The Continuing Emotional Roller-Coaster That Was Week 9

TUESDAY

This was a pretty bad day, filled with anxiety. The builder and the VP/co-owner came by the house for a walk through, and my wife happened to be there. At their request she showed them a few of the things that we had concerns about, and pretty much one by one the VP either suggested the problems were either somehow our fault, or else not something they needed to address. Paint the windows - these metal windows should have never been painted in the first place. Yeah, that was probably done 35 years ago, and they are a part of the living room... He also suggested that they were not going to do anything to replace the drawer fronts, since the architect's drawing was "faulty" (apparently, by not being to scale). We had hoped that the VP would step up and be an advocate for having a nice finished product, but he seemed to be extremely dismissive, defensive, and argumentative. Needless to say, my wife was convinced that they were ready to walk off the job and call it done, and she was really upset. I called the VP and talked with him in general terms, and he seemed to be much more reasonable. But I spent the rest of the day feeling nauseous and anxious, much like my wife.

We spoke with the architect's PM, and he indicated that he intended to get by the house in the morning to put together their punchlist. He also wasn't very reassuring, especially when he kept saying what "you" needed to do to get the
builder to address things. I told him that we were expecting them to provide a lot of assistance in this phase.

The architect had been asking for the builder's punch list, but had not yet received it. I was talking with the builder about our punch list, and he was asking for a copy. The architect and I had talked about holding off until we gave a combined list to the builder, but it was pretty clear that the builder really just wanted to know what was on the list so he could get to working on it. And he seemed to be getting frustrated that I didn't want to send it to him. So that night we sent our big list to the architect and the builder.


WEDNESDAY

The architect never made it out to generate a punchlist.

The appliance guys never showed, which was a big deal to the builder. He was expecting to have the appliances installed on Wed, finish his HVAC and mechanical on Thurs, and have the City's final inspection on Friday.

They addressed a few minor items that had been brought up Tuesday morning, and began working on replacing some of the boards in the living room and kitchen that were marked up.


THURSDAY

Finished the flooring, though they didn't repair everything that we had asked, though most of those issues were in the laundry room, and it didn't seem nearly as bad as they seemed at first.

The architect and his PM did a walk through which apparently took 2 hours, during which they talked a bit with the builder. They talked about a lot of the items on the punchlist, and eventually even talked about the cabinet hardware placement. The builder called up the drawing that they sent on his computer, to show them how the drawing was confusing. The architect told him in no uncertain terms that it was accurate and clear, and that they just put them in places other than the drawing showed.

The architect and I had a nearly 2 hour phone conversation about the punchlist, and it was VERY reassuring. He said that most of the items on our list were valid, and there were just a couple that he was going to take off. Plus he was going to add a couple of his own.

He said overall the place looked good, and 90% of the items on our punchlist would likely be on the punchlist of any project. He validated a lot of our concerns about the trim and paint work. However, he said that the flooring and tile installations were well done, though neither one was cleaned, and the tile wasn't completed. One thing that he mentioned that we weren't aware of was that the cherry cabinets will get darker over time, growing closer to the shade of stain on the back door probably within the next 10 years.

The big discussion was about the cabinet hardware. The architect said that he actually felt that the current installation of the hardware (not where he specified)looked good. He made it clear that he wasn't just saying that to alleviate a potential problem, and that the hardware layout that he specified for our job wasn't his "favorite" way, and he didn't use it on every job. As he put it, it was just different, and he thought either way looks good. He also said that we were definitely due a remedy if we didn't like the placement, and that the builder might suggest a few options. He suggested that if we were satisfied with the existing placement of the hardware that we use it to negotiate to get some other things done. Maybe a few things that we not in the original scope, but clearly of a lesser value than the door fronts. One thing he suggested was to have them build "collars" to fix the transition between the laundry room floor and the vent pipes; here there are currently fairly unfinished holes in the flooring.

