Elfa mania

I've mentioned the Elfa shelving product a few times before. We visited the Container Store on Christmas Eve to design and buy the Elfa arrangements for our closet spaces. This turned out to be a long process simply due to the need to work thru the design for each space, of which we have seven (four bedroom closets, upstairs bath closet, pantry, and my wife's small office). Some were simple, others huge. In the end we bought the hardware for every space but one. The Container store folks were great in that they pulled our order super fast, and even loaded it up for us. There's a LOT of metal and weight with this size of an order; my Explorer was squatting in the rear quite a bit:

We had three employees helping to load our car; a couple of them mentioned that they'd never seen such a large order before. I'm not sure whether to be flattered or nervous. :-)

This is a bit of what your house looks like after bringing so much Elfa stuff home; kind of a wire shelving explosion all over:

We've also been moving a lot of stuff over the last few days but aren't quite ready to move in. It's hard to utilize the closet space unless you have shelves, so we decided to use today to install the Elfa stuff. My wife and I spent close to nine solid hours on this, which was lots of "fun" (up the ladder, down the ladder, up the ladder, etc, etc - it wears you out after a while). This is a picture of me working on one side of my wife's closet:

As you can see, my wife opted for a lot of hanging rod space - the side under the window (not yet finished) will be "long hang", i.e. for long coats and other clothes.

This is the narrow side of the pantry:

This Elfa shelving really allowed us to reap the benefits of our nine foot high ceilings - a lot of the spaces have top shelves only a foot or so from the ceiling. (Ok, obviously you'd need a step ladder for those shelves, but everyone has seldom-used items which would store nicely up there.) The pantry especially has a huge amount of storage space - enough to feed an army if it was filled. Well we don't have an army to feed so I will have to keep tabs on my wife ("no honey, just because it's on sale doesn't mean we need to buy it...").

My closet is a bit harder to see into; this is the best I could do:

We finished all of the installation except for the third upstairs bedroom, which isn't critical since no-one's going to live in it for now (we'll install it later in January, before the Elfa sale ends). Otherwise now that the closet spaces are done, we'll get back to work on moving stuff over.

Granite sealing

Although I was late to the party on researching granite sealers, I always knew sealing was a necessary step in order to protect the slabs from stains. The traditional method (which works fine, as far as I can tell) is with a silicon\wax-based sealer, which you (the homeowner) apply yourself (wipe on, wipe off) every 6-12 months or so. The second option is a (hopefully) more advanced approach that actually bonds a teflon-like substance to the granite, and has the advantage of lasting much longer with little to no maintenance other than normal cleaning. I would not have known about the second option except that it was mentioned by our mirror guy, Jim from TLC Windows. Jim recommended that we pay a little bit extra to have our shower walls treated with Hydroshield, which we did, and he also mentioned a similar product for use on granite countertops.

Later on, I found that Stoneshield was the Pacific Northwest dealer for this product and I decided to contact them. Stoneshield is run by a couple named Jim and Kimberly, and their website says to call them 7 days a week, as late as 9pm. Half-thinking this was a joke, I called them a few days ago at 8:55pm - lo and behold, Kimberly answered and answered all of my questions for at least 15 minutes. Jim from Stoneshield met us at the house on Christmas Eve morning (which we greatly appreciated, being so busy right now). After some discussion, we went ahead and had him seal all of our granite. This method is more expensive than the traditional sealer treatment, but I hope it pays off in the long run.

My initial impression of the results is that the granite is much, much smoother than before (almost slippery). Time will tell as to the other benefits, but since having the treatment done, I have heard other positive feedback on the product (from a friend of a friend who works in the granite business).

Cleanup done

Over the weekend the last coats of floor sealer were done, and the cleanup crew finished doing the final cleanup. The cleanup guys did a nice job: all decals removed from windows, windows washed inside and out, walls and floors vacuumed, bathrooms cleaned, cabinets vacuumed, etc. The house feels just about ready to move in, and in fact we are planning to rent a truck to start hauling boxes the day after Christmas.

