New picture - finally!

We've been back in the house since 1/9/2010, but we've been so busy organizing and unpacking (with no end in sight) that I neglected to post pictures of the house now that we're done.

The spiral staircase in back was just recently finished, and we still have a bit of concrete to pour in the back yet, but that's about it in back. I'll post pictures of the finished spiral tomorrow - I forgot to take pictures before it got dark this evening.

The front will get landscaping, of course, and also a front patio of some sort.

But for now, this is it.

There go the holidays

So its December 28th and we're still not back in the house. The interior staircase railings showed up completely different than we had originally discussed, so they are being re-done and won't be finished until late this week, which means that we won't be able to schedule the final inspection until early next week. Providing everything gets done on time. I'm not holding my breath.

Appliances went in last week, though, so that's some progress, and finish plumbing and electrical is happening. Finish HVAC should be happening today and tomorrow. I installed the concrete sink and steel vanity that I built for the master bathroom last wee as well - that's the picture above. Sarah and her mom have been working on getting the floor tile all sealed. The old bedrooms and bath are all done and the rest should be finished by the end of this weekend.

We're now shooting for a move-in date towards the end of next week. There will still be several things that need to be done after that, most notably the spiral staircase to the back balcony and the concrete around it, but that will all be done after the final.

Click here for updated pictures

(Not) Home for the Holidays

So we won't be back in the house by Christmas. Our counters aren't going in until this Friday, and all the finish work (plumbing, electrical, HVAC) has to wait until the counters are in, so we won't be done until the week after Christmas at the earliest.

Things are progressing, however. The roof is mostly on - the rest will be completed after the solar electric panels are installed in early January. The floor tile is all installed and, thanks to a lot of hard work by Sarah and her mom, the grouting is all done as well. The shower tile is all done except for the grout, which will be completed tomorrow. The grate over the basement window well is in, which means we won't have to fish our neighbor out of there any more after his nightly "constitutional".

I'll post more pictures on Friday when the countertops go in.

Click here to catch up on pictures.

Getting Close

We're getting close to finishing now. The floor tile is going in - the first floor is done and they started the second floor today.

We decided to do the grout ourselves. Our tile has a pretty serious knocked-down edge, and we didn't want the entire area to be filled with grout, so we are doing it ourselves rather than paying extra to have the tile guys to it to our specifications.

They also painted the exterior doors today - though only the outside of the front door is supposed to be blue. Oops. We'll get that fixed.

We're still on track for a completion date of the 15th, despite the amount of work that still has to be completed.

The cabinets are getting put in on Thursday and Friday, and the countertops will get templated on Monday. We're doing CaesarStone, and apparently it will take at least a week to fabricate the counters once the templates are made. If it goes over that, we'll end up blowing our completion date of the 15th.

Even if we go over, though, hopefully we'll still be done before Christmas.

Click here for pictures.

Painting...

The painters have started - both the interior and exterior of the house are now primed. The paint should be completed towards the middle of next week.

Installation of the floor tile will start on Monday, and the solar water heating panels will probably be installed next week as well (we're waiting for an appointment).

We poured the concrete countertop for the master bath last weekend - I will be taking it out of the mold this weekend to see how it turned out. I'll also start welding together the vanities for the powder room and the master bathroom this weekend. We're using square-stock steel to build those.

We also met with the welder that will be putting together the railings for the front and back balconies. He is scheduled to complete that work next week.

We seem to still be on schedule to finish the project by 12/15, which would be nice, since it would give us a week or two to get moved back in before Christmas.

Click here to see primer-iffic pictures.

Update - 11/10/2009

The drywall is now all up and taped, and texturing will start tomorrow.

The stucco should be finished tomorrow - All that is left is a few areas of patching.

The final approval of cabinets happened today as well - they will be installed at the beginning of December.

Southwest Gas also started the process of relocating the gas meter over to the south side of the house today, so it looks like that will be done before the project ends, which is handy since all our furnaces are gas-fired.

Click here for all of the pictures from today.

More stucco and drywall

The drywalling has begun, and the exterior has a complete scratch coat now. The plan is to have drywall and stucco finished by the end of next week. After that, the trim will go in and then it will be time to do the painting.

Click here for more pictures