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.
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