Halloween - We've been busy. We're gettin' there!

Brenda has been painting spindles for the stairway railing.

Tom built the railing for the stairwell on Tuesday and today I stained all the oak railing and steps.

Yesterday I painted the last two garage door panels and today, we FINALLY have functional garage doors that are painted to match!!! Chuck and Randy spent the whole day getting the garage doors and openers installed. They started to clean out the garage, too. My goal is to get the cement floor painted before the weekend.

Garage door installation. It should never be this tough for anyone. IF ONLY we had been dealing directly with a professional garage door installation company (instead of this absurd garage door fiasco created through the local lumber company) this should have easily been completed 90 days ago.

Larry and his helpers have been creating an awesome bathroom and shower in the lower level.

And tomorrow morning......the kitchen and bathroom countertops arrive and get installed!!!

On the down side, there is still no word if our appliances have shipped and will arrive.

Oct. 26 - Thinking about when to move in

We've been talking to the moving company about moving our belongings to our new house sometime in November. We're hoping to be able to move in sometime during the week of November 12 (if there are no major snags between now and then).

We hired a lady to paint the interior of all our windows and doors. Her first day was today and she made some good progress. She'll be back early Monday morning to keep at it all day.

Things should really start to come together in the next 2 weeks. We requested that our appliances be shipped to arrive by Oct 31. The countertops will be installed on November 1. The remainder of the kitchen will get finished on/about November 5/6.

Larry the Tile Guy is working in the bathrooms now and should be wrapping up his work next week. So, we'll have functional bathrooms soon. I ordered 2 toilets online today as well as the cover plates for all the power receptacles and light switches.

Here's a shot of the tray ceiling in our master bedroom with the crown molding installed. The crown will hide the rope lighting in the tray.

The chair rail is up and the wainscot painted in the master bath.

Tom helped me to install my cell phone repeater on the roof this afternoon next to the dish. We now have 3 bars where we might have had one or none before. There are some dead spots but our cell phones are now working inside the house. The inside antenna is temporarily mounted and will need some tweaking in the days to come for optimal performance.

After a day away from it, I'll be staining again tomorrow. I have three doors and some oak trim around the stairwell to stain this weekend. Tom and Larry are also planning to work for part of the day tomorrow. Lots to do yet but we can start to imagine actually moving in.

Oct. 25 - Pics of Screened Porch

Here are some pics of the (almost) finished interior of our lower level screened porch under the deck. We used exterior siding on the walls and the windows are framed/trimmed now. Of course, I still have to stain the wood trim around the windows.

I forgot to mention that last Saturday morning all the coax cables were installed from the roof to the basement so that we can have Dish TV service, Wildblue internet service and a cell phone repeater installed on the roof with the equipment in the lower level. That had to be done before the insulation went in the attic.

Today is starting out at 65 degrees headed for the low 40's by sundown. The wind blew hard out of the south all night and there's hardly a leaf left on any of the trees. From our rental home we can virtually see the whole lake now that the leaves are gone.

A whole bunch of materials were delivered by Lockridge yesterday afternoon which means I've got a lot of trim painting to catch up on before I can finish staining the oak doors and trim in the lower level. But the garage is so crowded with materials that I don't know if I've got the room to start painting once again. All the materials to finish the inside stairwell and railing arrived, too. 

We also have all the material for closet organizers and pantry shelving on hand. Tom was busy yesterday working in the master closet and pantry. He also installed more smoke detectors and lighting as was working alone yesterday. Chuck was on another job for the day.

Yesterday afternoon I took the boat into Centerville and dropped it off to get it winterized. I bought a 100# LP tank and then had it filled and installed by MFA Oil before the end of the afternoon. This will supply LP to our fireplace (only). We have not started the fireplace yet. Supposedly you have to run it on high for several hours the first time it is used to break it in properly. Now that it's suddenly turning colder our timing is good.

Brenda and I also had a conversation with Paul DeJong about finish grading around the house once the rain gutters are done. No gutters this week as they are running behind with all the rain in the area lately. Hopefully we'll get those installed next week and then paul can swing into action. We gave him a copy of the landscaping plan to be ready for executing some of that plan next spring.

Brenda has been busy shopping for some laundry cabinets online and a laundry sink. The cabinets are ordered but the sink is not. 

Larry the Tile Guy grouted a good share of the bar area floor yesterday afternoon so we can walk through that area and will be working on the lower level bathroom and shower today. He has to finish the showers before Tom can turn on the water and have a working toilet in the house.

