A Few More Things Completed

With the storms last night, I think the crews stopped working a little earlier than intended, but they accomplished a lot today.



The front door has been installed.

The fireplace pieces have been taken out of the plastic.

The guys came by tonight to cut out the wood floors underneath where the fireplace will be installed.

The single-light-frosted doors have been installed.



The doorknobs have been installed. 

But there are a few errors with doorknobs...we want knobs with locks on the attic doors (we have four attic access doors) but they don't have locks, so they will need to be replaced. Sadly, they put doorknobs on our game room bomber doors, which messed up the whole sleek look of them. Aside from the fact that they look silly, they seem to be installed too low. I'm not sure how they'll get those off, but we both agree they look funny and that needs to be fixed. We were so surprised we didn't even think to snap a picture of them.

I hope this ceiling tile ends up looking nice. The tile accents in the ceiling should sparkle when the lights shine up on them.

Most of the tile in the master shower has been installed.  The top is a lighter grey in the same style as the bottom; the trim is a brushed nickel like the bathroom fixtures.

Some of the knobs have been installed in on the bathroom vanities.  The knobs are brushed nickel squares. 

One more thing for me to love.

This little guy is the chandelier in the powder bath. 

So cute.

Also, the tile work in the mother-in-law bathtub has been finished. 

This gets a thumbs up, too. (The tile accent will even look good with the shower curtain we've already purchased.)

In other news...remember the chandelier in the master bathroom with the broken crystal?  I took the broken part back to Lowe's and they opened another box and took a crystal out to trade me-without any trouble at all.

The knobs & lights that Shane ordered earlier in the week should be here any day now. 

Turns out that we were over budget with the plumbing mainly because towel rods, hand towel hooks, toilet paper holders, etc. were outrageously priced from that vendor.  Guess who found them on Amazon for a fraction of the price?

That's right, it wasn't me...Shane again.  He's a very good bargain shopper.  I've just never been able to find what I'm looking for on the Internet.  But hey, we can't all have the same talents, can we?  What fun would that be?

Towel rods, etc. should be here by Friday.

Granite & sinks will go in tomorrow or the day after.

Appliances will be installed Tuesday the 31st. ;-)

In Stock or Out of Stock

It seems like half of the things we've selected have been out of stock: bathroom vanity lights, kitchen knobs, push plates for bomber doors. 

...and today we learned that the snakeskin print tile that I love won't make it in time. 

Literally, it's on the slow boat from China.

We already have three 12 x 36' pieces of it, and the tile guys accidentally installed it in the wrong location, so we can' treturn it, so we are going to utilize it anyway. 

Dana went to the tile store with only two specifications;  1) Find a tile that will look good with the  snakeskin, and 2) It has to be in stock.

We ended up with the shiny, irridescent one in the middle (next to the blue & black tile).

Who knows, maybe less really is more?

Shane and Dana measured the wall again to make sure we get the right amount of tile.

In the office, the sconces have been installed.  Shane picked these out, I think he did a great job.

This pretty little box holds the chime for the doorbell.

Here's a close-up of the game room fan.  Love. it.

The master ceiling fan has been installed, but the light globe didn't have a hole cut in it, so they have to bring us another one. 

Here's a close-up of the office and other bedroom fans.

The master shower is coming along...slowly.  I've learned that the expense of this part of the house is more about the labor than the actual tile.  It seems like they've been working on this forever.

In the upstairs bar, we installed some over the bar lights.

We also made the carpet selections today.  I don't have a pic of the bedroom carpet, but this fabulous patterned carpet will go in the office and on the staircase.  The color we selected is called "malt," I believe it is the second one from the left in the top row.

These single-light-frosted-glass doors will be installed in two of our bathrooms.  They still need to be painted.

Here they are mixing some thin set morter to glue down more tile.

...and here they are installing the balcony tile.

Here's a pic of the balcony with the tile set.  The best part about this is that this particular tile was free-of-charge.  That's right, free.  The tile company delivered the wrong color to another house and the tile guys accidentally installed it, but since the homeowners didn't like it they had it removed and we get it as a nice hand-me-down.

