Rounding out the island

Almost 3 weeks after officially moving in, the island finally shed it's cardboard cutout of the countertop and swapped it for something a little more sturdy:

It's in the Mail!

We welcomed the most recent addition to the house (and it couldn't have come soon enough) which was the mailbox. No more trips to the post-office to pick up the mail!

Kitchen Cabinet door pulls

Finally managed to install the door pulls on the kitchen and laundry cabinets.

Front Porch Construction

Our front porch was a bittersweet sort of event. We had originally hoped for a large copper porch topper but as the construction project was nearing its end along with wiggle room in the budget, the copper top found its way to the cutting room floor. We also wound up placing the porch lights flanking the front door right smack in the way of the split columns were to be up against the house.

Shower time!

The cultured marble shower panels were delivered and installed. I'm still scratching my head as to why I paid a $60 "measuring fee" when I had to cut every single panel to get a correct fit. Is this normal or did I just get milked for 60 bucks??

Wall prepped with liquid nail adhesive for the first panel:



Our improvised bracing system:

Cabinet doors!

Almost a week later and we've got (most) doors! No handles, but there's doors! They also added an 18" cabinet and shelves to the island that were not initially installed. Also added to the island was the leg extension where the wine cooler will go. (man, I wonder who installed that sweet hidden outlet in the bottom of the island???)

Once the cabinet bases were installed, things seemed to slow down a lot. 4th of July holiday coupled with the cabinetmaker's vacation halted a lot of the cabinet progress, but allowed for the applicance installs. We opted for 30" Frigidaire double convection ovens, a mid-grade dishwasher, and a fairly large refrigerator.

2nd story bath & Laundry updates

The base cabinets for the upstairs bathroom were set:


Laundry cabinets, countertop, and sink:

More kitchen updates

Kitchen countertops and sink installed.



Undercabinet puck lighting installed:

Return to H.E.L.L.

(that's Hoosier Elevated Ladder Lift for you common folk.)

As if the previous post to install that ceiling fan weren't enough, we tackled the task of the foyer light 20 feet up. This one was a bit harder because we didn't have a 6' downrod but our ingenious system did not disappoint (patent pending.)

Buried Gas Tank

I wasn't able to make it home in time to catch them in the action of installing the gas tank but the cap and regulator are visible.

Master bath vanity shells

Our his & hers vanities were also set in the master bath.

Henry Ford would be proud

With all of the baseboard and doors being painted, the garage area resembled an assembly line of sorts rather than a space to store vehicles.

Kitchen Cabinets

What a pleasant surprise to arrive at the house and find the base and wall cabinets hung in the kitchen. The desk area cabinets were stacked in the corner and the island was still "floating" on the floor.





The laundry cabinets weren't installed, but appeared to be next!

Herro, have you seen godzirra?

Ok, it's not Godzilla, but it IS green: The guest bathroom. My dad and I managed to assemble the vanity without much help from instructions. Not because we're such manly men that we didn't need them, but because the single piece of instruction it came with was essentially worthless. If it was 2-ply it would have been twice as useful. It did provide us with some humor though because it was written in Engrish. I'll have to see if it's still around to provide a few quotes.

Some completed baseboard trim and more to put up.

How to install a ceiling fan on a 20' ceiling

...using a 12' stepladder. Doesn't seem very feasible when you do the math does it? Neither one of us were 8' tall so we had to improvise. Here was the first plan of attack: attach a 25' aluminum extension ladder to the face of the 12' stepladder.

I "anchored" the step ladder while Jeff climbed up to the ceiling. In theory this worked until Jeff reached up to grab the wire. At this point, the stepladder decided to lift itself up about 2 feet in the air (while still being attached to the extension ladder) which prompted a string of expletives in stereo. We managed to get back down our respective ladders without crashing through any windows.

We came up with Plan B: sawhorses. Seriously, we weren't drinking; yet.


The above contraption actually worked well and was pretty stable.


Attaching the motor and the 6' downrod was the hardest part.

...and finally the finished product. Lovely.

Flooring

We started off with marble silk tile in the master bedroom.


Then went with a dark slate/greenish tile in the laundry room.

Hand scraped brazilian walnut in the master bedroom.

And Bruce oak hardwood for the rest of the main floor.

Finished staircase

Final touches on the staircase:

Holy cow it's stairs.

I really grew attached to the double 2x4 treads that served as temporary stairs along with the 15' 2x4 nailed across the loft area to keep you from falling into the living room. So needless to say, I was quite surprised when I showed up and saw the following:


The clamps you see were actually pretty interesting. They rip the hand rail into 5 approximately .5" pieces and proceed to smash it between 2 pieces of hard plastic and bend it to the exact radius of the stairs. So they start halfway up at a straight part, then bend the wood to the shape it needs to be. Once the wood takes on the correct shape, they reglue all the pieces together and it looks like one nice bent stair rail. Pretty cool!

How 'bout a snag?

It's really no fun building a house if everything goes right. Right? A couple problem areas with water popped up creeping into the living room/kitchen area and the front door. They weren't too bad in that none of the interior walls got wet (or insulation) and didn't do any damage.

Let's have a painting party!

With the walls primed and the ceilings painted white it was time to break out the brushes and rollers. It's painting time! (And there's a ton to do...)

"Eggnog" for the kitchen!


"Ocean something or other" (Phoebe's going to kill me) :-) in the dining room.


"Grasshopper" for the living room (to match dead animals going on the wall) and a khaki-ish "Wheat Bread" for the halls.


"Sonata" for the master bed/bath.


"Golden Buttercup" for our little buttercup.