Shake, shake, shake...

Not much to report the past couple of days.

We went out yesterday to look at the floors, and noticed that one board had split open. I felt it had been broken from the scraping; you have to know when to stop if using "enhanced methods of coercion".

We've since found out that this is called a 'shake board'. It's usually caused by wind weakening a tree in a certain place, then breaking when pressure is applied. It was surgically extracted from the floor and replaced by a less individualistic plank.

We also got up at the crack of dawn for an appliance delivery.

The party starts at 8am tomorrow!

The Floor Gets A Coat

The stain and first coat of clear went on the floor today.

I've just heard from John that they're going to give it a second coat of clear tomorrow (Tuesday), then wait until Saturday for the final coat since everyone will be here on Friday doing electrical, plumbing, cabinets, AC (hopefully), appliances and I'm sure something else I'm forgetting.

The color we went with is 'Sedona Red'. The pictures were taken right after the guys left, so it's very wet and shiny. This isn't quite what it'll look like when it's finished.

Thing we learned today:
We decided to do a lightly hand-scraped finish on the floor instead of the smooth finish we have in the hallway and the dining room.  This was done to hide the inevitable dings and dents from dropping things since it is a kitchen. The scraping process hurt me. Seeing the guys deliberately deface what had been a nice, pretty floor was not pleasant. It is pretty and it is functional, but it sounded like a tree's version of death by a thousand cuts.

Cabinets & Floors

Sorry for the lapse. We gave the web staff the last couple of days off.

OK! The floors went in Wednesday. There was some serious discussion of using them as ark material, but we decided on floors. If that makes no sense, scroll down to the previous post.

It's a nice red oak and will get the first coat of stain on Monday. It looks like it went in without any drama.

The cabinets went in on Thursday.

Well, the cabinet bodies went in on Thursday. The doors & drawers were sent to timeout and will rejoin the class next week. Again, scroll down to prior posts if you can't keep up. There's no "previously on..." nonsense here. We challenge our followers! Hmmm, maybe we should call it "The Kitchen Rubicon"... but I digress...

The counter top guy came and measured today for the granite which is scheduled to go in next Friday. The electrician came a few minutes after sunrise to start his finish-out. We're still missing a couple of the under cabinet fixtures, the can light trim and Carla's chandelier (don't ask), but the barrel has light and the cans work. It's starting to look like a real room!

I also called the GE appliance hot line and asked nicely if they could split our delivery since everything is ready except for the fridge. Asking nicely didn't help. Agreeing to pay the $51 fee for a second scheduled delivery did. Next Thursday we should have a garage full of GE stuff ready to be put in Friday.

I ended the day by installing the speakers and wiring the volume control. You know, the important things!

Well, that's the update, and I really don't expect a lot to happen over the weekend, but I could be wrong.

Not much else happening other than my Mom went missing in Switzerland for about 24 hours, but hasn't that happened to us all?

Have a safe and happy weekend!

flood vs. FLOOD

I go out to the kitchen this morning to pick up stuff for the floor guys who are supposed to come today.  I see this:

There is water along the baseboard in the sink area.  Great.  John (the contractor, if you're not keeping up) had told us that there was some dirt buildup alongside the house that was coving the weep holes in the brick and causing some damage that was discovered during demolition.  I figured that it had been that way for a couple of decades, so it would be a good Fall project while we landscaped the area outside the new picture window.  What I hadn't planned on was Hermine. We got something like 9" of rain overnight.

Not only was I bummed that the drainage project had just gotten moved up, but we're supposed to be getting wood floors installed in the next few hours.  You know what wood floors love more than anything?  Neither do I, but it ain't water!

So boohoo, this is just great, what else can go wrong... then Carla stolls down the hill to see how Rush creek is coping with the rain.  Rush creek is usually very low and calm, but has a tendency to get a little psychotic during heavy rain.  She came back with these pictures:

This is literally about 100 yards from our house -down- the hill.

I'm no longer worried about a pint of water on the concrete slab in the kitchen.

Further flood coverage can be found at: www.nbcdfw.com or www.wfaa.com
I should only point you to nbcdfw, but since WFAA has a helicopter that they can control, and isn't powered by a weedeater, they do have the better aerial shots of the neighborhood.

Smells like... progress

Paint Day!

From about 12:20pm until 5:20pm, we got everything primed and painted with one coat.  We'll see how that looks and go from there.

