Mon, ce qu'une belle porte que vous avez ! *

There have been incremental fixes and finishes happening over the last month. In the construction industry, we would say the project has reached "Substantial Completion for Beneficial Occupancy."  Which means you can use it for its intended purpose.  What we're doing now would be considered "punch list" items.  I'm getting the feeling this could go on for a long time.  In other words, we will never be done.

Nevertheless, L continues to work on door and window trims and fine-tuning much of the finish work.  Today, he was THIS close to finishing the trim on the French door,  only to find out the last piece did not quite fit.  This will need final paint and the final piece of trim, but it looks very good.  I should get better pix than this, which was at dusk and so hard to gauge light value with the camera.

The contrast and workmanship is very clear on the close-up shot. I am loving the way these dark trimmed bits make the doors and windows POP.

The rain chain has been completed and attached to barrel. L chose the lotus shaped rain cups and I think it works very well.

It seemed that as soon as we put up the rain chain, it was tested. With buckets of rain. Buckets. One might even say, barrels.  The chain was whipping around in the wind so much, L had to find a way to secure it vertically.

I thought this would be awkward, but it's about 7 feet up so I don't even see it.  Since these pix were taken, L has planted some sweet potato vines in the cutout at top of barrel. Hopefully, they will grow down and around the barrel.

That's all for this report. It might be a while before there's another.

* (My, what a lovely door you have!)

Housewarming, Misc bits

We did the (first?) housewarming on March 20, and it went better than I could have imagined.  The house was "clean enough to be healthy and dirty enough to be happy" as the saying goes.  We did put in some extra effort, but some areas simply aren't done and we weren't going to worry about them.  I think we ended up with at least 50 people all told and I think at one point we must have had at least 30 at one time.  It was crazy and exhausting, but I loved it.

Elizabeth stepped up to the plate, figuratively and literally, and took care of the food table, refilling drink coolers, veggie trays, at one point running out to Plaid Pantry for more mayo and mustard.  She was a trooper and she even cleaned up afterwards while I relaxed and visited with relatives.  She took the kitchen from after-party disaster to model home in 45 minutes.

 

In other news, L got the new rain chain and barrel. He set up a place for barrel, with pavers and retaining wall, and one length of chain (which will eventually need to be 2 stories long).  Then, within hours of him doing this work, we entered a period of about 48 hours of nonstop rain. Talk about timing.  The rain "cups" on chain are a little different and I'm glad because they add a little character to the back porch.

 One thing that was mentioned, uh, a couple times, was that there were no house numbers displayed. At some point, we took down the old ones and never put the new ones up.  The substitute mailman was not pleased, nor were a couple souls trying to locate house for party.  We downloaded some Celtic-y fonts on Sunday and within a couple days L had a wonderful, painted customer house number sign posted on the house.  Don't you love it?  I told him that not EVERYTHING needed a Celtic or Irish flavor and he said he wanted the sign to hint at the style within the house.  Once again, I think he hit a home run.

The Home Stretch

Wow, it's been over a month. Things don't FEEL like they are slowing down, but the construction is definitely.  L has been working on baseboards and trim and some landscaping, but there's not much clever to say about any of them.

We got 4 "hellebores" plants which are going in front of porch landing.

We got some primroses to put in immediately behind the retaining wall.  L thought they looked a little lonely, so after this pix was taken, he went and got 10 more.

We tried out some curtains for Front window; they are still a "wait-and-see" - they do block more light than I expectd, but the color is a dead ringer for the red couch, and I like the spare square pattern.  It makes for a very dramatic look after not having trim on the window for so long; it just looks really polished.

We are getting rid of the old kitchen appliances; the dishwasher left about 10 days ago.  I worked several hours on old fridge, and I'm not even sure that I should show you the CLEAN pix.  The gaskets were the WORST. OMG, how does stuff even get IN there?  You can be sure I went to check the gaskets on new fridge after that.  The oven in stove needs to be cleaned, and the microwave is probably in pretty good shape (once we get the big stuff out and I can reach back there).

Finally, gratuitous cat pix.  Eiko is growing like a weed, from just under 4 lbs December 5, to nearly 8 pounds now.  We have taken to locking her up and giving Joe a 5-minute headstart on the kibble because he needs to gain some weight, and he's been way too paternal and caregiving to push her out of the way when she dives into his food.  We think "Eiko" is actually Japanese for "belly with legs."

As you can see, she eventually forgives us.

Housewarming is in less than 2 weeks.  We won't be at 100% but I figure we never will be, so at some point you gotta sit down and drink beer.

