Deck'n

Eric and Phil are at it again, this time rebuilding our back deck about 2' longer and 6' wider than the previous. Eric has been planning out the details all week. They started the morning with a trip to Home Depot for materials and had the old deck completely disassembled by lunchtime. Since then however, there have been more challenges, an old concrete sidewalk was uncovered where they wanted to place one of their posts. Luckily it's only 2-3" deep so it's breaking up pretty well. We're hoping to see Kwaku perform at the Corner Store in Capitol Hill tonight at 8pm but Eric says we have to get these footers poured tonight, no matter what time it is, so that they can start building the deck tomorrow, so I think Kwaku's concert is up in the air...

White roof

Long time no post! We're married now! Phil came down 2 weekends ago and he and Eric coated the roof with a white membrane that they describe as having the consistency of marshmallow fluff. The coating had 2 purposes, one to extend the life and water-resistance of the roof and 2) to reflect light and heat from the roof, thus reducing the cost of cooling the house. We weren't quite organized enough to take before & after temperature readings in the attic, but we did take before & after photos below. It's almost blinding it's so bright!

Next is a photo I took last weekend of Eric on the roof through one of the skylights. He's a little obsessive about keeping them clean and they provide an awesome amount of light to the house during the day, so it's important to keep them that way. We're both a little giddy about living in our first house ever with skylights! This photo also shows off our very cool tracking lighting above the stairs.

This weekend, we are rebuilding the back deck with Phil's help. It's going to be about 6' wider and 2' longer than the current one and made of gray composite decking. Just the 1st phase of the backyard beautification!

The finished (and now rented) basement!

Stairs & rails

Finished just after Christmas, these are the finished metal stairs and rails designed by Eric (notice the single stringer). They look amazing! Even this project was not without challenges, as the welder's first attempt to assemble them was not level or aligned so we made them cut it all apart and redo. I'm looking forward to planting up the yard in just a couple more months!

Fireworks

Welding produces awesome fireworks. Our stairs and rail installation started last week and is almost done, delayed slightly by some shoddy work they had to redo and then by the holiday schedule. Very exciting!

Still plenty of punchlist and perging/organizing to do but we're making progress and even hosting Blodnikar Christmas on Tuesday!

Long Time No Posts

We're pretty close to done but still have plenty of punchlist and boxes of stuff we don't have room for! We finished our dining room and den light installations, which were tedious but worth it. I even hosted a surprise 60th birthday party for my mom on 11/13. We also have a fabulous Christmas tree. Pictures to come.

Nice photos of upstairs before we moved in!

Backsplash

This is an old photo but my new computer has issues uploading photos, hence the delay. This backsplash is all done & grouted now. We're in clean-out and organization mode as I'm planning to move in this weekend and we're having out-of-town guests for Halloween!

Details, details...

Eric got our washer & dryer hooked up this week, trim on the exterior doors and I think doorbells were installed today. If you recall, ours plays MP3s, so that will be fun to play with this weekend. Our helpful neighbors Oliver & Reed are pictured here modeling what will be our house numbers! Once we get more construction materials out of the house and more of Eric's boxes organized, I will take and post pictures of everything, and I guess that means blogging is almost over!

urban camping

We made our normal trip to the dump on Saturday to drop off a load of plywood & recycling and then met with a re-upholstery gal about refurbishing Eric's 70's-vintage red chairs for our den, which I'm really excited about! We accomplished more on Sunday, setting slate over our front step, drywalling a closet for the washer & dryer, installing coverplates, another outdoor light, towel bars med cabinet shelves & drawer pulls, all the basics. Eric's helpers aren't available until late in the week so he's working on a few projects but also trying to get all of metalwork (inside and out) designed, which will have some lead time to fabricate and build.

Eric is now living in our house mid-construction, which is definitely a form of camping. Yesterday I cooked for the first time, making very simple pasta with red sauce and shrimp. Seeing as we have no furniture downstairs, we ate on the stairs, but made it work, and even enjoyed a celebratory glass of wine.

Move-in time!