Charlie's sister, Terry, came over and brought supplies (poles, rollers, brushes, moral support) and really helped get things done.  She did the trim work (voluntarily!) and a lot of the ceiling priming (not Carla's favorite thing to do)

After looking, and looking, and looking at paint, Carla was still uncertain about what color the kitchen should be.  So, the only solution was to choose Sherwin-Williams "Uncertain Gray" as the color!  Not kidding.  It really is called "Uncertain Gray".  They also have a "Spalding Gray" that I wanted to use just because.

It really is more of a blue-gray than it shows in this picture, but it also really depends on angle and time of day. The first few rolls looked like something from the 'USS Missouri Collection' (battleship gray), but it got bluer as it dried. It's going to go nicely with the granite and cabinets (we think/hope/pray).

All that's left is the cut-in of the ceiling paint against the walls, but the light was getting iffy when we quit, and we were tired of looking up.  We'll give it a couple of days and see what needs another coat or to be touched up.

The floors go in today.  Sorry cats, more air tools.

STOP THE PRESSES!

10:55AM UPDATE: Just got a call from Master's Flooring... no floor today.  When we were discussing days with the guy who brought the wood for the floors, he was off a day due to the holiday.   He said 'Tuesday', but he meant 'Wednesday' since they didn't work yesterday.

Floors go in tomorrow morning.  We just keep changing things up to keep the cats on edge.

Why did we do this?

Sunday evening and there is no primer or paint up.  The mud and texture took longer than anyone was expecting and the walls won't be ready until Monday morning.  Monday is going to be a long day.  But that's just the update, not the 'good' story.

Here's the good story:

Carla went to look at the cabinets late Friday afternoon while I was at work.  I talked to her at 5:30pm and she was happy with cabinets, but couldn't get over the size of them and the general amount of 'stuff' that was supposed to go into the kitchen.  She liked the color and commented on the smell of the paint shop.  That was it, so yippee!, the cabinets are good to go!

I got home at 11pm or so and hooked her camera up to the computer so I could take a good look at the pictures she'd taken of the cabinets.  I start looking at them, trying to piece them together in my head as to what goes where, when I notice the doors.  The doors and drawers are nothing like I'd pictured in my minds eye.  All of a sudden, I'm looking at a mountain of partially stained maple cabinetry and wondering what happened.  I've been told by a couple of people that I got 'stressed' about this time.  I have no recollection.

Here's a quick rundown of what happened:
When deciding on cabinet style, we chose a flat panel with a really dark stain.  We discussed this with the John the contractor and came to an understanding.  We then found a picture online of what we had in mind and sent him a link to it.  Without going into detail, let me just warn you that you should send PICTURES of something like this, not LINKS.  The link was broken and went to a different set of cabinets.

So, instead of something like this:

We were looking at this:

Now, the bottom one isn't stained yet, but it's a raised panel door with a bevel on the edge.  (This is the piece that will go above the desktop, by the way.) It's a really nice cabinet that looks really well made, but isn't what I was expecting.  Carla was OK with it until I had my little meltdown.  All I could think about was the hardware she'd picked out wouldn't really work with that door style and the expensive maple doors we got for the garage and closet wouldn't match.  We had some more decisions to make if these were going to be our cabinets.

After talking to John the next morning, I decided to drive out to Weatherford and take a look at them myself.  John agreed that they weren't what he was expecting either, and we decided to have them make new doors and drawers.

So....

What we learned this weekend:
Even if you think everybody is on the same page and thinking the same thing, ask for pictures, drawings, etchings, hieroglyphics... something during the process before you're looking at half a maple forest that's been meticulously shaped into something you don't like.

I'm guessing Carla will chime in with her version of events when she gets a minute.

Tape, bed and Texture

Sorry it's been quiet the past couple of days, but it really is more of the same: Tape, bed and texture.

We hope to get up bright and early Saturday to prime the whole thing.  Tomorrow we're heading to Weatherford to take a look at the cabinets during the staining process. 

Look for pics this weekend!

-Things we learned today: The tankless hot water heater that we didn't really need, but had to get, qualifies for a tax credit!... but we maxed out our '09-'10 energy tax credits last year with the new AC/furnace. I would question the logic of the 2 year window for energy tax credits, but I have the utmost confidence that the IRS made that rule to... oh, who am I kidding.