Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Tile has started...

We've spent the past week or so painting, which is coming along but time consuming. The bathrooms are done, with 2 coats of satin each, thanks to my mom visiting this weekend! The rest of the surfaces have 1-2 coats but are not done. Eric has specified flat for ceilings and eggshell for walls. We've also got some issues with primer peeling off drywall mud in some places - some attribute this to Chinese drywall mud. I think it may be the humidity, but Argent, our HVAC guys didn't put us on their schedule til 6/18, mostly I think because they are have a grudge that we wouldn't pay them outside of the contract cycle (I'm so done with contractors!).
Anyway, tile started today, which is very exciting. Attached are some photos of the master bath - this is the Tau Ceramica tile I've been raving about! Eric picked up our basement tub surround tiles today (those are Dal-tile) and we're about to make a home depot run tonight in search of black granite thresholds. The tile guys are returning tomorrow and I think painting will continue through Saturday, but we're going to the beach next week, for at least 1/2 of it, which will be a much needed break!


Friday, May 21, 2010

Painting weekend!

This week the house was sprayed with primer. It worked really well and revealed flaws for the drywall guys to return and touch up. All the touch-ups were sanded, vacuumed and reprimed this week and tonight Eric and Cleve painted the first coat of paint on all of the ceilings (actually work is in progress as I type - we only have 2 gas masks and the fumes are no joke). Their technique is for Cleve to spray and Eric to roll it so it has the rolled texture. This weekend my mom is coming up and we, along with Eric, Cleve & Phil, are going to roll all of the walls. Hopefully we can make a lot of progress! We're sticking to white for now just to get it done. I do want to paint a colors in a few places and also do some funky wallpaper but that can wait.


Eric said the woman who he ordered 21 gallons of paint from today at Home Depot nearly had a heart attack. I don't know what it is about the sprayer that makes it use so much more paint than a roller.

In other news today, our master electrician (Bruce's partner who holds the license and the bond) was served with notice of our small courts claim! I hired a random guy to serve the notice, who hangs around the small courts filing office offering his services. Court is on June 10 and should be interesting!

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Prep work

We intended to spend the whole weekend priming the house but instead we had to spend the whole weekend prepping the house for primer because the mud guys got mud all over the pitcon, exposed brick and windows, arg! Then stupidly, our contractor decided to try to remove mud from the pitcon with a metal putty knife and scraped it up in a bunch of places, after Eric, Cleve and Phil had meticulously installed it without flaws. So frustrating! Anyway, we are trying to get over that, and "learn from our mistakes" as Eric says, so he's really masked off the areas we need to protect and now and priming is about to begin!


Monday, May 10, 2010

Mud & Tape: Round 1

The crew worked for 12+ hours today and did a first pass of mud & tape over the whole house, making it look just a little more like a real house instead of a construction site! Tomorrow it needs all day to dry and then they will be back Wednesday to sand and apply another skimcoat of mud. Best case scenario we will be painting by Saturday! Also our tile was delivered today -I can't wait to see them installed. That will probably start next week.


Friday, May 7, 2010

Pitcon workshop

All of you architects who spec aluminum pitcon reveals should come see how hard this stuff is to work with in real life. It's really the right angles where the "lip" (the part that screws into the drywall) would have to overlap with another lip that requires precise 45 degree cutting with a chop saw. We hired our lowest drywall quote by far (but we did an extensive reference check that checked out), knowing they may not be able to handle this detail, so Eric, Cleve and Phil have been on it for the past 2 days and it looks great. Tomorrow mudding and sanding will begin!









Monday, May 3, 2010

Drywall so far so good!

I try not to post during work but sometimes the excitement is too much to contain! Eric says the basement is 90% hung and 2 of the 4 guys have moved up to the 1st floor. One of Eric's design details in the basement, which you can sort of see in the 2nd photo is that the drywall is set back from the exposed brick wall in the living room, giving the impression that the brick wall extends beyond the room. I can't wait to see it in person!



Up at 5:30am, drywall delivery at 6:30am

It's been a long Monday and its only 10am! We were up at 5:30am to protect doorways and windows that drywall would be coming through and label last minute wires to "pull" or "not pull" through during installation. The crew arrived at 7am and drywall came late, about 7:15am, and I was off to work by 8am. Check out this truck! Very exciting!















































Saturday, May 1, 2010

100th post! And getting close!

Eric, Cleve & Phil worked late Friday (I joined after work) and made a lot of progress on last minute details, the largest one being leveling the cathedral ceiling above the staircase, arg! We thought the drywaller's carpenter was doing this but he decided "it was more work than he thought" so we deleted it from his scope and payment schedule. Eric decided to use light-gauge steel, which may have been a little more work because his crew was less accustomed to to, but its quieter than wood which allowed them to work into the night (good & bad).









Today Phil came back and we worked on blocking, ductwork, protecting the finished trim and cleaning mostly. Tomorrow we have a ton things to move out of the house so that drywall can happen without obstacles, but I love that it's about to start. Once we paint kitchens & ceilings, the other installations can start (kitchen cabs, lights, etc.) and things will really start to come together!