The last few weeks of this house build has felt like speed dating. Having never had the experience before, in either case, it seems like something you should get some training for. I am unaccustomed to the rapid fire decision making that is needed to get things moving at pace. There are many things that we simply didn’t think of before the question was asked, so come what may, we have made some decisions. Some of which were made without enough sleep and out of frustration at simply not being able to decide, so it feels a bit like sliding into home…its going to get messy.
That all sounds a bit doomsday, but in reality the house is looking beautiful and we are beyond excited to get to the moving in part. But first, an update on the last few weeks. Apologies for delaying the post, there were things going on!
So our mechanical room is decidedly not messy. I took an updated picture of this yesterday, which doesn’t seem to have made it to my camera roll, so you get the one from three days ago…it is a work of art, all clean and tidy and labelled copper pipes and tubes – the labels written are in black, they all go the same direction and are in neat block letters. I am constantly amazed at the craftsmanship that goes into every trade that shows up on site. So grateful for their skill (and likely mixed with a healthy dose of OCD). I’d be hauling water from the drink and warming it on a wood stove for all the skill I bring to the table.
We have watched our kitchen go from a mish mash of numbered cabinets, to another thing of beauty, gradually adding sinks, faucets, countertops and drawer pulls to get it that much closer to finished. Some lessons learned along the way? Our floors aren’t quite as sturdy as we thought (there has been a bit of damage that we need to fix), and the cabinets are also not quite as sturdy as we thought, although we believe this to be a hazard of construction rather than needing to worry so much about this after all the tools have left the building!).
The tiler, Tristan, has been busy as well, getting the showers and master bathroom floor finished so I can see what my bathtub really looks like in place. The bathroom on the main and the girls bathroom upstairs are both nearly done with the surrounds tiled, cabinets, counters and fixtures in. Just lighting to go, and of course the doors.
Our painting crew has suffered a bit for some labour troubles and it is taking a lot longer to work through the house and get the walls and trim done. The upstairs is completed at this point, but the downstairs still needs a lot of work and one (and sometimes two) lonely painters are doing their best to make progress. The doors were in, and then removed again so they could be taken away to be stained. In the end, this makes it easier to move about the house for us and the crew and reduces the chance that one of those lovely doors becomes a casualty of fast moving people and things.
On the outside of the house, they have finished the work on the soffit for the underside of the porch and it looks beautiful. We are really happy with how its turned out and even more happy to not be staining anymore shiplap!
Also outside the house, Jeff has started the enormous process of caulking and re-painting the exterior. The siding gets pretty scuffed up when its being put up and this is a necessary next step for getting the outside finished. In truth, we could have tasked the work to our building crew, but in the end, they are not painters and we (Jeff) would not likely be satisfied with the result. Fair, but it means we are signed up as a whole for the painting that needs to happen pronto. Winter is coming. I surveyed Jeff’s work yesterday and it is definitely worth it. I will be joining the work today so I can hopefully lighten that load a bit.
Adam, our builder, is probably tearing his hair out these days after a few mistakes have lead to a some costly re-dos. There was a problem with some of the lower siding that has meant they have re-placed about a quarter of the lower section under the porch, and a few cuts or scrapes on our flooring inside will make it necessary to replace pieces in the kitchen and living room – there may be more but the rest of the house is still very much a construction zone so it’s hard to see if/where there might be trouble. When we went hunting for the extra flooring (because there’s always extra), Jeff only found a few pieces. I called the flooring supplier and they have a bit more that they are setting aside for us. Add another run to Cranbrook to our to-do list…We also discovered that our kitchen sinks come with chrome waste baskets and drains which don’t match the stainless taps. Replacements are on order which will hopefully arrive next week while the plumbers continue to work through the finishing everywhere else. To the list of calamities, we have had some hardware on our laundry cabinets placed on the wrong doors (after also discovering that one of the doors had been damaged during the countertop install by the vendor), so now instead of having one door replaced, we are replacing 4 doors. I’m sure Adam will be glad to see this phase of the work finished. I can see how hard it is – all things are brand new, but there are lots of bodies doing work, heavy tools and ladders and things being moved. Something is bound to happen. To his credit, he is calm and soldiering on…after having a come-to-Jesus meeting with his crew about being careful.
This week we will see the septic finally installed, the wood stove, and the double-oven and fridge installed. My tub will find its way to its final resting place (Yay!) and after some test driving in the living room for where to drill the faucet holes, we will see the plumbing installed. My bathroom seems to be taking the longest to complete, but that appears to be in the hands of our tiler, who is not speedy, but worth waiting for.
In the spirit of decisions made with too little sleep and out of frustration, we added the final three ceiling lights to the done list, along with the mirrors and some last minute hardware choices. All things that can be changed later if it doesn’t look quite right. One decision we made a long while ago now, the faucets for the bathroom sinks, I know isn’t quite right as the spout seems too long for the sink, but again, I’m trying to cut us some slack. We’ll see how it works after we move in, and if it is truly awful it can be changed.
I have closet organizers and window coverings on the to-do still. Both are not hard, but require some measuring and thought, time for which I have precious little of at the moment. We have timed our house completion perfectly with the chaos of September school/sport/all things extra-curricular restarting. We’re amazing that way.