Friday, March 31, 2006

Updates

The hole corers, coring holes for the dryer vents, cold storage vents, and a central vac line in the garage.
Chris putting on some last pieces of trim.
Dave installing the powder room doorknob.
Newel posts arrived and are being varathaned.
Freda with her new closet.
Dryer installed, after conversion to propane and changing the exhaust to go out through the bottom.
Network installed, so we now have phone service.

Tuesday, March 28, 2006

water quality

We got our water quality test back on Monday. 0 Bacteria. 0 E.Coli. low iron. no sulphur. no nitrogen. 7.5 pH. 15 grains of hardness.

So water quality is good - taste, clarity, colour - but is hard, so we need to get a softener.

Stone is getting delivered on Wed. Stone mason will start this week or next.

Tuesday, March 21, 2006

A busy week!

A lot of photos from the past week. Most recent first, in the spirit of the blog.

As you can see, we have bullnose corners on the drywall, and I wanted the trim angled in the same way. It was a bit picky for the carpenters, but they did a very very excellent job on it. The trim is all painted with CC306 Cable Knit (a Ben Moore colour), although it looks almost white in this photo.
This is an example of the fine trim work. We have a 6 1/2" Hopper baseboard, and used the doorstop moulding as the shoe (covers the floor/wall joint) as it has a similiarity with the base. We have a 7 1/2" base blcok, and a 3 1/2" Murphy Brown door casing. We do have a wider 4 1/2" casing around the large window in the great room.
THis is the kitchen after the microwave was installed. Fortunately Chris was able to extinguish the fire very quickly!
On Saturday, Charles and Chris installed the washer and the microwave. The dryer wasn't installed because an electric one was delivered instead of the gas dryer we had ordered. Charles is checking out the washer to see if it is stable during the spin cycle.
Saturday was very tiring. This is a happy but exhausted Freda having a little snack.
On Saturday March 18th we moved from the little house. That's the building on the left, behind the two green cars.
Dave, standing by his handiwork. The drawers are not installed yet in the center section. There will be 4 drawers here.
Dan the painter, caulked all the base shoe and painted all the base. It looks great!!!
Nick the electrician finishing up the electrical installation. Look at the underside of the column bases - another example of some spectacular finish carpentry!
Chris installing the shelves in the closets.
Appliances arriving. When they tried to bring the fridge in, we discovered that the 36" door from the garage to the house was not 36"! How dumb is that! The sink and faucet is installed in the powder room. (It's Kohler and it's gorgeous!) After the lights were installed, it was obvious what a terrible job the drywallers had done in here - obviously too lazy to get a light in the room to see if they did a good job or not. So more drywall repairs, sanding, and of course repainting.
Dave is installing the closets in the master.
The fan in the great room was so heavy, it kept pulling out the screws that were holding it up. The crew ended up put a big beefy 2x8 in the attic, and putting 6" lag bolts into it.
The electricians thought they had put a plug here, but I guess not. More drywall repair and repainting. Sigh.
This is the plumber and his apprentice doing the vent test (we failed the first one).
This was the source of the problem and the reason why we failed the vent test last week. When the plumbers moved the vent before, the very very rough cut (between the two elbows) let air (and sewer gases!) out.

Monday, March 20, 2006

moved!

Well, we moved in on Saturday. Finally! Well, sort of moved in. More later.

Thursday, March 16, 2006

Move date - Sat March 18th (finally!)

We are moving in on Saturday, March 18th. Not everything will be complete, but we are moving in anyway. We have no choice. We must vacate the little house we are staying in as it was rented for March to somebody else, and we have been begging forgiveness for the delay.

The electricians discovered they have a cut wire somewhere in the attic, so they need to trace that and replace it.

Received maple spindles and railing, but not newel posts. All but 6 of the spindles are pretty poor quality, with chip-outs, etc. So they have gone back to the supplier.

