More Hardwood and Tile Progress

Our kitchen and bathroom cabinetry was delivered today. Our tongue & groove wood ceiling was also delivered, so maybe those installations will start shortly. In the meantime, the hardwood installers finished installing the great room and started in Norris' office.

The floor is being installed unfinished. When we get closer to moving in, the installers will come back and sand and seal the floor.

The tile crew seems to have finished tiling and grouting the shower in the guest bathroom shown below. We're still puzzled by the colors the tiles take on in photos - in real life, and in photos taken in other light, the floor does not appear to have clusters of light colored tiles - the various colors are nicely random and there simply isn't this much contrast.

.
And the master shower is almost finished, although we see a few spacers still in the grout.

Happy Birthday Ella Going!

Since Norris is with his mother to celebrate the day, I got to take pictures and I am publishing extras so Norris can enjoy the new look.

Flooring installation finally got started - the whole dining and kitchen areas are done. This first picture shows the view from the kitchen towards the bedrooms, and you can see they have laid out more of the boards for the living room portion.


And this next picture shows the view looking back from the elevator towards the kitchen. The flooring is a mix of widths of #2 grade red oak, chosen for the character the flaws and uneven color create.


Norris - this picture shows there is a board at the hallway that runs perpendicular to the great room flooring. If they are going to make those boards run perpendicular to the joists, then the hallway will be floored this way. Perhaps they just used that line to create a break, but we'll see what they do with it in the next day or two.

And now some new photos of the master bath shower - all the wall tile was installed today. We opted for more real rocks for the accent strip, in case we hadn't seen enough of them when they dug the foundation. Clearly the location for the wall niche was planned to align with a grout line.

Here you can see the corner seat all tiled - I think Rick and his anonymous helper have done a much better job than whoever did a similar installation in this house we are renting.


So nothing especially interesting for Ella's birthday, but we are starting to see all these choices we've spent the last few months on make their way into the house. The changes will be more revealing as the ceiling and cabinetry go in which we hope will be this week. But the lighting for these pictures is particularly dramatic -- I got there around 5:00 when we are getting lots of light through all those big windows, as the leaves are not yet big enough to make shade. The changing light is an aspect of life on a mountain slope we are starting to appreciate in our new house.

More Tile Work. Also, the return of Super Dave

Not too much happening at the house the last day or two. The only inside work going on is more of the bathroom tile work. Looks like they have almost finished the downstairs bathroom, except for grout.

Outside, Super Dave is back with a mini track hoe and is doing some of the final grading and contouring. Here he has built up and flattened what will be our "front yard." He has also been moving rocks around and has made an all-rock corner for us where the driveway meets the front yard.

He has also evened out the slope on downhill part of the front. And no, we aren't going to have to mow it. We'll landscape it with something that doesn't take much maintenance.

Flooring Gets Started

Our hardwood flooring has been delivered, but installation can't start until the clean up of the drywall mess is done. Click on pictures for a larger view.


The tile crew has finished putting down the floor tile in one of the guest bathrooms, but it hasn't been grouted yet.

They have also put down the floor tile and pebbles for the shower in the master bath, but those aren't grouted yet either. (These are 18 inch tiles - the ones above are 12 inch.)

Countdown begins tomorrow -

Today Norris and I had a walk through with our builder. Our project manager gave us the dates various items will be delivered and installed as we toured the house. He has scheduled several crews to work simultaneously: tile, hardwood flooring, tongue and groove ceilings are all going in this week. The kitchen and bath cabinetry will be delivered in a week. After they are installed the trim carpenters can start. Already today our front and deck doors were put in, and the garage doors will follow shortly.

We also discussed all the exterior work to come: grading, landscaping, gutters, front walk, deck and screening, driveway, mailbox. And the rain barrels for harvesting water from the roof.

At the conclusion we talked schedule. Tim and Ronnie agree we should easily be in the house by mid-July. Pictured below are Ronnie, Tim in the back and Norris - I like this picture because it almost shows some of the view we will have out our front windows. It's going to be beautiful when the protective film finally comes off.