We are having technical difficulties.  I lost the bottom half of this post, so I'm publishing this now and I will add to it as soon as I can, hopefully before the storm arrives.  So check back in a bit, I will just add it to this post.

~~~~~

...and we are back....

As we left, a couple of guys showed up with some good news.

What kind of good news, you ask?  The we're-delivering-your-fireplace kind of good news. 

They brought it up to the house on this little trolley.

...and stacked it up by the front door. 

It looks like a lot, doesn't it?  Well, there's more. 

A trailer full, in fact.

They were hoping to install it tonight, but need to remove part of the wood floor so the fireplace can be installed directly on the concrete subfloor.

Apparently, this cast stone stuff is heavy enough to crack the wood floors.  I guess I don't have to worry about anyone walking off with it before it's installed.

All of the front exterior lights have been installed and, weather permitting, they will have the cast stone trim installed by Monday.

Eighteen days until the parade, and Shane and Dale have a wager about whether or not our house will win an award.  Somebody will be buying dinner.

Lights & Fans

The electrician worked at the house today and installed the lights outside the garage.

The front door has finally been delivered.  Here it is, leaning upside down against the wall. There is a pretty cute little peep-hole door in it.

The ceiling fan in the office has been installed.

...and the ceiling fan in the living room.  I'm very happy that we went with a ceiling fan, we debated over an interesting light or the fan, and I think this was a great choice. 

No buyers remorse here...

Now, we might have some buyers remorse over these island lights....

Turns out, they are a bit larger than expected.

We picked up this light from my school auction.  It's in the little gallery between the living room and master bedroom.  It was a great bargain and I like it just fine-maybe more than fine because of the price.

In the master bedroom, they've cut holes in the ceiling for the eyebrow lights.  We have to use this kind of light instead of can lights because they need to be installed in the angled part of the ceiling.

The alarm keypad has been installed.

Here's the little chandelier in the master bathroom.  Sadly, one of the crystals is broken & we've got to get it replaced.

One more thing to add to the "to-do" list...

Although the tile has been installed in the tub cubby, the tub has still not been placed where it belongs.

These cute little lanterns are in the mud room.

All of the spare bedroom ceiling fans have been installed.

...and the game room fan.  I really like this fan, you can't see the detail in this pic, but it's beautiful. I'll try to remember to take a closer picture tomorros.

These adorable little candle sconces are in the wine room. 

I'm very pleased with them, as well.

I'm assuming the electrician will be back tomorrow because all of these boxes are full of fixtures that still need to be installed.

Now, on to other matters...we found out today that all of the living room & kitchen cabinet knobs won't be here in time.  They were a special order item and will take more time than we have left to arrive. 

So, that handy-dandy-fella' of mine got online tonight and ordered some at a significantly reduced price that should be here in about five days.  Yay.

We are still trying to find vanity lights for the master bathroom.  I thought we had spent too much on the original ones we selected, but apparently I was wrong.  Every other light we find is much less attractive, and much more expensive.

Also, it is so humid here that they are having trouble getting the paint to cure so they can sand and patch mistakes.  PSO has not yet installed the power to the house, so we can't turn on the air conditioners to help.

Lastly, tonight we went to pick out carpet samples and they let us bring a few samples with us.  Tomorrow we can take them into the house and look at them in the daylight.

I sure hope whatever we select isn't on backorder, as well.

To Do:

We spent most of the afternoon at the house working on some things...Shane's project was technical, mine a little more crafty.

He left before me and when I got over there, he was watching a YouTube video on his phone to get a few last minute pointers before he started.

I unloaded all of my supplies and then he decided to give me a lesson in terminating cables (I think that's what he called what we were doing.)

So, remember all of those colorful cables in the attic?

Well, it turns out that the other end of these cables are sticking out of the walls in just about every room of the house.

So, we snipped the end of of each of the cables (well, I only helped with one of them, Shane did the rest).

And then we matched the colored wires up with the right spot in these colored boxes.

Two of these cables are capped, the black one hasn't been finished yet. The yellow and the grey things are the snipping tools.

When we finished the phone & network cables, Shane used this little tool to put the connector caps on the end of the TV cables.

The three cables in the art studio are now capped.

Then he shoved the extra cable length back into the walls.

Then he popped the capped ends into the wall jack.

And placed it in the wall.

Ta-Da!

Then we hooked this little tool up to one of the jacks.

Then we went up to the cable/media room with all of those cables in the attic and Shane used this tool to touch to the other ends of the cables.  When he touched the end of the cable that had the thing plugged into the jack in my studio, this tool lit up.

Now, the art studio only had three cables for us to cap, but the other outlets have many more cables...and they all need capped.

These boxes contain all of the tools and gadgets Shane needed for his wiring project today.

Needless to say, this wiring project kept Shane busy much of the day...and he's almost finished with this end of the cables but he still has to get all of the cables in the attic in the right place.

My project was a little more to my liking...I've  been saving wine corks and have had several of my friends saving theirs as well.  I'm making an art piece for the wine room and I was pretty sure that I had enough for this project, but with the parade sneaking up on us, I had to be sure.

So, I measured the display space and then drew an outline on a piece of cardboard, and laid out all of my corks.

I mean, what if I didn't have enough corks?  I might have needed a trip to the store.

Turns out, I had plenty of corks.

Thanks everyone! 

Unfortunately, this was a dry run and I had to dump them all back into my bag.  Hopefully, the granite will be installed by next weekend and I can complete the project.

Earlier this week, the electrician came and installed the outlets and the light switches.

The switches in the rooms that had the correct color on the walls even have the face plates installed.

Now, with only 20 days until the parade (19 if they don't work on Memorial Day), we are wondering how in the world everything will get done in time.

They still have to:
-install all the lighting fixtures & ceiling fans
-finish putting face plates on electrical switches
-install granite
-finish the tile in the spare bathrooms
-lay the tile on the balcony
-install the kitchen backsplash
-install the master tub
-PSO needs to hook up the main electrical line
-tile the master shower
-install all the sinks, faucets & toilets
-install all the kitchen appliances
-install  doorknobs
-hope the cabinet pulls arrive in time & install them
-we need to select the carpet so it can be installed
-distress, stain & varnish the wood floors
-build the cabinets for the outdoor kitchen
-install the grill & outdoor sink
-install the iron stair rail
-install the bathroom mirrors
-hang remaining cabinets
-tile behind the bar in the game room
-install the balusters on the balcony
-hang the iron door in the wine room
-install the single light doors that haven't yet arrived
-hang, stain & varnish the front door
-install the fireplace
-install the gutters
-paint the garage doors and exterior house trim
-level the yard
-lay the sod
-landscape the yard

Patch remaining holes in the wall like this one:

and clean up the place.

How will it ever get finished in time? 

At least their deadline is for the parade, not for us to move in!