Flooring is behind schedule. Sadly, we are no longer floored by this (hahah).

Discovered some really sloppy drywall work - it was behind the door in the powder room, so didn't see it until I could close the door and turn on the light... The painters hadn't painted the 2nd colour coat in there anyway.

Countless dings and bangs in the walls. Worst offender are the flooring guys. Most of the mess is just sheer sloppiness, flinging grout and tile mortar wherever.

Appliances delivered today. Electric dryer delivered instead of the gas version we ordered.

Quotes for exterior finishing are coming in. Expect to decide on that this week, and order exterior stone so we can avoid the 5% price increase coming in April.

Appliance hook-up happening tomorrow.

Tuesday, March 14, 2006

Progress from last week

No blog update would be complete without a photo of Tawny, of course.

Here, Tawny has just dragged this dead tree out of the stand behind her, and she is just so pleased with herself.

Note the wide stance Tawny has with her back legs. This is so she can get a thorough grip on the tree, which must be more than 6 feet long.


Ensuite shower with recess for shampoo bottles, etc.


We have lights in the dining room!


Our new phone line was installed on Monday. There are no phones inside the house yet.

Plumbing inspection on Monday failed. Retest planned.
Temporary occupancy permit inspection to be rescheduled for Friday.
Electricians back.
Plumbers back to complete installation of fixtures.
Flooring people back to complete their work (we hope).
Crew is busy with closets, fixing other peoples mistakes, etc. But too much time is spent fixing other mistakes.

Thursday, March 09, 2006

Update with lots of photos

Andre, hooking up the radiant heat for the floors.
Dave looking surprised, very much so after cutting off the tip of his thumb, see how the blade is all red!!!! (See * below)
Dave the electrican having fun wiring in the undercabinet flourescent lighting. Veronica at the lighting supply store says Dave is just so gosh darned cute!
Sean finishing the maple veneer plywood for the master closets. This material looks really expensive, but because it is paint grade material, it's cheaper than anything else!!! Just sand it a bit, glue on a bit of real maple on the edge, and finish it with a good water-based sealer, and voila! a very expensive looking closet!
Plumber - installing kitchen faucet.
Laundry room with light fixtures installed.
sink installed in master bath.
Kitchen, with lights - look at all the dust caught by the flash!
Sean - enjoying a brisk climb on the roof, and having finished caulking the chimney. Hopefully that will fix the leak from the Feb 6th rainstorm.

Jose (L) and Oscar (R) - granite installers from Eurogranite in Montreal.

Don't take stone for Granite. (haha - that's Dave's joke)

* - Dave didn't really cut anything off his thumb. His saw blade is red because that is the colour of the brand of the blade.

Sunday, March 05, 2006

Big push this week

I installed a light and some plugs/switches on Sunday. There's a big push to get everything completed so we can move in on Saturday, March 11th. We found out that the little house we're living in was rented to another person for March. We thought we would be in our house already by the end of February.

Complete tile Monday/Tuesday. (should have been done weeks ago)
Electrician coming Tuesday.
Countertops coming Tuesday.
Heinz (cabinets) coming to finish up on Tuesday - install missing crown moulding on bath cabinets.
Heating coming Wednesday - hookup floors and HRV.
Plumber coming Thursday or Friday.

Had to postpone glass guy (was scheduled for Monday) as tile in shower is incomplete.

Scheduling network completion and security system.

Some photos.
A very patient Tawny, waiting for a treat in the master bath.

Another example of the fine trim work. The maple french door is not yet finished.

Dave fixing the ceiling in BR2.

The drywall boarders made a real mess of some of the electrical wires - cutting off the insulation. These wires will need to maretted together with a pigtail. They cut right through a wire on a switch,

I covered the light I installed in the office with a plastic bag to keep the dust off it. Freda says, "Just like Candace Olsen!"

The kitchen looks pretty stunning! The paper is to protect the floor from all the foot traffic.