Backstory Blueprints Photo Archive January 2005 February 2005 March 2005 April 2005 May 2005 June 2005 July 2005 August 2005 September 2005 October 2005 November 2005 December 2005 January 2006 February 2006 March 2006 Current Blog

Wednesday, February 1, 2006 Marcel's guys sanded our quarter-sawn red oak floor and put on a clear coat which brought out the natural color of the wood. Another transformation overwhelms us. Joy and I are very pleased with the results. We're also glad we didn't ask Marcel to put a touch of stain into the mix to darken the floor. The contrast of the natural grain would have disappeared. We like the overall lightness as a contrast to the dark wood of the cabinets and other wood work. Marcel will return one last time when we're closer to moving in to do one final finish coat. In the mean time, we have a long list of subcontractors we're hoping to coordinate and have finish up this month. Electrical finish, alarm and communications, plumbing, furnace and fireplaces, tile and carpet, stair and wall base work, shower doors -- all wait for their turn. Between our shopvac and the vacuum system (which might get installed by Saturday) we'll have the tools for a rigorous cleaning of a thick layer of dust which coats most of the house. Sunday, February 5, 2006 A beautiful day in Sandy forced my camera out. I can never get enough of clear views of Mt. Hood. Since Marcel's second to last hardwood finishing visit, Stan put lazy-susans and other hardware into the kitchen cabinets and did some adjustments to cabinet doors Saturday. Friday, James returned to wrap a post holding up the entry roof and did some touch-up work on the siding. Joy has spent three weekends and countless hours smoothing sheetrock nubs on a short section of hallway from the master bedroom to the vanity where she decided to do wallpaper instead of paint. Amazing patience or insane compulsion, you make the call. The upcoming week should see Tom, the tile-setter, doing some key grouting and maybe some kitchen splash installation. We're still looking for that vacuum guy. The electricians should return to the kitchen and elsewhere. Others may arrive and jockey for space. Can we get it together by the end of the month? Tuesday, February 7, 2006 Tile man, Tom, and crew grouted the downstairs marble floor and powder bath wainscoting. Monday night we laid out marble pieces for installation around the hearths, which Tom prepared Tuesday. The big deal of the day for Joy was seeing the tile getting installed on the kitchen backsplashes. Her choice turned out to be a great compliment to the wild nature of the slab marble decks. The vacuum system was installed. Joy introduced it to some dust around the hearth. The electricians installed hanging lights over the island and can-lights elsewhere in the kitchen and other main level areas. The island lights hang down a bit by design and I can already see they will block the view of Mt. Hood out the kitchen window if they're between you and the view and you happen to be taller than Joy. We'll see if a little adjustment is in order down the road. The other big deal of the day for Joy was the long-awaited hanging of the bat-light in the piano alcove. She had purchased this light before we broke ground over a year ago and threatened to put it in the middle of one of the main rooms. We compromised by giving it its own "cave" where the scary piano music is played. Sunday, February 12, 2006 Over the course of the week, Tom and crew finished the main level and downstairs hearth marble and put marble around the master tub and laundry splashes. We had to have an outlet raised in the laundry room to get the tile at the height we wanted. Wednesday, we were showing our neighbor, Linda, their beautiful work on the kitchen splash from earlier in the week when we noticed the listello pieces seemed to change color after a run. Click on the backsplash picture from the last entry and you'll see what I mean. I gently wedged them out of the glue, we cleaned them up, and Joy ordered more hoping to get the correct dyelot. That puts another little delay in things since they were a special order item. The other Tom, our plumber, did some preliminary attaching of plumbing hardware in the various cabinets where sinks will be set. But the biggie from him was the setting of the downstairs toilet. We can now get rid of the outhouse we've been renting for over a year. We coaxed Bonnie out of retirement from wallpaper hanging to help us out in the dining room. The electricians informed us that the wall sconce lights could not be hung until the paper was up and there was no way Joy and I could do it that fast so she saved our bacon all day Sunday. Wednesday, February 15, 2006 All these finish details are driving us a little crazy. Getting contractors to the house to do their part in a certain order involves a certain amount of luck and wishful thinking. And when a little