How Could Such a Small Room Require so Many Decisions?

4th Week of November

 

Somehow many of the material decisions for the Powder Room took us a while to finalize.  We ended up with a "black and white" scheme for this tiny little room.  We bought almost all the materials ourselves, instead of through the Builder.  I purchased the vanity base from "Restoration Hardware", the  "carrara marble" mosaic wall tile from "The Tile Store", and the mirror from Dulles Electric!  The faucet is mounted on the wall.  The sink will be a "vessel" sink, sitting on top of the countertop.  The sink is in the house, but we are waiting for the countertop, which will be installed some time next week.

Counter Point

4th Week of November

Kitchen - so close to being done!

Lots of progress has been made with the Kitchen!  The granite countertops were installed today.  We picked a granite called "silver gray".  The finish is "honed".  The peninsula light is in, the appliances are in, and undercabinet lights are in.  Many of the surfaces have been cleaned.  We still need outlet cover plates, and base trim paint in some places.  The sink is sitting on top of the counter.  It appears that plumbing connections will be one of the last things to happen in the house.

Kitchen appliances and lots of cabinets!

Most of the appliances are BOSCH, but the refrigerator is a JENN AIR.  I can't believe how perfectly the refrigerator fits.  We decided against the very popular "French door" refrigerator with the freezer on the bottom.  We prefer to have the side-door freezer.  We also decided against a built-in microwave.  Instead we will purchase a countertop microwave and set it in the corner.

Kitchen counter - waiting for sink and cooktop

I'm not sure if I've mentioned previously that we had a cabinet order mishap.  The wrong sink base (and adjacent cabinet) were ordered.  The correct cabinets are in fabrication but I have no idea when they will arrive; most likely NOT before we move in.  The cabinet bases will be cut to allow the sink to fit.  When the replacement cabinets arrive the builder will pull out the wrong bases and push in the correct ones.  He assures me they do this kind of thing regularly with kitchen renovations and have no worries about making it all right.

Desk with Countertop in place

The countertop for the desk was also installed today.  We had a cabinet order mishap at the desk area as well.  All the wall cabinets are supposed to be the shorter height.  The Builder heard today that the correct cabinets are being shipped from the factory on Monday, so hopefully by next Friday we will have the right cabinets on the wall.

And so it goes.  Point counterpoint.

The Blues

4th Week of November



 

I can't explain what was going on with the lighting this afternoon, but it literally looked blue!  It was about 4:00 pm and overcast.  It has been raining almost constantly for the past 36 hours, although it is just a drizzle now.

The Builder's crew of 3 - 4 guys spent a lot of time CLEANING the house today.  The protective plastic film is being removed from the windows.  There are still many little things to be done around the house, but from some vantage points it sure looks done.

Working Weekend - maybe the last?

November 23rd - Saturday

Boxes filled with wood floor planks arrived at the house over a week ago.  But the HVAC system needed to be running, and then the wood needed a few days to acclimate to room temperature.  Finally, on Friday, a crew of about eight guys showed up to install the wood flooring. 

Living Room, looking toward Office and Family Room

By the end of Friday almost all the wood flooring was installed!  There was a lot of wood dust all over the floors.  The only room on the 1st floor that doesn't get wood flooring is the Family Room.

Saturday about four flooring guys showed up.  They finished small areas and did the planking on the stair landings.  They also started preparing the "shoe mold", which is the trim piece that bridges the gap between the edges of the floor boards and the wall base trim.

Master Bedroom and Hallway

We also have all the ceiling fans up in the bedrooms.  We saved all our fans from the old house; its kind of amazing that we managed to save all the parts and pieces for five (5) fans.

Alex's Bedroom

Only the Master Bedroom and Hallways get wood flooring on the 2nd floor.  All the other bedrooms will be carpeted; probably the last thing that will happen.  But as you can see above, shelving is installed in the closets, ceiling fans are installed, doors and hardware are in place, and the smoke detectors (with red temporary cover) are installed.  These rooms just need their final coat of paint and they are done!