This is a picture of my foot (in a comfy SmartWool sock - highly recommended by yours truly) which is pretty cool by itself, but the closeup also gives you a nice closeup look of the stair risers:

Here's a nice view through the dining room toward my office:

Looking into my office:

Living room and some of the kitchen:

In the above picture, you can see we took our shoes off in the kitchen since the wood floors are just so nice. I hope we can make that a habit, but you know how this stuff goes...

One funny note: it is a long drive from our current house to the new house, and I've gotten in the habit of using the porta-potty upon arrival. Went to go do that today and did a double-take - no porta-potty! Guess we'll have to use the inside toilets (or find a convienent tree) from here on out! :-)

As I mentioned before, Paul and his crew will be doing punch-list items through Tuesday, and we plan to start hauling stuff over next Saturday. We're not quite able to move in yet though; one key item is that the master bath doesn't have shower walls yet! I hope that gets done before Christmas though, so that the week afterward we have the house to ourselves.

We have started packing up our old house though, and I can tell it's going to be a big job. In my old office, I have already filled over 30 small (1.5 ft^3) boxes, and I'm only about 3/4 done. Not to mention how much boat stuff I need to move, along with the floats and boat hull itself!

It's our house now

I was in intensive all-day training classes at work from Tuesday through Thursday, which left no time to get out to the house to check things out. Despite not having my services available, our builder was able to press on and kept everything on schedule. All of the final inspections have passed and the occupancy certificate was granted - yay! (This is the piece of paper from the government that declares the house to be a human-habitable dwelling - you're not allowed to live there until you get that.) The bank also did their post-build appraisal inspection, which means they have the appraiser take a final look to ensure that the actual house matches the one that was described in the specs and plans. No problem there for us.

This morning marked a big project transition - my wife and I went to the bank and signed the final draw check. Our builder gets a big final payout, and we get to settle down to the joy of a new (and larger) mortgage (oh yeah, plus we get to live in a new house). Our construction loan is of the type where upon completion, it automatically converts into a traditional mortgage at the agreed upon rate. So the bank visit was simple - sign a form, sign the check, and then done. How anticlimactic - not even a single trumpet was played. So the most visible change now will be that the monthly mortgage statements from here on out will be principal and interest (and hence, bigger).

The house is looking great and the crew is working through "punchlist" items. Our builder plans to work until Tuesday to fix the known issues, then we'll move in.

In case you're wondering, minor cosmetic details do not block the bank or government inspectors from signing off, only major stuff. The floor crew was putting the second coat on the stairs when we showed up:

Their plan apparently is to do both stair coats, wait a few hours for it to dry, then come back later this afternoon to do the coats on the upstairs and downstairs. So the house will be stinky tomorrow, but it will look great. :)

Here's a nice picture of the entryway, you can see the downstairs newel post and its bannisters, along with my very cool office door (there are two such doors to my office):

The crawlspace door has been hung and trimmed out, but still needs to be stained (punchlist item):

The large gray box is for the septic pump controls.

This next picture bums me out a bit:

Why you ask? Well, see the two steel-gray posts bolted to the garage floor? Apparently it is a code requirement that such equipment (water heater, well\water stuff) have a vehicle barrier to prevent a car from sliding into them. I'm not real happy to have more holes drilled in the floor but ah well.

After six months of construction, we finally have a small step to make it easy to enter the house from the garage:

We also stopped by Home Depot after visiting the bank and placed the final blind order. This was a pretty expensive item, but as mentioned before a 20%-off sale makes it quite attractive. Every single window in the house (including the garage windows) is going to get blinds. Holidays will slow things down, but I hope to have them installed in about three weeks.

Our builder also told me that the double-doors for the upstairs game room are now installed, but due to the stairs being wet we could not get up there to see. Tomorrow we'll make another trip - I am looking forward to it.

Some minor updates

A few more doors have been hung since Thursday. These double-doors are for the under-stairs closet:

I still need to figure out how we are going to get a clothes rod hung in that closet - it is a very wide space.