detail like not having a hole drilled in marble top for a faucet fitting occurs, it means we must instantly figure out who can do the task so the contractor can continue. These guys have schedules to keep and it's a better use of their time to have a full day of work, so they tend to put you off until you've sorted out the details. To get it all done by the end of February looks daunting. Faucets have been set in the kitchen, master bathroom, laundry, downstairs bar, but not the downstairs bath. The second of three toilets has been set in the master bath. No plumbing has been done in the main level bath because hardwoods need the final coat. Heating man, Jim, has installed the oven hood fan and is working with the complex furnace/fresh air system. Jeff, the audio/video/alarm man, is doing his thing. Customline, providers of mirrors, shower doors and other bath hardware, installed some mirrors in the master bath. Joy thinks the mirrors on her cabinet need a little adjusting. Steve and crew hung all the prefinished wall base upstairs and downstairs. Steve also cut the metal rods to fit in the stair railings and discovered he has to customize the fittings on the pieces containing decorative features. Square pegs don't seem to fit round holes. His dilemma is a good metaphor for everything at this stage. We want nothing more than to round this whole thing out. Sunday, February 19, 2006 Jeff set alarm hardware Friday and Saturday. Customline nearly finished setting shower doors and kitchen cabinet glass. Thursday, February 23, 2006 Tom and his guys set the final pieces of tile we've been waiting for and grouted all the areas. We discovered Tuesday night to our horror that the master bath areas looked like they had been caulked and grouted by a kindergartner. We reported it to Tom and he drove clear across town and spent two hours at our house cleaning up. Apparently he thought his relatively new hire had the ability for the intricacies of the marble and deco pieces, but he was mistaken. Things cleaned up for the most part, but we're not happy with the tobacco brown grout from the splash making its way into the pours of the bottocino counter slabs around the perimeter. A product called poultice is applied to draw this stuff to the surface, but after we spent another couple hours of work Wednesday, we still see the signs. More applications of poultice will be coming. It's a bad way to end this whole thing. Tom is a great tile setter and we will continue to use him for future jobs, but this episode has us a little on guard. To be fair, Joy and I are kind of at our wits end with the project and so we're in tune to all the imperfections to the point of being a little over the top. Many people would call the "damage" done very minor. Customline set the main level shower glass door that had been missing and attempted to fix mirrors in Joy's master cabinet. The mirrors had been rubbing when the doors were opened, producing a lovely fingernails on chalkboard effect. They appeared to remove the mirrors and cut or sand away some of the width before reapplying them to the cabinet, but they are out of square and look like they were done by Tom's grouter. On this issue we're not being picky. They're just bad. Stan and Matt applied some finish wood to the cabinets below the master and laundry slabs and put a gazillion knobs on all the cabinets. Jim continued work on various gas-related things including the furnace and fresh air system, the hot water heater (plumber Tom needs to connect the water), the fireplaces, and the thermostats. He also put some extra filters over the cold air returns to keep the new dust we're expecting from Marcel's final hardwood sanding and coating Friday from entering the furnace system. Sunday, February 26, 2006 We arrived at the house Friday evening to check on Marcel's work and were only able to peak in the door, overwhelmed by the smell of the finish coat. Standing out in the garage our eyes burned so we got out of there. But we were happy to know that we could finally start the intense cleaning we'd been anticipating. Layers of dust coat everything from any contractor that cut, sanded or sprayed anything in the house. We wiped down all the wainscoting and cleaned all the cabinets inside and out including individual drawers. It took us the weekend to clean the main level and part of the upstairs laundry. Bonnie returned to tackle wallpaper in the master bedroom. Having the hardwoods done will allow us to move into the final phases of finish electrical, plumbing and wood work. We have a moving company scheduled for March 11. Nothing motivates like a future date, barring any inspection delays. Continue on to March

Backstory Blueprints Photo Archive January 2005 February 2005 March 2005 April 2005 May 2005 June 2005 July 2005 August 2005 September 2005 October 2005 November 2005 December 2005 January 2006 February 2006 March 2006 Current Blog