So, after some coffee and breakfast I'd better get back to work.

Oct. 23 - Nice Tile for the Bar

Here's a shot of the tile floor that will outline the bar area in the lower level. The balance of the room will be carpeted.

The entire attic/ceiling got insulated to R38 today. Tom and Chuck took turns in the attic area distributing the blown in insulation to a level of 15 inches. The house should be really efficient now that we are fully insulated. 

More lighting is being installed this evening. 

I spent the day staining once again and have nearly completed the staining of all the doors on the main level. Still a lot of work to go in the lower level and then the finishing coat. I'm thinking I'll try a brushed on lacquer to finish all the oak.

Oct. 18 - Raining. Trimming. Painting. Staining.

Here's a couple of pics from the master bath.
Shower floor was tiled this morning.

Hal installed the two vanity bases and the center dresser frame on Tuesday.
Note the pullout to stash all our toiletries and personal items.

Here's the hallway from the kitchen to the garage. The tile is not grouted yet but should be by the end of the day. You can also see that the oak door jambs are stained.

Millenium Surfaces measured for our countertops yesterday. We expect them to be ready in two weeks. They'd like to have our cooktop on hand the day they install the countertops so I'll plan to have all our appliances delivered early in the week of Oct 29.

Saturday morning there's a guy coming to get started on the installation for DISH TV. We'll pick a spot for the dish and then pull enough coax from the roof to the basement so we can install DISH, WildBlue satellite internet service and repeater(s) for cell phone service.

Besides all of my painting of trim, staining and varnishing the oak doors, completion of the kitchen, installation of major appliances and countertops, what else remains to be done before we can move in?

1. Blow in the insulation in the ceilings. This is scheduled for next Tuesday, Oct 23.

2. Install rain gutters. This should happen next week also.

3. Finish interior trim. We are over 50% done.

4. Fill nail holes and face paint all the trim.

5. Prime and paint the interior of all windows and sliders. (We hired a lady to start doing this asap.)

6. Install railing on the deck and deck stairs.

7. Completion of all tile work....another 2 weeks?

8. Install carpet in the bedrooms, "Do" Room, rec room and stairs. 

9. Hand railing installed on the stairs to lower level.

10. Install toilets, sinks, faucets.
11. Install all ceiling fans and interior light fixtures.

12. Try to find time to paint the garage floor (in this colder weather). My job.

13. Paint the concrete floor in the mechanical room. Also, my job.

14. Terminate all the twisted pair and coax for our network and video wall outlets.

15. Heating contractor will install air-to-air energy recovery system, UV light and humidifier.

16. Exterior finish grading around the house and on the hillside towards the lake.

17. Bury tiles for rain gutters.

18. Final installation of the front door and other two exterior doors. (remove dummy doors)

19. Finish painting the 2 garage door panels and install door opener.

20. Lots of other stuff that I cannot think of right now.

Will we be able to move in before Thanksgiving? That's our target. Maybe. Maybe not.

We've contacted a moving company to plan for moving our furniture and possessions from our Quad Cities storage units.

Oct. 16 - Kitchen base cabinets are installed

Prairie Knoll Cabinetry arrived this morning and by the end of the afternoon we have our base cabinets in place in both the kitchen and master bath!! Tomorrow they come to measure for countertops. And, all our new kitchen appliances are ready in a warehouse in Missouri waiting for the word from us to ship them.

Brenda and Connor posed behind the beginnings of our kitchen island.

Tom and Chuck spent the day outside building the steps up to the deck. Larry made some progress on the tile floor in the hallway to the garage. And I got the remainder of the oak door jambs stained! Lots of good progress. Today was a good day!!

Oct. 15 - Kitchen base cabinets tomorrow

This has been an exhausting stretch of days for me. It seems that the pile of trim that needs to be painted is endless and now I've also started to stain the oak trim and doors as required. I spent a good deal of time on both Saturday and Sunday staining all the oak door jambs in preparation for door casing to be installed. Chuck installed white trim around most of the doors today.

I also started to stain one of the oak pocket doors at Tom's request and quickly learned that it's not going to go very fast. The grain of the oak doors requires that you really rub the stain to get it into the grain. It's not just a wipe on/wipe off. I'm not looking forward to this. My hands are taking a beating, too.

Brenda and I spent another Sunday afternoon at Menards, Sherwin Williams and Wal-Mart in Ottumwa. This time we had Connor along with us.....he's staying with us this week while mom and dad are in Mexico. We picked up bi-fold closet doors and another oak door that had been special ordered and also bought a lot of other things including grout for the master bathroom floor. After Menards we got groceries at Wal-Mart and grabbed some McDonalds before heading home. We had the pickup bed full of doors and the back seat full of Connor, groceries, garage door opener, more paint, etc.

