The list is shrinking...

A lot has been done out at the house since we were there on Friday. The painting is done, the closets all have shelves, and a few more lights are up.

The concrete was poured yesterday or today; it was difficult to tell which day they did it, but it looked wet.
This concrete pad is for equipment outside the garage.
The back entrance to the mudroom also has a concrete pad.
And there is a concrete pad in the back outside the door and garage door...

We were surprised to find that the sidewalk sloped right up to the front porch/door. We thought there would be a couple of steps up to the porch. If we ever need wheelchair accessibility, this will work out great!
Out back, they figured out how to connect the downspout to the drain that was about 6' away from the downspout...
All the freshly poured concrete made it interesting to try to get into the house, but we were resourceful and made our way inside!

We now know what the portable AC unit was for that I found in the garage the other day - it was hooked up and running to air out the house from all the fumes caused from the sealing of the hardwood floors and to cut down on the humidity so the floors would dry faster.
The hardwood floors look great! We think that they need another coat of sealer before they'll be done. The wood is cumaru, otherwise known as Brazilian Teak.
Someone with very large feet left their footprints on the hardwood!

The light for over the table had been hung. This photo is looking out the family room windows toward the back of the house...
I don't know if this will be an issue, or not. We noticed that the holes in the granite for the kitchen sink faucet were very close to the wall. There will be a granite backsplash behind the sink and it doesn't look like there will be room for the faucet to fit once the granite backsplash is in place. The other possible problem is that the wood trim underneath the window may interfere with the faucet. I'm sure that it's something we can figure out a work-around for if we need to - we just need to keep an eye on it. The cement truck dumped the last of the concrete next to the driveway, which didn't seem like a very good place for it. It will probably be covered by dirt, but may interfere with drainage along the driveway.
So, here is the list that I made back on July 1st of all the things that still needed to be done at the house. It was too depressing to list it back then, but many of the items are now complete, so I'll post it. Items completed as of today are marked in green...

septic tank

gas lines

furnace

A/C

painting

kitchen - granite, finish work, vent fan, pulls, granite backsplash, appliances

plumbing

electrical - lights/fans, valance lights

gutters

brick/stone/pillars

driveway - concrete, gravel

grading - rough, topsoil

sewing studio - knobs/pulls, upper crown moulding on cabinets

master bath - grout, finish shower, cabinets, glass doors, baseboard stone, granite

stained woodwork on great room walls

closet shelves/rods

pantry shelves

stain front door

paint garage doors, install gaskets

grab bars on guest tub

shower curtain rods in 2 bathrooms

stairs

fix vanity granite backsplash in kids' bathroom

top for windowseat

doors on bookcase shelves in great room

doorknobs

There are still quite a few things to finish, some by the builder and some by the KD, but the list is a lot smaller now than it was 2 weeks ago. The builder estimates that he can be done by midweek next week, but the KD won't be done by then with the kitchen and master bathroom.

Countdown to move day: 14 days and counting!

Hmmmm...

Well, tonight the granite looked a lot like it did when I left the house earlier this afternoon, except a whole lot cleaner and attached to the cabinets. For some reason, the backsplash didn't get done. We have a call in to the KD to see if he knows what is going on with it. The granite certainly is shiny though!
Here is the beverage area...
And the island...
And the cooktop/eating bar area...
DD's window seat is now covered in stained wood...

These are the closet shelves in DS's room - they are a bit odd in their arrangement...
The sink has been installed in my sewing studio...
We now have a furnace and a water heater in the basement...
And the doors have been installed at the bottom of the stairs in the basement...
Things are moving along. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday the hardwood floors are supposed to be sanded and sealed and driveway poured. Thursday and Friday the kitchen cabinet guy and the master bathroom tiler should be back to finish up and the following Monday the carpets are supposed to be installed. I don't know the schedule for the rest of the subs - plumber, electrician, etc. but the end is in sight!

Countdown to moving day: 18 days and counting!

Granite!! (etc.)

The house was hopping today! The carpenters were finishing up the great room woodwork, working on closets, and putting the molding around the oval windows in the kids' bathroom. The painters were working on the second and third floors. The electrician had been there and most of the fans/lights were hung. One of the carpenters said that the great room fan wasn't working and would have to be replaced. The granite templaters arrived and templated for the granite in the master bathroom.

I was in my car heading down our road to run some errands when I spotted what I assumed was the truck with my kitchen granite turning onto our road, so I turned around and headed back to the house. It was indeed my granite, and the driveway had not yet been poured so they had no problem getting to the house to unload the truck. Here is the very first piece of granite (verde butterfly) that they put in place...

