Details, Details...................

Again, I must apoligize for the lack of posts on this blog. It has been nothing less than working two full time jobs with both requiring overtime for the last two months.

We are finally in the process of slowly moving into the house, although things are far from completed. For the most part, what remains inside the house are very minor things that will be left to early mornings or late evening jobs due to the rapidly declining daylight.

As you can imagine, many changes have taken place over the last two months with the inside of the house pretty much taking on its final look.

From where I left off a couple of months ago the tile was just about ready to get installed. We were fortunate to find a company out of Prescott which is about an hour south of here. They were very good to work with and did an excellent job. The cost, as a whole for the tile, was a bit of a shock, but some of that was due to going with porcelain tile instead of ceramic tile. The porcelain tile, I am told, is supposed to hold up much better. The tile was another one of those jobs that we had thought we would do ourselves, but again, the time crunch dictated otherwise. In the end, with the ideas they had for designs in laying it, I am glad it turned out the way it did.

I guess I should also mention that the granite was installed without a hitch. It took them about two days to get it all completed but it all turned out very nice. We kind of held our breaths as to how it would all look. It is one thing to look at the big slabs of granite out in the daylight but once it is all cut and in place could be a totally different look. As it turned out we were very happy with the results.

We ended up going with an engineered hardwood floor after all, which initially was not what we had intended. But the difference with this flooring is that it comes unfinished. So in the end it is treated like a solid hardwood floor but is installed as an engineered. This, as well, went rather well. It is glued down to the cement slab, sanded and then three coats of a water base sealer are put on it. I did mention it went rather well. The sealer, when it was applied, was not done evenly in some locations. So the company that did the installation made another trip back up to buff the floor out in some areas and re-sealed it.

The stairway was another one of those projects I envisioned doing ourselves. Although I would have loved to have tackled the project, it would have been a very lengthy job. And after watching the people who did install it, it made me even more certain that this was another one of those projects that was more involved than what we had time for. Not only that, the parts themselves took a long to get here, and a wrong cut would not only have been very expensive, but very costly in time as well.

As you can imagine, our time is still split between getting things moved in and trying to get the inside completed. However, our focus now is on getting things as wrapped up outside as much as possible before the cold weather hits.

This weekend has been spent trenching. Trenching in conduit for the telephone and satellite dishes. Trenching for the piers that will hold the evacuated tube solar collector, and also in conjunction with that the heat dump line. I have started some preliminary work inside for the tie in to the solar tank. This has been mainly where and how I am going to configure it all.

I will end this post with a few other miscellaneous pictures. My hopes are to start keeping up with the blog and make more detailed and more frequent updates once again!!

We Got Stoned.....

Actually, we finally have the majority of stone on the fireplace, with just the hearth stone left to be put in place.

As usual just the prep work alone, prior to the crew getting started with the stone work, took longer than I had expected. The majority of the work involved was the timber work that surrounds the chimney about a third of the way up. We had some timbers left over so I decided to make use of them for the mantel as well as the band that kind of breaks things up.

The hearth stone will be a flagstone that has yet to be picked out but will probably be chosen this week. There will be some hearth stone also incorporated onto the top of the timber band. It will hopefully give it more of a tapered look, or at least soften the difference in the upper and lower chimney.

The first step for applying the stone was to brown coat the entire face of the fireplace surround / chimney.

Once this had set up the stone could start to be applied. With four people working on it, it went relativley fast but still took them two days to nearly complete it.

Also, the granite for the counter tops has been picked out, ordered, and hopefully will soon be fabricated. This was quite an education how the whole process works. First off we needed to chose the colors that we wanted in the granite and then decide the thickness of the granite. Once we had this decided we needed to make an appointment to pick out the slabs of granite. When picking out the slabs they have them all lined up so that they are in succession as to how they were mined so as to keep any lines running in the granite together once it goes into fabrication. As it turned out, we needed three slabs to complete the kitchen, and the laundry room. Another slab of a different color was chosen for the master bathroom, and guest bathroom. The powder room off of the kitchen was also a different color granite and was chosen from the companies remnant selection.

