X steps forward... Y steps back!

Maybe that headline is too harsh, but the mistakes sure are getting old.  And they're not just annoying because this is our house and it's very personal to us, but now it's threatening our move-in date.  Already, April 4th has slipped to April 11th as the new drop dead date.  As a reminder, we have to be entirely out of our rental on April 18th, at which time it needs to have been professionally cleaned and the carpets professionally steamed.  Our two week buffer is down to one week now.  Care to know why?  Read on!

Well first let me start with the good news.

They finished the
driveway and the culvert.  And instead of making the "approach" (the piece of driveway that connects to the street) in brushed concrete instead of aggregate, they were able to get aggregate approved all the way out.  In case you're wondering, all the other new construction in the area has been doing brushed concrete out by the street because when the town or utility companies have to do work out at the street, and might need to dig into our driveway they won't replace it with aggregate.  But the way I see it, they might never need to dig into our driveway.  Or it could be 10 years, 20?  Why not enjoy the aggregate until then?  :)  This second batch of aggregate went in much darker and more brown than the first batch so we were a bit freaked out, but over the past week it's cured lighter and with less contrast so I'm happy with it.

Last time I showed you the scraped and stained floors, but they had not yet been sealed with poly.  We had a brief scare in our house because we saw them very wet, and they looked very glossy.  We ordered a matte or satin finish.  It turns out they dried satin afterall.  But, mom and dad's floors were supposed to be glossy and were also done in satin.  They'll do one more final coat at the very end, so we've made sure they know to do glossy in their house and satin in ours.  Whether they do it or not... we'll see.  For now both floors look beautiful!

You can see why I nearly threw up all over my freshly poly'd floors - there's NO WAY I thought these would dry satin!

But they did!  You can see in this light they look a little less gray...

and in this light a little more gray.  I like them in both lights!  :)

And here are mom and dad's sealed floors with the satin poly that should have been full shine poly.  

The carpets went in this week, and although they don't photograph like anything special, they are quite nice and we're happy with the upgrade there.

Our front door was installed, and it's AWESOME!!  this was brent's pick, and he did a stellar job, don't you think?  it obviously hasn't been stained yet, and we can't wait to see it all finished with the lockset and final finish.  I'm so glad he talked me into upsizing the front door because even at 4'x8' it still looks little from the street.  It would have looked like a secret hidden passage if we had gone with the standard size!  :)  The door is being stained ebony.  We're hoping it brings out the grain rather than smothering it.

peeeeeeeeeeeeeeeek!  you get a sense of scale from this one.  love it!!

Speaking of door hardware - that went in our house this week too.  They haven't gotten to mom and dad's house yet, and it's been several days since the trim carpenter has made an appearance which is kind of getting annoying.

The carpenter also drilled the holes for our cabinet hardware in the kitchen.  Not sure why he stopped there and didn't do the bathroom cabinets as well.  They didn't actually install it because the painters will have touchup work to do on the cabinets.  Another, probably more accurate theory, is that the trim carpenter seems to think the screws don't fit the threads on our pulls, but we confirmed they're fine so we're not sure what his issue is.  Plus, it seems more likely and in line with the way they do everything out of order to have the cabinet hardware fully installed/attached only to be removed when the painters arrive to do touchup.  We'll see.  I'm excited about the cabinet pulls just from the holes - can't wait to see them installed!!  We went beefy this time.  I never liked my hardware in the last house.  :)  And in a shocking twist, they drilled the holes exactly the way we asked them to!

Also in the kitchen, they replaced our glass cabinet doors that were wrong.  We had ordered 6 pane mullion doors, and they arrived as just a single pane of glass.  I thought they might add the trim kit later, but turns out they just sent the wrong doors.  Obviously these need to be painted.  :)

The gutters started going in on our house, and we're loving the extra definition along the roofline to accentuate the funky whoop-dee-doos (technical term is double slope i believe).  Those went in early in the week and they haven't been back to finish the decorative collector boxes or the round downspouts on the front.  Nor have they started gutters on mom and dad's house.

There's not a terribly noticeable difference, but see the extra definition at the bottom of the roof?  You can also see the final grade work in this photo and the finished grade around the culvert.  I think they did a nice job with that!

They did all the final grading, and it looks great!  Then they did the irrigation system, which is great.  They also dug the electrical trenches and buried the conduit for all the nightscaping lights for our trees.  This yard work symbolizes that the end is near, or so I thought.

Now for the "steps back."

We made a lot of changes to the landscape designers proposed landscaping plan.  You COULD interpret that as I entirely redesigned the landscape plan myself.  The landscape designer happily made the updates to the official planting plan and I signed off on it.  However, he evidently did not make the change to the irrigation system design (which I'm not required to see or sign off on) because they installed a drip irrigation line for about twice the size of what the bed is supposed to be.  So now due to that tiny mistake in an office, they need to call the irrigation installers back to cut off the hoses, shave the size of that system back, and the move all the grass sprinkler heads that were on the "edge" of this bed back to be on the edge of the real bed.  I have a photo but it won't mean much to you so I'll move on to the next...
 
