July 31 - Too pissed to write about it.

I'm too pissed to tell you here in our blog. I want the dust to settle before I let you in on it.

We're invited over to the neighbors tonight for supper and a few drinks. There are some really wonderful people that hang out here at Sundown. Minutes ago I opened a bottle of Jack Daniels Tennessee Honey for the first time. I highly recommend it.

Tomorrow we meet with Hal Dielschneider to cover details on our kitchen.....looking forward to that. We ordered a kitchen sink that is in such short supply that the estimated ship date is September 28! But much of what I ordered Sunday night on the internet arrived starting today and will be here by Friday. Great service. Will be seeing a lot of the UPS man this week.

Also....here is an example of great customer service. We were not happy with the door we received from ezporch.com. Called them. Emailed pics. Today I got a call from them. They had us try to adjust the "bow" out of the middle of the door which we promptly did. When the adjustment did not work, they simply said....."we'll build you a new door asap". Good people.

Bender commented that I've mellowed since I retired and maybe I have. It's no fun being angry. I hate it when I'm angry and get hot about anything. I'm not sure I've ever seen my wife as po'ed as today. She's not po'ed at me thank God. I sure hope I can be sociable tonight.

GO USA!!!

July 30 - WINDOWS!!!!!!!

We've been waiting for this day for some time. The windows arrived and Tom's guys promptly started unpacking them and getting them installed. Around noon, the Andersen/Eagle rep arrived and reviewed the procedure for proper installation according to Eagle. Many of the double hung windows are now in place. Tomorrow, they'll work on the installation of the big sliders.

The only apparent problem with the Eagle windows that we noticed is the fact the lower sash on 2 windows are cracked around the latch. Eagle will replace the sashes.

Sierra bronze exterior finish.

White finish on the interior.

We started to assemble the 4 door unit for the great room.

Lower level bedroom window.

We also unpacked the windows for the screened porch. We're not happy with the door we received and immediately notified EZ Porch about it. But otherwise, these windows look good. They'll not be installed until another day this week. Amazingly, the bronze color of these porch window frames very closely matches the sierra bronze exterior of the Eagle windows. How did I manage to do that?

Here are the porch windows.

No sign of the drillers today. It's just as well that they haven't shown up.

July 27 - No work today but come Monday....

There is no work scheduled today on our house in official observance of Larry Marshall's birthday. So the crew took the day off. Tom and his son-in-law Nick will be back at it tomorrow doing some wiring work.

Yesterday, I spent most of the day online preparing to place a large order for plumbing items. Kitchen sink & faucet, kitchen bar sink & faucet, master bath shower fixtures, etc. It adds up fast. But it's easier shopping online than driving all over to look. Free shipping, 2% cash back on purchases, further coupon discounts and the state of Iowa loses out on some sales tax revenue.

I also got a text message yesterday from Lockridge Lumber to say that they had received our shipment of Eagle windows in Centerville. They are currently loaded on a semi to be delivered to our place on Monday.

Yesterday, Tom Lenig's guys were busy laying down as much decking as they could. Of course, they're waiting for some rain gutter in the right color before they can finish the decking. The deck over the screened porch will have a drain system installed underneath to channel rain water out through the gutter. The decking is maintenance free PVC and is caulked to prevent water from getting through. A system of rubber channels (called DekDrain) are draped between the joists towards the gutter at the outer edge.

Since the weather has moderated somewhat, I hoofed it with Trapper 3 miles to the mailbox and back for the first time in quite some time this morning. Feels good to be able to be outside without fear of overheating. When it's been over 100 and you've got a Gator, who's interested in walking anywhere?

The Conway Freight truck showed up today with all our vinyl windows for the screened porch.

It's a beautiful Friday. We're excited that Bender & Sam are coming for the weekend.

The deck will really extend our living area and bring the outdoors into the house. The view is awesome.

Next week will be a flurry of activity. We're looking forward to it.

Tired of running to Des Moines

We've been on the road the past two days driving up to Des Moines and back to shop for the house. (Of course, it's always about the dog!)

