Christmas Comes Early

Merry Christmas everyone! It's been awhile since I've put up a blog, largely because I was waiting for a few things that were almost done to get completely done so that I could take nice pictures of them to put on the blog. As has so often been the case, getting things that last 10% done is the hardest part. I'll catch everyone up room by room:

Bedroom:
We had just finished painting the walls of the master bedroom in the last blog entry. Shortly after that at 7:00am on a Saturday, the carpet guys showed up to carpet the bedroom. I won't even get into how unpleasant it is to be unexpectedly interrupted at 7am on a Saturday, because the big problem was that we were planning to paint the trim of the bedroom that day. Colleen, who was also sick, 'greeted' the carpet crew and thoughtfully explained to them that perhaps it would be better if they came back a few days later. They left the rolls of carpet and exited stage left. Five verification calls and three schedule changes later, they showed up again to install the carpet. Below is our new master bedroom and it is done! Well, we need to paint the doors and there is some minor touchup paint work to do, but it is ready to be moved into as soon as the bathroom is done and we don't have the threat of workers walking through our bedroom.

Bathroom:
The bathroom has had a lot of work done to it. The tile was installed and the flooring were both installed a few weeks ago. As I alluded to before though, it's the last 10% that is holding things back. Even though I sent a warning email to our project manager not once, but twice, telling him that the tile guys were going to tile over the access to the tub plumbing and motor, nothing was done. The result was that they had to cut out tiles that we had just paid to have installed. Ultimately they will have to create some kind of access panel to replace those tiles. Early this morning we saw the first attempt at that panel and it was a feeble attempt. I had a conversation with the carpenter and I think we are going to find a better solution to that little issue. Since this is Christmas, this little story has to have a happy ending. In this case, it was that the plumbing was all done! Our early Christmas present was getting to try out the tub last night. I have to say, it was pretty awesome. Our tankless hot water heater definitely did the trick and the inline water heater in the tub (it heats the water as it recirculates in the jets) is fantastic.

There are a few other things around the bathroom that still need some work. Our bathroom counter was ordered with the faucet holes in the wrong place, so that still needs to be replaced and the faucets installed. The shower enclosure needs to be done as well. The contractor for that spent all of last week and most of this week not returning our calls, so that is still in the very early stages of what will likely be a few weeks long process.
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Greatroom:
Not much happened in the greatroom for a long time, largely because the contractors are done with that room and Colleen and I have been trying to get paint done elsewhere. Finally, Colleen got to lay down the first coat of paint in the greatroom only hours ago. We are hoping to get the walls painted over Christmas, the trim over New Years, and the floor in the weekend after that. The goal is to have the room ready for entertaining in time for our Super Bowl party. That would be a pretty simple task except for the fact that Colleen and I are headed to Europe for two weeks. Such a tough life . . .

And it was Good

One of the great understatements of all time is after God creates the first light he steps back and thinks 'this is good.' I mean, if I had just created light out of nothing I think I'd be just a little bit more excited than that. I'd be calling all my friends and saying 'Hey, you know how it's been dark since before the beginning of time and all the sudden it's light now? That was me! Isn't that awesome!"

Almost all of the remaining lights in the addition were installed today including the pendant lights over the counters. To say that Colleen and I thought the lights were 'good' would be a huge understatement (but probably not as big as God's).

We have also been able to gather the waters under heaven in one place. By which of course I mean the sink now works. Somewhat less miraculous than God's third day on the job, but an accomplishment none the less.

p.s. Happy 5 month anniversary to the Addition!

Ups and Downs

We had a couple of good weeks there in a row, but this week was back to the more typical up and down cycle. It ended on a great note with us hosting the traditional 'Friends Thanksgiving' here on Saturday and Sunday.

The Heat is . . . On (do do do do do, do do do do do!)

Early in the week the thermostat was installed so we were blessed with heat in the entire house for the first time in a long time. Apparently the installers cranked it up and turned on the 'emergency heat' feature to make sure it was warm when we got home. Since I had also already closed some of the vents, this basically made it 85 in some parts of the house and 60 in others. Since then it has evened considerably. The air handler is also very quiet which was a bit of a concern. The programmable thermostat looks like it will be great, but it looks like it will take three hours to program correctly and we haven't yet put in the time.

