September 29, 2009: Cleaning near done

Went out to the house on Friday and Tuesday. Between the two days, glass was put in the cabinets, grass was growing well, bricks had been cleaned, railings had been stained, and the last of the locks were put on the doors. Essentially everything is done now (we have a Certificate of Occupancy) except for some touch ups so I'll probably only update this blog once more when all the touch ups are done.

Most of these pictures are from Tuesday (29th) unless otherwise noted.

View of the house from the front. The bricks have been cleaned and grass is now growing.

Glass installed in the cabinets (from Friday)

Another view of the kitchen.

The outside railings were stained. Also see where the locks on the front door were installed. The front doors still need to be stained.

View of the great room from the dining room. Some painting had been touched up on the steps.

Another view of the steps.

View of the basement from beneath the dining room looking towards the area underneath the great room. All the insulation is now in.

Basement underneath the main level bedroom as seen from the basement underneath the dining room.

View from the East on Friday. It was raining. Mulch had been delivered and spread out in front of the house.

View from the fron of the house.

View from the Northwest

Straight on view from the side.

View from the side yard.

View from the backyard.

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September 11, 2009: Garage, Floor Sealed

On Friday, I went out to the house after work. The garage door was in, the hardwood had been sealed and a few things other things were done.

View of the house from the road.

A doggy door was put in on the garage back door. It locks on the inside.

The garage door was installed. Wasn't operational when I was there, so this is the best picture I have.

The hardwood floors were sealed, so we can't walk on them until Monday.

However, I could peek in again at the front entrance. Here's the great room. All the sunlight reflecting off the floor is skewing the light sensors in the camera making the floor look lighter here than it actually is.

Stairs. This is a bit more representative of the color.

Dining room floor.

Great room looking towards the fireplace.

A "temporary" railing was installed on the front porch. We are thinking of doing concrete railings long term, but this looks pretty good so we might put that off for a while and maybe just stain the railing to match the door.

A close up of the condensers (dual-zone)

The freon tubes coming out to the condensers.

And inside the house where the freon tubes go outside.

The driveway was graded a bit, but won't be finished until Monday.

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September 8, 2009: Staining and driveway begin

We made it out to the house on Monday, though not much visibly had been done (Dan was busy prepping for the seeding guy, but that was mostly smoothing out the soil). On Tuesday, however, floor staining and the driveway installation began.

The stained great room floor and stairs. The stain color is English Chestnut. This (and all the floor stain pictures) were taken leaning into the front door as we can't walk on the floor for a while.

The dining room floor.

Looking across the great room.

The driveway was graded and crushed stone began to be put down (by the garage), but then a rather large rain storm came up. Not so conveniently while I was there making a small change on a corner of the driveway.

From Monday - the ridge was stained and the dormer was painted.

The outside units for the air conditioners were installed on Tuesday (no inside pics - mud + stained floors),

On Monday, I also noticed that electrical boxes were put in on the kitchen island.

On Monday, we also took some "family" shots on the front porch. From left to right: Fritz, Preethi, Silver.

And here's Fritz, me, and Silver.

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September 4, 2009: Let there be light

On Friday, we did not make it out to the house until after the sun went down. Fortunately, the lighting fixtures were installed which really go a long ways towards making it look like a finished house. For whatever reason, the flash on the camera seemed to make rooms look a lot yellower in the picture than in person.

View of the great room and kitchen. You can see the track lighting on the great room wall (where we'll hang paintings), recessed lights in the ceiling, and pendant lights in the background in the kitchen (there are more lights in the kitchen than you can see in this picture). In the background, Preethi is fiddling with the remote control for the great room fan.

This is the fan Preethi was controlling. It's rather large and moves a good bit of air even when not spinning very quickly.

A different view of the great room which let's you see all three recessed lights on the south side of the great room. There's a total of six recessed lights in the great room. Interestingly, we found that the track lighting did a much better job of lighting up the room (brighter and more even light) than the recessed lights, probably because they aim up towards the reflective white ceiling while the recessed lights aim down.

The track lights.

The kitchen all lit up (except for some recessed lights). We'll have to lower the pendants over the island a little bit.

Lights were in the closets too (here, the pantry)

Light over the sink in the main level bath.

Stairwell lights. Effectively nightlights so you can see the steps in the dark.

The hanging light in the stairwell. Preethi was there when they hung up this light. She said it only took 2 minutes.

Light/fan in one of upstairs bedrooms.

Lights over the tub in the master bath.

The shower in the master bath.

Lights on my side of the master bath.

Lights in a different bedroom on the top floor.

View of the stair light from that same bedroom. Note that smoke detectors are also in.

For perspective on how many lights were put in Friday, here's the boxes for the lights.

Last of the outlets were put in in the basement.

Insulation in the basement. Still a little more to add in a few places like the preceding pic.

The whole house fan is now operational (we tested it for fun).

Laundry room. The last of the hookups were cleaned up.

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