I mentioned last time we were waiting for our shower tile to be finished.  As a reminder, the day the tile guys showed up, they did not have any accent tile with them.  On that first visit, they also installed a soap dish that shouldn't have been installed.  They had the sliced pebble for the shower floor, but not the 4" strips for the accent strip around the wall.  We ordered that in October, but for some reason it was on back order (as in they never ordered it).  They told us it would arrive on March 13th and be installed on the 14th.  So imagine our surprise when we saw the tile guy there on March 7th working on our shower.  First we were delighted.  Then a bit stunned to see him standing on our charcoal/gray/beige/aqua pebble mixture on the shower floor while installing a dark brown pebble strip on the shower wall.  So we told him it was wrong and to stop.  He called his people, and I called our builder.  A week later, builder's boss man calls me and starts rambling on and on about how the 12x12 mosaics are manufactured in a different factory than the 4x12 strips and color variation is to be expected.  After a while I had to interrupt him to ask why we were discussing tile color variation.  He said it was because we rejected the tile they were installing last week.  And I said, I rejected it  because they were installing the WRONG tile, not the tile we ordered that was unsatisfactory to us just for fun.  He said the design gallery misinformed him.  Then a couple hours later, he forwards me an email from the design gallery stating that a) they sent the color tile that we had ordered.  b) the 4" deco tile strips doesn't come in the same color as the 12x12 on our shower floor, (not sure how they could declare both of those points in one email as they're contradictory) and c) a link to the manufacturer website showing the 4" strip colors available and asked us to choose another color.  So I scratched my head in confusion, opened the link and right there smack on the middle of the first page is the color we ordered that is the same color code and a match to our shower floor.  Wow.  I respond to builder with this info, and he passes back to design gallery who responds that the tile will arrive a few days later and will be installed the following monday.

And it was!  They finished the tile.  And then they used the wrong color grout on our shower floor.  Big WOW!  They used white grout and we were adamant that we didn't want white grout on the shower floor and before throwing my hissy fit, I double and triple checked all our paperwork that we signed, and sure enough, the right color is documented.  So now they have to rip out the shower floor and start over.  Any bets on whether that shower floor tile is in stock?  I'm guessing our odds aren't good.

This is the wrong tile they were installing.  That's no color variation problem, folks.  Just the wrong tile!

Yay for getting the accent tile right, finally!

Boo to the wrong grout - it should NOT be white!!

Our builder has certain materials that he STRONGLY encourages his clients to use as they're stocked for him at his vendors and he can offer them at reasonable prices.  One such set of materials were the undermount sinks for the bathrooms and the bathroom faucets.  We went with the standard which were Kohler and Moen respectively and had no qualms with the style of either.  So we signed on to those in June.  At the same time we also signed up for a granite upgrade in the bathrooms instead of that thin faux marble stuff.  One would think that they've worked out all the kinks with their "standard" bathroom fixtures by now, but one would be wrong.  Granite is 3cm thick, not 2cm like the faux marble.  This means that the faucet does not have enough room to use the drain stopper lever because the 3cm backsplash is pressed right up against the faucet.  So after looking at us pitifully and asking if we could "just live with it and make it work" to which I responded "absolutely not" with a laugh... he promised us push button popup drains.  And indeed the plumbers installed those in the guest house, and even in the right oil rubbed bronze finish as ordered!  Amazing!  For some reason though, they installed regular drains that have separate gargantuan sized metal plates that can be screwed on and screwed and screwed and screwed with about 15 twists to seal the drain and fill the sink.  Why?????????????????   I don't have a picture of the wrong ones - I was too irritated to take a photo.

The kitchen faucets have been wrong in both houses for weekS now.  And the plumbers came back yesterday and we were so excited!  We saw that they were putting all the fixtures in each room to be installed, and then when they were seemingly done disbursing the products and there was no new faucet in the kitchen, we asked our builder.  He assured us they had everything with them yesterday.  But our builder left, and we asked the plumbers directly.  His response... "what do you mean?  your kitchen faucet was installed last time!"  my response:  "yes, sir, a faucet was installed, but in the wrong color, just like the guest house.  The entire main house should have chrome fixtures, and only chrome fixtures.  The guest house should have orb fixtures and only orb fixtures.  Our finishes were chosen, documented, and signed by all parties in June 2013, so I'm not sure why there's been so much confusion."  So that's yet ANOTHER trip for the plumbers.

Do you believe we had to tell them this was a problem?

They got it right finally at mom's sink!  Though I should mention that the faucet style had to change because the counter guys drilled a hole in the wrong space and all the elements didn't fit.  yeahhhhh...

And I'm guessing these are just the dumbest plumbers ever, OR, they didn't like my tone because after we
left, they went and installed the wrong fixtures in our master shower.  Let me ask you something.  Would it make sense to you to have the control valve centered on the shower wall but the shower head tucked in the corner?  hmmm...  no, me either.  We're supposed to have a handheld shower, which is why the hole was off center.

*sigh*  add it to the list of things I'll never understand.

Painters were supposed to start their touchups and final rolling Wednesday and the trim carpenter wasn't supposed to disappear after one day or one partial day.  Both are MIA - maybe they're hanging out with the gutter guys, also MIA.

I'll be updating on some project progress soon.  I was traveling for work last week and Brent's traveling this coming week, so progress has slowed dramatically but I'm still pushing forward as hard as I can!  When he gets back we need to think seriously about packing, and then procrastinate a while longer.  :)

Stay tuned!