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!