Thursday, August 28, 2008

Home again, home again...

Sorry to be MIA for a couple of days, but I drove my mom back to Northern New York State yesterday (8 hours) and drove back home today.

On Tuesday, while Mom was still here, we tackled some of the sewing studio unpacking. I forgot to take "before" photos, so these are "in progress" photos. This is the larger side of the room...
and the smaller side of the room...
The closet is filling up fast! I'll have to rearrange things after I get everything unboxed.
Mom was the expert box opener and made short order of breaking down the boxes after they were empty...
The landscapers finished the second seatwall (on one side, at least)...
They also worked on extending the exposed aggregate concrete that will be around the pool so there will be a strip of it along the edge of the pavers.
There was a gorgeous sunset on Tuesday night...
Must have been the calm before the storm...
On the way home from NYS, I stopped at the Grove City outlets to pick up some spice tins from Pfaltzgraf. I was planning to order them online, but the shipping charge was so outrageous I decided to stop at the outlets sometime to pick some up. I didn't get quite enough, so I'll have to get back up there sometime and buy more for my baking spices. These are my cooking spices, all labeled and in their tins and in the drawer near the cooktop...
The edge of the covers on the tins have both sprinkle and pour areas and there are magnets on the bottom of the tins. I'm going to have DH find me a piece of metal to fit the drawer so the spice tins will stay where I put them.
While I was gone, the landscapers finished putting the stone on the second seat wall and then grouted both seat walls. The concrete around the pool wasn't able to be poured because of the rain. The wood for the deck and the pavers have arrived, so they can work on those next week.

DH spent a couple of hours replacing the white outlets and switches on the granite backsplash in the kitchen with black outlets and switches - what a huge improvement! I didn't get a photo yet. He didn't get enough, so I'll wait and take a photo after they are all changed to black.

Monday, August 25, 2008

Bits and pieces...

My mom and I mostly goofed off yesterday while DH ran wires around our house to various electronic devices. After church and lunch at Eat 'n Park, Mom and I went for a swim in the pool. The temp was 79-80 degrees and felt nice after we got in. Those first few minutes were a tad chilly, but not nearly as cold as it was when DD and I swam in it last week! Now I have a sunburn...

Sunday evening, Mom and I headed to Leechburg, PA to hear the Kiski Community Band play a concert in the gazebo. It was a very nice evening with enjoyable music.
The landscapers were here bright and early this morning. They worked on the seat walls (part of the deck) today and got the stone put on one of the walls...
They got started on the second seat wall, but didn't get it finished...
And DH got to take a dip in the pool tonight. The water temp was up to 90 degrees this evening and was about 87 when he was swimming.
Mom and I did some shopping for the house today, as well as stopping for groceries. My goal for tomorrow is to get some work done in my sewing studio. For some reason, every time I start to work on it I get sidetracked with something else that needs to be done.

Friday, August 22, 2008

Don't you love vacuum tracks?

I'm back! The pool looked good enough to jump in - well, almost. And I didn't jump in it because DH had said he was going to shock the pool and I didn't know whether or not he had already done it. The landscapers have prepared the pool for the concrete (exposed aggregate) surround...
The retaining wall for the flowerbed is in now. The white pipe in the foreground is what the water from the pool and patio will drain into. It will become more obvious after the concrete is poured and the pavers are in. Just trust me for now - it's a drain...
The pool equipment is all hooked up and the pump was running when I got home...
The vacuum even works! The pool was so dirty that I could see the tracks that the vacuum made as it wandered around the pool! DH used the net to get most of the stones out of the pool before he started the vacuum, but every now and then the vacuum would stop because it choked on a stone.
And the satellite dish was installed while I was gone. I'm hoping we will have better reception than we had with the cable. I missed parts of many Olympic gymnastics routines because the TV program would break up right at the very worst possible time! :-(
I think the next few days will be spent working in my sewing studio, unpacking the boxes (I'll make my mom help me!). My chair arrived, but I didn't get a photo of it yet. I'll wait and take a picture once DH and DS carry it upstairs to the sewing room...