Our big master bathroom tub has been installed and looks great:

Otherwise, not much else happening. We stopped by the Elfa showroom and my wife and I both liked their stuff. Pricey, but as I mentioned they have a 30% off sale starting on December 24th - great timing for us! :)

More tile and trim work

Master bathroom grouting has begun:

We met Wednesday morning with the mirror and shower glass rep. The shower surrounds will be of solid 3/8" tempered glass, with really nice heavy-duty hardware. The door will open both inwards and outwards. There will be a nice handle plus a towel-bar attached to the door, and another towel-bar attached to a side-panel.

The kitchen backsplash tile has been placed, but not yet grouted (check out the mural :)):

Hot water heater is in (the plumbing looks complicated, I think due to the red recirc pump?):

Here's the two interior doors for my office being stained:

Most light fixtures have been installed, but several have not yet been delivered. The downstairs newel post and bannister work has started, but I'm saving the picture for when it's all done. I also changed my mind at the last minute and asked Joe our electrician to add under-cabinet lighting, which he got done really quickly. I have postponed any replacement of the side-porch door (as discussed in previous posts), since it's non-critical for getting the house done and I want to save the money for now.

We went to Home Depot earlier this week to check out the Levelor blinds that are on sale, and really liked them. We plan to get real wood blinds throughout the house, in the 2 1/2" slat size. We may go with the fake wood stuff for the window over the master bathroom tub, since that area will likely see a lot of moisture. The blinds measurement appointment is scheduled for Monday. There are ~30 windows in the house that need blinds, and I really like Home Depot's $118 whole-house installation price (ok, plus another ~$100 for measurement).

I mentioned closet shelving in my last post. My wife and I are going down to the Bellevue Container Store on Saturday morning to check out the Elfa closet stuff. From reading stuff on the Internet, I learned that there is usually a huge Elfa sale every January, so if we like their stuff we will likely wait until then to order everything. I will likely do the pantry immediately though.

We're also meeting this Saturday with a realtor to discuss putting our current house up for sale (after the New Year, obviously).

All things considered, we are now in serious final count-down mode. Our builder is trying very hard to wrap the house up before Christmas, and there is a lot scheduled over this next week:

• Final low-volt work (minor remaining trim and some intercom installations) is scheduled for Tuesday.
• Health and safety inspection on Tuesday (includes a interior sprinkler test - I hope they're careful!)
• Final hardwood floor coat on Friday
• Cleanup on Saturday (this is cleanup of all the construction dust and debris, vacuuming out of cabinets, etc)

(I'm sure there's more left to do, I'm missing stuff for sure in that list)

In theory we might get the keys Monday December 21st. Wow - doesn't seem possible, but things are indeed moving quickly. Of course, there will be a punch-list of remaining repair items and jobs that we won't notice until after we move in, but that's normal for a new house.

Last but not least, we're meeting this Saturday with a realtor to discuss putting our current house up for sale (after the New Year, obviously).

Weekend tidbits

Our kitchen faucets were installed; we chose Kohler "Clairette" model K-692-VS (VS is for "Vibrant Stainless"):

The stream can be switched between the multi-stream mode (seen in the picture above) and a more singular "solid stream" mode, with the press of a button on the back of the faucet head. The head of the faucet is detachable as well, so it can be used as a flexible spray hose. And yes, that's genuine well water coming from the faucet. :)

Here's another shower-mural-in-progress picture:

The bannisters have been installed on the upstairs newel railings:

Garbage disposal is installed:

The refrigerator has been slid into its hole:

Yeah, I know: the fridge protrudes from its cubby by quite a bit. It's a bit jarring at first glance to be honest, and I feel stupid for not anticipating/planning this better. Although I am not sure I would have done much different, since I like having a big fridge. We're stuck with it now.

