Cabinets have been installed.
Tilers arrived, put up chicken wire to 'float' the tiles on the surface of the wall, rather than directly on the wall.
The floor dudes turned up. It looks COOL. It looks like a kitchen (sans appliances).
Pictures will come soon (as soon as my battery has recharged :-)
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
21st - Cabinets begin
Ok.. he was in LAS VEGAS on Monday!! But wasn't there to fritter away all my hard-earned money; at least not that he would admit; he claimed his son drives some sort of car rally. The contractor was on vacation on Monday, and had asked his two guys who were at our home on Fri installing the doors, to let me know they wouldn't be here until Tuesday morning.. unfortunately they didn't let me know.
He had their copy of their jobsheet (told ya he was anal). It listed their work for the day, and all the things they were supposed to tell me (which they didn't). Ok.. all explained.
So.. The cabinets are on the go, which is great. The kitchen designers popped in to say hi. There was a problem that the cabinet manufacturer not finishing off the edge of the cabinets properly, for the cabinets which had fancy footboards. They will order extra footboard and construct it themselves.
The kitchen designers made a mistake which the contractors discovered. The wall-oven cabinet is the same depth as the floor/base cabinet.. the problem is the granite on the floor/base cabinet will stick out 1" beyond the oven-cabinet. It will look weird, and need special edge work on the granite. The alternative is for the contractor to attach extra timber to the cabinets to bring them out 2", so the granite doesn't overhang into the oven cabinet. That seems the (cheapest and) best solution, as they already have matching board painted the right colour. The problem is there will be a visible 'seam' along the center of the oven cabinet (the top bit will be covered by the overhead cabinet. They called the designers, who said they had 'designed it' that way; the called the head contractor who said to push out the oven cabinet. I think leaving it as designed would look silly, and be more expensive to fix the granite countertop later.
The Concrete dudes did come yesterday to install some reinforcement for the concrete (they snuck in and out).
The siding will be done in a few weeks.. the dude doing the siding is working on something else right now, and the main contractor wants him to finish the job, rather than one of his other guys. Understandable.
So its all good again. Especially as we can actually walk around in the living room (some of the boxes are empty now). It was getting very tiring dodging all those huge boxes.
:-)
He had their copy of their jobsheet (told ya he was anal). It listed their work for the day, and all the things they were supposed to tell me (which they didn't). Ok.. all explained.
So.. The cabinets are on the go, which is great. The kitchen designers popped in to say hi. There was a problem that the cabinet manufacturer not finishing off the edge of the cabinets properly, for the cabinets which had fancy footboards. They will order extra footboard and construct it themselves.
The kitchen designers made a mistake which the contractors discovered. The wall-oven cabinet is the same depth as the floor/base cabinet.. the problem is the granite on the floor/base cabinet will stick out 1" beyond the oven-cabinet. It will look weird, and need special edge work on the granite. The alternative is for the contractor to attach extra timber to the cabinets to bring them out 2", so the granite doesn't overhang into the oven cabinet. That seems the (cheapest and) best solution, as they already have matching board painted the right colour. The problem is there will be a visible 'seam' along the center of the oven cabinet (the top bit will be covered by the overhead cabinet. They called the designers, who said they had 'designed it' that way; the called the head contractor who said to push out the oven cabinet. I think leaving it as designed would look silly, and be more expensive to fix the granite countertop later.
The Concrete dudes did come yesterday to install some reinforcement for the concrete (they snuck in and out).
The siding will be done in a few weeks.. the dude doing the siding is working on something else right now, and the main contractor wants him to finish the job, rather than one of his other guys. Understandable.
So its all good again. Especially as we can actually walk around in the living room (some of the boxes are empty now). It was getting very tiring dodging all those huge boxes.
:-)
Monday, October 20, 2008
Then back to 0 again
I think our contractor has absconded with our money... No sign of him or his subbies. DESPITE having LAM today.. Not impressed Mr C.
Sunday, October 19, 2008
Fri 17th October and Sat 18th. From 0 to 60 in 2 seconds..
1. The doors were installed, resulting in a lot of banging. Cool! The french doors look great. They let lots of light into the kitchen.
