Don't Fence Me In!

Now that we have passed our final, the fences came down on Wednesday. It looks so great without them, as you can see in the picture above. I remember how excited I was to see the fences in the first place, since it meant that we were really getting started, but to see them come down is even better! I have actually driven on the driveway -- amazing how the little things take on so much significance when you get to do them for the first time!

The painters have been here touching up the paint and finishing the baseboards, and the place looks really nice. The painters are coming back on Monday to paint the front door, finish a few touch up spots and paint the downspouts. Todd and Matt still need to add the base shoe around the cabinets, but the painters already stained it, so they should be able to do that on Monday. They will also hang all the doors back up then. Of course, we won't have interior door knobs until the middle of November, but that is just a small hiccup. Todd installed all of the new cabinet hardware on Thursday, which you can see in this picture:


Also, the cleaners came on Thursday. I think it was a little premature, but you should see how great the place looks. They cleaned everything (except the freezer), including the windows -- of course, it rained last night, so I only got really clean windows for two days. The picture below I took standing on the banquette, so that you can see the clean kitchen, with the clean windows right behind it.


Here is another shot of the built in bookshelves in the family room:

We PASSED!

We passed our final inspection on the first try -- something almost unheard of around here and very exciting for all of us. The house was like an anthill today with lots of trades bustling around to get ready for the inspection. I was there installing the last couple of light fixtures in the rooms where we redid the wiring. Molly's chandelier looks really nice in her room, although she will be the first one to know if there is an earthquake, because the pieces hanging down from the light make a musical noise when they move and they are on a flexible piece of wire, so they will sway with the house in an earthquake. I put a super cheap fixture in Emily's room, since I have her fixture on order.



Without all the stuff covering the counter tops, the kitchen is back to looking like a real kitchen. I had forgotten how beautiful the counter tops are. The dishwasher is installed and the refrigerator is on -- all that is left is to install the stove, which they will do tomorrow now that the gas is back on.



The water has been turned on as well. Jake's faucet selection, shown below, is totally awesome! The touch technology really works. As long as you leave the faucet on, you can turn it on and off by touching the top, which will make clean up with messy hands really great.



Todd finished installing all the baseboards today, and the painters are coming tomorrow to finishing painting the trim and stain the base shoe that goes around the cabinets. Todd and Matt are going to put on all the cabinet hardware tomorrow, rehang the doors and just start making it look like a house. We still won't have all the door knobs, but at least we'll have doors. I am starting to walk around the house and look at it like a house, rather than just the different parts that I have been focusing on all these months. We are all getting really excited to move in soon! I'll do a virtual tour of the house on the blog after it has all been cleaned. Next stop, finishing the casita!

Floor Show, Act 2

So, the floor guys finished the second go around. There is still a little bit of waviness in the finish, especially in the front room, as well as a few places where the stain was applied unevenly, but overall it is a vast improvement on the previous job. I like the new color as well. They took the old color and added Royal Mahogany to make it a little darker and redder. I really like the new color. It blends very well with the cabinets. In the pictures above, the top picture is the old color and the bottom picture is the new color. Not a huge difference, but just enough to make the two wood colors a little more harmonious. With such a dark floor, I'm going to need to buy stock in Swiffer!

How Much? How Long? The Cost of the "Little" Things

We are at that point where we need things like light fixtures, door knobs and cabinet hardware. Apparently these are all decisions that people take very seriously. As a long time Home Depot shopper, it is an eyeopening experience to start looking for things like door knobs and lighting fixtures. I'm used to swinging by Home Depot, picking up a few interior lock sets for about $30 each, coming home and installing them. Apparently that is not the way things are done, however. Since we are trying to get a look similar to that of our old interior door knobs, I am now in the custom world, where it takes three to four weeks to get a lock set and it costs an arm and an leg -- and I'm looking at the low end stuff! The high end stuff would cost all four limbs plus my first born child. The end result is that we will be moving in without door knobs on some of the doors -- at least you don't need them for the final inspection. As soon as we have them, I'll be sure to take a picture to put it on the blog.

As for lighting fixtures, we were a little more on the ball with that one. You can see our pendant lights in the picture below. Of course, we still haven't gotten the light that will go over the table, but the good news is that we don't need that one for our final inspection either. It was harder than I thought to pick the pendants, and I ended up spending more than I thought I would, but I really like them. Of course, we still don't have a bedroom light for Emily's room.


I did find some cabinet hardware that I like, but I have no idea how many of the pieces the store has in stock. I'm heading back to Belmont Hardware tomorrow to get what I can of the cabinet hardware, as well as the towel racks and other stuff. Matt and Todd are hoping to install of the hardware and other stuff on Monday. Incidentally, if you live in the area and want a big selection of that kind of stuff, Belmont Hardware is definitely the place to go. Good service and a great selection!

As you can see in the picture at the top, our glass enclosure for the shower has been installed. It looks great. The shower turned out very well -- I love the tile. The electrician also finished the electrical trim out, so we have lights now. It's amazing what a difference switches and outlets make in making the house look finished. We're really getting there -- next stop, final inspection!

Floor Show

There are two sides to every story. Our floors were done about a week ago. Gary and his guys did a wonderful job with all the corners and the installation overall. After a coat of stain and two coats of urethane, however, it became clear that there was a problem with the floors. The sander they used had a bad bearing, which resulted in lines across the floor running perpendicular to the grain. So, unfortunately for the floor guys, they had to come and sand the floor again and start all over. You can really see the lines in this picture (you have to look closely in this small picture, but they run back toward the cabinet):


The good news is that the mistake gives me a chance to change the color of the floor. I really liked the original color, and I was okay with the way it looked with the cabinets, but as you can see in the picture below, there was some disharmony between the two wood colors. The new color will be even a little darker with a reddish undertone, and it looks great with the cabinets. The floor guys are going to put the stain on today, and we should be able to walk on it again by the weekend. I'll be sure to post some pictures of the new color versus the old color for comparison.

Hardscaping

Our driveway and front walk were terrible before we started construction, and the construction process made everything much worse. Our front walk ended up being completely demolished and our driveway, such as it was, suffered a lot of damage. We scraped up some money from somewhere to get some new hardscaping, and everything looks so much better now. At the same time the concrete guys installed the walkway back to the casita.

We had some challenges. Jake doesn't like the look of plain concrete, but we really couldn't afford pavers at nearly twice the cost of concrete. We compromised on the driveway by having the concrete guys put pebbles in the concrete to give it a different look. You can see how it looks in the picture below. I have to say, I am very excited about having a real driveway, with no more puddles and gravel getting everywhere.


For the front walk, we decided to do squares instead of a straight sidewalk. We hope to eventually put tile on the front porch and walkway, so that will cover up the concrete. I like having the squares instead of all sidewalk -- I like the look of the plants softening the edge of the concrete. Of course, at the moment we are pretty far away from planting! You can see the front walk on the picture at the top of the post.

For the walkway in the back, we decided to do something even more different. We didn't want a straight, solid sidewalk, since it would make the casita look farther away. We didn't want to curve the walkway because no one walks a curve -- everyone would just cut through and walk straight off the walkway. We toyed with stepping stone arrangements and came up with the pattern below. By alternating squares and rectangles and offsetting them, it gives a curved impression with a straight path down the middle. It is more interesting than practical, since the distance between the concrete pads ended up being a little too far, but I like the visual effect. We're still working on a landscaping plan -- Jake's friend Dan helped us get a good idea of what we want to do where. Looking down the path to the casita, I think most of the space between the path and the fence will end up being a planting bed.