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.

Week 65 & 66: Kitchen!!!

Our Kitchen cabinets were finally delivered and installed this past week. It looks beautiful, even without the counter top. Going with Europe Kitchen Center was the best decision. The quality is great, the drawers and doors are soft close. Very nice layout and should be sufficient for our living needs. We are not doing any upper cabinets to keep things nice and simple.
The closet doors from EZJamb were also delivered this week. It looks really nice for the price. Very heavy duty SOSS hinges, those doors are never coming out for sure.