Here are the new windows
And the new sliding door
2. The chandelier arrived, was unpacked by moi. Nice! Much better proportioned than the first small one. 3. The cooktop (which is needed for templating the granite, along with the kitchen sink), was also delivered today. Here is the chandelier on top of the cooktop box, in our garage4. Another painter came to quote. He gave us an on-the-spot quotation. It was for painting the living room and hallway, and the wall in our bedroom that had a door and now has a window :-) Lets just say the quote was 1/4 of the price of the painting quote by the contractor's subcontractor. Ridiculous. $1,100 instead of $4k. Good thing, really. My (old) car needed $2k worth of repairs today..
5. The kitchen cabinets were also delivered today. It took 2 guys 1.5+ hours. There is a MOUNTAIN of boxes in our living room! When the boys saw it they said 'cool! just like a maze'. No kidding!
We opened one of the boxes. This is the island, and the island-slot it will be installed in, this coming week. The island is cherry, the rest of the cabinets are painted cream.
Some subbies came on Sat to do the mold for the concrete steps coming from the french doors. They'll probably be pouring concrete on Mon. I also think cabinet installation is due to start Monday. The granite templating should be on Friday.
Thursday, October 16, 2008
7th - 16th
Things have slowed down somewhat.
7th - 10th:
o The tapers were here again, making lots of mess plastering and sanding the walls
o The granite guys came to install the granite around the fireplace. It looks good.
o The mantelpiece guy was here to re-measure, to ensure the fireplace is the right size.
I got the cost of the change orders from the contractor.. $10k. Most of it was the additional electrical work we needed done (e.g. light switch near the front door for the living room.. we've had to cross the great and dark divide to turn on the lights in the past; we also put lights in the closets, etc, etc).
Mon 13th: The tapers came this morning for a short time to re-sand the surface. It looks as smooth as a baby's bum.
A painter came Tue to quote for painting the living-room and hallway.. haven't heard back yet. Nothing else happened Tue and Wed. All was quiet (waiting for the windows/doors).
Thu morning, some dudes turned up to install the windows - two in the kitchen, one in the bedroom! They will be here again Fri to install the doors. Once this is done, the siding can be completed.
The kitchen cabinets will be delivered soon. We'll need to remove the hardware from the living room floor to make room for the cabinets. Also the fridge will have to move to the hallway outside our bedroom, because once the cabinets are installed, the living-room floor needs to be patched and sanded.
7th - 10th:
o The tapers were here again, making lots of mess plastering and sanding the walls
o The granite guys came to install the granite around the fireplace. It looks good.
o The mantelpiece guy was here to re-measure, to ensure the fireplace is the right size.
I got the cost of the change orders from the contractor.. $10k. Most of it was the additional electrical work we needed done (e.g. light switch near the front door for the living room.. we've had to cross the great and dark divide to turn on the lights in the past; we also put lights in the closets, etc, etc).
Mon 13th: The tapers came this morning for a short time to re-sand the surface. It looks as smooth as a baby's bum.
A painter came Tue to quote for painting the living-room and hallway.. haven't heard back yet. Nothing else happened Tue and Wed. All was quiet (waiting for the windows/doors).
Thu morning, some dudes turned up to install the windows - two in the kitchen, one in the bedroom! They will be here again Fri to install the doors. Once this is done, the siding can be completed.
The kitchen cabinets will be delivered soon. We'll need to remove the hardware from the living room floor to make room for the cabinets. Also the fridge will have to move to the hallway outside our bedroom, because once the cabinets are installed, the living-room floor needs to be patched and sanded.
Monday, October 6, 2008
1st, 2nd and 3rd and 6th of October
The electricians installed the closet lights. Its amazing.. we can actually see the contents! The electrician upgraded and replaced the electrical panel.
Last Wed and Thu, the drywall dudes came and banged up the drywall; the kitchen looks like a padded cell. It is amazing how much brighter the kitchen looks, despite the drywall being a depressing gray colour. It took them probably around 1.5 days to cut it to size and nail it up. They were very very fast. The wooden structure in the middle is the pony wall which will support the Island.
The bathroom looks kinda cool, as the drywall is a sea-green colour (the drywall in there is probably wet-wall). You can see a half-wall "pony-wall" in the foreground, and the bath in the background.
