Yes, we realize that quite a bit of time has elapsed between blog postings. And just when things were getting good! Construction is moving along, though not as quickly as we hoped, partly because our foreman's father became very sick and only the foreman could move his father around. Our hearts and thoughts go out to Josh and his family, but it did mean that the house progress slowed.
Plus, we've been busy. We spent every weekend for about six weeks going to Portland: any one weekend included trips to the granite place, the tile place, the rug place, the furniture place, and/or the appliance place. All of that is now done: we've chosen granite for the bathroom vanities and after MUCH deliberation, we chose the tile. We bought a rug, and we bought a couch. We still need to order the cooktop and hood, and we found out this weekend we need a new washing machine ASAP. On top of all of that, we've been removing clutter, packing, and cleaning the old house to put it on the market.
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| Matt cutting up an old fiberglass canoe with the sawzall so we could take it to the dump |
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While we were doing all of that, the new house got drywall.
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| Living Dining Kitchen (front to back) |
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| Living Dining Kitchen (back to front) |
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| Pantry |
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| Downstairs bedroom |
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| Office at top of stairs |
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| Master closet, cluttered already |
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| Second floor hall |
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| Master bedroom |
Just after the ceilings were finished upstairs, we hit another snag. There are four interior sliding doors, and the hardware for the doors was supposed to be recessed into the ceiling. In other words, the 8'4" ceilings were supposed to be dropped 4" so the hardware could be recessed. However, the elevations from the architect did not indicate that the ceiling should be dropped. Now we have 8'4" ceilings, and no where to hide the ugly door hardware. We found some beautiful "barn door" type hardware, but it would have added $1800 per door! So, Matt got the specs for the hardware, and reverse engineered it using parts from McMaster-Carr. The machinist at Bates is putting together a prototype, and if it works, we'll save a lot of money but still have fancy door hardware. No one will ever know that it wasn't deliberate (unless we tell them...)
Although we've said it before, things should really start to move along. The painter should be done with the primer and part way through a first coat by now (we'll find out how far he got this weekend). The cabinets are slated to arrive within a few days. The boiler was hung, and they should be able to test the heat any day now. The solar hot water and electricity will be finished on May 31. The hardwood flooring for the second floor and the tile for the bathrooms has been ordered. All of this means that although they will likely still have some exterior work to do, we'll be able to move in 4-6 weeks! Yikes!