Pennsylvania Blue Slate

November 23rd - Saturday

I honestly do not think we could have been any luckier with the seasonal weather during our construction.  It is only now truly "cold" out, and the ground certainly has not frozen yet.  Good thing too, because the final grading - no small task - has been in progress this past week.  Once the grades were final along the front of the house the sidewalk construction began.

We had a little go-around about the riser material for the front steps.  The drawings call for slate pavers on horizontal AND vertical surfaces, but the mason just started laying in stone!  We stopped the work so that we could think about it for a day.  We ended up deciding stone is good, but did ask that they vary the sizes, which they did.  Other finishing touches that occurred this past week were the staining of the entry ceilings and installation of the light fixtures.  Still to be completed is the panel trim boards to the sides of the door.  Oh, and we also have a door bell now :o)

I think it is the same masons doing the sidewalks as did the house stone.  I really like these guys.  They take their time, are meticulous with the details, and definitely know what they are doing.  The sidewalk is Pennsylvania Blue Stone.  This same stone will be used at the hearth of the fireplace!

There isn't much sidewalk to finish, but they did take Sunday off, so I expect them to finish tomorrow.

Some of the other exterior details to be completed are installation of the gutters and downspouts, and finishing the railing at the side entry.  Also, you can see in the upper corner of the picture above the wired location for a flood lamp not yet installed.  Exterior electrical outlets need to finished as well.  We are getting down to the details.

Tools of the Trade

3rd Week of November

Over the past two months we have seen tool migration throughout the house.  It had gotten to the point that it was hard to see daily progress through all the "stuff" strewn all over the rooms.  I have joked with the Builder that he probably has a $100,000 worth of tools in the house.  Today is a bit of a turning point.  With the installation of the wood flooring we are - believe it or not - coming very close to being done!  There are miscellaneous little things to be finished, but the list is getting smaller by the day.



Loading up the Car

I went over to the house to take pictures of the sidewalk work and found one of the Builder's guys packing up his car!  He is moving tools OUT of the house - seems like a real sign that the end is near.  Tomorrow is a big cleaning day, before the painters come on Monday for the final coat of paint.

More tools, lined up in the entry hall

As soon as I walked into the house through the Garage there were even more tools assembled, waiting to be moved out I guess.  By the way, the floor in the entryway is slate.  It has been covered with brown "construction" paper since it was grouted, to protect it.

Kitchen clutter

There is also brown paper over the Kitchen tile floor.  There isn't too much clutter in the Kitchen at this point.  The appliances arrived today, and we are hoping to see the granite countertop on Wednesday (day before Thanksgiving? - probably a very slim chance that will happen).

Believe it or not, the pile of tools is getting smaller

The Family Room has been a staging area for some time.  At this point the room almost looks clean!  This is the one room on the first floor that does not get wood flooring; it will be carpeting.  So that kind of explains why it has been used as a staging area, particularly in the past few days, when the wood flooring was being installed.

Appliances, sitting in the Eating Area

The Builder has been working every Saturday for the past month.  And tomorrow - Sunday - he will be back to install the appliances.  While they haven't overtly stated it, I think the plan is to be as complete as possible by Wednesday.  We are going into the last phase of the project - FINAL INSPECTIONS!  But I will talk about that in my next blog.


Out of the Darkness . . .

3rd week of November

There really is a lot happening at the house now.  While this has consistently been the case, some "new" things are easy to spot while others are not.  I continue to be amazed by how much Steve and I have to do to keep the pace of the construction moving as quickly as possible, but I will save that for another blog, hopefully this weekend.

I am a real "daylight" kind of person, and the change of seasons combined with daylight savings time (what a misnomer), means that I literally cannot SEE the house much at all during the week.  I leave home just before dawn and arrive home after dusk.

Light fixtures arrived on Tuesday, and Wednesday almost all of them were installed!

Looking into the Foyer from the Dining Room

We had to give the Builder all of our light fixture selections for purchasing through a distributor.  I was focused on what I consider "decorative" lights, and didn't realize that we also have to select the "utilitarian" lights, for rooms like closets, garage, and laundry room.  I thought the Builder would just give us something generic from what we indicated on the drawings.  I think Steve and I will be at Home Depot or Lowes this weekend buying these "unseen" light fixtures.