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Wow! Lots of progress today!

We said goodbye to the POD today - DS was not sorry to see it go. He's done a lot of hauling of boxes and furniture this summer...
My backsplash is finally finished! The granite guys replaced the backsplash behind the cooktop (it had a very jagged cut in it and was not done well) and finally installed the backsplash behind the sink. Now we just need to get some dark outlet and switch plates so they don't stick out so badly...
The fireplace guys were also working with granite today as they installed the verde butterfly granite pieces to cover the firebox in the fireplace. Once the grout dries and lightens up, it should blend in well...
Here is a close-up shot of the granite. Now we need some doors and I think we'll be all set.
The landscapers poured the concrete this morning in the patio area. This concrete will be the base for the travertine pavers that we are putting in.
Gravel was brought in and packed down around the pool, and leveled. DH decided to hire the electrician who worked on our house to do the pool wiring. DH could do the wiring, but wasn't able to buy the small amounts of wires and other things he would need to do it, whereas the electrician probably already has the right materials for the job. The inspector is coming on Thursday to inspect the electrical and will come back later to inspect the deck, and the fence and security system for the pool.
I love it when we make progress!

The case of the missing pipe...

It appears that the water we were adding to the pool the past few days was leaking out into the ditch that contains the pipes coming from the pool, which will eventually be hooked up to the filter and other equipment alongside the garage. DH fished out 4 of the flexible pipes, and found one more stationary pipe at the bottom.

He thought there should be one more flexible pipe, so he attached the air compressor to the pipe marked "return" and I watched to see which return in the pool the bubbles came out of. It turned out that bubbles came out of both returns, so there must be a T in the pipe somewhere between the end of the pipe and the pool. Mystery solved...
The landscapers laid mesh down on the ground yesterday in preparation for pouring concrete today. The pavers will be installed on top of the layer of concrete.
And DH used the backhoe on his tractor to dig a deep hole, and put this pole in the ground (with concrete). The satellite dish will be attached to this pole and then DH can run wires from there to the house. He didn't want the dish up on the roof and thinks we will have better site lines to the south if we put it on the pole. We can then plant shrubs and trees to block the view of the pole from the driveway.
I'm headed up to northern NYS tomorrow to see some of my siblings and to bring my mom back for a visit. We made my mom a photo book for her 80th b'day gift (a few months early) and the books were shipped to me, so I'm going to deliver them (each of the siblings ordered at least 1 copy too). The book was supposed to be ready to give our mom at the family reunion on the 10th, but it was delayed at the printers, so she hasn't seen it yet.

The granite guys are supposed to show up today to install the final section of backsplash behind the kitchen sink, but I haven't heard from them yet. Later today, a couple of guys are supposed to install granite strips around the firebox in the fireplace. And the POD will be picked up today - it will be good to get it out of the driveway!

Saturday, August 16, 2008

Brrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!!!!!!!!

DD and I walked down to the ponds this morning to see if we could find any fish. I snapped a photo of the patio side of the house on our way down to the ponds...
This is the larger of the two ponds. We saw only one small fish and it didn't look like a koi. We've been told the pond was stocked with 1000 koi fish by our neighbor. I have yet to see anything that looks like a koi.
There are some very nice cattails at the pond however...
This is the smaller pond. There are lots of frogs in this pond. We can hear them jump in the pond as we walk around the edge, but they sure are hard to see!

We saw this wasp nest hanging by the back door. We have several of them near the front door also. I had never seen a tube-shaped nest before...
DH started a bonfire tonight to burn all the packing paper and boxes from our move. There was a lot to get rid of!
The pool is filled about half way now...
DD decided to go wading in the pool this afternoon. She said it felt pretty good. She swept some of the stones down to the deep end.
After dinner we loaded the car with DD's "stuff" so we can deliver it to her new college apartment tomorrow. Then DD decided it was time to go for a swim. She and I went in the pool and it was VERY COLD!! She made it all the way in first. It took me a while to work up the courage to get all the way in, but eventually I made it. Afterwards, I ran myself a nice hot bath to warm up!