They ran into a couple of snags along the way. The overhang on the penisula hit the trim around the French door. The trim hadn't yet been installed a few weeks ago when the granite was templated. The sink had several cracks in it, including this really long one. Luckily, there was an extra sink onsite and I was glad I had talked with the plumber about it the other day, or I wouldn't have known it was there! They were able to use the second one and could continue installing the granite.The sink also didn't fit into the sink base cabinet, even after cutting out a "scoop" from the sides of the cabinet. Our KD was called and he came out to sort things out. By the time I left, which was before they did the backsplash, everything had been sorted out. DH and I are headed out again tonight, as he hasn't been out to the house since last Saturday. I'll get some more photos and post them later tonight.

The kitchen pendants have been hung. I love these 3 that are over the island.

I'm not so crazy about these pendants over the peninsula. The colors are very different from what I remember...
The holes have been cut in the ceiling for the 1000 cfm vent over the cooktop. It's probably overkill for an electric cooktop, but better too much venting than not enough. We still have to decide whether to put U-shaped track lighting around the vent. Our KD usually does that, but we have so much light in the kitchen already, I'm not sure we need any more.
The granite is all in place, but not attached yet...
Here is the photo of the stairs looking from the attic level all the way down to the basement (ignore that blue hose).

The stair railings are all finished now...
The fireplace mantel is up... and they hid an outlet on top of it, which will come in handy...
The lights have been installed in the master bathroom and most of the other rooms...
The furnace is in (or is that an AC unit?)...
This was sitting in the garage - not sure why we would have a portable AC unit????
The woodwork in the great room is done, except for the doors on the bookshelves behind the French doors. I love it!

Here is the wall opposite the wall in the above photo...the hole in the middle is for the TV projector.
A close-up of the woodwork over the bookshelves...
The downspouts have been connected to the drainage system...
Well, most of them - this downspout ended up coming down about 6' away from where the drainage pipe is located in the corner...
More later!

Kitchen design changes and granite

I met with our kitchen designer (KD) on Thursday to discuss the kitchen design. I've been reading the kitchen forum on the Garden Web a lot lately and, thanks to all the people who post there, I realized I didn't know the answers to some very important questions about our new kitchen. I also needed to let our KD know that I wanted to change the island to one level instead of the two levels that were in the design originally.

This is the original design of the kitchen. I kept most of the perimeter cabinets the same, although some of them have been changed to drawer stacks instead of regular base cabinets.
The cabinets in the island are now a bit odd in their shape! Here is a sketch I made of the new island configuration...There was a question a while ago on the Garden Web kitchen site that asked what people regretted most about their kitchen remodels. Many of the respondents said that they wished they had gone through everything in their current kitchens and decided exactly where everything would be stored in the new kitchen layout. So, to avoid regretting the same thing later, I made a list of my new cabinets and tried to figure out where everything in my current kitchen will live in the new kitchen.

I'm also really trying to keep the clutter off my counters in the new house. That means I need a way to lift the heavy stand mixer and the food processor out of the cabinets. The solution is to put appliance lifts in two of the island cabinets. The KD said that the cabinets need to have a minimum 24" depth for the appliance lifts, so there will be one 24" deep cabinet on the baking side of the island for the mixer, and another on the cooking side of the island (opposite the cooktop and oven) for the food processor. That leaves an 18"x24" deep 3-drawer stack on the baking side of the island - top drawer is for baking spices and utensils, and the middle and bottom drawers are for mixing bowls, 9x13" pans, pie pans, etc. - and a narrow 18"x12" base cabinet beside it. Beside the food processor cabinet will be a long, narrow base cabinet, 36"x12" where I'll store casserole dishes (and other as-yet-undetermined stuff).

I was having a terrible time figuring out where to store my spices. I've finally decided to store them in drawers (after seeing many photos on Garden Web of spice drawers). I changed the cabinet to the left of the cooktop to a stack of drawers so I can store cooking spices in the top drawer and pots and pans in the lower drawers. The baking spices will go in a drawer in the island. Here are some photos of spices stored in drawers:

On Friday, DH and I had an appointment to look at granite at the fabricator's that our KD uses. We have decided to go with the Verde Butterfly for the kitchen and Tsunami for the master bathroom vanities. I have never heard of Tsunami and suspect there may be another name for it. The photo we took doesn't show the depth of color very well.


Here is the Verde Butterfly... And here is the Tsunami...

This week it's time to attack all the stuff in my sewing room/craft room and get a lot of it packed up. Last week I packed up a lot of things from the kitchen and dining room that I can get along without until after we move (canning jars, a bunch of cookbooks, candles, etc.). I'm typing the contents of the boxes into my laptop as I pack the boxes, then printing out the labels, and taping the list right to the top of the box. It takes a bit longer to get the boxes packed, but will be worth it when I'm looking for something that hasn't been unpacked and there are a million boxes sitting around!