That Sinking Feeling

As you may recall, our counters were installed the Tuesday before Thanksgiving and our stove and microhood have been here for months. We were really hoping that we would be able to get the plumber out here to install the faucets and the stove. Well, he did . . . sort of. The stove and dishwasher are sitting in their spots and the sink faucet was installed, but he didn't leave himself enough time to get into the crawl space to hook up the drain or the gas line, so none of it actually works yet. So close! This was especially unfortunate with the party this weekend. We put some flower arrangements in the nonworking sink to keep people from using it so at least it looked pretty.

Come Hell or No Water

Determined to host parties no matter the state of the addition, Colleen and I hosted our second 'in construction' shin-dig this weekend. The 'Friends Thanksgiving' is a lot like any other pot luck Thanksgiving get together only it's with friends instead of family. We put some cardboard and our brand new area rug down in the greatroom and used a projector to make a 104 inch screen on the wall.

Additional Accumulation

The addition saw its first snowfall this past weekend. I'll leave you with a few shots of the addition in its blanket of white.

Paint by Numbers (Painting: Day 4)

Days: 4

Pizzas: 2

Parents Roped into Helping: 3

Beers: 15 (estimate, probably low)
Gallons of paint: 14
Square feet painted: 6160 (440 sq ft per gallon); 0.14 acres

Square feet of ceiling: 2714

Painters tape applied: 1620 feet; 0.3 miles
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Holy crap am I tired of painting. On the bright side, we did actually accomplish all of our goals. Every surface that is going to have a light installed on it has had two coats of paint (and a coat of primer) applied to it. We actually have some significant painting yet to do, but this certainly got us most of the way to the finish line. The only thing that we still need to paint in order for the construction company to finish their work is the trim in the bedroom and bathroom which should be more of a one-two day project. The bathroom is done, the bedroom is done, the great room ceiling is done (so . . . much . . . ceiling), the closets are done. Eventually we need to finish the greatroom and repaint the stairwell and the guest room, but let's not dwell on that right now.

Painting: Day 3

Today was productive, but not quite as productive as we had hoped. I can certainly say it was not from a lack of effort though. Here's a quick recap: the bathroom and two of four closets are completely done; the master bedroom is primed, taped, and ready for its first coat of color; the greatroom is half primed (we ran out of paint). Tomorrow the bedroom will get color and the greatroom will get two coats of ceiling paint.

Colleen's dad took the day off from painting to hunt. To fill in for him, we brought in my mom. We got quite a few pictures of her today, but none of her face. I think that's because she spent almost every minute here facing a wall putting down tape or paint. That's her on the right (guess from which side of my family I got my height).


Our electrician was here working hard for at least 8 or 9 hours and still didn't get everything done. Again though, there are some highlights: the kitchen and master bedroom are completely wired (including our awesome new ceiling fan); elsewhere all of the switches and outlets are in, but few of the lights have been installed. The lights that are installed look pretty sweet. Hopefully our electrician will be back again soon to finish up.

Painting: Day 2

What better way to celebrate with your family on Thanksgiving than by making them do manual labor? Colleen and I put together some lofty goals this weekend and to meet them all, we needed some help. The electrician is due out tomorrow to install the electrical sockets, switches, and lights. Since lights are annoying to paint around, we wanted to get as many of the ceilings painted as possible before he arrived. He'll also likely install the vanity light which means we'd like to have the bathroom painted. And in the great spirit of 'while you're at it' we decided to try to get primer up in the great room and the master bedroom. Colleen's parents have been a big help the last two days and my mom is due to show up tomorrow.

So far we're doing okay on our goals. We have at least one coat of paint on all the surfaces that lights will be installed on. The kitchen, bedroom, and bathroom ceilings are done, and we hope to have the bathroom wall and one or two of the closet ceilings done by the time the lights are installed tomorrow. See some highlights of the fun below.

With no light, painting at night involves worklights and creepy shadows.

Paul powered through the entire ceiling of the great room in one shift.

Rhema performs what has become the least favorite activity: cleaning the walls.

This was just as comfortable as it looks.

