Construction - Month 17 - Interior Paint, Kitchen cabinets, Staircase

Month 17 (Weeks 65-68)

This month, more work finished as we made our commitment to move in. That date approaches fast and thus trying to get enough of the house in order to move in has quickly become the priority.

The painter finished priming, painting, and sanding the door and window trim.

Also the interior doors..

The drywall repair guy came back to patch up all the drywall areas that had to be cut into for various reasons such as the ceiling in the family room to access the plumbing leading to the tub..

The electrician came and installed most of the remaining plugs and switches. Also the WAC lighting that we put into the staircase, install a light in the powder room and adding power to the hot water heaters so those would work.

I worked on the kitchen cabinets deciding to install those.. My brother and I - after much debate on measurements and how to do it (don't get two engineers to install cabinets unless you want to hear a debate) - installed the wall cabinets. Then the next day I worked alone installing the base cabinets and island. Pretty fun work I thought.. Not that physically hard but lots to think about to make sure things are plumb and your walkways are even and everything is just right. Once the counter-tops go in there isn't any opportunity to move things.

The staircase company showed up at the end of the month and started installing the stairs. The painter primed the balusters first and then the false ends and baseboards went in. We're going with a maple that we think will match our hardwood flooring choice that'll need to be stained. Also we found a newel post on houzz that we loved and asked them to duplicate. Can't wait to see it!

We've also been having a problem with the front and rear door strike plates in that the way i did the trim, they're not long enough. The door locking mechanism makes contact with the trim instead of the strike plate causing damage. So I had to get a custom strike plate fabricated for the rear door at a sheet metal machine shop since Anderson doesn't sell custom strike plates. The front door is getting a custom one from Baldwin who do sell custom ones.

We've been having some issues with the HVAC system. Apparently one of the condensers needed a new coil even though it's new. Must've been a lemon batch. The other one mysteriously keeps losing power. I'll walk up to the thermostat and the screen will be dead. Both got fixed which is a relief since temperatures have climbed into the 80's and even 90's.

We've also been spending a lot more time cleaning of late. for good reason..

Next month we scramble to complete as much as possible in the midst of moving in.. yikes! As you can see by the above, there is MUCH to do yet.

Construction - Month 16 - Master bath, fireplace, and interior trim paint prep

Month 16 (Weeks 61-64)

The house limped along this month.. I didn't do much work myself since I was sick one weekend, out of town another weekend running a half marathon (ouch! finished in my usual 2 hours or so), and went on a business trip one week.

But I still managed to hang some headers upstairs and we are mostly done with window and door trim at this point. There are a few stragglers which I can't do until they repair the drywall around the box beams in the master bedroom.

The master bath tub arrived on site. The master bath made a lot of progress and most of it got finished. The tub and tub filler was installed, the shower glass arrived and was installed, the mirrors went in, the sinks, the faucets, the hanging lighting went in. 

The tile guys also grouted everything.. The master bath floor and shower, the powder room wall, the master bath pebbles on the wall.

They also installed the fireplace stone in the master bedroom.. We think it looks great!

Electrical made more progress and is almost done. In fact we submitted the form for our electrical smart meter and I paid the fee for it which means we're a a couple of week away from the house getting on permanent power and the construction fence coming down.

The two tankless systems went in.. here is the one on the outside

The kitchen cabinets arrived from cabinets.com. We had to unbox everything and inspect it so that we could request replacement parts if anything was amiss. There were some doors we didn't like how they turned out but mostly everything looked good.

We decided to hire the painter who did the outside to spray the inside trim and all the doors so that it would look as good as possible (no brush marks). This is a pretty big hit to our budget ($10k) but i think will be worth it in the long run. His team spent about a week and a half prepping everything for the spraying.. Caulking, filling nail holes, taping windows and putting paper on drywalls.

Lastly, we did a walkthrough with our builder and gave him a list of follow up items since his work on the project is done. The rest is up to us to do

Construction - Month 15 - Master bath, electrical fixtures and fans, kitchen start

Month 15 (Weeks 57-60)

The house limps along.. Someone told me recently that once you get to drywall, you're only halfway done. Boy were they right..

This month we saw a whole bunch of electrical fixtures go in (all the remaining ones). This is primarily the ceiling lights in the laundry room, staircase, upstairs closet, and a whole lot of ceiling fans.

pergola fans.. wet rated

family room fan

bedroom/office fans

master bedroom fan (we're not crazy about it)

staircase lighting

The powder room got it's feature wall tiled after we figured out what light fixture we were putting in there and realized we had to change the wiring from two fixtures on each side of the mirror to a single overhead fixture. Some drywall destruction and cables being moved later, the wall got floated and tiled..

