Week 91 to 94: Technically Done

Technically, our construction is done. Besides a few miscellaneous clean up jobs, the construction phase is officially done. We still do not have a CO yet. The town has rejected the subdivisions' plan for the slope, so the process begins again.
We are keeping busy by focusing on landscaping and reusing some old scrap wood to build some outdoor furniture and planters. There's plenty to do around the house. Some friends came over one weekend and helped us finish our front entrance path way.

Week 89 & 90 : Furniture at last!

Well, the bad news is still no CO. The good news is that the inspector is allowing us to move our furniture in.
We spent the entire holiday weekend unpacking and laying out our furniture that was delivered months ago. Just found out our media cabinet is completely damaged. We now have to claim a damage for something shipped months ago, it's going to be difficult. Besides that, all else was okay, it was an exhausting and very rewarding weekend to see the original 3D model come to life.
The last 2 weeks has been fully of landscaping activity also, the trees went in, except 2 that didn't quite make it. Having the trees makes a world of difference, the home feels finished, no longer part of a construction site anymore. The 3 tiers are now stabilized with jute mesh and we seeded in creeping thyme to help the erosion problem. The front lawn is seeded and hay covered. This weekend we saw the grass growing, it's very exciting.

Week 88: Bad News and more Bad News...

This week started out badly with news from the town that they do not want to grant us any temporary CO until the entire subdivision fixes it's slope issue. Yes, we're being punished for sins of others before us. This is what I really hate about owning things, you own it, but you don't. Towns and subdivisions all have their own kind of rules and regulations.
Apparently neighbors also get a say in your project. Our trees were finally delivered Friday. Once the neighbors saw them, they immediately complained to the subdivision about deed restrictions etc, etc. I can't believe people aren't happy about others doing landscaping. It only helps the value of the neighborhood. Maybe we should have selected a site without neighbors, you live and learn.
The only good news is the Drive Way Binder layer went in this week, it looks great.
On to the next week, hoping for better news.

Week 86 & 87: Still waiting for CO

April 26th, we apply for a CO, but didn't get it. Many reasons to do with the outisde of the house and especially the issue with the slope erosion of the entire sub division. The things that are under control, we can work on and hopefully get a "temporary" CO until the subdivision fixes all the issues. On of the main things is getting the drive way partially paved as required by the town. So we put down item #4 just this past Friday. Since our driveway is over 300 sq feet, it's very costly and something we didn't think about when we built the house. Other issues are very minor like putting up a house # at the drive way, at the house, etc. All has been done and we are going to try again to apply for one this week. We're not very optimistic since the inspector was vague about even issuing the temporary. Fingers crossed.

Week 85: Oh so close!

The plan was to apply for OC this past Friday, but just a small amount of electrical work prevented that. The town inspector is scheduled to come back this coming Tuesday. Fingers crossed!
We spent the weekend putting in some finishing touches like bathroom hooks and more cleaning of course! Wiped down all the closets and floors in the LVL.

Week 84: Open Concept

This week Devan was back on site to finish up the bathrooms. The master bath's open concept came to life. The tub looks small in the space, which is a relief since we were a bit worried about the space around it. I guess Google Sketch Up really helped out the spacing layout. All the fixtures turned out wonderful, no problems reported.
Adam sprayed the doors this week and made a neat drying contraption for drying.
Our landscaping plan is coming together. After purchasing an additional 51 trees for our site, we're ready to put them in the ground. To be safe, we used the Call before you dig service so that we can avoid planting directly on top of the wires. This service is free, and they did a wonderful job marking out all the wires. We haven't had luck finalizing a landscaping service to actually planting the trees. Just some calls, but no definitive quotes. Hopefully we can settle this coming week so that we can coordinate to get the trees delivered.

