Sunday, August 17, 2008

Glass and Mirrors

Peek-A



BOO!


Well, not much to update for now except that we got our glass and mirrors installed, so here are some pics:

The small glass pieces in the upper kitchen cabinet doors:

The glass in the bar cabinets:

The glass desktop on the laundry room desk:


Vivi would like to show you some other glass features

This is the glass texture on the guest bath shower door:

See what it looks like with someone in the shower?

The three big mirrors in the master bath

The tub is installed but there are no fixtures installed yet

It fits two relatively comfortably, see?

The master shower fixtures are done:

The full length closet mirror:

Vivi's bathroom mirror:

We had to move the tractor from its old resting place since my neighbor is moving in and reworking the land around his place...now I can see the tractor from the master bedroom window :-)

Our icemaker makes ice!

View from office window now - this had piles of dirt and weeds in front of it before, see earlier pics with the deer (same window).

The shop has a sink and will soon get its water heater installed and be painted.


Well, that's all for now. Hopefully some concrete will get poured next week if it stops raining and I'll have some cooler pics!

Sunday, August 3, 2008

Hardware and Grading

Although we are not as far along as we would hope at this point, we do have almost all of our hardware installed and most of the appliances at least set in place.

Here are some relatively poor pics of some of the cabinet hardware!

The fridge has been put in place but the protective plastic will stay on for a while:

The cabinet hardware is kind of craftsman-styled but I don't have any closeups yet:

The cooktop is mostly in place but some coutertop trimming needs to happen for it to be fit flush with the cabinet:

The bar hardware is installed, with the mini-dishwasher mostly in place:

closeup of bar cabinet knob:

laundry sink faucet installed

cool new washer and dryer contrast with the dark wood and stainless hardware

Viv's bathroom hardware is installed:

Four of the cabinet knobs are frog-shaped!

The shower has no shortage of shower head fixtures:

The master bath hardware installed:

Poor closeup of master bath knobs

The rainhead shower (and lights) installed in the master bath shower:

The front door is installed but will go through one more round of stain finish (the door knob hardware is installed though)



The other thing that has recently happened is the first stage of the final grading of dirt around the house. After months of dealing with (and studying) the flow of water around the house when it rains the ground has been moved a lot more to keep water from pooling around the house. All of the surface dirt created during the initial land clearing and foundation pad creation is also being redistributed to smooth out the terrain. We have to be able to mow someday when we have grass instead of just dirt around the house!

In two days a Bobcat and bulldozer leveled out the driveway to the house garage, raised the road level, installed a drain pipe, and redistributed dirt from all of the piles to a berm that diverts water around the house and shop. In another couple days of work things will be even smoother and we actually won't have to dread the rain and the affect on our house from it!

Here is a view of the house and the re-graded driveway (kinda hard to tell how it's changed, especially with a 2-D picture!)

View from the garage towards the shop driveway and regraded road (I know it just looks like a lot of multi-colored dirt...trust me it looks really different than it did two days before):

View along the house of the initial grading - they lowered some areas to flow water past the house and down the driveway instead of it pooling right up against the house.

The big dozer creating part of the berm:

View of the berm behind the house and the lonely transformer out in the open:


Well supposedly this next week the electricians, plumbers, trim carpenters, HVAC, glass/mirrors and (fingers crossed) concrete people will all be back to do more work. So hopefully we'll have a better update at the end of the week!