Count(er)ing Our Blessings

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Before I get into the new addition news, let me just say that Colleen and I have a lot to be thankful for. Clearly we do some whining on the blog, but it would be a little boring if every blog entry was 'Things are Great!' We really are blessed just to be able to do a project like this and it has been a great adventure. Moreover, we are truly blessed because we have such great friends and family to support us (some of whom are literally helping us out right now). Okay, enough sappy stuff, let's get to the news!

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At last update we were priming the kitchen in prep for painting. We got that all done (except the ceiling) and it looks very nice. It's a good thing we got it done too, because Tuesday was a very counter productive day. Usually that's a bad thing, but not this time. A small army of guys showed up to install our counters on Tuesday. Because we got Corian, the largest section was all one piece (a big selling point for us since it means no seams for water and germs to collect). I was at work, but Colleen got a great shot of the counter when it was still vertical.

It took them about 3 hours to install and they look great (again, please ignore the floor).

We've spent much of the last two evenings shelf papering and putting dishes in our new cabinets. It's extremely satisfying to finally be reversing the flow of stuff by taking it out of storage and putting it into the kitchen. We are doing lots more painting over the holiday weekend and quite a few things are slated for next week. We should get our appliances and sink faucets installed. I'm hopeful the thermostat will finally be installed so we can get some heat in the addition. Also, our tile is due to be 'produced' on Monday so it might arrive before the end of next week.

Optimal Prime

As you can see from the picture below, we officially started painting today. Colleen is busy priming the kitchen for paint and I'm (supposed to be) washing the walls of the master bedroom and taping them in prep for painting.

Just because we are painting, don't think the addition is done, it is just to the point where painting needs to happen so that other things can happen. In the case of the kitchen, the counters are due to be delivered soon (about a 50/50 chance of having them here before Thanksgiving). The bedroom ceiling has to be done so they can install our light fixture so that we can get our plugs and switches installed (so that we can do more painting).

On a general note, it is not often that things go more or less right for a few weeks in a row, but we are definitely on a good streak recently. My November 7th post made some bold predictions about things that I hoped would get done, and nearly all of them are done or on schedule: The cabinets are in; the countertops were measured last Monday and due in soon; the grading was done despite the heat pump; the vast majority of the trim has been finished; and Colleen and I are in fact painting. Hopefully that momentum can continue for a few more weeks. Lots of important stuff is due in soon.

Cabinets!

In the up and down excitement of building an addition, this is definitley an up day! About half of the cabinets are fully installed and the other half are sitting where they will eventually go. They look really nice and everything fits perfectly (so far). I'll let the pictures do the talking (please try to ignore the half painted walls, dirty floor, etc . . . just focus on the cabinets).

Happy 4 Month Birthday

I like the format of my blog a few weeks ago where I basically do lots of mini-blogs. Mostly I like it because it's easier on me, and ultimately, that's really what its all about. So hold on to your seats, here we go again rapid fire style . . .

Tile Death Do Us Part

(New favorite blog title). Seven weeks ago Colleen and I went to the flooring place and picked out the carpet for the bedroom, the vinyl flooring for the bathroom, and the tile that will go around our shower and tub. For the tile, Colleen wanted something in a beige marble look and I wanted something in a white marble look. I think beige looks dirty, she thinks white looks like a museum. We found a white tile with beige veining which satisfied us both and we were very happy for that.

Four days ago I got a call from the flooring place saying that they had just gotten word from our PM to go ahead and place the order and that our tile was backordered by six weeks. The irony is of course that if the order had been placed when we picked it, it would have already been here. Anyway, they asked us to come in and pick something else out. So Thursday, Colleen and I headed back into the show room certain they would not have anything else to satisfy us both. The bad news is, they didn't; the good news is, she caved so we are getting white marble:-) The other bad news is that the next day we got a call saying that this tile was back ordered by more than three weeks! By this point, we were tired of picking tile, so basically we are just going to have to wait a little longer to finally use our shower and tub.

Making the Grade

So you loyal readers out there may remember that the rationale for not having heat the B and B Party was that they couldn't put in the heat pump until they had done the final grade. This made sense to me since the heat pump should go about two feet above where the ground currently is. The current date for grading is Monday morning. In a little twist however, the heat pump has already been installed. Unfortunately the thermostat has not. What this means is that the heat pump is in the way of grading AND not providing us any heat. Awesome. I'm anxious to see how they do the grading now since they are going to have waaaay too much dirt unless they uninstall the pump, move it while they grade, and then reinstall it (see the weekly update picture below).

