Sept. 30 - Sealed

The front porch, step and walk were power washed and sealed on Saturday.

Another trip to Menards and Sherwin Williams today and we're ready for Monday.
Bought more car siding. 62 more boards. Guess what I'm doing Monday?

Sept. 28 - Great Room ceiling going up

Here are some pics of the progress made today.

Tom framed in the surround for the kitchen's hood vent.

It will be covered with OSB before the stone is applied.

Tom cut the pine car siding for Chuck and Randy to install on the ceiling.

By the end of the day here's where we are.

The hardwood flooring arrived. It will sit for a week before installation starts. Here's half of it.

Next week.....

The floor tile and bathroom tile is delivered by truck. 

And, all the interior doors will be delivered by Menards. 

All the interior trim has been ordered.

The Centurion crew that will install the stone on the fireplace and hood vent starts work on Tuesday.

Sept. 27 - Tired. Retired.

I've been staining car siding all day and I'm too tired to write. They plan to start putting up the great room ceiling tomorrow.

Got a Dickel in front of me and an NFL game on the tube. I'll try to give you all a better report tomorrow.

Sept 26 - Speaking of Colors

As I'm writing this we just heard a rooster pheasant cackle. Next thing we see is the rooster hi-tailing it out of the brush flying across the point being closely pursued by a hawk. The rooster landed and hid in front of our new house with the hawk landing only feet away. For a moment the hawk had lost site of his prey. Suddenly, the rooster made a break for it and sprinted back into the ravine north of the house. The hawk was right behind. Now we can hear the rooster nervously cackling deep in the ravine. The hawk is still close by.

It is amazing what you see here every day. I counted 19 deer driving from my mailbox to the house the other night. Tom counted 32 of them on his way out last night at dusk. We saw beavers swimming in the lake two weeks ago. Supposedly there is a pair of otters in our bay, too. Honestly, it's just as though we are building our house inside of a state park.

Now....back to the paint. After one more trip to Sherwin Williams we're pretty sure that we got all the interior colors right.

Brenda LOVES the color of our bedroom. Silver Mist. Very peaceful.

We added white to the Barcelona Beige for the Great Room/Dining/Kitchen area to lighten it up and we're happy with the new shade. That will get painted tomorrow. 

Here's where we went from-to (left to right below). 

Barcelona Beige..... to BB with red added.... to BB mixed 2-1 with white.

In the lower level, the bar area wall will have a green tone (Koi Pond) while the remainder of the rec room is now the original Barcelona Beige. I'm hoping for more of an Irish Pub feel to the bar area. The tile flooring around the bar will be a slate green/blue/rust with lots of variation from tile to tile.

And how about this for my garage? 

The light gray color is called Tinsmith. The floor will get painted epoxy gray with the black & white flakes.

Tom and Nick are now installing the 8 foot fluorescent lighting in the garage. We just picked the lights up this morning. Tomorrow morning I'll have a lighted garage to start the process of staining all the remaining car siding.

It's a delightful, peaceful evening here at the lake. I can hear an owl hooting just across the lake. Speaking of colors....

Have I mentioned lately that we really like Tom Lenig Construction?

Sept. 25 - We have a sidewalk, front step and a furnace

The concrete walk and front step was poured and stamped today. Looks nice. They'll return in a couple of days or so to power wash the entire front porch and seal the color.

They also poured concrete in front of the lower level entrance to our storage/mechanical room.

Brenda made another run to Ottumwa this morning to buy more primer. 25 gallons wasn't enough. Once she returned, Tom got busy with his paint sprayer. All the interior ceilings are now primed and painted. All walls are primed and painting has started.

More siding was installed on the rear of the house on the upper deck. (But we're still not done.)

On Friday, all the hardwood flooring is delivered but we won't start installation until Oct 8. In the mean time, Centurion Stone is scheduled to come back on October 1st to stone the fireplace and the hood over the cooktop in the kitchen.

In the meantime I'll need to get in gear staining more car siding. Tom's crew must install some of the great room ceiling before the fireplace stone can be installed. It's getting to be a real juggling act now that the finish work is in high gear. The kitchen base cabinets are due to be installed after the flooring is completed.....somewhere on/about October 10.

And, our geothermal system has been set in place! Work is continuing to complete the heating and cooling system.

As I write this, Tom and his son-in-law are still at it tonight doing electrical work. Exterior lights are going up.

The trees here are really starting to turn colors. Even though it was over 80 degrees today, Lake Sundown is swinging into the look of fall.

Sept. 23 - Perhaps you've been wondering?

No updates for more than a week? What's up with that?
I had a good reason.

I took a little time off to get some of this...

 

 

Some of this.....

More of this.....

And a bit of this....

 

It was a great time with good friends that are as passionate about walleye fishing as I am.
Next time Bender is going.

A lot was happening while I was gone, however.
Brenda took these pics while I went fishing.

The concrete boys showed up again to pour the driveway. 

What is it about driving a concrete truck that says you don't need to wear a shirt?

And a sidewalk and front step.....

All the mudding, taping and texturing of the interior walls was completed.

 Just imagine the 120" HD screen on the far wall! Oh, yeah!

Kitchen and dining room.

We are ready to prime and paint starting tomorrow. And, amazingly, the paint store is having 40% off this weekend!! We'll be heading out today to buy LOTS of paint and primer. I also plan to buy epoxy garage floor paint...enough to do the garage floor and the mechanical room in the lower level.

All our light fixtures are here. I've ordered all the light switches and outlets. They should arrive this week. 

I need to buy a couple of good brooms today. There's a lot of mess to clean up.

We've got a busy week ahead. 

1. The concrete work gets finished up on Monday. They'll be stamping the front step and walk and pouring the pad for the back door on the lower level.

2. They are coming to measure for carpet tomorrow. After they measure, we need to finalize our order.

3. I'll be staining a lot more car siding for the great room ceiling. 

4. The geo system should show up and be installed. They have completed all the duct work.

5. The hard wood flooring is supposed to be delivered by the end of the week so it can be acclimated before it is installed next week.

6. The railing on the deck should be installed. The steps down off the deck may also get completed. (The concrete footings were poured this week.)

6. I may need to take the trailer to Des Moines and load it up with floor tile this week or next.

And who knows what else? How are my kitchen cabinets coming along by the way? Will my backordered kitchen sink actually ship on Sept. 28? When should I have the interior doors delivered? Who are we getting our interior trim from? Should I have some black dirt delivered? Does the landscape company have any ideas for us yet?

Dang. Welcome back from fishing.