We need to have the bathroom floor done before Hal comes to set the bathroom vanities tomorrow. Well, as soon as the first bag of grout was mixed up by Larry (the Tile Guy) this morning they called Brenda.....the grout color (Bone) seemed to have a pink tone to it. Didn't look right with the tile. So, Brenda and Connor jumped in the car and headed back to Menards to get a different color. Larry got the floor grouted by the end of the afternoon with the new color Chamois.

Tomorrow, Hal should be rolling in with our kitchen cabinets and master bathroom vanities. It should be an exciting time. Hopefully, there won't be any issues or disappointments/setbacks.

I placed another order online today for all our door handles and hardware for the interior doors. It should all be here by the end of the week. I have yet to order the exterior door handles and locks.

I'm also planning to get the toilets ordered soon (which is no easy task). I've done my research and settled on Toto toilets....just need to make sure that I get the right models. We had a Toto in our master bath in Long Grove and liked it a lot. The Toto Drake is one of the top rated toilets in Consumer Reports and is very highly reviewed by people that own them.

This evening, Tom and Nick worked on more electrical finish work. When trying to install the outlet in the top of the fireplace (for the TV), Nick discovered that the wires to that receptacle had been cut. How this stuff happens, no one knows. Nick had to climb into the fireplace from the top in order to find the severed wiring and complete that outlet. He had to climb into the ceiling and over the cathedral ceiling to get to the top of the fireplace. We're lucky that the ceiling insulation hasn't been installed yet!!! I'm glad Nick was agile enough to make that journey through the ceiling to fix the problem.

That one goes right along with the outside faucet that suddenly started leaking when it was used late last one day last week. Water leaked into the lower level bathroom floor and bedroom floor. The next day, Tom found a drywall screw had penetrated the faucet. Luckily, the interior wall (where this exterior faucet it located) had not been bathroom drywalled......waiting for Larry to install the shower walls. Lucky again.

Here's another good one. Over the weekend, we had at least 3 inches of rain. Finally some decent rain, On Saturday afternoon, the ground in front yard that follows the track of the 4 geothermal wells sunk at least a couple of feet. We now have a trench with gravel, mud and water completely under our new sidewalk! It's like our sidewalk is a bridge over this trench. It's not all bad news, though. We actually need to install a drain tile under the walk to allow rain water to exit that area once the rain gutters are installed. This red clay soil turns to a greasy muck when it gets wet. Once it dries out it's like concrete. The trench may have saved us from renting a trencher to get the drain tile installed.

Lots of issues and stress in these final stages of the house. I learned tonight that all our appliances should be assembled in a warehouse in the next 72 hours and be ready to ship. But I don't want them yet. Not until the kitchen is ready towards the end of the month. So I get to negotiate with them about holding off shipment until we're ready.

Tomorrow......more staining. Yeesh.

Oct. 11 - Wood floor is done. Trim work underway.

Tom and Chuck are busy putting up interior doors and trim. I'm painting trim and staying just ahead of their needs. Below are the french doors to Brenda's "Do Room" in the hallway to the garage.
(I don't know how I decided that I could stain all these interior doors myself.)

The crew from Phillips Floors finished up the hardwood floor installation late yesterday afternoon.

Larry the Tile Guy started the tile floor in the master bath today. Tuesday, I painted the wainscotting on the walls. The picture below shows the area where the vanities will be installed next week.

I had a 2nd meeting with a young man who has a landscaping business this afternoon. He is planning to share his ideas with us by the middle of next.

We are preparing for the arrival of our kitchen cabinets early next week and measuring for our countertops on Wednesday. We were notified that our refrigerator was backordered but only until October 22nd.  Perhaps we'll have a functional kitchen by the first week in November.

Oh, ya. Not sure if I told you all about this one. The replacement panels for the big garage door were delivered earlier this week and guess what?  When we unwrapped the, we noticed that the top panel with the windows had dent/crease in the middle. So, the original is dented. The first replacement was never delivered because it was dented. Now the 2nd replacement is dented. Anyone want to know who NOT to buy a garage door from? Ultimately, when the last panel shows up I need to paint both panels before they can be installed.

Oct. 8 - Flooring work starts

Two guys showed up this morning to start laying the 3/4" hickory hardwood flooring in the great room and kitchen area. That's the only place where we'll have hardwood. They expect to be done sometime Wednesday.

