSE HAS WINDOWS NOW...Check it out!

During February and March Doug installed some of the windows that had arrived back in December. Cyndy came to his aid whenever he needed help, mostly lifting things, holding things in place while he nailed, looking for misplaced tools, and cleaning up after him.

Cyndy spent the rest of the time carefully taking down all of the previous interior framing, nail by nail, so that the wood could be used again for the new framing. This involved chipping away at the wood under the head of the nail with a hammer and chisel, and then using a nail puller to wrench the nail out the rest of the way. Bang, bang, bang. Yank, yank, yank. Hit a finger with the hammer. Ouch, ouch, ouch. Kill your knees climbing up and down the ladder. Curse, curse, curse. Over and over and over. Up and down and up and down on the ladder. For two months straight. Her hands hurt for weeks after it was finally finished.

OUR FABULOUS KITCHEN PLANNING EXPERIENCE

Our contractor told us we had better hurry up and order our kitchen cabinets because it would hold things up if they didn’t arrive in time. We started meeting with a fantastic kitchen designer who used the architect’s kitchen plans as a starting point and turned our kitchen into something incredible.

It was an amazing experience that we thoroughly enjoyed. Kathy Schmick at Smoot Lumber is awesome. When we were first planning our house the architects kept implying that we could only afford standard stained wooden cabinets,not the painted ones that I wanted. But now I’m getting high quality (at Doug’s insistence) cabinets by Bertch in a really groovy blue-greenish color. I’m kind of in awe of them, and very excited. The day after I picked them out I bought a copy of Architectural Digest and there was a featured kitchen in exactly the same color. It looked fantastic!

We are getting tons of drawers and lots of counter space and storage. Doug is getting two microwaves, a convection oven and he insisted that we get a double drawer dishwasher. Cyndy is delighted to be getting a dishwasher, period, and also two sinks (one for Doug on the other side of the kitchen). I don’t know why we need such a fantastic kitchen but somehow that is what we are getting.

The cabinets will arrive in May right after the wallboard goes up. The timing should work out perfectly.

The bookcase in the lower left corner is the same color as our cabinets.
Imagine an entire kitchen that color!

New Year's Day Conversation

Cyndy: Why haven’t we heard from our contractor yet?
Doug: Don’t worry about it.

Cyndy: But it’s been three months since you spoke to him.
Doug: It’s no big deal, I need to finish the porch first anyway.

Cyndy: But doesn’t he want us to sign a contract or something?
Doug: I told him there’s no rush because I need to finish building the porch.

Cyndy: There is too a rush. I can’t take any more inactivity.
Cyndy: When was the last time you spoke to him?
Doug: Just that one time.

Cyndy: What if he forgot?
Cyndy: Didn’t he say he was going to stop by and take a look at it?
Cyndy: I think I should call him, if you won’t.
Cyndy: If he’s not available we will have to start over with another contractor and wait another three months. That is not good, etc, etc, etc.
Doug: (no response)

So I got his number and called him and left a pathetic message about the urgency of our situation and explained it all again. He called back and said that what he had gotten from his conversation with Doug back in October was that Doug wanted him to build a porch and that there was no rush. Gee I’m sure glad I called him - who knows how long this would have dragged out? Thankfully he agreed to take on our much larger project and we met with him two weeks later. Now I feel like something is actually going to happen and I am relieved.

At the same time, I feel like this little "misunderstanding" has caused another unnecessary delay to us getting our house finished.

WE ARE GETTING TOO OLD FOR THIS

After they finished installing the water line not much else happened for the remainder of December. The 25 Anderson windows I ordered earlier this fall arrived on December 18th and Doug and I carried all of them up the stairs and into the house that same day. Carrying windows is a very physically awkward activity. We both completely trashed our backs and visited the chiropractor more often than usual for the rest of the month. In addition, Doug thought he had a hernia, but it turned out to be “only” a sprained groin muscle. Needless to say, we had to take it easy for a couple of weeks.

HEY! What are you guys doing to my new front lawn??!??

They came and dug a huge trench in the front yard to bring in the new water line to the house. How rude!!! There goes my beautiful new grass. Now it’s going to be muddy for the rest of the winter.

WATER LINE INSTALLED

okay, this is not fair....

Doug started this month by going out on a 10 day cruise from Madiera to Fort Lauderdale. Cyndy, admittedly, was somewhat bitter about this because she had turned down several ship gigs this past summer in the spirit of getting the house finished. Since Doug needed extra time after he got back to recover from his very exhausting ship gig, not much else happened with the house this month. But we did have our first meeting with Pat the Plumber. We have a very good feeling about him. Cyndy spent a lot of time researching doors. They are expensive. Isn’t this fascinating?

A BENEFIT OF BEING ON OUR OWN ALL THIS TIME
After we bought the plans from our previous builder we began to realize that we could tweak the plans to suit our previously unrealized needs in whichever way we pleased, within reason, and it wouldn’t cost us a penny.

It was so incredibly difficult trying to design our house from a piece of paper while we were on the road, but now that we actually own our plans we can carry them around the house with us and see how changing certain details will greatly improve the house.

We altered the window sizes quite a bit, and made a few secret changes to the porches that will work out great for us. We feel like for now, nobody can tell us what to do with our house.

There were so many money issues involved previously – after all, architects do charge by the hour – but now we are at a stage where we can freely mess with the plans and make them even better than they were already.

When the actual construction begins we will have to stop this nonsense, but we are having some serious fun with it right now. Hopefully we are not also making some serious mistakes that we will pay for later. There's no way to tell that at this point so I guess we'll just keep on fine tuning it for now as we see fit.

WE HAVE A NEW BUILDER!!!
Doug got in touch with an old friend of his who is a contractor and is known for his high quality work. He was not available to start right away, but Doug told him that was okay because he still needed to build the front porch out of the foam core panels. Nobody else gets to work with the foam core panels because Doug is the king of foam core construction.

Not much else happened this month – we got all of the cement poured into the piers for the front and back porches. Cyndy figured out all of the window sizes, ordered the windows, and tended to the new grass. Doug worked on mouthpieces.

We went to a home expo show late in the month just to get some ideas, and Doug decided that he just had to have a whole house vacuum system. Cyndy was skeptical, but she went along with it. The rich people who have these things apparently think they are great. The actual vacuum cleaner is in the basement and all you have to do is plug a hose into the wall instead of dragging a vacuum cleaner around all over the house. But the hoses are huge! Where will we keep them?