I asked the carpenter to come back and change the detail around the front door and window, as what he had done didn't look quite right. It was hard to do something sensible with this area because the door and windows are too close to repeat the same wood-detail as he did around the rest of the windows. So I asked him to make a change, and I think it looks better now.
Here is the window-detail unfettered.
The stone guy (an Aussie) came to re-template the granite for the fire-place according to a new plan to have the granite wrap-around the outside of the fireplace (which is apparently how its done in the US).
I also tried out some of the paint colours.. This combination is called Creekside Green and Navajo white. I tested it out on the new siding/window trim
On Thu I had to leave early to go to an art-in-action training class as I am an art docent in Jason's class. Needless to say Russ didn't cover up our bed, and because of the drywall installation (to cover where the door had been), our bed and bedroom was an enormous dust-bowl when I returned! Lovely. There will actually be a window located to the left of the drywall-patch, but as it hasn't arrived yet...
Russ and I chose the granite for the counter-tops on Friday afternoon. It is called Uba-Tuba (if you're a American-born it is pronounced oooba-toooba).
Today (Monday), the carpenters are back to put up the siding on the side of the house (up to the window height (they can't go higher until the new windows have arrived and been installed; reason for this is the window goes in first, then the wooden detail/trim next, then the siding around that).
The timber under Jason's bay-window has rotted away due to water damage. The carpenter will hack it out and replace it; this is possible because the window is actually supported at the top of window, not the bottom. There are two rods which run the length of the window - the top of the rods are attached to something that supports the window. At the bottom of the rods there are two screws which hold the (currently rotten) timber to the bottom of the window.
The tapers are here to tape up and cover-up the holes in the drywall. Apparently they tape-and-mud the seams. They 'mud' the seams 3x before sanding it smooth.
Oh, and here is a picture of our new aggregate (in case I haven't uploaded one).
That's all folks!
Last Wed and Thu, the drywall dudes came and banged up the drywall; the kitchen looks like a padded cell. It is amazing how much brighter the kitchen looks, despite the drywall being a depressing gray colour. It took them probably around 1.5 days to cut it to size and nail it up. They were very very fast. The wooden structure in the middle is the pony wall which will support the Island.
The bathroom looks kinda cool, as the drywall is a sea-green colour (the drywall in there is probably wet-wall). You can see a half-wall "pony-wall" in the foreground, and the bath in the background.
I asked the carpenter to come back and change the detail around the front door and window, as what he had done didn't look quite right. It was hard to do something sensible with this area because the door and windows are too close to repeat the same wood-detail as he did around the rest of the windows. So I asked him to make a change, and I think it looks better now.
Here is the window-detail unfettered.The stone guy (an Aussie) came to re-template the granite for the fire-place according to a new plan to have the granite wrap-around the outside of the fireplace (which is apparently how its done in the US).
I also tried out some of the paint colours.. This combination is called Creekside Green and Navajo white. I tested it out on the new siding/window trim
On Thu I had to leave early to go to an art-in-action training class as I am an art docent in Jason's class. Needless to say Russ didn't cover up our bed, and because of the drywall installation (to cover where the door had been), our bed and bedroom was an enormous dust-bowl when I returned! Lovely. There will actually be a window located to the left of the drywall-patch, but as it hasn't arrived yet...Russ and I chose the granite for the counter-tops on Friday afternoon. It is called Uba-Tuba (if you're a American-born it is pronounced oooba-toooba).
Today (Monday), the carpenters are back to put up the siding on the side of the house (up to the window height (they can't go higher until the new windows have arrived and been installed; reason for this is the window goes in first, then the wooden detail/trim next, then the siding around that).
The timber under Jason's bay-window has rotted away due to water damage. The carpenter will hack it out and replace it; this is possible because the window is actually supported at the top of window, not the bottom. There are two rods which run the length of the window - the top of the rods are attached to something that supports the window. At the bottom of the rods there are two screws which hold the (currently rotten) timber to the bottom of the window.
The tapers are here to tape up and cover-up the holes in the drywall. Apparently they tape-and-mud the seams. They 'mud' the seams 3x before sanding it smooth.
Oh, and here is a picture of our new aggregate (in case I haven't uploaded one).That's all folks!
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