He was going to put the punchlist on his letterhead and email out to the builder, and copy us, probably going out on Monday. He also mentioned giving the builder a call to go over it with them. So there doesn't seem to be a need to have a meeting to review it.

FRIDAY

The appliance guys finally showed up, and it's a good thing because I think the builder would have made good on his threat to drive to their shop and drag someone out here. They installed the microwave and adjusted the installation of the range. When I spoke with the builder at the end of the day he mentioned that he's going to have them come back out because he wasn't happy with the installation of the microwave; if he saw what we saw, it's because it's tipped forward. The range also needs to be moved a little, but they may have to make a countertop adjustment to give it room - it's just 1/8" or so too narrow.

They did some cleanup of the floors, tile, and laundry room vent pipes, and it's definitely looking better. They were also working on getting some of the remaining items, and working on the punchlist.

It seems like our on-site guy really does want to make it a nice job, and he's trying to address our issues. It's just that he didn't really notice the things that weren't right as they were happening, or until we said they needed to be fixed. But his heart is in the right place.

Not much new for pictures, but maybe an overall shot with the floors uncovered would show well...

Unproductive Start to the Week

MONDAY

Based on talking with the builder first thing this morning, the appliance guys were supposed to show up between 9:30 and noon, and the tile guy was coming in the afternoon.

The tile guy came out and redid some of the problem areas. He did clean up one of the areas, but the majority of the stuff that he redid didn't end up looking much better than it did before. He did patch some of the grout areas that had cracked over the weekend, which is kinda scary.

This afternoon everyone was gone, but we didn't know how usable things were, so we sent an email to the builder. He indicated that the stove should work, but the vent hood wasn't connected yet. We tried to light the stove, but it didn't work. We suspect that the gas is turned off.

Apparently there was a cosmetic part that needed to be ordered for the range, so the appliance guys didn't come out, and they are now scheduled for Thursday, once the part arrives.

The builder would like to get together tomorrow to go over what needs to be completed prior to final inspection. It's our understanding that they are supposed to do their walk-through and punchlist, then we are supposed to work with the architect to add to it. It would really be nice if they were to do some serious quality control and come up with a list that's even half as long as ours. But I'm not counting on it.

I've got some serious dread rising, as I'm expecting them to want to be off of this job and onto the next one. It seems unlikely that they'll start paying attention to detail at the end of the job, as opposed to just trying to rush through the punchlist. And I can imagine them tightening up and refusing to do anything that isn't specifically called out on the plans. But I'd rather have live in kitchen limbo for another month than accept a "new" kitchen with some parts that look like they were done by a weekend handyman.

Week 8 - Completion? Not Quite.

MONDAY

First thing in the morning we met the builder at the house and asked about the bedroom/bathroom door keys that were on top of door frames. They seemed to have disappeared during the painting. He said he hadn't seen them but maybe the painters put them somewhere.

I met the architect to discuss grout colors. We ended up having an hour-long conversation about grout, color, etc. We also talked about the crown molding and our punchlist. He indicated that the builder should come up with their initial punchlist and give it to us. Then the architect would walk through and develop his own punchlist. Then we would go through our punchlist. He indicated that he would be able to make sure our punchlist requests were reasonable. But I also got the feeling that his standards would be about as high as ours. We have been feeling like our standards have not been met very well, as there is almost no attention to detail, a number of things that are just half-assed or performed lazily, and zero quality control.

The builder and the painter were wrapping up when we got home. I asked him again about the keys and he indicated that the painter that was there today was not the same painter that had done the earlier work. He then asked me if he should ask them about the keys? Indeed he should!

They had changed the can light trim kits in the living room, supposedly to be the "wall washers". It looks much darker than it had the day before, which is just the opposite of what I thought those things were supposed to do. The light also looks totally yellow compared to the lights that were now in place in the kitchen (the ones that the architect had originally specified). We noticed that the floor in the living room was marked, apparently where they dragged our buffet across the floor. Getting concerned about how easily the floor was getting marked, I tried to nick the floor with my fingernail - and could. Guess we'll expect there to be a fine layer of nicks and scratches and it will all just blend in.