Monday morning, we stopped at the Habitat for Humanity Re-Store to see what we could use on the house. They have tons of porcelain tile in stock. We are seriously thinking about loading up on floor tile from them in the coming weeks.

Next stop was Graybar to buy the components for our network and video wiring infrastructure. I plan to route video over twisted pair within the house. We'll also install RG6 coax. The plan is to get the wire installed in the wall with outlets for every possible TV and network location. (Tonight I ordered all the twisted pair from monoprice.com.)

We met Tyler for lunch at Zombie Burger.....which is only one block from Graybar. That's three times we've eaten there in the past 5 weeks. We like it.

Monday afternoon, we went looking for light fixtures. The first place we were advised to try was bad news. The sales staff completely ignored us while we made two complete loops around the store. As we walked out without ever even being acknowledged by anyone we figured that we didn't look like their type of customer. They're noses were a little too far in the air that they just couldn't see us, I guess.

The next place, Lights & More in Urbandale was a completely different experience.  We were given the full attention of a friendly sales person for most of the afternoon. And, since we are new construction, they offer a 40% discount on anything we order! After more than 4 hours of searching through books for the perfect light fixtures for the whole house....inside and out....we were hot and exhausted. Trapper was glad to see us when we got home. He can really hold it for a long time.

We returned to Des Moines today to find shower fixtures but only came home with 50% of what we needed.  Went to Lowes in Altoona, Plumb Supply and then Lowes at Jordan Creek... and then back to Sundown. Got the same happy greeting from Trapper upon our return. I'll probably be looking online to get the master bath shower fixtures bought and shipped in short order.

I got a call today advising that all our EZ Porch vinyl windows and screens for the screened porch will arrive this Friday. The geothermal wells will be drilled on Monday, July 30. Of course, that's the same day that our Eagle windows and sliders will finally be delivered! Monday could turn out to be quite a mess!

All the PVC decking material was delivered today. Tomorrow I should have some pics of the deck in progress. It's a little weird that the first thing to be finished on a new house would be the deck but that's exactly what might happen. Stay tuned!

July 23 - The Kitchen Cabinet Decision

Not much construction will happen on our house this week. We're hopeful that the Geostem crew out of Ottumwa will drill our 4 wells for the geothermal system. But we have no confirmation as yet.

However, Brenda and I have made the decision on our kitchen cabinets. We are excited that our cabinets will be made by Prairie Knoll Cabinetry in Beaman, Iowa. After much frustration dealing with local Amish cabinetmakers, we called Hal at Prairie Knoll early last week. In short order, Hal came through with the answers, design, drawings and numbers that we liked. Sounds like our project will fit in with his other commitments this summer/fall. As some of you know Hal is Jill Marshall's brother. We're looking forward to working with him on the kitchen and possibly other needs as we finish the house!

Now we need to rethink our decision on the kitchen countertop. We had previously chosen a Cambria (quartz) countertop through Lockridge but that will change. We may stay with the Cambria but it's doubtful that we'll get it through Lockridge. Interestingly, the semi-custom factory-built Bertch kitchen quote from Lockridge was by far the most expensive of the 4 quotes that we received.

July 20 - Delightful day despite the lack of progress

Tom Lenig's guys finished up a few framing details inside the house and worked to complete 16" centers on the inside of the gable ends. They've done about as much as they can until the windows show up one week from Monday.

Tom did a walk through with us to mark all the places that we want electrical outlets. And, the entry door was picked up by Lockridge so it could be shipped back to the manufacturer for modification.

We plan to place our order for all the interior doors this weekend while they are on sale at Menards. We will stain the doors ourselves and save about $3000 from the original estimate for prefinished doors from Lockridge.

Here's the fireplace with the framing for the hearth in place......

We've met some wonderful people here at Lake Sundown. Last evening we sat on the deck at a neighbors house looking at the lake with a glass of wine in our hands. It was delightful. We are looking forward to the day when we can sit on our own deck and enjoy the lake views this fall. The lake level is extremely low right now. The shoreline is receding each day. I've not seen the lake this low. BUT.....IT'S STILL BEAUTIFUL. Can't wait to share it with you all.