Obviously, with the granite soon to be installed most of the cabinet ( kitchen and bathrooms) installation is complete. Some doors and smaller cabinets need to be installed but this part of the project is winding down.

The office cabinets are slated to be installed shortly after the fourth of July, with the desk top being fitted and installed shortly there after.

The tile has also been quite a process to get picked out and to get someone set up to do the installation. We had originally planned on doing this ourselves, and actually were looking forward to it, but time is not on our side and thus this is one of the things that needed to be contracted out. All of the tile will be porcelain tile which was a bit of a sticker shock but in the end will hold up much better than ceramic.

This week should see the delivery of the evacuated tubes, ground mount kit and other materials needed for the solar portion of the radiant floor. This is a ways away from installation due to..... you guessed it time constraints, but we figured we better get it ordered now because it doesn't appear that shipping prices are going to be getting any less expensive!!

If any spare time is had, we have been trying to devote it towards getting more siding installed. As you can see there has been little change since my last update but our hopes are as we get more of the inside work completed we will find more time to make a bigger dent in the siding project.

And lastly, a garden update. I seem to be a bit behind this year on getting everything in but it is coming along nicely. Just wish for the garden's sake and the rain catch tanks sake the monsoons would start up soon!!!

Making Progress

Although slow, we are making steady progress on the finishing work.

Painting continues, with some of the rooms having at least one coat of colored paint applied and the majority of the house has been primed, thanks to my wife.

A couple of weeks ago the Gutowski cabinet installers came up and installed all of the laundry room cabinets,

all of the bathroom vanities, and got what kitchen cabinets that are on site, somewhat set into position. This coming Friday they will be returning to install all of the kitchen cabinets which will allow us to get the granite counter tops ordered. I should add that they did install the china hutch as well as the pantry in the kitchen.

Prior to them installing the cabinets, I managed to get a fair amount of casing run to trim out the windows with.

We also purchased a knife set for making our own rosettes. I wanted to get the windows in the kitchen and laundry room trimmed out before the cabinets went in. It was a lot easier this way to work on them without having to work over the cabinets. We also decided to do a window sill on several of the windows, so I have been making those, as well, while trimming out each window.

I have been working on the base for the master bathroom tub. All that is left, is to frame the walls around the tub. This will allow the Gutowski's installers to get a final measurement for the linen closet in the master bedroom.

Our hopes right now are to have someone chosen the first part of this week to do the stone work on the fireplace, and hopefully begin work the beginning of next week. I still have a fair amount of work to do on it prior to that though. The front is mostly complete with the mantel anchored in place.

I still have the surround timbers to mill and put into place, as well as frame for a water feature that will be on the back of the fireplace. This week will be devoted strictly to the fireplace so as to hopefully have it ready so stone work can begin next week.

Also, this past weekend, we spent some of our time working some more on the siding. Hard to believe in less than a month we will be into the monsoon season. I would like to have a fair amount of the siding installed on the South and East facing sides of the house in case of a driving rain. Once we get going on it, it actually goes rather fast but with a hundred other things on the "to do list" it often gets moved down.

Due to the year flying by as fast as it is, and a November deadline looming, we will be having someone come in and do all of the tile work. We have done some looking around at tile and slate for design ideas but have not settled on anything definite yet.

I think we have decided on the type of hardwood floor for the great room and have an installer chosen for this already. Initially we were against an engineered hardwood floor, we just did not like the looks of them. What we have decided to go with is a engineered unfinished hardwood floor. So after it is installed it will require sanding and finishing and we will still get the look of a solid hardwood floor.

Our hopes are that we will be ready for the hardwood floor sometime near the end of July or the first part of August. Our hopes are at that time to have the majority of the inside work completed, and turn our attention to finishing up the outside of the house.

Taping, Texturing and Painting

The tapers wrapped up their work a little over a week ago, so painting is well under way.