It appears that they are painting the window trim but not the windows in the living room - what's up with that? I'm not sure how "paint the living room" translates to "paint everything in the living room except the windows" - is that standard practice? They also installed some of the electrical switch and outlet covers in the kitchen and laundry room, and they put in the jumbo sized ones. It's been my experience that you only use those to cover up your mess, so we'll be asking them to replace them.

As far as the schedule for the rest of the week, he said that Tuesday would be backsplash installation and some plumbing finish out. Wednesday would be appliance installation and electrical finish out. Thursday would be mechanical finish out. And that should be it. It was so close we could taste it!


TUESDAY

They did a little more painting, mostly trim. Of course, they didn't do anything about the windows. Also, they painted the closet, but didn't paint the trim in the closet - fishy.

They tiled the kitchen backsplash. The tile looks cool, though the installation looks a little half-assed. It is a bit messy around the electrical boxes and in the corners. Plus it looks like they didn't feel like cutting a short row of tiles under one of the cabinets, so they just used about 1/2" of grout there instead. Seriously?

I wasn't initially thrilled with the colors, as well. The grout looked way too dark. The tile was supposed to just sort of float and feel airy, but the dark grey grout was making it stick out too much. Thankfully, the grout would lighten up over the next couple days to a lovely shade.

As we requested, they swapped out the jumbo plates for normal ones.


WEDNESDAY

First thing in the morning they installed the countertop for the island. If there's one of the tradespeople that worked on this job that really seemed to know their stuff, it was the countertop guy (he may be the only one).

The builder said that the plumber would be there first thing to do finish out. When I got home at 5:30, the plumber had not shown up. The builder had pretty much been waiting for the appliance guys all day, and they showed up around 6pm. It appears that there was an initial disagreement about whether or not they were supposed to be just dropping off the appliances, or doing the installation. I'm sure it was past time for them to go quit for the day, but apparently they were supposed to do the installation. When they assessed the kitchen they had immediate concerns about the range and the microwave. The gas nipple for the range was too long and in the wrong place. Also, they said that a special bracket kit would be required to have the microwave hang below the cabinets - the bottom of the microwave was supposed to line up with the bottom of the cabinets, and there was supposed to be a filler plate between the top of the microwave and the bottom of the cabinet above. This is something that we had heard before (probably from the cabinet guys), but this was news to the builder. He tested the waters to see if we'd go for putting the blank underneath the microwave, but we didn't bite. So they didn't install the range or microwave.

They got the fridge installed, but it stuck out from the cabinet by about 1 1/2" (not counting the doors). And I thought counter-depth fridges were supposed to sit flush with the, er, counter. Wonder what's behind there in the way?






We asked about the builder's plans for the rest of the week, and it sounded like they planned to do some clean up and finish out, but didn't really have any sort of punch list developed (or plans to make one). I mentioned that we had a decent list, but we wanted to go over it with the architect first, and that the architect was expecting them to have their own list.


THURSDAY

The plumber showed up, and he was working on finish out for the sink and appliances. The guys from the cabinet shop installed the drawers that went under the sink.

Apparently the plumber wasn't able to get the gas line for the range out of the way before he got called away to another job. And we later found out by mistake that he didn't get the sink faucet tightened into place. These guys seriously need to find a plumber.






They also installed our old washer and dryer into the laundry room, and we were excited about being able to do some laundry at home. As we were loading for the first time, we realized that they didn't connect the dryer exhaust vent. Guess we can't do laundry after all.

FRIDAY

There was a crew of people in the morning trying to figure out how to install the range and microwave, which appears to be more complicated than one might think. By the end of the day they had the plumbing in place for the range, but decided they needed to move the electrical outlet to allow the unit to sit flush. And the microwave is still on the floor.