Brenda wants to have a picnic in the new house tonight. Got to take advantage of this nice evening!

July 19 - A sour day

BTW, a friend who lives on the north side of Sundown a couple of miles from us recorded a high temperature yesterday of 111! He found that hard to believe until his neighbor concurred that he also topped out at 111. Here is a pic of his thermometer in the shade on his deck showing 109.

Some of us heard the stories about the 100 degree temps and the drought of 1936 from our parents. Mom and dad mentioned it several times when I was growing up. Now, we are experiencing much of the same conditions and by the time this summer ends, too many of us will have similar stories to share with our descendants.

I'm sad to report that not much can happen on the house now until the Eagle windows show up. As it stands now, the windows will be delivered on site on Monday, July 30. The regional rep for Andersen/Eagle will be here that day to instruct Tom and his crew on proper window installation as recommended by Eagle.

It turns out that our window order screw up was not Eagle's fault. It was Lockridge that allowed our order to sit in limbo and not get built on time. Lockridge thought the order was accepted but it wasn't. Chock it up to inexperience using Eagle's online order system and then not following up in a timely manner to ensure the order was properly received.

Another home that was built on Lake Sundown this spring had a nasty window problem, too. I doubt that it involved either Lockridge or Eagle. The contractor received the sliding windows that were ordered and installed all of them. But they found out later that the homeowner wanted double-hungs. All the windows had to be reordered and swapped out weeks later. I pray that our windows arrive without any issues. They had better be right!

And here's our bad news for today......
Today, Lockridge delivered the front entry door and two other exterior doors. Upon inspection of the front door we discovered that it is not what we thought it would be. After a visit to the lumber yard, the door will be shipped back to the door company next Tuesday for modification within a couple of days.

Boy, am I learning some lessons the hard way these days. It's not our fault that the door was wrong. But Lockridge is saying that it's exactly what we agreed to order (about three months ago). I don't believe them. If we wanted to get nasty about this we would win. They have nothing to prove that we signed off on this door before it was ordered. But rather than getting into nasty argument with them about this, I'm trying to make the best of it. Possibly getting stuck with a door that would be hard to sell and/or waiting for weeks for another new custom door is not a good option. We need to get this house enclosed.

We're not happy right now but somehow we'll make lemonade out of all these lemons.

Since not much work can be done on the house until July 30, we have encouraged the heating/cooling contractor to get his drilling crew here next week to drill the wells for our geothermal system. They sub-contract this work to a company called Geostem. I've already paid for 50% of the job and they've known for a couple of weeks that they could do the drilling any time. Next week would be a good week to get that out of the way. Let's see if they can come through.

July 18 - Gas fireplace installed....more siding goes up

We purchased a nice direct vent gas fireplace a couple of weeks ago in Des Moines. Today, our Mendota DXV45 unit was delivered and installed. It is not functional, of course, until this fall. This unit is rated for 45,000 BTU and can be turned all the way down to 7,500 BTU. It has one of the top rated flame & appearance ratings.

More siding was installed today.

And man, was it hot!

The house was measured by an Amish company that does spray foam insulation. Got a bid from them on a closed cell application. So we are doing the closed cell vs. open cell comparison right now. We plan to foam the walls only. Open cell will be quite a bit cheaper than closed cell but is still more expensive than batts. Tom Lenig is encouraging us to not use foam in the roof....where he prefers blown insulation.

We also discussed tile work in the bathrooms with a tile contractor. He measured and will give us his bid someday soon.

The UPS truck rumbled to our door and delivered our bathroom fans and another cell phone repeater which we promptly installed inside the new house. Our phones immediately went from 1 bar to 3 bars. Later, we'll do a better and more permanent installation of an antenna on the roof and, hopefully, improve the reception even more.