Hardscape, and a painful goodbye

We've had a small retaining wall between front lawn and driveway for several months. In the last couple weeks, we've added to this and we think that it helps to finish the look. We still need to reseed the lawn in tiny front yard, but there are some nice touches to these hardscapes. For instance, there is a low wall now across the front of yard.

This is the southeast corner of property. There are a few sapling trees in this corner, and maybe next year, we'll build some sort of enclosure for the recycling bins next to it.

A couple steps up to assist in pulling out the garden hose, accessing the utility meter, etc. We may put some sort of low-lying bush here. It depends on if the meter readers can aim their wireless units through the bush to get the reading.

A nice touch to the entry steps.

I'm very sad to report that we had to put Mosa down Friday night. She seemed to be recovering fine from her routine dental procedure about a week ago. We had started the subcutaneous fluid injections at home that she was going to require probably for the duration of her life (however long that would be) due to her kidney disease. She was picking at one of the IV sites, and trying to pull the bandages off - hard to do without teeth but she was trying.

On Tuesday, at postop followup visit, vet gave her an antibiotic injection and we brought pills home. She started declining almost immediately, and we thought perhaps she was reacting to the antibiotic. She was listless on Thursday, crawling under her favorite blanket. Because this is fairly typical for her, we didn't read it as a sign she knew she was dying and finding a place to hide, as animals often do.

I'm considering putting up a separate album of photos of the cats on Flickr, to memorialize her, but right now here are a couple of my favorites of our Tiny Diva.

Almost finishing up

Still working on finishing touches. My big hope is that we get the backsplash done for Christmas. Need to call the tile place and find out status.

Retaining wall - we've added low retaining walls in other areas of the front yard; this is only part of it. I love how the color of the house is picked up in some of the stones. L has some better pix which hopefully I can post in a day or two.

Fireplace - after looking at dozens in catalogs, and in a couple stores, we ordered something very much like this. The insert accentuates the eyebrow arch which ties into some of the architectural detail in Living Room and hallway.

Stained Glass Insert was delivered this week and L installed it. I love it. I was a little worried that the green border would be kelly green because that's what it looked like when they photoshopped it in. But, it's perfect. We are considering small lights inside the cabinet to illuminate the insert because it came out so well. It's very pretty without jumping in your face and yelling, "Look at ME ME ME!"

Living Room Rug was also delivered this week. For the time being, L put it down without the pad which ships separately. I think it makes the room look more finished, and cozy.

L has been working on interior window trims and they are starting to look really good. Time to take the construction plastic off the windows and get / make some curtains.

L has installed the guest room closet doors. These open up like French doors for full access to closet and the woodwork is great. They are very similar to the closet doors at entry from Garage.

L wanted a small table for the phone. Surprise! He found one with dragons on it LOL. At least, this keeps the phone and answering machine off my end table and gives me some room. I should get better pix, but the stuff out of the cellphone has been really poor lately.

We've been quite preoccupied with Mosa the last week or so. Saturday, she started bleeding from her mouth. We already had her scheduled for a blood pressure check on Monday. However, the vet was very concerned about this, especially after drawing blood work and noting how much her kidney disease has progressed. She went in on Thursday for 24-hour IV drip to flush her system, had the procedure around 11 on Friday and 6 hours later, came home. Since they had to try several IVs, she's all bandaged up like the loser on WWE, but her rough tongue would prevent the spots from healing so they need to be covered up. Today, she's a red lady, who knows what she'll be tomorrow.

Spring Has Sprung

Well, things will finally be changing inside. The last several weeks have been full of rough-in plumbing, electrical, much stuffing of insulation, pulling extra nails, etc. Last week, we pulled the awful, cheap parquet squares out of the Living Room. Tomorrow, in theory, we will get WALLS!

So, let's relax first among some of the newer residents OUTSIDE...

Along the walk to front porch are a few flowering maples, hard to see here, but they should bulk up over the next year.

At the bottom of the steps, there are two more plants. We can't remember what this one is:

but this one is called Golden Shamrock. So, in memory of Dad, how could we not get this. And, since we planted it, it has started to bloom.

In the patch between driveway and the south property line, there are two new residents.

One is the lilac bush that wasn't doing well in the parking strip and is going to town once moved.

This is snuggling up to the lilac and I should remember what this is, but I do not. There is also a fair amount of this in the back yard. Ladyfinger? Lavendar? Purply stuff?

This is the new cherry tree. It sort of replaces the one that was taken down a month ago in the front yard.

Moving to the backyard...

this is the new apricot tree. At least we THINK it's apricot. It had labels for both apricot and nectarine on it, but the leaves looked like the other apricot saplings. I wanted nectarine, but I was outvoted.

The rest of the yard is looking better, with some rough grading and new topsoil added.

Next up, before and afters of the new walls?