They decided to put on the cabinet hardware, for the doors that were not going to be replaced (due to color variations). Much earlier in the project the architect had told them that he would come by the house and mark the location for each of the pulls, because he had something very specific in mind. Well, apparently he sent them a drawing detailing the locations instead. When they were ready to install the hardware they asked my wife "so how far down do you want the pulls?" To which she responded that it should be as the architect showed it. They indicated that there was a height indicated as "x" that they took to meant however far down we wanted it. She said she didn't want to make that decision, and they should call the architect. They then determined that the drawing indicated that they should be placed on the vertical and horizontal center lines of each drawer. My wife spoke up and said she was pretty sure that was not where they were supposed to be located. But they were sure they were right.




Now I don't know much about cabinetry, and some people may like their drawer pulls in dead center. But we do not. And our architect certainly does not, so much so that he would provide a drawing showing it as such. The crazy thing was, if you just ignored the dimensions that were on the drawing, it was painfully obvious that the pulls were not shown vertically centered.

And they were not. After I looked at the drawing a second time I figured out what "x" meant - half of the height of the top (shortest) drawer. And I called the builder to let him know that they were all in the wrong place (thankfully they stopped after doing the drawers, and didn't do any of the doors). He was most displeased. Then I called the architect to give him the heads-up. He was disappointed but felt very confident in his drawing, and was reassuring that after they fixed everything that was wrong, we would love the kitchen.

So it looks like each of the drawer fronts that were of consistent color and finish will now all need to be replaced. Which may be an iterative process, since in the first round of ordering they got some drawer fronts that didn't match all that well.

The other thing that they accomplished was to get the dryer exhaust hooked up, though for some reason they covered it in duct tape where it connected to the back of the dryer. I can't remember how it was before, but that wasn't a part of it.

They moved the old fridge down to the garage. It appears in the process they also put a dent in the wall. It also looked like some of the trim paint nearby was scraped off. We took a fingernail and were able to scrape off some more paint from the trim. Looks like maybe someone didn't prime after all.

All in all, a pretty bad end to the week. Don't get me wrong, overall it looks great. But there's just a ton of details that aren't even close to right. And it seems like the end date is moving further, instead of closer.

Week 7 - Paint, Island, Countertops, and Bloodshed

MONDAY

In talking with the contractor we found out there was an injury on the job last Friday. A piece of wood had become lodged in the saw, and they were working on getting it out. At that time one of the guys from the cabinet shop walked out the front door, the wood dislodged, flew through the air and struck the guy in the face. Apparently there was some blood and a bit of pain. They took him to the hospital, and he didn't need stitches but got bandaged up pretty good. By the time I spoke with some of the cabinet shop guys on Monday they said he was doing OK. Poor guy.

The guys from the cabinet shop continued to work getting the doors installed. They worked on constructing the island but didn't quite get it finished, so they took it back to the shop to wrap up.





The new siding got painted, and it seemed to match pretty well. I think it was a good idea to use all new siding on that wall and paint the whole thing.

They started putting up trim - on the doorways, baseboards, and quarter round. The floor guy was part of the trim team, and he repaired some of the floor issues.

The VP/owner from the cabinet shop called and wanted to come by and have a look, and go over things with us. We all met up at the house, and he sent a little time going over things with us, and taking some measurements. He also gave us a restaurant gift card, which was a nice gesture.

That night we talked about how everyone that had been working on our project was nice and pleasant to deal with. I'm sure it makes a stressful situation easier to get through.


TUESDAY

They moved all our living room furniture into a couple piles and covered them with plastic, and taped down paper over the entire floor. Thus marked the start of our living room being completely unusable.

Mostly paint work today. They painted the hallway, and it looked pretty good. We commented on how well it blended with the existing paint, then the builder told us they ended up painting pretty much the whole hallway. They also patched and painted the damaged areas of the bathroom. They primed the new wood trim, and added the wood caps on the wall ends.


