Lights, camera...action?

Slowly the details are coming together. Electrical, tile, glass, painting, trim, and plumbing... One more month to go and plenty still to do. 

The electrician is almost done. It seems like we did a pretty good job picking out the lights and locations for the house. The bedrooms seem a bit dark, with just the can lights, but we have switched outlets so we can always add lamps on the nightstands or floor lamps.

 The pendant lights over the island are on a monorail track that is bent to be curved similar to the island edge. The pendants are pretty small so we added 3 spotlights for more light. 

 The front porch coach light and cans do a pretty good job lighting up the landing at night. 

 The foyer chandelier finally has bulbs! And the black slate is in and grouted. 

 

The stair lighting is pretty bright! 

The jack and jill bath has three vanity lights. The big mirrored medicine cabinets will fit between the lights. The look a bit Star Wars like to me!

 The glass shower doors were installed. Changes the look of the shower!

Kip started the railing around the top of the stairs. Square metal balusters for inside since we don't need nearly as many as outside!

The microwave, range hood and cook top are in (still need the finishing details) and most of the knobs and handles are on the cabinets.

Kip connected the solar tube. The penetration in the roof was done quite a while ago, but the tube going through the attic to the closet ceiling was the last step. It add some nice natural sunlight to the closet since there are no windows. (Although it's hard to tell since the photo was taken at night of course!)

 Some more little details like an outlet in the back of the drawer in the bathroom. 

 The laundry sink is ready to use!

Floors and doors

Here's a shot of what the exterior of the house looks like these days. The snow mostly melted so you can see the stairs and deck. The front door is on. It's made for giants at 8' tall, but it looks proportional to the rest of the front of the house. The stained glass adds a nice detail and the two panels match the interior doors.

The outdoor lights are all up.

 

The slate is down in the powder room and the plumbing is all ready to go for the vanity and stone vessel sink.

The closet rods are all up and ready for the next round of painting.

The jack and jill bath surround is grouted as well. Still need one more sheet of accent tiles to finish up!

Dale grouted the floors in the master and the glass tiles in the master shower. The back splash is almost done. You can see the progress from today...just a little more to grout. The plumber started to install the fixtures in the shower...looks complicated!

The cabinet guys were back to finish up the last little details like the shelf and rod for above the dryer and the laundry room counter top.

 

They are also working on hanging the microwave and building the face frame around it so that it looks like a built in microwave. The range hood is in progress as well. 

 

The plumber installed the faucets in the kitchen. No drains or water, yet, but they look great! 

  

The plywood stair treads are on...so now it's up to us to put the hardwood on top.

 Kip and Marcus finished trimming the collar ties with doug fir...now they just need to be stained.

Inching along with Tile and Trim

After our busy week of floor installation, the contractors are back at it. But of course their progress doesn't seem as fast! They are working on finishing up the window and door trim and the painters are busy staining it. The tile guy is working with his creative juices to come up with interesting tile designs for the bathrooms.

Here's the furniture vanity that we bought for the jack and jill bathroom. I liked the single piece glass top for simple cleaning!

 

Here's where the vanity will go eventually. We did a wainscot height tile wall behind it to serve as a back splash. 

 The master bath is coming together. The tub is in place and the tub filler is on. The accent tiles and tile pattern for the floor look great.

 The extra wood is piled in the front bedroom. 

 The trim doesn't really look that big on the doors, but the doors sure do look big! 

Successful floor installation

Well we survived and the floors look great. We didn't flood the house with any staple holes in the PEX tubing so we'll call that successful! A few sore muscles and bruises but overall it wasn't that bad. The bedrooms went much faster than the great room since they are more regular shaped and smaller. We still need to put wood on the stairs, but we'll wait until some of the traffic is gone before installing those. We also need to sand the floor and finish it.
Here are some photos showing the progress...

Day 5 (Wednesday) was a slow one, many complicated cuts to get around the island and the top of the stairs but the bullnose all looks great.

 The dishwasher has a nice looking floor to rest on!

Day 6 (Thursday) was exciting because we finished the great room! 

 A nice tight joint by the back door. We will caulk and put a little trim piece by the threshold. 

Beautiful bullnose all around the dining area where the railing will go.

 We did get to stop and take a break to enjoy the beautiful pink sunset from the front deck!

Day 7 (Friday) we did the master. Joe helped for the afternoon so we were able to finish the room...seemed easy after the great room! 

A nice tight transition between the master bedroom and bathroom. 

 

A nice floor for the refrigerator as well...

Day 8 (Saturday) was a shorter day because we had to celebrate New Years Eve...yes we were allowed to have some fun on vacation! Worked our way down the hallway and into the front bedroom. 

Day 9 (Sunday) was another great one with Joe's help. We finished the front bedroom and made it halfway across the back bedroom.

Day 10 (Monday) was the last day of vacation and the last day of floor installation. We finished with the closet in the back bedroom and celebrated with lunch. Kip stopped by to check on progress and seemed reasonable impressed that we had accomplished our goal.

We then spent the afternoon cleaning up the huge mess we made in the great room (yes Andy felt pretty luck to be allowed to use a saw in the great room for several days!) and elsewhere. The rooms were nice and easy to vacuum without any furniture in them.

Then we covered the floors with rosin paper and blue tape. Kip said he would cover the high traffic areas with cardboard on Tuesday.