Week 83: A Complete Bathroom Part 2

The shower glass went in this week, not without it's share of problems of course. We chose the 1/2" thick glass (most shower glass are 3/8"). The sheer weight of the piece made it really difficult to install, not to mention the size of it. Not sure how they even got it into the smaller guest bathrooms. After the storm, there were many dents and marks on the ceilings & walls. Poor Matt has to do a lot of the touch up paint.
We went to Manza Family Farm to pick out trees. Bought total 51 trees to fill in the now completely barren site. Way over budget. Almost all the trees are flowering type, Crabapples, Dogwood, Bradford Pears, Magnolias, Golden Willows, and just 1 type of evergreen, hemlock. Unfortunately, the bigger the tree, the bigger the cost. We couldn't wait years for trees to develop, so have to pay the price of time. And there's that cost of planting it which we have to find out about next week.

Week 82: A Complete Bathroom

The LVL Guest Bathroom was the first to be completed this week. It has a working toilet, so exciting! All the fixtures looks and works wonderful together. Didn't hear of any installation issues about the Grohe Shower System that we had to get from Hong Kong. The temperature display is in Celsius, but it's kind of unique.
Matt and Adam are about 70% done with the LVL Master Bathroom tiling. Glass for the showers are coming in Thursday. We were hoping to get the CO this week, but it looks more likely for the week after next.
After contemplating on ripping down the Ikea closets depth to fit the coat closet and LVL guest bedroom closet, we decided to just go with an Elfa closet system. Bought it from The Container Store and got it delivered the same week. It was a painless installation. Can't believe people pay them to install it. It took less than 1 hour for each closet.
Meanwhile Sliding Doors are also in for the master closet, the tracks provided was a bit larger than the doors, we had to order the 2x4 beam trims to pad the left and right sides. Otherwise it looks great.

Week 81: Fire Orb & etc...

Hands down the best moment this week was definitely the Fire Orb installation. If the house didn't spell modern before, it surely does now. The matte black steel looks incredibly industrial and soft at the same time.
The finish line is in sight now. All we need is 1 more bathroom to be tiled and the rest is history.
We spent this weekend, finishing the media closet and all the audio receptacles.
Found out our recessed baffle trims needed to be changed, the ones we purchased from Royal Pacific is metal, too heavy and does not adhere flush to the ceiling. Went to home depot and bought Halo brand trim instead. They work great. If we knew in advance that baffle trims are interchangeable between different brands, we wouldn't have ran into this problem. Well, live and learn.
Weeks ago, when the kitchen was completed, we weren't 100% happy with the radius of the corner. Saturday, Marcello came back and hand grinded down to a sharp corner. What a nice guy, felt bad about him working on Saturday. He did a fantastic job.
The sliding mirror and medicine cabinet was also done, it looks great!!!!

Week 80: Speaker Success

It's been months since we ran the speaker wires for our audio system. To save a bit of money, we did all the wiring and planning ourselves instead of hiring a professional. In these days of internet, you can pretty much learn anything by watching videos. Bought all the equipment from Crutchfield. Was a bit nervous to see if anything had gone wrong since the last test. To our surprise, it all works great! We placed all the speakers this weekend and they look great. Our only regret is that we may have put in too much recessed lining, causing some ceiling acne. It's a bit much with the speakers, lights, space pak A/C system.

Matt continued to do more painting this past week, the ceiling is finally done! Unfortunately it took 4 coats in the master bedroom because we used the green board (moisture resistant) type of sheetrock. It's not a good idea to this all over the room we learned. Caused too much painting headache to cover it up.
Adam continued with the LVM Guest Bathroom tiles. Almost there...

Week 77, 78, 79: Building Closets

We spent the last 2 weekends building out the Ikea closets (Pax system in a White Stain Oak color) that were delivered to the site months ago. Error on our part: forgetting that 2 of the closets (the Coat Closet and LVL Guest Bedroom closet) were designed to be more shallow to allow for more room for the rest of the house. This means ripping down the Ikea panels to fit, I'm not sure if those composite pieces will last thorugh that process. We will see. Ikea has a 90 days return policy, too bad we already passed that point, so must push on.
The LVM Walk In and LVL Master bedroom closets are done. Turned out really great, once we got the process down, it was smooth sailing. Don't be fooled by the simplicity, it will require your entire day, even if you are a seasoned pro with Ikea furniture.