I've been reviewing quotes for the installation of video and network wiring in the coming weeks. I want to make sure that I get the wire in the walls so I'm prepared when it's time to get our TVs working later this year. You cannot believe how many control systems and electronic smarts can be installed in your home these days. However, it's become very clear that I don't want to spend the bucks that it takes to have all that cool stuff. Walls, floors, kitchens, bathrooms, etc. come first.

The front entry door is supposed to be delivered and installed tomorrow. 

And, we are very close to firming up our kitchen cabinet decision. It will be a big relief to get that done. More on that another day.

July 17 - Shakes on one gable....that's it

Tom's crew worked to get 2x4s installed on the inside of the gable ends today. They got shakes installed on one gable end. I think the heat encouraged them to knock off early today.

July 16 - Disappointing news on the windows

I finally talked directly with the Andersen/Eagle Windows regional representative this afternoon. Mike is a good man and really helped us to clean up and finalize our window order back in May. Mike was apologetic, of course. He called it a glitch in Andersen's automated ordering process that caused our order to be lost before it could get scheduled into production. Once the error was discovered around June 28, we had already lost a month's time. The windows are now scheduled to ship from Dubuque (to Lockridge Lumber in Centerville) on Wednesday, July 25.

We didn't learn of the new ship date until my conversation with Mike today. And, apparently, Lockridge has known the ship date for the past 10 days or so and didn't tell me or Tom. We've been standing by thinking they should have shown up last Thursday and then maybe this Thursday.

This is really holding everything up and Tom Lenig and his 2 guys are trying to stay busy in the mean time doing whatever they can. They'll put up the lower courses of siding below the windows and install the shakes on the gables.

Ah, yes. The gables and siding issue. Tom resolved the with Lockridge today. After several phone calls from Tom, Lockridge agreed to pay his labor and materials to add the needed 2x4's to make 16 inch centers on all the gable ends.  I'm not paying for it. Tom is not paying for it. But Lockridge is paying the tab and rightfully so.

I can't give Lockridge any kudos for their performance to date. They haven't made it easy to do business with them the past two months. I've already begun ordering materials from Menards. Not everything, but they are fulfilling some of our upcoming material needs. Car siding and interior doors will be ordered from Menards.

Today, Rollie from Centurion Stone drove down from Des Moines to measure our place for the stone work that will be done....the front porch entry area, some on the front of the house, the fireplace, touches in the kitchen, etc. He will have a final figure for me tomorrow. Rollie and Tom talked a lot about how the stone will be installed where it meets the siding. We also talked about the rough-in for the fireplace hearth.

The man that Tom is recommending to do our tile work stopped by around lunch time. He is working on another job close to Sundown and will be working with us this week to give us his bid.

The fireplace is scheduled to be installed on Wednesday this week.

Garage doors are scheduled to be shipped from Des Moines to Centerville one week from today - the 23rd.

This week must finalize and place our kitchen order. We've been waiting for an Amish man to come through with some stained wood samples.

And, over this past weekend, we think we found some hardwood flooring that we both like. Turns out that we need to be making that decision soon since they quoted us 6-8 weeks from the time of order before they can install.

No wonderful pics to show you. Here's what I can offer....

Here's the first few courses of siding on the back side of the garage.

Late last week OSB was installed over the Insulating Concrete Forms (ICF) foundation in the mechanical/storage room and then painted white. The geothermal system will be installed along this long wall where the pipes come out of the floor.

On Saturday, the concrete crew came back to repair the asphalt sheeting that needs to cover the foundation below grade. The line of sheeting shows level where we will backfill along the southwest side of the house.

Sadly, it looks pretty much the same as it did 2 weeks ago.

July 12 - Done working until Monday

No windows yet.
There's a snag on the installation of the shakes.
The builder is taking the day off tomorrow.

Tom Lenig is unhappy about the siding that Lockridge sold us. The manufacturer specifies that the shakes must be nailed on 16" centers. All our gable ends have 24" centers. Lockridge, of course, also sold us the 24" on-center trusses that form the gable ends. The siding manufacturer's technical staff advised Tom by phone that nailing these shakes every 24" would void the warranty for wind damage and warpage. Therefore, Tom is putting the pressure on Lockridge to do all the work (labor and materials) to retrofit our 7 gables with 16" centers using 2x4's. I'm not sure how much this will delay us.