On Deck

Our PM says that not only is grading scheduled for Monday but that our cabinets are due to arrive Monday afternoon. I find this fascinating based on the current state of our kitchen: the old washer/dryer plumbing is still installed, there are huge sections of undrywalled wall and ceiling etc. Anyway, Colleen and I are packing up what is left of our kitchen this weekend so they can take out the old and put in the new. I'm hopeful that the new cabinets will be installed within the week and the counters within two weeks of that. I'm sure in three weeks I'll be rereading this blog thinking, "I was such a fool."

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Although I haven't been told this specifically, I think they are going to do the final trim work in the great room and bedroom sometime soon. This will allow Colleen and I to paint which will allow them to put in the flooring. At this point, I don't know when all the addition work will be done, but I do feel like I can see all the steps lining up to get it done, and that's exciting.

Glimpsing the Future

The addition hosted its first party this past weekend! B and B Party XII was a big success.

Our PM did get a cleaning crew out here on Thursday and they did a heck of a job (they even cleaned the windows for crying out loud). I also took the day off to help turn the addition from a construction zone into a suitably hospitable environment for 35ish people. It was actually great to see the place (mostly) cleaned up for just a few days and get some hints of what it will be like when it is all done. For the first time ever we took the plastic down between the kitchen and the greatroom. The greatroom is definitely a great room to hold a party. Just think what it will be like when it has electricity! The new bedroom got its first use. We slept five guests in the new bedroom (and two in the guest bedroom, and one in the living room). Here's one picture of the master bedroom. Notice how big it looks even with a king air mattress in it. I'll post some more good addition pictures as I get them and have more time.

In other addition news, the tub arrived early Friday morning and was dragged upstairs today. It still isn't inside it's little box yet, but they did put some cement backerboard around it where it will go so that it can be tiled once its in. Gutters were installed Friday. I have a feeling that we could be getting our new cabinets this week, but our PM has been MIA since Wednesday, so it's a little hard to tell. Stay tuned. . .

Days of Rain Without Leaks: 1

While dryness has an awful lot of utility, it didn't quite seem in the spirit of the Lost Utility Tracker. You can blame it on the rain, but I blame it on the roofers (and if they mind, they can bite me).

While Bruce slept soundly Monday night, I was awakened by heavy rain. After a long consultation with the angel on my left shoulder and the devil on my right, I dragged myself up to see where we needed buckets THIS time. [I know those of you with kids are already thinking this is NOT newsworthy.] I spent about ten minutes with a flashlight upstairs and downstairs checking ceilings, walls, closets, outlets, and light switches, all of which have previously had water dripping/pouring out of them. The only dampness I found was a couple of slightly dark spots in the ceiling that I was almost certain had been freshly spackled that day and just hadn't fully dried.

I crawled back in bed and eventually stopped thinking about the wet spots and the beads of water that could be forming at that very minute. When we got up in the morning (and I explained to Bruce why on earth I was on my tiptoes poking at the ceiling in my pajamas), the dark spots were either smaller or gone. And after a full day of rain yesterday, our buckets remain dry!

Something's Done! (almost)

The retaining wall is (almost) done. It's all done except a few capstones and it looks really nice. The stairs (hats off to Colleen for the finding that idea online) look nice and create a convenient volleyball court access. Once it's landscaped I think what could have been an eyesore will really be a unique feature of the house.

Party Time?

Come hell or high water, B and B Party XII will be held here on Halloween. As that day inches ever closer, I look around me and think: 'Oh crap.' Most of the house is covered in dust, the rest of it is covered in plastic. The greatroom has a dozen sheets of drywall laying on the floor, three boxed up appliances, and enough random construction paraphernalia to open up your own hardware store. The new bedroom (a great potential crash place after party) is looking a lot better, but now that the roof is still leaking it's hard to tell what will have to be torn out and redone. Our PM has assured me that his guys will be sweeping up and cleaning up on Thursday, but he's assured me lots of things in the past.

If the weather holds out and the retaining wall really is all done on Sunday, the final grade should happen early next week. The goal was then to get the heat pump in and running pre-party. While that is still a possibility, I would no longer call it likely since there would be at most four days to build a base for it, have it delivered, installed, and working correctly.