Looking toward Kitchen from Eating Area

As you can see above, most of the lighting in the Kitchen will be downlights.  There is a pendant fixture that will hang over the peninsula.  I assume they will install that one last, because it could be damaged with all the work still to occur in the Kitchen.  You can also see the range hood being installed.

View of Eating Area & Fireplace, from Kitchen

(Yikes, my picture is crooked - sorry.)  You can see the pendant light for our eating area above.  Unfortunately the electrician did not quite get the placement of the light right.  It is supposed to align with the center of the fireplace!  I pointed it out to the Builder and he was quick to agree and say it will be corrected.  You can also see that the fireplace stonework is complete.  I think the fireplace is almost operational - maybe even today they will "fire it up".

Side note:  Steve and I work in the construction world, so we know only too well that there has been a long term change in the level of ability by the everyday workers, particularly the subcontractors.  They don't seem to care very much about the end result of their work.  And they definitely can never seem to see the "big picture", or even ask themselves questions about what they are doing and how does it need to coordinate with other work.  As ceiling junction boxes were being installed (2 months ago) I noticed several locations that were wrong.  I have dimensioned locations on the drawings for many of the downlights and they still got several of them wrong!  I walked the house a couple of times with the Builder to review and direct relocations.  Somehow neither of us noticed the junction box location for the Eating Area was off.  In hindsight we attribute the oversight to the fact that the fireplace was not framed out until very recently, and the drawings show alignment with the centerline of the fireplace.  Oh well.  Just another "fix".

I apologize for my pictures.  I don't have many this time, but will make up for it this weekend.  Appliances are being delivered tomorrow.  And wood flooring installation starts today!

Let's Get Fired Up

3rd Week of November

There is one detail in the house that is appropriately the last element to be constructed.  The fireplace.

The fireplace

The fireplace is double-sided.  While it separates the Family Room from the Eating and Kitchen spaces, it can be enjoyed from both sides.  It is obviously still a work-in-progress, as are most of these "finishing" details.  While the fireplace has been set in place there is still much to do to complete its installation.  The slate tile is only completed on one side.  But I think you get the idea  .  .  .  .

Kitchen or Kitsch?

3rd Week of November

I know I haven't done justice to the progress inside the house these past couple of weeks.  We have come to that point in the project where there is a lot going on, but everything seems to remain "in progress".  There are tools and materials everywhere, making it hard to distinguish the completed work.

Like everything else in the design, we spent a lot of time on the Kitchen.  Between window placement, spatial openness, materials, not to mention every cabinet size, configuration and function.  It's amazing how many details go into a Kitchen.

View of Kitchen from Eating Area

There is a quiet but consistent color scheme throughout the house.  And most of the colors come together in the Kitchen.  The cabinets are natural-stained cherry.  The wood floor, which will be in the Eating Area, is white oak (very similar to the natural cherry).  The floor and wall tiles are the same material; just different tile sizes.  The tile colors range from slate grays and blues to gold hues.

View of Kitchen, looking toward sink

The kitchen cabinets arrived last week, and within 24 hours they were being installed.  We have known what our appliances were going to be for some time.  But the Builder was not ready for them, so we waited to actually buy them until last week, including the range hood. The appliances are stainless steel finishes, and they will be delivered on Saturday.  We also just selected the countertop material, which will be "silver gray" granite in a honed finish; the fabricator came out this afternoon to measure all the surfaces, and it will arrive in about a week.

View of Kitchen, looking toward Refrigerator

It is hard to tell from the pictures, but the Kitchen feels very large to us.  The cabinets seem to go on forever. I deliberately did not want many wall cabinets, so that the space would feel more open.

Desk Area

As if the Kitchen didn't have enough cabinets there are several in a desk arrangement, in the Eating Area. And in the corridor behind the desk wall there is a small "bar" of cabinets!  So I think we're covered.