Hallway with fresh paint.


They also installed the MDO plywood pieces in the kitchen area. They pretty much cover every surface that isn't cabinets or windows. The vertical gaps between the boards are fairly obvious, but I kinda liked it. We asked the builder about the gaps, and he indicated that he had several conversations with the architect and they were very specific about how they should look. He also said that after explaining it to the trim guys they said they didn't get it, and he told them they didn't need to get it. Ha!


MDO wall panels.


WEDNESDAY

The painters primed the living room walls and painted the ceilings. At one point we stopped by the house to drop something off and the painters were taking a break on the front porch, though there didn't seem to be anyone around from the builder. This was a little disconcerting since the painters were subcontractors and had access to all our stuff, and we had been told by the builder that whenever there was anyone working there would always be someone from the builder there to supervise.

The guys from the cabinet shop installed the island. When we saw it we didn't like the way it looked. When they gave us the original proposal for the island we told the architect that it looked too blocky or chunky, and he had produced a sketch showing the box columns as half as wide. While this was forwarded to the builder and to the cabinet shop, it turns out they didn't reduce the width of the columns. And thus it was visually offensive to us. We knew this would be a big deal to fix, but as my wife put it, "I've haven't really had an opinion on most of the things during this project, but I felt pretty strongly about not liking the way the island was originally proposed." And we pretty clearly felt it was something that was messed up by the builder or the cabinet shop.


The offensive island.




That evening we got a call from the cabinet shop, giving us an update on their overall progress. We told them about the problem with the dimensions, and he asked if we wanted them to change it. Of course, we said that we did. The conversation wasn't tense or unpleasant.

We sent the builder an email telling them about the problem with the island, voiced our concerns about unsupervised subcontractors being in the house, and expressed displeasure about the feeling that we are the ones providing all the quality control and that it should really be the job of the builder. Without being snotty about any of it (hopefully).


THURSDAY

In the morning we spoke to the builder about the island. He didn't seem too keen about the idea of redoing it, and he was concerned that they would need to replace the flooring under it as well.

The painters continued to work, painting the living room walls and some of the trim. We have concerns that they are not priming the trim, which would be a big problem since they are putting latex paint on top of oil-based.


All our living room stuff under plastic.


Window area - wall, trim, and ceiling paint all the same color.


FRIDAY

We asked the builder about the priming, and he said that he thought they were priming and said that they are supposed to be. He also indicated that they are using a tinted primer, which looks very similar to our paint color.

By the end of the day they just had some trim left to paint. We're still skeptical about the priming, but we'll find out in a couple weeks if we can scrape it up using a fingernail.

They installed the countertops and the sink. They look good, and the drainboard tuned out really nice as well.

This morning the guys from the cabinet shop took out the island. And they somehow built the replacement and installed it by the end of the day. It looks SO MUCH better now, and we're really happy with it. It doesn't have countertops yet, but we can tell that it is what we wanted.


New and improved less chunky island


Now that the MDO panels are painted, they're looking even better.


Painted MDO panels.


The whole thing looks like it's really coming together.











Closeup of countertop, sink, and drainboard.

End of Week 6

THURSDAY

The cabinets guys were starting to unload before 8am, and they were working on the cabinets all day long.





The floor guy spent most of the day cutting out the scratched boards, and then scraping up all the adhesive underneath.


FRIDAY

The floor guy finished replacing the scratched boards, but there were a couple of those that were no longer flat. We also noticed another board that wasn't flat in a different part of the living room. It's a shame because it is a lot of painstaking careful work to pull those boards up, but it's just not cool to have a new floor that isn't flat.

The cabinet guys continued to get things in place. They had all of the cabinets installed, but didn't have all the doors and drawers on. We noticed that some of them had a lot of variation in the doors on the same cabinet, similar to the cabinet that we had seen in the shop a couple weeks ago. The cabinet guy brought it up at the end of the day and said that they would get different doors to use in place of some of the one with higher color variations.






