building for our future

I am SO behind on keeping you up with the news and progress. Like almost a month. So shoot me. :-) Seriously, a lot of business travel and other things have taken so much of my free time, that I have not been able to properly update this BLOG. The good news is that a lot has been completed in the last few weeks. We are not done yet, but...the time is drawing near that we will be able to start moving into the addition to some degree or another. That is good because we cannot do the painting and floor work in the great room of the existing house until we can get all the, umm....stuff...out of it. And the addition is elected to receive it all; some things temporarily and some things permanently. Oh, and there is that need to build a wall to create our older daughter's new bedroom and a few other things that hinge on having the new rooms available.

The floors turned out wonderfully. Michael and a very talented fellow at the local Sherwin Williams store were able to nail the floor color so that there is a virtual match to the existing wide pumpkin pine floors in the original house structure. It is uncanny at how great they look, especially when put up against the great paint work that Graham and Dave did throughout the addition. All the plumbing fixtures are in and working and our new LG SteamWasher and LG SteamDryer arrived a little over a week ago. Outside of a small issue with the leak sensing water connections in the laundry, all the plumbing is working just great and looks dandy, too.

We had a mini-crisis with the granite counter tops when one of them for the master bath was inadvertently cut a half inch short. Fortunately, the position of the error and character of the stone was conducive to adding on that missing 1/2"...it is virtually invisible (trust me) and saved the stone company from totally re-doing the entire 4 counter job since there was no more of the same material available. Oh, and they look outstanding. This granite is NOT done with the typical shiny finish...it has a leather-like surface that just just wonderful visually as well as to the touch.

The tile work in the shower is equally pleasing. Barney and Chris did a great job...I really cannot wait to get use of that big space! Of course, we need a few more things to happen: one being the glass panel to be installed and the others revolving around final inspections and a CO. Little things, but, well...necessary things.

Jim created the wraps for the porch posts last week and they are incredible. Michael pulled out a picture from a past job with a similar porch an the post design was spot-on for our structure, including bringing that nice bead detail in the interior trim work out to the porch. Dan the mason also poured the new rear patio area a few weeks ago and that is going to really make the space so much more useful going forward. No more poison ivy and raspberries coming up between your toes as they did with the old flagstone surface and it is also properly drained. (With that done, the remaining siding that abuts the patio was also completed in the last week) Dan also repaired all the chimneys to make them both safe and attractive and the painters colored them to blend in with the rest of the structure.

Final electrical finish work is in progress and we can also go for the final sprinkler inspection shortly. The HVAC folks got the new programmable thermostat in today and should be completing any remaining little things in the next day or two.

There is still quite a bit of work to do outside including the new front walkway and a retaining wall as well as cleaning up all the landscaping that was disrupted by construction, but that, too, will be moving along soon if things go right.

I have quite a few pictures to post, but have not yet been able to process them for web display. I will do that as soon as I can and have them in the next post. And I do promise that will be sooner than a month out. For sure. I hope...