Among other things in the works the past week was the finish stucco coat on the exterior of the house. This was a very nice product called DryVit which is stucco mixed with acrylic paint in the color of your choice. They mix the paint into the final coat of stucco, which makes for a very rapid exterior paint job that is resistant to scratches since it is literally the thickness of the stucco coat.
I was amazed to see half the house done in just under a couple of hours on Friday. They started the second coat the same day and finish the next day. Clean up happened on Sunday and the scaffolding is gone for the most part.
We chose Sherwin Williams 6388 Golden Fleece, which has a nice deep golden color and really shines compared to the many washed out colors around us (the typical grey, taupe, light yellow and beige). The second coat darkened it quite a lot and we were very pleased with the look of the stucco with the fine sand grit.
Other progress items include:
- the charcoal/grey Mcnear Old Country Cobble pavers are all in now, front and back. They look fantastic and solid, a much better product than the Calstone which was half as thick.
- the main garden walls are done in back. Next step - bring in some labor to prepare it for plantings. We also need to build a couple of walls in the back hugging the house and one side of the driveway
- the cabinets are all in and ready for the granite installer who started today. We went with EMG out of Concord who are supplying our Tan Brown kitchen granite but using the countertops we bought at Uni-Tile for the bathrooms and laundry room.
- the tiling work in the bathrooms continued, about 75% done now. We ran diagonal tile on all the floors with 1/8" grout line and that looks really nice. The tiles up the walls are square on up. I had to run around on the weekend chasing some additional quantities of tile which were fortunately in stock, as we made a few changes along the way. Brian had a great suggestion to run a decorative trim of the santa cecelia granite cut from some of the tiles we bought to cover the Jacuzzi. He and Barney trimmed them in 4" squares and laid them in a diagonal pattern mid way up the shower so that it will match the Jacuzzi.
- the final paint coat is pretty much done throughout the house in all rooms including doors and moulding. We are very pleased with how the rooms turned out. Thanks to the help from Nancy Linebarier our designer (believe it or not, it took us less than an hour to choose all the colors in the house) and the great work by Jason Kanbic and his painter crew!
- the hardwood floor is all in. We had just enough to cover all areas. Fortunately we ordered 15% more than budget, which was originally a provision for scrap. It turns out almost none was wasted but we needed more than we estimated. The WFI American Red Oak engineered hardwood is a very nice product. Brian our builder says it's the best of all brands he has installed so far and they do a nice job at the factory cutting the wood to display its grain.
- Our slate supplier Vermont Natural Stone got the shipment back to the east coast. This was the shipment of our fireplace and half bath counter that got wrecked by the nimrods at SAIA freight. They say all but 2 pieces are ruined. They might be able to salvage the large mantel piece but only if they shave it 1/4" off the end. I can't believe it took 2 weeks to get it back to the other coast. They had no ETA on new shipment but were going to expedite it. This is becoming an increasing annoyance as we are trying to finish out rooms and stop making dust inside.
- The Martin Flushline garage doors were installed by a Home Depot subcontractor (Bay Area Overhead Door Co.) who did a nice job. They both were installed in a day with 1 person doing the work. The Martin Quietdrive openers are ultra quiet. Our painter Jason offered to spray them to exactly match the rest of the house and our design advised us to paint them the same color as the body to not draw any attention to them with some white trim around the canterbury windows that are inlaid in them. So Golden Fleece it is.
This week:
- electrical finishing work including light covers, switches, electrical, cat5, chandeliers, pendants, sconces and outdoor lights
- remaining tile work in the bathrooms and granite installation
- spray and install the baseboards
- assembly of closet organizers for various rooms - garage cabinets (Home Depot Do-Able line will work just fine), closets - Closetmaid from Lowes.
- some outside cleanup, moving dirt around. We'll take measurements to order more pavers for a couple of other sections and some remaining garden walls that we preferred to have Brian handle when he has a chance.
- order some maple butcher block tops for the garage cabinets (to make a workshop area). I found a good source at Grainger, which we used back in 2000 in a dot-com startup to make workstation desks. Nice and relatively cheap.
- Finish sanding out the scratches in the front door, our most disappointing purchase which came from wholesaledoorsource.com. Hopefully Jason can fix it up.
All that in a short week with the Thanksgiving holidays!
