All the Trimmings

This week has gone fast but with major progress. The trim carpentry guys had a lull in their appointment book so the equivalent of two crews spent all week on the house (5-6 guys). They worked very quickly and made amazing progress in a week.
Wood trim delivered and ready for action:

We decided to go with a suggestion from the trim carpenter of doing simulated crossed beams in the cathedral ceiling instead of the standard beams running down flush with the ceiling slope. Here's the first one going in:

Almost all of the doors got installed in one day. Here are a couple of different sized ones that are Vivi's closet and bedroom door (they are solid knotty pine):

Vivi's shower/bath for completely tiled and grouted:

Final closeup:

The carpenters moved a table saw into the great room. They brought their own door locks, so the house now gets locked every night finally:

Twin coat closet doors:

Part of the reason they can install the doors so quickly is because they are pre-hung and hinged in a frame so all the guys need to do is level and shim the frames in the doorway and nail them in. Here are a couple waiting to go in the master bedroom:

The master bath now has tiles on the wall and roof:

The guys have started working on the second set of crossbeams:

Another beam shot (these will of course be stained along with the center beam running the length of the room):

You can see the beams are simply hollow boxes:

There are sawhorses all over the house for cutting detail pieces in multiple rooms:

The beams are supported in the attic by a small board nailed between the rafters:

Window sills are installed on at every window in the house:

Tiling is all finished in the guest bathroom now that the 4x4 tiles are on the shower floor:

The beams are done (after only 2 days):

They don't dominate the room but they break up the cavernous airspace in the ceiling - they should look great stained (the camera lens won't be as dusty then)!

Vivi hanging out by the pond on an unusually calm day, watching ducks:

One of these ducks is Vivi's pet Carli (real) the other one is a decoy - can you tell which is which?

And now, more pictures of inanimate objects!
The stone got delivered on Thursday afternoon:

The brick got delivered on Friday. They used a forklift to drop pallete stacks of bricks on all sides of the house:

Most of them are on the front and back of the house:

Closeup of a brick pallete:

They have great color variation all through the group:

One day after we met with our builder and the trim carpenter on how our closets and pantry will be trimmed out, the pantry was already done as well as one of the closets! Tons of pantry shelves:

The other side of the giant pantry (taller shelves):

We have 6" crown molding in the great room, it looks pretty wicked:

The little detail tiles showed up for the master bath so they slapped them up real quick-like (as well as tiling the boxes in the walls):

On Friday a hummingbird got lost in the house by flying through the open door while the carpenters were working! He kept trying to escape by flying up but could not figure out why he couldn't get out that way. Finally he got so tired he landed on a piece of wood trim held by one of the carpenters and they let him out of the window!

Lots of bricks in the back in a semi-neat row:

The staircase has detail trim on the side of the steps and now has a handrail!

This is how much sawdust a week's worth of table-sawing makes!

On Saturday Ian went to clean up some of the little wood pieces and sawdust and trash (as usual on the weekends). It's getting hot out now so might as well park in the garage (shop) in the cool shade. Here are a couple of pics to give an idea of the shop size. Get used to your new bedroom!




Next week may even be crazier - cabinets should show up at some point, masons will show up to start bricking and rocking (rock on), tiling should be totally done, and trimwork will probably be close to done too. More pics of course as things progress!