"ketchup"

Things have been going well at the house - not without issues, but well nonetheless. I was gone last week and missed some of the daily grind, so I'll try to "ketchup" everyone on the progress.

Interior: drywall is up, mudded, and sanded. We have now been given the instruction to go over and mark all the boogers/scratches/etc in the drywall for repair. I bet no one else has ever been given that job as homeowner. We actually would do it without instruction, but I think the builder wants us to see that he's trying to be inclusive and nitpicky for us. Not to say that he wouldn't be that way on his own, but he's giving us a job - probably to keep me from calling. The hard part is that we can't go to the house by ourselves without having a babysitter. Guess that'll be date night this week.
We've signed off to purchase all the cabinetry in the house. There are a million places for something to go wrong, but we think we got everything. We really like the cabinet guy - he's funny. He says the we remind him of himself and his wife deciding on things. Anyway, we feel like the kitchen is going to be spectacular and spent most of our energy on that. Maybe that's why there were loose ends on all the other rooms. And of course it wouldn't be us without some neuroses, so for good measure we've asked that none of the cabinetry (save the laundry room) be drilled for knobs. Great weekend job for Brent when we move back.
We have also made our final selection on countertops for the entire house. We are waiting on slabs to arrive in order to approve each slab before the template is cut. We are quite pleased to have stayed completely within budget on the cabinets and countertops because these are potential areas of budget busting. We have everything we want and I believe we even have a tiny bit to spare.
Wednesday we spent 3.5+ hours in the hot and humid house going over trim with the supplier and carpenter. We went with what we want knowing which areas we can leave off for later if the budget gets crazy. I have to give my thanks to my mother-in-law for introducing me to the Ballard catalogs 20 yrs ago when I was at her home (yes, Billie, can you believe it's been that long?) because now I get them and we have taken so many ideas from that catalog it's not funny. We are using a simple "1 by" on the drywall to create a 6' tall panelling in the library. It'll have a little trim piece at the top to resemble a picture ledge so that we can line the wall with some great pictures. We also discussed our built-ins in the family room in detail. (ok, the panelling and the built-ins ideas are from pictures in the Ballard catalog.) We discussed wanting to replicate/match as much as possible from the original house. We further explained that we don't want the house to look new - we want it to work for our family but maintain all the character of 1946 that is possible. Unfortunately the gentlemen that work for the dept of codes enforcement don't seem to care too much about character, so we potentially have some interesting hurdles in the next couple of months.
Flooring is still questionable because of budget. Well, not so much questionable as to the type of flooring, but more as to the price. We informed everyone we thought we could from the beginning that we wanted to use the same flooring that's in the house. What I'm being told is that the materials are readily available, but since the entire house has become a construction zone, the original bid can't be used because other work may need to be done. (and since I'm in a happy place right now, I won't go into my thoughts on that topic, but I'm sure it'll come out in type before long.) We are tiling the bathrooms. Several weeks ago (more like months) I'd asked the office asst what I could do in order to get a firm grip on the tile budget. We'd selected our tile, but no one had figured materials and labor. She told me that their tile guy was MIA. Several weeks went by with them waiting to see if he's show up again. I finally asked if I should call "my tile guy" to which an affirmative response was given many weeks later. Last week Brent met with the guys we'd been contracting with for small jobs for the last four yrs. Depending on hi labor bid, we may be over budget. So, with that in mind I spent a little time at my trusty computer looking for our tile. I found most of it for much less than the "wholesalers" are listing it - and even found exactly what we'd asked for in the kitchen for the backsplash and had beent old it didn't exist. The people at the tile places have been less than impressive!! I'd love to not use them and order all my stuff online, but shipping heavy tiles is very cost prohibitive - bummer! So, the finalization of tile is on the horizon.
We are attempting to wait patiently to find out if the basement has a leak or if it's just a slack_ss job emptying the dehumidifier getting the basement wet. Anyone wanting to don the beautiful rubber gloves and help me clean the mold just call. Carl actually told me that he hopes to have the area dry by Monday so we can determine if it's a leak.
Exterior: brick is complete. We had a few issues that come with matching, but feel the brick selection is good. We also had a few issues with the new house meeting the old. Carl suggested adding 2 half columns on the sides on the Friends' entrance porch to help hide the fact taht the soldier course on the new part is about a brick higher than the original house and that's really the only spot they meet - lucky. Now, if you come to visit, do NOT be cute and say, "oh, what happened here? looks like those don't line up." Also of note with brick - we didn't notice that the new chimney was 1 1/2 times larger than the original chimney until it was bricked. The explanation was once again blamed on Codes and a solution was devised. One that I'm sure will show up on my invoices next month, but I digress. Brent was fit to be tied!!!!! The only point in having the chimney was to complete the look of the house from the exterior and they messed it up. It's a good thing for us we check everything with a fine-tooth comb. My thoughts go back to an earlier mention of having a meeting to discuss potential problems such as new codes since 1946 will make these certain things different than in the original house - but I'm just a crazy woman trying to make things hard on these guys.
Roofing is continuing. Most of the shingles are up and the EPDM was put on the back of the house this week and the copper was still being installed today. We'll be waiting for copper prices to come down before putting it over the EPDM in the back sections of the house. So, we have future projects to look forward to. Apparently roofing is a good business - our roofer drivers a Hummer!
The window guys were back out this week. They were trying to get the finished product in place. They had their work cut out for them. One little guy (and these boys can't be over 20 or so!) had the grinder out trying to get a huge mess of old caulk off the brick. (Have we ever mentioned that the family who owned the house for 50+ yrs prior to us continued to us Dumb and Dumber to do their house projects?) There is hope that they will overcome the globs of old caulk and that our windows will look fab!!
Since our street was being repaved this week, the builder passed along a directive from the City and we are now the proud owners of a beautiful erosion fence across the entire front of the yard at the street. No worker is supposed to park on the street or on the grass at our house - driveway only. Some of you have visited our house and know that giant work trucks and our driveway are not a good match. Oh well. There was some 'catbob', as Bennett calls it, work being done today too. Not sure if we were getting grading work done, or if the gravel in the driveway needed to be cleaned off so more work trucks would fit. Either way, all the giant weeds in the backyard have been smushed down - bonus!
well, there's the ketchup. catch ya soon!