DH has been working on getting the projector and screen up and working. Tonight we were able to watch some of the Olympics on the big screen. The screen is hidden up behind the valance when it's not in use.

The weather was just beautiful today and I opened all the downstairs windows, turned on the whole house fan, and let the breezes cool the house. It felt wonderful! The whole house fan really did a great job of drawing the heat up the stairs and out of the house, and it also drew the cooler breezes in from outdoors.

Friday, August 15, 2008

Progress on the patio...

On Wednesday at the end of the day, this is what the patio area looked like. The beams for the deck were laid and a lot more dirt was moved around and packed down around the pool.
By Thursday, the crosspieces had been attached...
And by the end of today, we don't have a whole lot that's changed since yesterday. Those boards sticking up on the far side of the deck are different from the ones I posted a photo of on Tuesday. They ended up cutting those off even with the crossboards and then attached new boards for the railing. They also have strung some string around the yard. I'm not sure what it is for. It may be prep work for the pavers that will be going down.
We started filling the pool with water. This is how much is filled after running the hose all day long. We have a ways to go yet...
I'm making progress again on the boxes. DH, DS, and DD carried all the boxes from the POD that had been stacked in the entryway up to my sewing studio, so the entryway looks clear now. Yesterday I think I emptied all the kitchen boxes from the POD, except for a couple of large boxes that were mis-delivered to the basement, and today I emptied all the POD boxes in the music room, so that room is looking better again.

The chair we ordered for my sewing studio is ready to be picked up at the furniture store distribution center, but that is an hour's drive each way. I called the store to see if we could get it delivered to the local store for pick-up and for 15 bucks they will do that. That will save us the time and gas to drive to the distribution center, and is well worth the money! I had to stop by the store and pay the delivery charge today and my chair will be ready for pick-up next Thursday. Maybe I can get some of my sewing studio boxes emptied by then!

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Lots of guys here again!

So, I had a houseful of people here working again today. Two electricians connected the whole house fan and fixed the way the puck lights in the great room were wired. We wanted them wired so that the front ones were on 2 switches and the back lights were on 2 switches. They now work correctly, so we can turn off the front lights when we are watching the projector and leave the back lights on. Here is the whole house fan, which is mounted on the attic level in the hallway. It will suck the hot air up through the staircase and vent it out of the house.

One of the builder's guys was here to work on several things. He recessed the medicine cabinet in the kids' bathroom. I forgot to ask the electrician to hang the light the other way up (and I'm not positive that this particular fixture can be hung in either direction). We need to do something different with that light, as I don't like the way it looks right now. I think the medicine cabinet looks a lot better recessed though.
He also installed the grab bar in the guest bathroom, for times when we have older guests here, to help them get in and out of the tub. He installed the push plates on my pantry door and removed some stray stain from the grids in the French doors so it doesn't look messy from the outside.
The landscapers have been busy working on the deck off the French doors in the family room. These concrete block structures are seat walls which will be covered with the same stone that is on the fireplace, columns, and chimney. There will be steps in-between the two seat walls, and between the one on the right and the house. I think the tall poles in the back will form a guardrail to keep people from falling off the edge there (there's probably a 6', or more drop-off there). I'm guessing they are too tall and will be cut down to the right height after the deck is finished.
The pool is definitely not ready to swim in - yuck. DH has to hook up the filter and skimmer and all that other pool equipment and the concrete will need to be poured around the outside. The pool then needs to be inspected, so it will be 2-3 weeks before we can use it. DD is sad that it won't be ready to swim in before she returns to college next weekend.
The cabinet guy was also here today. He installed most of the rest of my full-extension, soft-close drawer glides. He was short by 2 and will need to come back and do those, plus the ones for the master bathroom. I love the full extension, but don't really care about the soft close feature. Unfortunately, the cabinet company doesn't offer full extension without the soft close, so I had to get both. While he was here, he also added the upper moulding around the one cabinet that was missing it and he worked on the vent over the cooktop. It's not nearly as noisy now and he fixed it on the inside so that you don't see all the equipment up inside it.

