Blooper Reel II

The upstairs bathrooms have cabinets! And the master even has sinks! The sinks are a cultured marble but in a very cool pattern/color called pumpernickel that looks sort of granite-y and is mostly black but with greenish undertones. It's very pretty and a nice contrast to the cabinets and the lighter floor tile. The accent tile in the shower is a mottled black that should tie it all together. (At least that is what I envisioned...the jury is still out on how it really will all come together!) What you don't see is that the tower runs into the clipped ceiling and so the cabinet had to be clipped as well. I love the slopes in bungalows but I'm not sure how all ours ended up in the bathrooms. That wasn't so obvious on the flat blueprints! Ah well....

Conor's vanity is definitely a bit of a blooper. You can see from the picture that the cabinet design has the drawers all the way to the walls, with no filler. I hadn't really focused on this and the original cabinet style didn't have full overlay drawers (the master bath are not full overlay for example) so it might not have been an issue. However, when we switched to the beadboard cabinets, it lengthened the drawers as well. Now, when you open the drawers on the left they will bump into the molding around the entry door. We might have been able to live with that but it also means you can't remove a drawer without removing the molding and under the heading of 'you just never know' we figured it was better to address it now! They've removed the drawer fronts, which are very simple in style, and are going to trim them an 1" on each end, and sand and finish them. Keep your fingers crossed that it works. I'm skeptical but hopeful (and very glad I didn't pay for full extension drawers)!

They made the repairs to the window well outside (still waiting for the drywall/insulation repairs inside). After digging it all up, they poured a truckload of gravel underneath it and then smoothed and graded the top layer. It's starting to look like a real yard...croquet anyone?

October 21st (MI day) sure feels like it is right around the corner and there is an awful lot that still has to happen at the house! The trim is complete upstairs, but hasn't even been started in the basement. On the main level, the crown and baseboard are in, but there are still built-ins and a mantle to build around the fireplace and cabinets to build in the office. And the painter (yes, the lack of the plural is NOT a typo) just got started, soooooooo...........you can bet I'll be asking Dave daily if we're going to be in on time! Stay tuned!

Camera Angle is Everything!

Looking less like a construction zone and more like a home!! Well, except that's only true from the north side of the house. The south side has the crater around the window well (see today's earlier post) but from this carefully chosen angle it looks downright habitable. The huge mounds of dirt have been graded into what looks remarkably like a yard! Brian's meeting with the landscaper tomorrow to talk about hydroseeding the yard - apparently it has better long term results than sod and, happy coincidence, it's cheaper. If we can get it done next week we think we'll be in good shape weather wise for it to 'take' before the long, cold winter sets in. We're just going to cut in beds and mulch for now. Real planting requires a plan and more decisions so it is just simply not happening! I'll curl up in front of our fireplace with a lot of good gardening books over the winter and be ready to go as soon as spring arrives (sometime in June!!)

We have upper and lower cabinets now! The back of the island will be beadboard and there is molding for the top of the cabinets. Feels very much like a kitchen. We had the designer out from Ethan Allen this week and are narrowing down the selections for furniture, fabric and paint colors.

This was a pretty shocking sight when I came around the corner in the master bath. I can tell you that whatever tile goes up will be a huge improvement over this outrageous pink waterproofing stuff. Yikes. The floors have all been tiled and grouted, just the shower and the fireplace surround to go.

The painters are in doing all the caulking and prep work for the whole house. Then the trim gets painted, so I've got a few days to finalize the wall colors...

A Real Tearjerker!

Two weekend's ago it rained in biblical proportions -- 11 inches over 3 days -- and we found our Achilles heel in the house. When they backfilled around the window well outside the egress window in the basement bedroom, they didn't ensure that the ground was firmly packed UNDER and around it. The large amount of water caused the dirt to collapse under the base and shift the whole base upward, dislodging the drain which clogged with dirt. The window well then filled to the top with water and began to seep into the house! I discovered it while giving a house tour right before the ND/Michigan game, but thought the drain had just clogged. I didn't realize what a big deal it actually was. As you can see from the pix, they had to excavate all around the window well and they are going to put in some gravel and ensure that they do a better job of backfilling this go around. They'll also replace the drywall and insulation under the window as it is a wet muddy mess! The concrete floor is easy to clean, however!

There ARE actually several pieces of good news, however...1) better we discovered it before there's carpet and furniture etc to deal with 2) it's a one time fix and we shouldn't have to 'revisit' it ever again and 3) even without a graded yard or gutters, there was no other water in the basement, which means we are in really good shape longterm and 4) we are unlikely to have 11" of rain on a regular basis...but if we do, we'll be ready.

Product Placement

Sorry for the lapse in postings. I went back to work this week (for those that don't already know) as an Academic Advisor at the Mendoza College of Business at the University of Notre Dame! Our whole life will be contained in an area about a mile square now that Brian and I both work at ND and Conor's school is just across the street. If you're going to live the dream, you've got to go all in!! I think it's going to be a great job and it feels good to have something to obsess about besides the house for a change.

But work continues at 918. Despite some inclement weather, Mike got the patio poured, stained and stamped this week. Since the house has such square lines, we purposely put some curves in the patio for a little variation. Not sure how much planting we'll get down this fall (ok, probably none) but we envision this as a lawn-mower-free zone ultimately!

We also got our final stairs and some beautiful oak banisters going up and down! The half walls will also have oak tops to match the wood floors on the main level, but you still need a banister to meet the ubiquitous and all-important 'code'. One thing I didn't know when we started this is that they put in "construction steps" and only put in the real deal as part of the finish work. Even if you're carpeting, as we are. We put the stairs in the back so we didn't have to spend so much money to make them centerpiece worthy!!

Three out of five areas finally have tile, but that has been the biggest challenge of this project. Poor Rob! He's carted more 'wrong' tile around than you would think possible. After scrapping Plan A due to cost, Plan B for the master bath came in wrong TWICE. The wall tiles were fine but two different lots of the floor tile came in with a greenish haze that just didn't fit with our planned decor!! Gotta love the Chinese quality control standards! So we're onto Plan C for the master bath, which is a combination of some tile from Plan A in a lighter color, the layout from Plan B and some new deco tiles and ceiling tiles. I did tell Rob that at this point I almost don't care what he puts in -- no matter what, it is going to be new and clean and he does beautiful work so slap something up already!

To the right is the basement bath/hall - almost complete. The diamond pattern was originally planned with 6x6 tiles, but those ended up only coming as wall tiles which are too thin to put on the floor and trying the mix and match routine just made my head hurt. We kept the same plan for a rug-look in the hallway and just used the 12x12s. I think once it's grouted and cleaned up, it will be just the thing! In the laundry/mud room we finally got the right color tile but a couple of the boxes of the 18x18 were more than a shade off so some new stuff were supposed to be delivered today. I'll check it out tomorrow when we take the football fans down to check out the progress. Hopefully the tile odyssey will come to an end within a week or so.

All the cabinets were delivered on Wednesday and Alan has started installing the kitchen. So far - so good. It's a bit of deja vu as the kitchen will look remarkably like our Vienna kitchen when it's all put together! Why mess with perfection? I haven't picked backsplash tile yet, but that can wait until the granite goes in!

We're less than 6 weeks to MI day so keep your fingers crossed. I'll try to update at least once a week. Next week we hope to finalize the main floor furniture and paint colors. Stay tuned for more of the Perils of Pauline!