Today I ordered lots of materials to finish and enclose the screened porch. Ten vinyl windows/screens and a matching door plus a water drainage system for the deck above the screened area. I found these products on the internet and am hoping that I made some good choices.

I am also very close to ordering all our interior doors while they are on sale. 8 doors up and 8 doors down including closet doors. Brenda is leaning towards arched 2-panel doors. Looks like I might be in for a little work staining some doors in the weeks to come.

For Brenda's benefit I am including a pic below of the freshly made 4 ft. opening into the bath & bedroom area in the lower level. We plan to craft a unique door that will slide on a rail much like a barn door. Besides being a nice feature in the room it will allow guests to seal off their bedrooms from the lower level rec room at night.

Entry to small hallway to bedrooms and bathroom. Once through the opening, bedroom #2's door is on the right, the pocket door to the bathroom is in the center and bedroom #3's door is the left.

Here's the screened porch waiting for the new vinyl windows and screens......

I'm discussing with the EZ Porch people as to whether or not we should add a transom above the door to match the window height. They have transoms for an additional $59. I'm thinking it might be the right thing to do. After measuring again, a 1 ft. tall transom above the door would look nice.

My next update won't probably be until Monday the 16th. Since we didn't see any windows today, Eagle won't deliver again until next Thursday. :(

July 11 - Sign of progress inside

Today I was busy online picking out bathroom ventiliation for each of three bathrooms. Tom Lenig needs them in a few days as he continues rough-in work. Fans are now ordered via Amazon and will be delivered next week.....along with another cell phone repeater. I ordered a repeater to be installed at the new house so the builder can make and receive phone calls without either standing only in the front entry or walking half way up the hill for the remainder of the project. This will also be for our own use once we move in later this year.

So, what has happened inside?

Since we have selected our direct vent fireplace last week, Tom's assistant Randy was able to frame up the fireplace today. It will be 6 feet wide with a 15-inch high hearth wrapped around the bottom.

They have also installed extra bracing in the ceiling to install beams (ladder looking area) on either side of the fireplace.

They started framing the screened porch.....

Inspected by Trapper.

We plan to install 6 foot tall vinyl glazed windows in these openings. The windows come with 4 sections and collapse all the way up or all the way down to allow for 4 1/2 feet of open screen area.

The vinyl windows should allow us to use this room 10 months out of the year (or so the distributor says). Their web site is ezporch.com.

Oh, and we have the start of a tray ceiling in our master bedroom.....

And the pocket door frames have been installed on both levels. Here is the passage into the master bath.

We also met with 2 people from Lockridge today on site to discuss the design and pricing of the railing and balusters for our stairwell. After discussion with Brenda by phone today, we agreed on the look we were after and gave Lockridge enough information to put something together.

The shakes (siding) arrived earlier in the week. Tom Lenig has not started to install them yet, however, since the manufacturer specifies that the shakes be nailed every 16 inches. We have 24-inches between 2x4s on our truss gable ends. He wants them to sign off on this before he proceeds. He doesn't want any problems for us or for him later down the road.

Last evening, I had visitors. Dave Huffman and his wife Marty stopped over. They moved here from Des Moines after they built a home north of Lake Sundown last year. We met this spring and I went turkey hunting in April on their 40 acres. (Shot a wild turkey there, too!)

Dave had called earlier in the day to give me an update on the performance of his geothermal system. He has the same Hydron Module system that we will have installed. He reported that his geo is performing so well that it isn't running enough to give them hot enough hot water to suit their needs this summer. The geo system can provide you with virtually free hot water (through something called a desuperheater). But it has to run to add heat to the water heater. So, Dave is considering an additional on-demand heater to only run when their demand for hot water exceeds what the geo system is providing. We may have to consider the same. Some folks also put in 2 hot water heaters with their geothermal system. I gave them a tour of our house and had a good time catching up with them. They are in the middle of building a deck/porch on their house.