This next picture is of the fireplace, which was being reclad while we toured the house. Now it's ready for stone.

Here again are Norris, Ronnie and Tim, discussing the finer points of our media system installation. We are using space in the corner of the closet in Norris' office to house the TV and audio equipment in the adjoining great room. A cabinet frame to match our kitchen cabinets will cover the opening on the great room side.

And while the fireplace nails were going in, the drywall installers were finishing up their part of the process. Pictured is the ceiling of Cheryl's studio with final sanding. The guy in the picture is using a combination sanding wheel and vacuum cleaner.

Stone Work is Done

Looks like the stone masons finished up today. Click on photos for a larger view.



From this view, you can see two of the stone walls. The far end wall (under the deck) is also finished.

More progress on the dry wall today, too. The crew used scaffolds to get all the way to the peak of the dining room/kitchen wall.

From this view, you can see the front side of the great room.

The tile crew got started today. Here they have installed the concrete backer board in one of the guest showers and put down a layer of concrete around the drain. The tile crew won't be back now until the drywall sanding is all finished.

I took this picture to give a longer range view of the house now that all the outside scaffolding is gone. The trees are just started to leaf out on the mountain.

Mud and Rocks

Norris has gone off leaving me in charge of watching progress. I didn't make it to the house yesterday as we had some snow flurries in the afternoon and I didn't expect a lot was happening.

These were taken mid-day - first here's the front door, nicely rocked in. Norris you can see the doorbell rock is a lot flatter than the surrounding ones. I also used this photo so you can see they have removed the rocks under the garage windows. The masons were having lunch in their truck but the water table stones were right there in the box ready for installation.




This next picture shows the installed water table under the foyer and studio windows. The ones around the side still look like the garage, but I expect those will be done before the crew wraps this one up, some time this afternoon.

After I took those pictures, the fellow in charge of the drywall crew showed up and briefly toured the house. He said the crew just started this morning. They had taped everything upstairs that they could reach from their stilts. Here's a picture of the dining room area that illustrates - all the high ceiling rooms look just like this. There was someone working in another room, but the lighting was not as good for a photo.

And finally a picture of the garage - my studio was in the same stage, with mud going in over the screws. There must have been just three workers today, but they weren't wasting any time.

Dry Wall is Up

The exterior painting is now done. The stone masons have run out of stone, so have stopped working until Fri or Sat when the new shipment of stone arrives. The big news is that now that the insulation has all been done, we finally got drywall today. A crew of 5 managed to hang the entire house in one day, although it will take another week to do all the spackling and sanding. Click on photos for a larger view.



One worker on stilts works in the foyer closet and you can see another in the background working in Cheryl's studio.

Here a high altitude installer works in Norris' office.

The master bedroom drywall is finished. Its harder to get a complete view of the rooms now that we can't see through the walls any more.

Dramatic lighting in Norris' office after the drywall was complete there.

Cheryl checks out the great room.

Another shot of the great room. We have a big wall to fill there.

Cheryl's studio, looking back into her office.

Another part of Cheryl's studio.

Even the garage got its drywall.

There was some other activity today too. Here a crew bends metal for the flashing that goes between the siding and the stone, to divert rain water away from the back of the stone.

Norris is out of town again, Cheryl takes the job of giving him some progress to examine. Some of it is on the exterior stonework. You can also see ladders - one painter was working on the trim on the front. The side over the deck may have been finished today - as I left, he came in with a bucket of paint and headed up the stairs. We have seen these painting crews on site as late as 6:30 now that there's still daylight to work.


The next picture shows some new lath work, but sorry Norris, this is it thus far, and no sign of the stone samples we were supposed to look at yet either.


And last is a picture of the newly insulated garage wall, including the corner that wraps around to the driveway. Other pictures of the garage wall would take some major photo retouching, it's a bright sunny day and the wall is too shaded. With the insulated garage doors soon to come and this insulation, we hope that our bedroom wing just above will not be too cold.