On Monday both the electrician and plumber were tied up with inspections on another job, though the siding on the back deck (around the new door) got done. Also, one of the City building inspectors came out to look at something. Not a lot of construction going on, but that was OK since the family was at home a bit during the morning.
It's kind of hard to see in the photo, but the siding to the left of the door is a bit crooked - I mentioned it to the builder and he agreed without even going around back to look at it.
During lunch we looked at some solid surface options at Home Depot, though they didn't really have much to see. We have 3 possible finishes that we're considering: sea foam green, light to medium gray (like a concrete color), or an off-white with some texture. It's going to be a balancing act finding a color that we like with a texture that we like. And I don't think we'll be able to hold to our budget.
After that I went by The Tile Guy, and talked to them a bit about backsplash. They had some penny round and small hex tiles, and it turns out they were from the same manufacturer that we ordered the samples from. He also suggested considering some unglazed porcelain tiles, which was from the same line that our architect had suggested. They had some cool thin, horizontal, green glass tile strips of varying lengths, which we may be able to use as an accent near the top of the backsplash, similar to the simple band of color that was around our old tile backsplash. The guy that I talked with pretty much said that we should choose our counters first, then bring in a sample and figure out the backsplash.
So I called the cabinet shop and spoke with their countertop guy. He said there were 4 or 5 different solid surface lines that they rep, and he was going to make sure that they had some samples in the showroom so we could come by later in the week and have a look.
After talking with the architect, he agreed that the small wall that had been built parallel to the pocket doors was unnecessary - had they not been able to get the support beam up in the attic, it would have been required. So I guess they're going to have to rip it out at some point before the cabinets get here. Good thing we're watching the job so close, else there'd be a handful of things not in line with the architect's intent. Guess it's better than paying the architect to spend a bunch of time out at our house.
Not a whole lot else visually exciting got done during the week. The electrician installed the can lighting in the living room. They had some trouble finding CFL bulbs that would fit in the fixtures specified by the architect without sticking out. I was able to find some online, but they seem like semi-specialty items (and they're over $10 a piece). We'll see how that works itself out. Looks like normal CFL bulbs are a little longer, but the "cold cathode" versions are designed for smaller spaces.
Here's a picture of a couple of the cans that got installed. They put 30W incandescent bulbs in a couple of them, as well as 50W and 60W equivalent CFL bulbs in two of them. The 30W bulbs just aren't bright enough, and the CFLs don't dim well at all (one does a bit of flickering) even though they were marketed as dimmable.
There was an HVAC duct in the attic over the location where some of the kitchen lights were supposed to be installed over the sink, so the electrician suggested moving it closer towards the sink/wall. He also thought it would be better to have the light directly above the sink, as opposed to over your shoulder while washing dishes. The EXACT point we brought up with the architect, but were rebuffed on. Well, it looks like we'll get our way on that one!
We spent a couple hours at the cabinet shop looking at countertop samples on Wednesday(?). It was fairly long and painful. We brought the cabinet door, and were able to determine that we preferred the white colors to the greens and the grays. And the one that we liked the best was in the least expensive line of solid surface material. We got a quote and it looks like it will be within our allowance.
They included a stainless sink in the estimate - we've decided that we'd prefer stainless with the white counters, as opposed to cast iron. Plus, it's more involved to install and support the heavy cast as an undermount. I think for the cost of the sink that they are proposing (without really giving us any info about it other than stainless, 50/50, 18 gauge) we could probably get one from an Ebay store that is a heaver gauge with some sound reduction coating stuff. There were a number of posts to the GardenWeb kitchen forums about buying no-name stainless sinks from one or more Ebay stores and getting a really good deal on a decent product.
The plumber finally made it out Friday afternoon, and he looked at the vent pipe. He said that they could move the pipe back into the wall some, but it would only save us 1"-2" and would need to take the bathroom out of commission for 2-3 days. In talking with the architect afterwards, he thinks it shouldn't be a big deal to replace the pipe with PVC and move it off to the side if it won't fit in the wall. The architect is supposed to come out Monday morning to meet with us and the builder - hopefully the plumber will be there too.
Here's the piping exposed, with the little walls taken off the outside. Right in the middle of our tiny, tiny laundry room.
At 7:50 am Saturday morning there was a lot of doorbell ringing going on. Apparently (without any warning) there were a couple of guys here to empty out the dumpster that was made on site with plywood, at the end of the driveway. We moved our car out of the driveway. They were talking about needing to cut off one of the branches from a (partially dead) pecan tree in order to get their truck down the driveway. But I expressed a little concern, and we were able to move most of the branches out of the way with minimal damage. It took them about an hour and a half to pick up all the debris and put it into their dump truck (the builder generated a lot more debris than they anticipated, and the dumpster box was overfilled). Luckily, the neighbors on the other side of our driveway were up and off to breakfast by 7:30 (they've also got a toddler).
In the previous entry I mentioned some of the collateral damage in the bathroom. Here's a couple photos.
This weekend we'll change the return air filter (I'm sure it's disgusting from the demo) and tighten up the sealing of the barrier plastic, since they'll supposedly be doing sheetrock next week and that might get a bit dusty (at least during the tape/float part). Plus, we need to go borrow a washer and dryer for a few hours. But we're rolling with it.
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