The master bathroom made progress! They figured out the radiant floor problem and repaired it. They then tiled it and installed the vanity. The Vanity got it's Caeserstone countertop as did the shower wall and curb. The Hubberton Forge lighting got put in and the frames for the mirrors went in as well. All that's left now is the sinks, faucets/plumbing, tub, toilet, shower glass, and mirrors which should wrap up next month.

flooring tile and pebble grout

hubbarton forge lighting, mirror frames, and pebble accent

custom vanity

shower floor and curb/wall tops in caeserstone

shower shampoo niche

Meanwhile we built more headers and footers and caulked them for upstairs. Then installed them.. 

I also got some plywood for the kitchen cabinets to sit on after some trauma going to three different Home Depots because the first two's saw was out of order.

future base/wall cabinet locations

I then measured and sketched out the kitchen layout in preparation for installing the cabinets when they arrive in the coming weeks. Thankfully the measurements all seem to be working and lining up with everything.. E.g. everything plays out from the center of the kitchen sink window and things like the peninsula's lighting and the range's hood exit line up perfectly. It would've sucked if something major was off this late in the game.. Even the electrical cables coming out of the wall for the under counter lighting and in-cabinet lighting appear to be in the right place.

Lastly, we passed our electrical inspection which is huge since it means we PG&E will now permanently hook up the house to power. No more having only 30 amps of power for the whole house and now the fence can come down since the house can be locked up.

Construction - Month 14 - Laundry Room, Master Bedroom & Bath, HVAC

Month 14 (Weeks 53-56)

The master bathroom made some progress.. Namely they caulked the shower and feature wall tile and our custom master bedroom vanity has finally been completed! It arrived along with the mirror frames and toilet shelves that were done in the same style.

Unfortunately while all that did happen, the installation of it all sat and for two weeks nothing happened. The radiant heat floor was still damaged and they haven't been able to repair it so everything sits until they figure that out. Frustrating.. it's been damaged for 6-7 weeks.

The laundry room floor was also tiled and caulked with the tile we chose that resembles hardwood flooring.

Lastly, the HVAC guy showed up and they installed the two condensers and replacement thermostats so everything is working now.

In the meantime and while they didn't get much work done, I got a lot of work done. I built out the french doors on the lower and upper floor and the master bedroom to get them ready for trim installation..

We also completed the majority of trim that was left downstairs by building, caulking, and hanging over 20 headers and footers. The downstairs is starting to look a lot more complete..

I then turned my attention upstairs where I ripped through the remaining vertical pieces of material that I had installing them on the majority of the upstairs doors and windows..

Construction - Month 13 - Exterior, Master bath and bed, Trim, Electrical

Month 13 (Weeks 49-52)

We got another weekend of rain which is terrific since we need it so badly around here, but thankfully it didn't impact the project much by landing on the weekend.

The master bathroom tilework was finishing up until we ran into a snag.. The design had a pattern of pebbles mixed within the regular tiles and we and the designer both looked at it and decided it was "too busy". So we asked the tile guys to remove roughly half of them. Sadly, this isn't simple when the tiles are on top of a warm floor mat. They have to meticulously remove the pebbles and thinset right down to the warm floor mats without damaging the warm floor mats. Worse yet, they actually did damage one of the wires and now someone has to come in to repair the warm floor mat wires. In the end this sets progress back a few weeks while all this gets sorted out..

empty tiles = how many spots initially had pebbles

We also ran into a snag with our choice of countertop for the vanity. The recent dock worker strike is causing delays in getting materials and it just so happens that the Caeserstone we'd wanted is delayed a couple of months. So we had to go with an alternative that looks almost identical. We're happy enough..

The rest of the bathroom seems to be progressing along.. We got the sinks, faucets, the vanity is being finished, and soon everything will come together and get installed so that we have a working bathroom.

The master bedroom box beams were installed, stained, and finished..

The master bedroom fireplace mantel was installed, stained, and finished..

The front door was stained and finished..

Progress on the downstairs trims continues along. We built a suite of headers for various doorways and are carefully caulking them and filling nail holes before I mount them over the various doorways..

Also, I've been building out the windows and doors that aren't flush with the drywall. For the windows, this involves buying some wood, cutting and ripping it to the length and depth needed, and gluing+nailing it into place. Then, since i'm not doing a 1/4" offset, i'm filling the cracks with house bondo and sanding it down so that it looks like it's just an extension of the jams. 

For the french doors, i'm doing a 1/4" offset which is easier then doing the bondo thing, but there I have a different problem. The build out's need to bet set 1/4" in and i need to use shims to position them properly along with regular nails to put them in place.

In other news, the electrician has been onsite installing exterior lights, outlets, switches, smoke detectors, and lights. Pretty soon we'll be able to turn the lights on and use the outlets which will be nice even though it's still all running off of our temporary power pole..

Lastly, a large part of the month focused on wrapping up the exterior of the house. The things that you may notice in the latest photos include:

• Paint - all complete
• Built rear porch step banisters
• Build basement banisters
• Fixed and installed gutters and downspouts
• Installed exterior lighting
• Completed the various banister columns
• Installed exterior electrical outlets

We couldn't be happier with the look of everything and think it really turned out nice despite our nervousness around many of the selections (which we did ourselves and didn't have much help with)..