Fortunately, cleanliness and heat are not two things that are required for a successful B and B Party as previous years have clearly demonstrated. Still, when I look at the room pictured below my first thought is not: Let's Party!

Wow, it's a room!

It's funny what things trigger your mind. Something about putting up drywall makes things stop looking like a construction site and start looking like a room. Lots and lots of drywall got put up this week. The entire upstairs is done (including the guest bedroom) and most of the downstairs is done. I knew that drywalling would create a lot of dust, but it really is hard to overstate how much dust there was and still is. They certainly did their best to protect our stuff. You can see in the picture below that my desk was wrapped up so much I thought maybe it was leftovers from a few weeks ago.

The retaining wall is nearly done. Due to the number of steps we needed, the builder ran out of block and had to reorder more. However, there are only about two more steps to go at this point and he has assured us he'll be done tomorrow. It continues to look really great and I promise pictures when it's all done.

Here is the bedroom all drywalled in.

That's my desk under there somewhere.

Deja Vu

I have the distinct feeling that I've sat at this exact same computer and already written a blog about the roof leaking. I've been having that deja vu feeling a lot lately. I had it last week when I got home from work and ran around putting out buckets and towels for leaks. I had the feeling yet again last night when I called our PM and told him that our roof was leaking. If I didn't know any better, I would say that the roof has been unsuccessfully repaired three times now, but certainly that can't be true. . .

Etc.

This is going to be a catch-all blog for all the little things that have been going on around here over the past few weeks while I haven't been regularly blogging. Stuff is going to come fast, so stay ready for it.

Wired
We may not have heat, we may not have electricity, but by God we have the internet! Jeremy came over last weekend and helped me do a little wiring before the drywall was put in. We put up some cable for surround speakers and ran some Cat-5 cable from the study (where the hub will be) to the back wall of the living room (where the TV will be). This gets us ready for HD cable and convenient video game networking. Our new appliances (still in their boxes) are in the foreground of the picture below.

This Stinks
Those of you not in the greater Loudoun County area may not be aware of the stink bug infestation that is going on all along East Coast right now, but let me assure you, it is on (http://loudountimes.com/news/2009/sep/29/stinkbugs-invade-loudoun/). These guys are little gray/brown shield shaped insects that tend to hang out on sunny windows during the day and then invade the house at night when it cools down. The worst part is, if you squash them, or even scare them sufficiently, they let off a pretty foul smell. My favorite killing method right now is to flick them into a tub of water mixed with bug spray. I've killed no less than 4 dozen in the addition so far, but only a few of them have made it into the main house. Hopefully with the drywall going up soon we'll be a bit more impervious to them.

Tanks, You're Welcome

Our new super-sized gas tank was put in the ground last week (see below, right). They did exactly what they were supposed to do when they said they were going to do it and got out fast. If there was anything to complain about, it was that they dug a trench for a 1 inch pipe with a 2 foot backhoe shovel (below, left). But the yard is mostly a lost cause at this point anyway, so oh well.

A Bargain at Twice the Price
After three months of construction noise, strange people in an out of our house, living at times without heat, water, and/or electricity, we finally have something to show for it! New lights were installed in our kitchen a few weeks ago which brightens up the room very nicely, but it is most remarkable as the first item of the addition that we can actually enjoy. Based on the payments we've already made to construction company, these lights are worth about $17,000 a piece (lightbulbs were not included for that price).

I'm Out of Pithy Titles

We had no less than three inspectors come through the house this week. Though we haven't actually heard from our PM (not a surprise), we are under the impression that we passed all our inspections. Woohoo! That means we should be on to insulation and then drywall. Also, the retaining wall got started this weekend. I'm waiting until it's all done to give the wall its own blog, but so far it is looking good! You can see just a bit of the back of it from this week's update picture.

A Dry Spell

If you’ve been wondering what was up with the blog recently, it's because there have been a couple of disappointments in a row and sometimes it’s hard to relive them by writing them down until they have had some closure. Anyway, I’ll try to get back on the regular update schedule again. In the mean time, enjoy catching up.

Crystal Ball

Telling the future is a tricky thing. Predicting what things will be like on an exact date is even harder. One thing I know for sure is that B and B XII will take place in the new addition on October 31st. The big question is: what will the addition look like then?