In the coming days we hope that:

1) our long awaited window order shows up and that it's right!

2) the concrete boys will be back to fix some of the below-grade asphalt based sheeting on the ICF foundation that drooped and slid off the south side of the foundation in this heat.

3) the concrete stampers will return to finish our front porch steps.

4) the heating/cooling folks will swing into action and drill the 4 wells for our geothermal system.

5) July 16 we'll get a visit from the Rollie with Centurion Stone to measure for our final stone order

6) July 18 the gas fireplace will be installed

Sorry - updates are coming tomorrow

To all my blog fans out there (especially you, Jan) there will some fresh updates tomorrow. Still hard to show the progress since they are working on some of the carpentry with the stud walls and ceiling trusses. Have been away from Sundown for a few days and will try to catch you up on the home progress on Wednesday.

July 5 - It's HOT! But work continues.

Last evening we were out on the lake by 8:30 to catch any fireworks shows after dark. We cruised the lake and Brenda noticed one beach area owned by a man from Urbandale was lined with many little bags that looked like fireworks. About 9:30 we saw a truck's headlights going down the hill towards that beach. We quickly picked up Tim, Jill and Duncan Marshall from their dock and we all headed that way in the boat. We got to see a really good show from the water. This guy and a couple other lake residents really spent some bucks on fireworks. It was a unique experience for us since you hear a lot of echo off the lake's shore line.

Tom Lenig, brother Chuck and co-worker Randy have been plugging away in the 100 degree heat moving their fork loader and scaffolding around the house to install the soffit and drip edge trim.

Some of our horizontal siding was delivered today by Lockridge but there is more to come. We are doing a combination of shakes (only on the gables) and horizontal lap siding. The product is called LP SmartSide. It's a wood based product which is touted as superior to cement board in a number of ways. The color we picked is called French Gray.

Tonight and tomorrow we will make our final decision on which (of four) direct vent gas fireplace to purchase. Tom Lenig wants to get the framing done for the fireplace early next week so we must decide soon.

We are also considering bids to install audio, video and network cabling yet in July. 

And, our kitchen cabinet decision is looming.

July 3 - Here's why we want to live here

We have power in the house as of today. They also installed a lot of soffit today.

The beauty of Lake Sundown is at it's best in the evening. The lake is usually calm and peaceful as it was this evening.

We will not see much of any sunsets from our house since the rear of our home faces southeast. We were out in the boat this evening at sunset with good friend Joy P and took these pics.

From our home, however, we will have a wonderful view of many summer moon rises over the lake. 

Below is the view of the July 3 full moon.... 

from the boat....

The moonrise from our inside our new home.

How cool will it be to sit on the deck and see this view once our home is completed?

July 2 - Plumbing can be boring

There is not a lot to report on these days unless you like plumbing. Tom Lenig and his son-in-law are busy in the lower level doing plumbing rough in and installing the electrical breaker box.

Brenda and I went shopping for direct vent fireplaces on Friday and also talked to a couple of places that do audio/video wiring and home control systems. We're not sure how much or how little of the electronics we will buy up front. We must, however, get all the low voltage wiring (twisted pair and coax) in the walls this month. We are also considering the installation of a central vac system.

We are narrowing down our choice for kitchen cabinets and will be doing follow-up on details this week.

So what have we been doing lately?
Playing on the weekends and trying to stay cool. The lake is a cool place to be when it's this hot.
Here are some pics from the past two weekends when we've had family here...

Gramma and Connor in the kayak.

My neighbor Pat Munro landed and released this nice 23" largemouth. Over 7 pounds!

(I don't have any personal fish tales to report.)

Tyler and Connor first time in the kayak.

Tyler and Emily out in the kayaks.

Ann Tendall and her three....Jacob, Taylor and Destiny with Brenda

Jacob and Taylor spent a lot of time in the lake on Saturday.

Destiny and Brenda kayaking.

Out in the boat.