Playing in the Dirt

2nd & 3rd Week of November

Steve and I sincerely believe we are not "pack rats".  Before we moved to 10208 Carol Street - in 1999 - we had averaged living in one place about 2 years.  Moving is a great way to remove clutter.  But then we lived in our old house on Carol Street for 14 years!  I regularly went through closets and either donated or threw away things.  But three children grew up in that house, so it was a bit inevitable that "stuff" would accumulate.  Some of the things most difficult to let go were favorite toys; things like Legos, Kynex, cardboard "bricks".  And Tonka Trucks!

Nick & Alex's toy backhoe

Some of the things we moved into the new house last weekend were these toys.  We used to tease Alex because he liked to randomly dig holes in the yard.  For the last two weeks our entire front yard has been a series of holes and trenches.  I couldn't resist having a little fun with the back hoe :o)

Septic field ditches, waiting for final inspection

Of course we had to wait a few days for the Fairfax County Health Department inspector to visit our property and "approve" the septic field construction and all pipe connections.  That was done this past Tuesday.  By Thursday the trenches and holes were filled in.  We have a front yard again!

Backfilled Septic Field, i.e. our front yard

All day Friday our builder "played" on his backhoe, doing a lot of the final grading around the house.  And Saturday the masons were back to do the last bit of masonry work - the stone and slate around front steps!

Masons working on Saturday

Somehow we have ended up with some leftover dirt (on the left in the picture above).  I have asked the Builder to spread it over the side yard, to the left of the house.

Taking a Break

10 November 2013 - Veterans Day

Some of you know that Lauren, Katherine, Carol and I ran a race in September.  Lauren, Katherine, and Katherine's friend Liz, ran a half marathon!  Carol and I ran a 5-mile course.  Training for that race took a few months.  We all enjoyed the accomplishment, even though finding the time to adequately train was a real challenge for all of us.  Feeling like we were in reasonably good shape, Lauren started looking for another race we could run.

She found a 10K (6.2 miles) Veterans Day run that was the same general course as the September race. This time we got Steve and Alex to agree to run as well!  Somehow training for this race proved to be challenging for all of us, for lots of different reasons.  But we all showed up, we all ran, and we all finished!  It is probably the farthest Alex and I have ever run, and Steve hadn't run that distance in many years.  Even more amazing, Steve only arrived home Saturday night after spending 16 hours en route home from Germany.  Needless to say, there was a bit of jet lag going on.

Katherine!

Lauren's time averaged 8.18 minute miles!!!!! Steve ran with me until the last quarter-mile, so his time wasn't much better than mine.  But I was very happy to average 10.10 minute miles.  And I was delighted that Alex finished, given that he did not train at all.

Once again we lucked out with the weather.  The early morning was chilly, in the 40's, but the sun felt good, and by the end of the race it was well into the 50's.

Reflecting Pool on the Mall

Break's over!  Back to the house.

Footnote:  The five of us are talking about doing another run in December - "Jingle All the Way 8K", in downtown DC!

Another Working Weekend

1st Weekend of November

Kitchen - cabinets being installed

The Kitchen cabinets arrived on Friday.  The Builder has been working weekends for about a month now. They are making a good effort to be done as soon as possible.  Today (Saturday), while we were moving in boxes in the Basement, they were installing the cabinets. There are deliberately few wall cabinets that you see from the Eating Area (which is where this picture is taken from).  The exhaust hood for the gas cooktop will be to the left of the window, and a couple of shelves will be to the right of the window.

Kitchen Cabinets

The cabinets are natural-stained cherry.  The sink will be directly under the window facing the backyard (left window in the picture above).  The porcelain tile floor is covered with heavy kraft paper to protect it.

Kitchen cabinets being installed

There really are a lot of cabinets!  Many of them aren't seen from the Eating area.  The big box by the ladder above is a tall pantry unit.  There is also a Pantry Closet.  Lots more storage space than I have ever had.

I don't know if the guys will be working tomorrow, but just one more day and all the cabinets should be installed, at least in the Kitchen.

Beating the Path, Again!