Here’s how things will probably play out. The plumber is almost done with the rough-in plumbing and the electricians only have a few more things to put in. That means we could be getting all that inspected by the end of the week. Once that passes inspection, they put in the insulation and then it gets inspected, then the dry wall goes up. In the meantime, the retaining wall is scheduled for this weekend. Once it is done, they will be able to do the final grade which allows them to install the heat pump (and hopefully re-seed what used to be the lawn). If everything works out nicely, that means they will have heat and/or AC to help dry out the dry wall. That means we should have a huge heated, unpainted room with a concrete floor on which to host the party, and that’s a pretty perfect scenario for a party that is notorious for the damage it does.

The crystal ball is a little murkier when I try to look into it and see the kitchen. Our PM doesn’t think our cabinets will be in yet, but by my calculations they’ll be arriving days before the party. This would pretty much be a worst case scenario. The counter tops don’t get ordered until the cabinets are in and our sink is actually going to be part of our counter. So we could possibly have brand new expensive cabinets totally exposed and no kitchen sink. That would be a bad scenario. Either way, we’ll have fun!

Vene apisere aliquod

The Promised Land

The roof is done! Just over a month since they were supposed to be here the first time and three weeks after they started, the roof is on. To focus on the positive a bit, it looks great. The dove grey is a nice color and goes with both the old roof and the yellow siding quite nicely.

Under the Weather

More rain, but no more roof. Running around putting buckets under drips in the roof on the weekends is becoming tiresome very quickly. The only exciting part was that water was coming from new and interesting places this time. The biggest problem is still the space between the old and new portions of the house on the lower floor. After some investigating I realized that even though they finished putting the roof on the overhang near the patio, they didn’t put the siding back. This basically channeled water directly into the house, kind of the opposite effect that a roof and siding are supposed to have.

Close but no Cigar

On Saturday, two roofers arrived and started working on the last of the roof, or so we thought. After putting in nearly a full day they realized they were out of roofing material. For those of you keeping count, that makes three weeks after the first promise of roofing delivery. The truly silly part is that they finished the part of the roof over the carport, but not over the actual new house. So the car will remain nice and dry, the interior of the house however. . .

A big tub arrived on Monday. You’ll notice I say, ‘a’ big tub and not ‘our’ big tub. After arriving home first and looking at it, I was thoroughly impressed and excited for Colleen to see it. Unfortunately, when she arrived home she discovered it was not in fact the tub we had ordered. This began a series of emails back and forth with the PM where he displayed some truly bad customer service skills. First attempting to deflect some blame back on us, then complaining out the restocking fee they would have to pay, then saying we would have to wait for 5-6 weeks for the new tub, all the while never offering us anything in return for the delay. After some follow up on the phone, we found that most of the project could keep going without the tub so we opted to wait it out for the one we really wanted.

Needless to say, it was not the best few days for the addition.

Marching Priests and Sounding Trumpets

It's starting to feel a bit like the seventh day in Jericho around here (religion major gotta throw in a Bible reference once in awhile; Joshua 5:20): the walls are tumbling down. Two walls bit the dust yesterday. We took out the small wall immediatley to your left as you entered the house. It didn't really have much need to be there and we thought it would make that entry way feel a bit more open.

Second and more notably, the partial wall that was still existing under the big I-beam is now gone. Its absense leaves a 10 foot span with nothing but a thin sheet of clear plastic in its place.

As the kitchen slowly begins to take on its much larger form, Colleen and I are forced to use less and less of it. We lost another cabinet the other day, and the counter near the sink is basically part of the construction zone these days, so it can only be used sparingly. Its an unfortunate side effect and not a trend that is likely to reverse any time soon. We do have some great renderings of what the future cabinet layout will look like though, someday I'll make a blog out of them. . .

Also in the news: The roofers arrived! They aren't quite done yet, but they have done most of the roofing at this point and hopefully will finish before any more rain shows up.

Life in the Bubble

What the last two weeks lacked in productivity, this week made up for. I'm pretty worn out from volleyball this morning and helping Meghann and Duncan get their house ready for market on Monday (link to be inserted when house is listed), so I'm going to keep this brief and let the pictures do most of the talking.