The builder moved the furniture back into the living room, placing cardboard pieces under all the feet to avoid scratches to the floor. We started putting felt feet on all the furniture in the living room.




SATURDAY

The cabinet guy came mid-morning and continued to work through much of the day. He was putting up some of the trim at the top of the cabinets. We had noticed that one of the cabinet drawer fronts was 1/4" longer than the one next to it, and mentioned it to him. He indicated that they had mistakenly put the middle drawer on the bottom. The head commercial sales guy came by later and they marked 6 different cabinet fronts that they were going to replace, though I think they need to order them from the factory. But it was really nice to see these guys being so proactive in making sure that their cabinets looked as good as possible. I think it will make us much happier with the kitchen overall.

This morning we noticed that there was a box on the front porch that had the faucet in it. The outside of the box had a decent sized hole, but once open it looked like the faucet was fine and the placement of the hole was in a spot where it wouldn't have damaged anything.

Week 6 - Floors and Cabinets - Oh My!!!

MONDAY

Monday they were to replace the siding on near the new windows and put on the spray texture.

They sprayed in the texture throughout the kitchen, laundry area, and the part of the hallway where they put up new drywall over the pocket door frame and the ceiling where they removed the house fan. They also repaired the cracks in the bathroom and shower area, and textured there as well.

There was a bit of overspray in the hallway, on walls that they weren't planning on painting. We had wondered how they could blend in the new paint on the piece with the new drywall with the existing paint. Turns out a bigger issue is that there's now texture on other parts of the hallway. So maybe they'll end up painting the whole hallway after all...

I sent the email to the builder stating the paint colors and finishes to use, and asked if they had any door hardware to propose.

Mid-morning the builder called to ask about siding trim out for the new windows on the outside of the house. Our existing windows had aluminum siding around the sills and a 6" frame or so around the entire window. He indicated that it would take some time to get something similar built for the new windows, as it would need to be fabricated on site. The architect PM suggested something about having a wood sill, but I'm not interested in something that would require maintenance, especially when the entire house has vinyl siding. Another option would just be to have the siding butt up against the window frame. This seemed like the simplest and most pleasant to me. They took a picture to let me get the idea.



The builder and the PM had the initial conversation, prior to the builder calling me. I wanted to talk to the PM before making a decision, but we didn't end up talking until the end of the day. So they didn't put up any siding.

I went on a mission to look at faucets - went to 3 showrooms and saw a bunch of them, but nothing that really struck me. We had seen pictures online of the Hansgrohe Metro faucet with a loop control (instead of a stick), and I really liked it. Unfortunately, the model must have been discontinued since the only place I could find it was eBay and Amazon. The good thing was that it was about half the regular price - those Hansgrohe are crazy expensive. We would not be willing to pay regular retail for those.



We spent the evening cleaning up the living room, removing everything except furniture. Since they were going to start flooring in the morning, they wanted to move everything out of the living room. We also packed up to go stay with my folks for a few days, since the floor glue was supposed to be pretty nasty.


TUESDAY

We had the whole living room cleared out by the time the builder showed up.

Looked at one last plumbing showroom during lunch to try and find a faucet, but there wasn't really anything new. I emailed one of the Hansgrohe Metro eBay sellers about expedited shipping, and it sounded like they could get it to us within a week or so. So I just went ahead and ordered it online.

I called around looking for our cabinet hardware, but wasn't able to find anyone who stocked it. The original place that we went to (and were able to take home some samples) was definitely the most expensive, but they contacted the manufacturer and indicated they could have the knobs drop-shipped to arrive in about a week. I passed the quote on to the builder and gave them the thumbs-up to make the purchase.

And with that, we were done with all our selections!!!!!!!! At long last.