1st Week of November

Starting to move back - boxes in the Basement

It was Deja Vu for me today, only backwards.  I asked our Builder if it would be okay to start moving boxes into the Basement of our house, and he said yes!  (The Basement is done, except for some utility hook-up work.)  He asked that we stack in the northwest corner.  Lauren and Alex helped me - thanks, guys.  Once again the 4Runner was put to good use.  We were able to fit about 12 boxes into the car at a time.  We made about eight runs, and made a good dent in all the boxes currently being stored in the basement of our rental house.  The "pile" grew pretty quickly.  Most of the boxes we moved were taken out of the basement of the old house, and will hang out in the new basement for a while until we can figure out where we want to store certain things.  We also moved some shelves and cabinets, and lots of shelving brackets.  Of course, Lauren and Alex suggest that several items should NOT be moved back to the house, like old computers.  We shall see ;o)

I also cleaned all of the bedroom ceiling fans, brought them over and placed them in each of their respective rooms.  The Builder said they will install them for us!

It may only be a start, but it feels like the beginning of the end of construction.

Milestones

2 November 2013

Milestone: an action or event marking a significant change or stage in development.

Fencing to define "Limits of Construction" - 12 May 2013

Six months ago today Steve and I signed the contract with our Builder, to build our house, with a clause stipulating a construction time of six months.  Of course, the clock did not start ticking for the Builder until he was able to get his Pre-Construction Inspection with Fairfax County and have their blessing to proceed with the work.  That did not occur until the 12th of May, so the Builder tells us the clock started "ticking" then.  I can live with that.

Here today, gone tomorrow - 19 May 2013

Demolition happened quickly.  The one blog I have not done is one to memorialize the demolition of our old house.  I must do it at some time, because the demolition guy was amazing.  His skill with that giant backhoe was amazing.  That one piece of equipment torn down the whole house.

Concrete Foundations, Walls & Slabs - completed 19 June 2013

One month later we had a concrete-encased hole in the ground.

House walls framed and sheathed - 19 July 2013

Another month passed and we had the definition of our new house, with wall stud framing and sheathing, and roof trusses.  And then progress seemed to slow.  I've talked about this in previous blogs, but progress in August seemed to be hard to spot on a weekly basis.  However, by the 1st of September, we had a fully roofed and wrapped house, with almost all the windows in place.

View from the Mailbox, 1 September 2013

Exterior Siding, almost complete - 19 September 2013

Stone Facade completed - 23 October 2013

Six months later - 2 November 2013

I just took the picture above.  I really like it, because there are people working all over the place, and it's Saturday!  The cloud of dust is from the mason; he is cutting some of stones and I have no idea why.  There are two guys on the entry roof, installing more of the railing pieces there.  And there is a guy walking up the driveway.

It is a beautiful Fall day, with temperatures we don't deserve but I am delighted with - 60's!

The septic field trenches are half-completed.  They are trying to finish all the tile work by Monday.  I don't know that the house will be complete in two weeks, but everyone is talking end-of-month.  If I have to I can live with that.  Of course, we never stop pushing :o)

Halloween!

31 October 2013 - Trick or Treat?

5:00 pm, Halloween

Steve and I started getting a little nervous about having a construction site in our front yard on Halloween. Lucky for us we get very little foot traffic in our neighborhood on Halloween, but I was more worried about the "tricks" that could occur.  And as if the normal dangers of a construction site were not enough, the septic field crew started digging our trenches on Halloween!  Ugh.  Now the hard-wire fencing is temporarily down, and we have 5-foot deep trenches for someone to fall into, starting right at the front edge of our driveway.

I don't know if the Builder had been thinking about it, but I called him in the afternoon and asked that he do something to try to stop people from walking up the driveway.  Even though the house is totally dark at night, on Halloween that doesn't necessarily stop people.  You can see in the picture above a lot of yellow "caution" tape.  (Of course, on Halloween I can imagine someone thinking this is "decoration".)  I was nervous all evening, but it turned out my worries were not warranted.  The tape and dark lot did the "trick".

Anyway, all is good.

Footnote:  We didn't get a single trick-or-treater at our rental house!  We noticed as soon as we moved in that there is no light outside the front door.  So it's pretty dark.  But the houses are closer together on Ellsworth and there are a few street lights, so I thought we would at least get a few.  Year to year, we never know how many trick-or-treaters we will get.  It has ranged from 4 or 5 to 25, but we have never had none!