Eric moved in yesterday and we slept in our house! We were giddy with excitement about it until Eric tried to arm our alarm while bypassing the motion sensor and ended up setting it off at midnight! He disarmed it in under 10 seconds but the alarm co had automatically set the police in motion and I had to prove my identity to 4 police officers shining flashlights into our windows at about 12:20am. My ID doesn't have our new address on it yet but luckily they accepted a delivery invoice from IKEA with my name and our address on it. I didn't really fit the description of their typical burgular either, so that helped. :)

There's definitely more punchlist and clearing out construction materials to do, mainly on the 1st floor, but I'm planning to move in by 10/31, yay! You can see that Bonsai is settling in just fine...

Labor of love

This staircase has required some master carpentry and has taken much more time than anticipated, but Eric and Phil got it to "substantial completion" yesterday and it looks great. Eric spent today babysitting Joshua and Ricardo, our plumbing duo who were completely stumped over why the water wasn't hot in the shower while Eric was the one who thought to adjust the HWH temperature. Why are we paying these people?

The A-team

We hired CityVista's punchlist team, Gilberto and Nacho for the entire week to handle a bunch of details while Eric and Phil continued to concentrate on the stairs. They installed all of the basement closet doors, a coverpanel on one of the kitchen cabinets, a shelf on the knee wall, the basement washer & dryer and most recently they have been sanding and painting window trim and baseboard upstairs so Eric can move in this weekend! Eric has very high standards for workmanship and I think these guys get a B or B+, which is pretty good considering...

Under-Stair Doors

You may have heard Eric mention "the series of panelized doors under the stairs" and wonder exactly what that meant. Here's a picture of them coming into place. Each one hides something different behind: washer/dryer, hot water heater, storage/electric closet, Rudy's litter box, etc. and they will be controlled with a push-and-pop magnetized mechanism which I'm really excited to see! These of course will also be primed and painted and the stair treads will sit on top. This project has been lot of work for Eric & Phil to mastermind and execute so precisely.

Lights, mirrors & bamboo

Lots was accomplished today! Eric and Helen spent much of the day installing the under-cabinet lighting in the kitchens together. Eric said he was so glad to be working with her instead of Bruce, who would have made it much more of an ordeal.

Eric also drilled a hole in the 4" bamboo vanity so we could install a faucet. And finally, he tested out the 1/2-bath mirror by making me a photo strip with his ipod app. :)

Natural beauty

Eric and I spent Sunday pre-conditioning and staining the reclaimed wood stairs. We used a natural stain that effectively drew out the color contrast of the wood grain, just like we intended! Monday, Eric and Phil put on the 1st coat of polyurethane, which is toxic stuff, and coat #2 goes on tomorrow.

Jupiter II

This is the fixture on our cable track light that will go over our staircase in the 11' ceiling area. It's called Jupiter II by Prima Lighting. We're only buying 3 for now but eventually need 5. So cool! The little eye ball is only about a 4" diameter but with the fins it's about 11" wide.

"Fan-tastic"

Our final fan was installed today in the living room, the Minka Aire Artemis. Ooh so pretty! It looks invisible when on (for obvious reasons). Joshua, our plumber dropped off his alcoholic assistant Ricardo today too who fixed a few things and F&#$ed up a few other things, but we do now have hot water in our unit which is huge.

Sounds like my tasks for the weekend involve cleaning, making an IKEA run, installing handles on the kitchen cabs and doing some mudding and sanding.

Progress in the dark

We had one crazy storm at 7am this morning, a lesser one this afternoon and then there was a fire at the Washington Hilton a few blocks away which contributed to power being out on the job site for a while today. Eric actually thought the plumber and his helper worked better in the dark, maybe we are on to something! Here's a picture Eric sent me today of our hot water heater - these are the things that excite us because it means showering can take place!

Here are few more shots of the master bath too, which is really looking great.

Reclaimed wood stair

I expected these stairs would take a while but Phil is really inspired by Eric's design and the reclaimed wood itself, so the two of them cranked away on Monday cutting and laying out the wood. Nothing is nailed down but its looks really good set in place. I love the detail on the end of the runs (close up below) and how it will look from the side, the chunky exposed risers & runs, once the doors are built out underneath.