After work I went by the house for kitty patrol and to gather up a few things. They had moved almost everything out of the living room, torn out the carpet, and removed the plastic partition. This was the first time I'd seen the entire space since they opened it up and it was CRAZY! It was just SO different! Sure, it didn't have any furniture or cabinets (or much floor), but it just didn't seem like our house. They had put flooring into about 1/3 of the living room.


View of living room with some flooring installed.



View of kitchen with some flooring installed.


It's really starting to take shape.


WEDNESDAY

Went by the house in the morning and noticed that there was a bit of a hump under a couple of the floorboards in the kitchen. The builder showed up before I left for work, and I mentioned it to him.

The tile store called to say that our backsplash tile was in and ready for pick up.

Over the course of the day the framers installed the new siding on the side of the house with the new windows, and used scraps and harvested from the far side of the house to fill in around the small window on the front of the house. The builder mentioned that they also straightened the crooked pieces next to the back door on the deck.


Front windows.


All new windows.


The flooring guys fixed the uneven surface in the kitchen, and also finished putting in all the floors. Apparently they scratched a few boards moving the fridge around, so they'll come back in the morning and replace the scratched boards.


Living room floor complete.


Laundry room floor complete.


Kitchen floor complete.

Tomorrow the cabinet installation begins.

End of Week 5

WEDNESDAY

Sheetrock inspection passed at some point, and the guys got out to start taping and floating mid-afternoon.

Sent a handful of emails out about concerns to the builder, and some to the architect including one asking that they tell the builder exactly what paint they should use.

THURSDAY

Continued taping and floating.












The builder was discussing the coming weeks (flooring next week, then painting the following week) and suggested that they would pack up the living room early next week and leave it packed up over the following weekend. We were prepared to be out of the house for a few days in a row when they put down the floors, but definitely not for a week and a half. Also, there may have been a misunderstanding, but it sounded like they were suggesting that we were going to move some of the furniture or take the TV off the wall.

So I came home in the middle of the day to meet with the builder and we got their co-owner on the phone. By then the plan had changed back to us being out of the house for three days next week, then they would move the furniture back into the living room away from the walls to make room for painting. And we might need to be out for one or two nights during the painting of the living room.

It seems like our on-site guy tends to bring things up to us before he's thought them all the way through, and since he's relatively new to his role, he's got a fair amount of thinking left to do. It would be much easier if he just had it all figured out and just told us what would be done - I believe that may be part of what we're paying them for...

On a more positive note, the windows arrived!


FRIDAY

Called the architect's PM since he hadn't responded to our emails about paint. The builder had requested that we finalize our paint selections over the weekend, and I was hoping the architect would give them direction via email. During the conversation he suggested that I send the email, and he kinda walked me through the selections. There were a few things that he suggested that I talk to the paint store about, which kind of frustrated me because the whole point behind requesting that he send the email was so that I wouldn't mess anything up when trying to convey the paint info. Guess I'll be spending nap time Saturday afternoon at Sherwin-Williams...

They finished up the tape and float in the kitchen and hallway area, but didn't do anything in the living room (patching cracks) or the bathroom (collateral damage) as they had suggested they would. Oh well, it will get done before they paint the living room, or else it will end up on the punch list.

The windows got installed, and they look nice. The one thing that is a little disappointing is that they seem smaller that we thought they would be. Part of it could be that about 1/4 of the opening of the window is taken up by the vinyl framing. Plus the new corner casements are considerably smaller than the old ones - this was done to match the size of the new windows on the side wall, but I think we had mentally assumed they would all be as tall as the old windows.










Actually, now that I've taken another look at the architect's plans, the windows were supposed to be taller - about 6" - 8" taller based on the scaled drawing and a indication of the window opening (though the part number may not have matched). The window submittal was passed around and approved by the architect, and the builder had noted that this was the closest standard size. Either the architect didn't notice that it was that much smaller, or they didn't realize the visual impact, or they didn't think it would be that big of a deal. But we would have REALLY liked another 6 inches of windows across the bottom...