The double-oven is getting close to being installed as well:

Here's the work crew dining area:

One item not included in our builder's bid (due to our cost-cutting efforts at the beginning of the project) is closet hardware\shelving. Although it may seem like a minor omission, I think it is important that we have these done before move-in, since it's hard to unpack your stuff w/o shelves and clothes hangers. I spent a lot of time this weekend researching many of the different closet organizer systems. The basic categories are:

• Wire-based shelving
• Particle-board-based shelving
• Solid wood shelving

My starting inclination was to go with solid-wood shelving, but after reviewing several different brands I am not very happy with their value proposition: they seem like far too much money for what is invariably just cheap pine boards that have been sanded and stained. So to get solid-wood shelving for a reasonable cost, I would have to build the shelving myself and I just don't have the time. I'm not interested in particle-board systems, so that put me back to wire-shelving. We have some Rubbermaid wire shelving in our current house; while it definitely works well, it has an "industrial" look and feel to it which I was trying to avoid. Long story short, the current front-runner is Elfa; although it is wire-based shelving, the Elfa system has a myriad of accessories and decorative trims to dress it up. We'll probably stop by their showroom this week for some design consultations (they help you design the closet(s), and you install it).

We need to think about blinds to cover the windows. In case we had run out of money, my backup plan was to tack up used bedsheets from thriftstores over the windows (I've always said that a Winnie the Pooh bedsheet makes for an elegant window treatment), but it doesn't appear that we'll be driven to that extremis. :) I started looking at Levelor brand wood blinds which are very nice, but very expensive; then I discovered that Home Depot has a 20% off sale on them right now :) so maybe we can get them after all.

I spent a lot of time this weekend researching security camera systems. Beyond the house's security system, I plan to have several exterior IP (network-based instead of CCTV-based) cameras to cover strategic points in case any issues arise. For obvious reasons I do not plan to go into great detail on this blog regarding the security systems I'm installing into this house. I will say this: it is absolutely amazing how approachable these IP cameras have become. A rank amateur such as myself can put together a compelling surveillance system without much work. Costs are still somewhat high for IP-based cameras; I've been looking at Vivotek who seems like one of the best value-for-the-money manufacturers.

Last but not least, we purchased a bunch of cardboard moving boxes yesterday and will start doing some packing over the next few weeks. Fun, fun, fun (not!).

Insert Title Here

(Having a hard time trying to think of a summarizing yet catchy title...maybe next time.)

We happened to be out at the house today when the very first tiles of our shower mural were set into place:

Dan said he was only going to do the inside corner pieces for today, since that's a tricky area that's best to let cure before moving on. The remaining flat areas will go fast, I bet it will all be done by end of the week.

Plumbing work has started, and most of our bathroom sinks have arrived. We chose the Kohler "Ladena" K2214 model sink for all bathrooms, with the master bathroom sinks in "Ice Gray", and the other bathroom sinks in plain Almond. This is one of the master bathroom sinks:

I like the rectangular look - it's a nice change from your traditional basic oval.

The upstairs has been almost entirely trimmed out; here's an area behind (obv) a toilet:

I was surprised to see water in the toilet, actually, but I guess there wasn't any reason not to hook them up. (Darn, I forgot to ask that the First Ceremonial Pee be reserved for me. :)) Oh yeah, almost forgot: I'm sure that close family members will recognize the toilet model above as a Kohler Wellworth Pressure Lite K3505 model (aka a "big ****" toilet). You didn't think I'd fail to carry on that tradition, did you? (Note to brother Bill: no vulgar comments on my blog! :)

Regarding the "Pressure Lite" aspect of this toilet model: this is a nod to water efficiency, in order to try to keep a reasonable load on our well.

Here's our 85 gallon water heater:

I think water heater size guidelines are usually based on # of bedrooms, but the plumbers had told us we needed a larger model due to the size of our master bathroom tub:

We have never really been into the hot-tub thing, so choosing the above model was done mainly through online research, etc (no sitting in some showroom tub in our bathing suits, thanks but no thanks). This particular tub is a Kohler 6' Seadream model, with heater. Seeing it in real life has made us both go "wow" - it's really big.

The stairs have been all trimmed out, and work has begun on the newel posts as well:

Just like the floors, the stairs have only had two coats of sealer. They will get buffed and sealed one more time near the end of the job. Here's the bottom of the stairs:

In the picture above, you can also see the entryway tile has been started.