First, the siding is now all done and it looks great. Here is a look at the rarely photographed patio side of the addition. This picture also shows that the final window has gone in. The little one on the second floor right in the middle of the picture was added to the guest bedroom.

Not only did they put in that new window, but they finally cut the door from the old upstairs to the new upstairs so we (and the construction guys) no longer have to climb through the window to get into the new master bedroom. Because they were doing all this work on that wall, they put up a wall of plastic in the room to keep the dust at bay. It's was a very nice thought, but it really gives you the feeling that you are carrying some sort of highly infectious disease or were horribly irradiated or something. Here's a shot of the new door and window from inside the bubble.

The big push to put the new door in was so that they could bring up the new tub! To get ready, they already built the box for it. Colleen is particularly excited about this part. Here we are sitting in the future location of the tub.

While the carpenters were working on the walls, the HVAC guy was here climbing around above them. All the new venting was put in this week. As an added bonus, for less than a thousand bucks, we were able to get central heat/air to all the upstairs rooms on Colleen and my side of the house. I don't have any pictures of that because, quite frankly, it's boring to look at.

Another thing that's boring to look at but was a good deal is our new gas tank. Our plumber warned us that the pressure our current tank was able to put out was not going to be sufficient for our future needs. So we called up the gas company and had them come out. For only $800 they are going to bury a new 400 gallon tank and run the line up to the house for us. This also made Colleen's mom very happy as it will get the current gas tank out of her flower bed and out of our future patio. After so many things in a row where we felt like we were over paying, it was nice to get a few things we thought were deals.

I'll leave you with the standard weekly update picture. Notice that it still has no roof on it (promised for Friday and then for Saturday). Hopefully that will happen next week. Lots of work to the kitchen is supposed to happen next week as well. They are set to take down the little wall (immediately to your left as you wall in) and frame in under the big beam (currently just a big ugly hole with blue styrofoam in it).

Happy Two Month Birthday

The addition is officially two months old now! Hard to believe that only two months ago we had a grass covered hill in our backyard (hard to remember having any grass for that matter).

Although the progress for most of those two months was relatively quick, it has slowed down recently while we waited on the siding/roof guys to show up and get to work. I was literally writing this blog on Saturday morning with the following track record of promises for the siding:

• Wednesday the 26th “[The roofer] expects to have the roofing materials any day and will get right on it. He thinks he should have it done by the end of the weekend.
• Thursday the 27th “Siding on Saturday”
• Tuesday the 1st “I think we’re tracking on the siding. He thinks he’ll start Thursday”

On Saturday at 10:30 in the morning, we finally got a siding guy. Yep, one, singular, siding guy. To his credit, he's a good worker doing something that must be hard to do on your own. As of now (he worked Saturday and Labor Day) he is about half way done. I don't know much about siding, but it seems like a pretty good job. Below is your weekly house picture (I cheated a little and took this one on Sunday since there wasn't much exciting done by Saturday afternoon).

Minor Achievements

At the time of the last update, our kitchen was slowly being turned into a marshland due to the leaky not-quite-on-yet roof. The bad news is, we still don't have a roof. The good news is, the roofers did come out and do a more thorough job of tar-papering the roof and fixed some spots that were completely overlooked the first time. It rained pretty hard Thursday night (only hours after they finished the job) and there was no sign of water. I guess that'll do for now. There is also no siding yet, which was promised for last week and then promised for today.

So what has been done? Well, they finished putting all the windows (except for a new one that will go in the current guest bedroom) and the installed the new doors (front door pictured below). They also did quite a bit of general cleanup which made the new room look absolutely huge (also pictured below). All in all, not the most productive week, but not a total waste.

The coming week should be interesting. We expect to have the new quote for the cabinets soon. The plumber is due on Monday, and the roof and siding should go on (no really, this time I mean it). Stay tuned . . .

Editorial Notes

Two quick editorial notes.

1) There is a new feature on the blog! Check out the 'Lost Utility Tracker' which will be updated weekly for days of missed utilities. As they will start the plumbing and electrical work soon, I expect some action up there.

1) I have a confession. I back date. If you, loyal reader, find yourself checking every day for posts, being disappointed day after day only to suddenly uncover three posts claiming to be from days earlier, I have an explanation. Because I will sometimes write entries during the week but not have time to post them until the weekend, or for simply the sake of making the narrative easier to follow, I will write in the current tense and then post to the date appropriate for the entry even if the events happened in past. Glad to get that off my chest.

