"Done"

We're finally done in the sense that we closed out with the contractor last night. The upstairs is all occupied if not yet decorated. There's some odds and ends to do on my part to put everything back together, but we're almost there. The landscaping needs to be left until spring and won't be a negligible amount of work. But regardless, "construction" is done.

In the name of credit where credit is due, here's a list of awesome people who did awesome work:

Glenn Davis, Architect
PV Davis Construction
F&C Construction
Tony Monti, Monti Surfaces
Phelps Millwork
Pa's Handyman Service
Touchdown Carpet and Flooring

If I've forgotten anyone awesome, I'll be sure to come back and add them.

Move In Condition

We hit a major milestone last week when we got the final signoff from the building inspector and we celebrated by moving the boys into their new rooms over the long weekend. I can't tell if it's the simple fascination of it being new or if the boys are genuinely relieved to finally have their own space, but they have been spending lots of time in their new rooms already. Tim especially enjoys that we put a lock on their bedroom doors and that they are allowed to lock it with the understanding that mom and dad have a key and can come in whenever they need to.

So you may note that I still haven't called this project "Done". There's still a few minor things needed from the contractor and more than a few things that I need to do myself. Obviously none of it is holding us up from living in the new space, but we do need to get a couple of them resolved quickly. Hopefully this week will see those getting knocked off and then we'll be on our way. We're still planning to have an open house when it's actually done, but it may need to be after the holidays now.

Every day we finish half

Think about any project and trying to finish half of what you have left every day. Mathematically, you'll never be done. That's sort of what I feel like right now. There is some good news in that we have 2 of the 3 final inspections complete. There were some minor issues on the third though that are just enough to throw in another delay in calling everything done and moving in. I fixed about 2.5 out of 4 things that needed to be addressed this weekend and hopefully the rest can be knocked off quickly. Oh so close, yet oh so far...

Once we get the mirrors up in the bathroom, the carpet runner on the stairs, and the shutters on the outside there'll be more pictures. We'll see if any of that happens this week.

Finished House

And you thought I wouldn't come through with some pictures. More to come... check back when you can.


(click photo to go to album)

A promise that will hopefully not be broken

Hi again to the few people checking in here. Last night I took a whole pile of pictures of each new room because the carpeting is starting today. I figured before and after of each would be fun... asusming I post them. I am going to try super hard to not work on the house tonight but get some of the pictures loaded instead. So in words (as usual), here's the most recent accomplishments:

- Plumbing = done. All the fixtures are in, and the couple things in the basement they broke along the way are fixed.

- Tiling = done. I finished the grout on the utility room floor last night.

- Gutters = done. Still waiting on the drain/drywell though.

- General cleanup upstairs = done. Carpeting is going in as I type so everything had to be emptied out. There will be a final cleaning before we move in.

- Master bedroom: on hold until we do upstairs move-in. Half of it is done except for the extra stuff that needs to be moved out. The other half has too much stuff lingering in it to do more work. Most of it is Sam's so it's waiting for upstairs.

I think that's about it. There's a laundry list of odds and ends too and hopefully I can start checking those off. Check back soon for pictures (hopefully).

Time Flies When You're Not Sleeping

I bet a few of you are wondering if I just gave up and quit on this project huh? No... fortunately not. I'm just still in a mode of working so hard that I haven't stopped to smell the wet paint. Let's see... where do we stand:

- Staircase woodwork done, painting and polyurethane around stairs starts today
- Bathroom vanity and counter top in, fixtures sitting there waiting for install (bathroom floor tile was done a while ago, can't remember if I threw that in)
- Laundry room upstairs first coat of paint done
- New master bedroom closets have doors, the insides are painted, and the shelves and such were completed in those last night

Expected this week: Stairway completely done, final plumbing complete, laundry room paint complete, laundry tile floor started, master bedroom paint started. Yah, that sounds like a lot to me too. I might bag a day out of work to try and actually pull it off... we'll see.

I'll snap a few shots of the bathroom and master bedroom work as soon as I can. Better yet I'll make Elana do it :)

At least I have a fallback career

If I ever get fed up with corporate America I think I can still fall back on over- charging people for home improvement stuff that they're incapable of doing. And by incapable I typically mean afraid of because it turns out that 99% of handyman type of work is really not very hard in practice, but understanding what to do is so scary to many people that they just hire someone at $100 an hour. Either that or they only have 5 minutes available in their day to eat, sleep, and shower so they are forced to hire someone or it never gets done. Wait, what was I talking about? Oh yah... me in the front yard with a big ass tile saw (really, I was talking about that).

The bathroom got tiled yesterday and the facebookers of the world even saw some rare photo evidence. Hopefully I can get the grout in tonight so then I'm not holding up the plumbers anymore. Dad starts the finish staircase today so we'll see how that goes.

And on the photo thing, I know it's become a running joke now, but typically when I upload photos to google from home, it takes an obnoxiously long time to even do a batch of 5 pictures. I either need to size them down or get a better computer or something, but regardless, it takes too much of the time I'm using to do the work. They will get posted eventually and if you're reading this you'll probably be invited to an open house thingy when we're done. Stay tuned...