While they are very pretty, we've learned that super-fancy newel posts, bannisters, and handrails can be very expensive. In order to cut costs (a novel idea for me, my wife would say) we chose relatively simple items. Here's the current shape of our upstairs newel posts:

In that same picture, you can see a lot of the casing has been installed upstairs. Not only does it look great, but this is one step that really starts to transform the rooms from a "work in progress" look to a "ready to move in" look.

All of the exterior doors have been getting removed for staining. They are all made of fiberglass with a raised wood grain imprint. Fiberglass doors are stronger than wood, and eliminate any chance of warping which eliminates a big concern in our drizzly climate. This is the rear porch door:

It looks better in real-life; the picture makes it seem more reddish than it really is.

In other news, our DSL internet was finally hooked up by CenturyTel, and I've asked our data guy to schedule one last trip to do the final trim work and test that everything is working.

The propane tank was filled up for the first time. Our thousand gallon tank was only able to hold ~800 gallons - bummer, I was hoping it would take at least 900, but oh well.

One item I think we made a mistake on is the side porch door. For some reason, I think I thought it would add either cutness or uniqueness to have this door open outwards. That was dumb - the side porch itself is not big enough to stand to the side to get out of the way of the door swing, so you end up backing up down the steps to give the door room. I would hate to have the door torn out so it can be replaced with an inward-swinging door, but I'd also hate to live with it this way. Paul is getting an estimate on a new door and he is going to let me know what the labor costs will be - we'll see on this one.

We are also getting a quote on a double-door set for the upstairs game room. This is something we are definitely going to do. Each door will be relatively narrow (2' wide), but there will be a transom with glass panes above them. It should look great.

Various things

Here's a summary of the latest progress this past week (in addition to the granite slab installation, that is - see previous post).

The hose-nick that occured in the smaller downstairs office (as mentioned in some comments to the previous post) has been repaired:

I wish things like this wouldn't happen, but the repair job looks pretty durable to me. The hardwood guys have replaced the hardwood planks and given the office floor its two coats of sealer.

The garage attic access stairs are done:

The puddle in the foreground is actually on the exact spot I had intended to relocate my boat building tent to - clearly I will need a better base than that! I plan to buy a few dump-truck loads of rock and gravel to firm things up.

Covering the stairs with hardwood in in progress:

The stairs will be sanded and finished exactly the same as the hardwood floors were. And obviously, hand-rails and newel posts will be added as well.

Lots of progress is being made on tile, both in laying tile and in grouting the earlier areas. This is the floor of the upstairs guest bathroom:

I've come to realize that the master bathroom, especially the shower, comprises a huge amount of tile work. Dan is making good progress on things though:

The kitchen area is the largest tile area to be done, but steady progress is being made:

The kitchen is the only place we are doing that simple "offset" pattern, but I'm glad we did it there - it breaks things up a bit.

Interior doors have started getting installed:

Some minor issues have arisen: the Kitchen-Aid range hood we selected is nowhere in stock, and will require a 30+ day lead time to order it from the factory. I'm in the process of selecting an alternative brand so we don't have to wait on that. Also, it appears that nobody was aware that we wanted double-doors for the upstairs game room. Lots of little details to keep track of as we get closer to the finish line.

Granite slabs installed

On Thanksgiving Day, the granite crew came out (I guess they don't celebrate turkey-day) and installed our granite slabs. We were out at the house when they showed up; at first I thought someone had called 911 to report an accident:

This is a good sign though, because it means the contractor\company is serious about keeping costs down. I'm pretty sure that a second-hand ambulance is cheaper than a brand new truck.

Here's our slabs in the back of the truck:

I don't think I'd want to work with granite myself - the stuff is obviously very heavy, and you'd have to be very careful to not let yourself get old before your time. These guys do seem to have a lot of tricks to make things easier though:

The granite crew is not yet entirely done, since the majority of our sinks and faucets are not here yet. I'll share some pictures of how things look at the moment though. This is the master bathroom vanity:

Kitchen counter:

The kitchen island with the "desk" in the background:

Upstairs shared bathroom:

Downstairs "powder" bathroom (I'm really not keen on that "powder" terminology):

We are pleased with how everything has turned out.