I made it to the store yesterday and bought some storage bins to put inside the closet (closed storage part) in the great room. Today I sorted all the stationary supplies, greeting cards, pads of paper, etc. into the bins and got them put away.

It was starting to look like I was making progress with emptying the boxes, at least on the first floor, but now that DS is emptying out the POD all the boxes are piling up again.

Monday, August 11, 2008

"Take the long way home..."

What a day yesterday was! We left at 7:30am to drive to Warners, NY (near Syracuse) for my family reunion. We originally intended to drive part of the way on Saturday and get a hotel room, but decided to stay here and get some more things done around the house. Other than having horrible storms to drive through from Buffalo to Rochester, we made good time. It took us 6 hours to get up there.

We had fun catching up with our Schnauber/Robinson relatives, most of whom we haven't seen in several years. We were celebrating my Mom's 80th birthday because all 5 of her "kids" were there and many of the grandchildren and great-grandchildren. It was a surprise for her (especially since her real 80th isn't until February, but the weather is too "iffy" to get all of us together in the winter) and she couldn't figure out why people were wishing her a Happy Birthday (until the cake came out)! She thought her brother had put them up to it!
We had a great time with our Texas Snowball Fight - if you've never done this, buy a bunch of bags of large marshmallows and go at it! Adults and kids alike all enjoyed this...


Just to keep this post house-related...my brother and SIL moved into their house a couple of years ago. This is the bathtub in the master bathroom. It is about 7' long and 5' wide! My SIL puts all her grandkids in there in the winter so they can swim when it's too cold to be outside in the pool!
So, we left the reunion about 5:45pm and drove for a while without any problems. DD took over the driving and shortly after that, we found ourselves in traffic that was at a standstill. It took us 35 minutes to go exactly 2 miles! We couldn't figure out why - no signs of accidents, or anything else. Two more times that traffic came to a standstill, still without any sign of the reason. We finally decided to get off the thruway and attempt to get somewhere on the back roads. We got on route 21 south and figured we would eventually get to 17 West and from there to 90 and 79 south.

Somewhere around the small town of Cheshire, we had to pull off the road because the downpours were so severe DH couldn't see the road, and it started to hail! Here is a shot out my window of the "river" that was flowing on the sidewalk next to our car...
And this is what the street looked like after the hail stopped falling...it looks more like winter than summertime!

We finally came to route 390 and took it down to route 17. We stopped for a very late dinner (9:30pm) in Hornell, NY at a Friendly's. We had a lot of fog between there and Erie, but DH made good time. I took over the driving near Meadville and stopped for gas in Butler, PA. I decided to stay on the back roads instead of getting back on the highway. Maybe I shouldn't have done that...

I was pulled over by the police as I drove through downtown Butler at 1:45am. This is the first time I've ever been pulled over for anything but I was so tired, I didn't even care. It turns out that they pulled us over for a burned out tail light, but it took them a while to get around to telling us that. They ran our plates when they pulled us over and the license plate came up on their system as being inactive. They had us get out of the car so they could show us that the license plate didn't match what was on the registration, but the VIN number did match. They were very confused, as were we. The plate number on the registration was very close to our actual plate number, so perhaps it was just a typo by someone. We've had this car and plate for about 8 years, so it's amazing no one ever noticed before. I'm sure the policemen thought they had drug dealers, or a stolen car, or something when they couldn't run the plates!

We finally made it home at 2:30am. Our 6 hour trip had turned into 8 hours and 45 minutes! I'm still not sure if we would have been better off staying on the Thruway in all the traffic jams, or if we made the right decision to get off. I'm just glad to be home! (We decided that the traffic jams were due to torrential rainfall and hail along the Thruway near Buffalo and Rochester.)

The landscaper and his crew are here this morning working on the patio area beside the kitchen and family room. Needless to say, we didn't get to sleep in very long this morning, and DD had to be at marching band camp at 8am. It's going to be a long day! I'll try to get some photos of the work the landscaper has been doing and post them later today, or tomorrow.