Prior to them finishing the taping we had one last window to install. This was the one that went up in the dormer above the dining room. It mirrors the one in the opposite dormer, or the east bedroom.

This one we decided to do off of the scaffolding. The lift that we had gotten for the big window was a smaller lift and did not have any way of leveling itself. This would have been needed due to the ground not being very level in the area of where it would have had to have been parked to install it.

It turned out to be a little heavier and more awkward than we thought. Fortunately, two of the tapers decided to work Saturday and gave us a hand lifting it into place.

The tapers did a pretty good job overall of cleaning up so there is just minor cleanup work to do on the beams prior to painting. We have completed the laundry room and the powder room right off of the kitchen. These we had taped and textured right away so that we could move the washer and dryer back in so that they would not have to work around them. Also we re-located the toilet from the master bath to the powder room.

The texture we chose is what is referred to as a 60/40; so the wall is 60% smooth with a 40% texture. The nice thing about it is that it is all done by hand so the mess was very minimal.

We are now concentrating on getting the areas painted first where we will have cabinets installed. They are set to be installed the third week of May. Other areas that we are working on are the great room and dining room area. These are just in the process of getting primer and also getting the oak beams re-sealed.

We have also been trying to make some decisions on what style of mill work we will be using and whether we will run it ourselves or purchase it. After a lot of research and price checking we came to the conclusion, although it may be a bit time consuming, we can cut this cost by 50% if we run it ourselves.

Many years ago I had a mill work business where we ran custom moulding for housing contractors and cabinet shops. I kept most of the equipment so we had a wide variety of profiles to choose from. Along with the mill work, we are incorporating target blocks or rosettes. These also were priced just under the going rate for gold, and again after doing some searching we can purchase the cutter and run these for at least half if not a fraction of the cost.

We found a supplier of oak lumber in a town a little over an hour south of here. Although oak is a little higher down here, by the time shipping is added in from purchasing it outside the state, the price starts to look very reasonable.

The jury is still out on the interior doors although our current plan is to go with a company called Woodharbor Doors and Cabinetry. They are a bit expensive but our savings on the mill work should more than cover the cost over run on these. The company also offers the option of pre-finishing which will buy us back our time from running our own mill work.

Cabinet installation is now tentatively two weeks away from this Monday. This, along with the painting, should really add to the feeling that we are really on the down hill slide to finishing our project. In reality though, a lot remains to be completed.

Research on the hardwood floors continues. We really are trying to stay away from an engineered floor product. They, in my opinion, have not perfected the look yet. But our options may be limited given the fact that we really do not want a sub-floor put down over the slab for nailing purposes with a real hardwood floor. More on this to come.

In what little spare time there is, the garden is well underway for the year. Potatoes and onions are in and I have started, what I guess you could call, a berry garden with strawberries and two different types of raspberries already planted. I am behind in transplanting the peppers and tomatoes into separate containers. They have really grown fast this year, or more likely time has just gotten away from me!!

Sheetrock Day!!!!!

Finally....we get to see some definition of walls in the house!!

The crew arrived right on schedule. A truck delivered 80 sheets of 4x12 Sheetrock and 52 boxes of taping compound. I will admit I would have liked to have done this portion as well but time just did not allow for it.

They went right to it. I was amazed how fast the whole house changed. I have posted several pictures of the walls we finally have.

With the Sheetrock finally getting hung, and the tapers soon following, we still needed to get two of the east side windows installed......and one was the huge 6x7 window.

I will be the first to admit I was a little nervous about putting this window in place due to the size and the weight. I would guess the window itself weighs no less than 250 pounds. That is bad enough but then it also has to set up about 16 feet off of the ground.

We had to do a little more rough framing for the opening, and by the time that was complete it was mid afternoon. Needless to say we had to rent another lift to get it up in place. We went a little smaller this time due to the rising costs of fuel to get it over here. But knowing what I know now, I wish we had stuck with the bigger one that we have been using throughout the project.

We have no pictures of us actually installing the window due to both of being rather tied up installing it but here is the finished product.