Larry the Tile Guy also started working today on the bathrooms. He's another seasoned veteran from this area that comes highly recommended. We bought all the materials and he's providing the labor and expertise.....especially when it comes to the showers. Today, he set the concrete floors for two showers. Larry will be around for at least a couple of weeks to complete his work.

Tom installed 5/16" pine wainscot to the walls in our master bath. Tomorrow morning, I'll be priming and painting what he installed. His guys installed more pine car siding - this time on the ceiling of the screened porch.

I spent most of the day on the internet and on the phone. Paying invoices and ordering more stuff. All our major appliances are now ordered. We also ordered all our bathroom faucets. The ol' bank account and the plastic are SSSSSmokin'.

We are battling paint issues with our trim and windows. We're painting all our interior trim and windows the same white as the kitchen cabinets......White Duck is the color. I worked hard all weekend to start painting the trim and have a lot of the trim already done. Lots more to go, though. Brenda started painting the interior of our Eagle windows.

We do NOT like the trim paint (an interior acrylic latex) that Sherwin Williams sold us. It will not lay down nicely on the wood interior surfaces of our windows. As it dries it separates. I'm having similar results painting the trim, too. Just not as bad as the with the windows. But, I've had to put 2 coats of paint on the pre-primed trim pieces. And you shouldn't have to do 2 coats over primer.

The verdict appears to be that all the windows and sliders will have to be primed before they will accept this paint. SW says that primer doesn't do it's job after 30 days. It goes bad or becomes "contaminated". Most all of windows and doors have been around here for 2 months now. We've asked for some guidance from Eagle but it appears that we have a lot of work in front of us with a paint brush in hand.

This week we'll be getting an LP tank set in place to supply gas to our fireplace. I ordered that today. I've also queued up the local guy who installs DISH TV service. He's an acquaintance from my days with the Iowa Telecommunications User Group. He'll be coming by some evening this week to set a dish on the roof and run the coax into the house. We'll try to get coax run for our cell phone repeater, too. The antenna for that will go on the roof, too.

Oct. 4 - How about this fireplace?

A lot has been accomplished in the past 2 days.
(I'm still able to sneak in a couple of pics under my 1 Gb free allotment from Google.)

The fireplace is done.

And the ceiling in the great room is complete. The ceiling fan goes up tomorrow morning.

Here's the freshly stoned ventilation above the kitchen cooktop. There's a Vent-a-hood underneath.

And, the geothermal system is functional..... just in time for the colder weather.

Still no garage door panels from Lockridge!

We enjoyed the cool, rainy day today with Joy P. and with Pete & Julie who are here visiting from the U.K. Pete & Julie leave tomorrow morning on their vacation/journey driving along old Route 66 through St. Louis and the southwest U.S. So cool to have you here with us. We cherish your friendship. Safe traveling. We hope to see you this winter!!

Oct. 2 - Gaining

One of Tom's favorite questions is "Are you gaining?" I guess we are. Been working hard to stay ahead on my staining before we have company arrive tomorrow. A lot is going on but I cannot post more pics just yet. I exceeded my free space on Google and either need to delete some stuff or pay them a monthly fee. Too tired to decide what to do at this point.

The Centurion Stone boys started on the fireplace today but had to leave in the afternoon to finish another job in Newton. They'll be back tomorrow. Stone work should be done by Thursday.

All our floor tile and bathroom tile arrived today by semi. Four pallets. Tom had to unload the pallets from the semi at the top of the hill with his material handler machine. That thing is a beast. The tile guy will start work late this week or early next week and will be here for 2-3 weeks.

The hardwood flooring installation starts on Monday. One guy will do it all and it will take all week.

My replacement panels for the big garage door finally get here tomorrow from Lockridge. What has it been? 6 weeks or more? The garage door thing has been another fiasco with Lockridge and their garage door supplier. Damaged panels. Damaged replacement panels. They must need to hire some new, competent forklift drivers or something.

All the siding is finally on the house. Tom and his guys starting building the steps from the upper deck. That should be done by the end of the week too. Maybe even have the deck railing up.

All the light fixture wiring and receptacles are hot and check out fine. We had lights on in the main level of the house for the first time tonight.

All the oak interior doors arrive tomorrow from Menards. Menards will also deliver fifty sheets of cement board and eight 50 lb. bags of thin set (for our tile installer) on Thursday.

Kitchen base cabinets are due to be installed the week of Oct 15.

Yep. We're gaining.