Rain, Rain, Go Away; Come Again . . .

When we have a freakin’ roof! It rained a lot outside this weekend which was really good for the water supply and the plants. Unfortunately, it also rained a lot inside this weekend which was really not good for anything. There were two major downpours and during both we had water literally pouring out of the upstairs ceiling and raining down our faux kitchen wall. So far, it doesn’t look like major damage has been done, but it’s hard to tell with water damage. We snapped lots of pictures including one of water running out of an electrical socket (never a good thing), water dripping from multiple places on the ceiling, and just general towel/bucket madness. Hopefully the roof will be on soon.

On a brighter note, a lot of work was done this past week and the roofers should be here any day now (hopefully before Thursday when they are calling for more thunderstorms). Here is your weekly update picture.

Dove Gray Killed my Father

Some months ago the roofer was out to show Colleen and me the various colors available for our metal roof. We liked something metallic (it is after all, a metal roof), but not so shiny it was blinding when you looked at it, so we went with Dove Gray. On Thursday, Colleen and I received an email from our PM saying, and I quote, “[Colleen’s dad] is not happy with the color choice for the roof and has stopped the process at this point. [The roofer] says [Colleen's dad] is not in favor of the dove gray color.” End of email. The following is, in order, the two thoughts Colleen and I had immediately:
1. That doesn’t sound like Colleen’s dad.
2. Who hates Dove Gray? It’s so bland and inoffensive. What did it ever do to you?

Colleen immediately called her dad, who was as surprised at this turn of events as we were, and got the full story (well, not so much the ‘full’ story as the actual story). The roofer’s assistant showed up to do some basic measuring. He, like his boss, was a very pleasant man who spoke virtually no English. In passing conversation the guy pointed at the blue roof across the street and said "We have that," to which Dad replied (correctly) that we didn't want that. Somehow, this translated to “I hate the color that has been chosen for our roof (even though I’ve never seen it since you didn’t bring any samples with you) and want you to leave immediately and never return.” A quick phone call to the PM straightened things out, but we’re not sure how much work time was lost since the measuring guy had already left.

Money Whoas

Some of you have heard of the recent cost overruns Colleen and I have been facing. Here is a quick recap and the good news updates on two of them:

A few weeks back, Colleen and I got the 3-D designs of our new kitchen cabinetry which were really fun to look at. A few days later the quote came in at three times what was in the allowance. Whoa! After much discussion and searching around, we went back to the cabinet guy on Tuesday and had a very productive conversation that we think will provide us with something more affordable that we still like. It may even come in at less than double the allowance. Dare to dream!

The addition requires a retaining wall be built on both sides of the house (totaling about 50 feet in length). This was not in the original bid (long story) but Colleen and I assumed it would probably cost in the $5000 range. Just two weeks ago, our Architect emailed us saying that he had a mason all lined up, all we had to do was sign the change order allowing the contract increase of $11,500. Whoa! After looking at many options (including dragging our friends into a wall building party) we found another mason willing to do the same project for less than $5000.

Raising the Roof

On second thought, I think I like this blog title even better than the last.

Rather than put more holes in our yet-to-be weatherproofed house, our PM decided to let our framing guys work on another project for a few days. After a few peaceful days of sleeping in for Colleen and me, it was back early morning hammering on Thursday when the joists arrived. By quitting time Friday, they had put on the small overhang on the downstairs, raised half the trusses for the upstairs, and assembled our 'front' porch (technically located on the side of the house). We haven't gotten official word, but we're hoping that the roofer will be able to make it out next week and we can get to a point where this thing is more or less weatherproofed. The doors and windows arrived over the course of the last few weeks and are now taking up some significant space in our carport. I love the new front door.

A couple of different pictures today. First, the (now required) weekly exterior update shot:

Here is a little better view of the new front porch. Cute as a button isn't it?

Here is the rarely pictured rear of the addition (future location of patio) showing off the newly added small roof overhang.

I've mentioned in previous blogs the temporary 'wall' that is up where our kitchen wall used to be. It's made solely of blue styrofoam and spray insulation. Not bad for keeping out the wind and rain, but when the sun shines in during the morning hours, it creates a really creepy blue glow.