News on the rest of the house. LVL Guest Bathroom is completely tiled and grouted. It really looks beautiful, glad we decided with the marble. Adam is now working on LVM bathroom last wall. Master bathroom is get to start tiling. Matt spent the last 2 weeks painting. We made it extra hard for him since the entire master was in green board, this makes covering the green with primer and paint that much more tedious. More coats needed of course.

In a surprising twist, we just found out that Central Hudson just came last week to install our meter to account for our Solar Panel power generation! So this means we've been generating power without net metering for over 2 months! What? How did this oversight happen?
Time Warner came out last week to install internet, working out great, we have the cheapest plan and the connection is fast due to a low population. Not planning to get cable TV due to the price. It's all about streaming TV for the future anyway.

Week 76: Kitchen Dreams

The kitchen ceasarestone counter tops finally went in this week. Our Kitchen dreams have come true. The Pure White color looks incredible against the concrete. We showed the pictures today to Barry and Victor (the installer) from Europe Kitchen Center. They were so impressed with how it finally turned out. It's exactly as we imagine it would be. The flow from window sill to back splash is seamless. The only minor issues were the radius of the sink corners and the grout color. Barry is going to see if they can work on the sink corner to get it sharper, but ceasarestone has guarantee only for upto a minimum radius, we can't have the sharp straight corner that we want. Also the grout color is standard optical white, versus the bluish white of the counters, we're hoping over time, the grout will blend in more.
The island had to be moved few inches due to the misalignment with the range hood, unfortunately during the moving, the oven became off level. Victor promised to stop by to check on correcting it sometime.

Week 75: Almost There

The highly antipicated concrete shower pans went in this week, it looks great! Took some engineering and ice columns that Matt devised. Should have filmed the process. Medicine cabinets were finished by the expert woodworker friend of Matt. It looks fantastic. this whole thing looks much better than we could have envisioned. The Blu Dot Mirror Mirrors turned out to be a great find at 50% off especially. The metal components surrounding the mirror was a perfect base for hinges of the LVM. It's a little heavy, so Matt is going to put extra enforcements.
With these 2 components in place, we are all set for balance of tiling. Only 15 days until the Building permit expires, let's hope that we do not need to apply for another extension.
We passed the BOH Septic this week, in the middle of the huge pile of snow. That was a relief!

Week 74: Shower Pan & More Tiles

This week progress was slow again due to snow. Now just 1 week from our original target date of Feb 15th. It doesn't look like we will make the move in date. Our site was completely covered in snow, which makes the house almost disappear in it.
Shower pans were cast out of concrete, this week would be the week we find out if it works. More bathroom tiles went up in the LVM.

Week 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73 : Bathroom Tile, Kitchen Template & boat load of Snow!!!

These weeks have blended into each other. Between the holiday season, snow every week, the progress has been really slow. Matt and Adam have started on the bathroom tiles, but the progress is stopped by the disappearance of the glass guy. Matt found a new supplier but needed to wait for the track before the tiling can continue.
The first bathroom to get tiled is the LVL guest bath with the 12x6 inch Thassos marble tile. We opted for a 1/3 overlap instead of the traditional subway tile. It turned out to be great, especially due to Adam's meticulous efforts. Took 1 full week to do just 2 walls.
Kitchen templating was done on 1/20. Process was smooth and we had all fixtures on site which made it easier for them.
Matt has started to make a mould to do the concrete shower pans, it's a complicated process which I still can't wrap my had around. As long as he knows what to do, it's ok by me.
The target date to obtain a CO is mid Feb, but I think is slipping each day as the snow has slowed down progress to a halt. No solar power here, even though the system was technically turned on on Dec 28th.