No Bricks Yet

Mark (plumbing) arrived early and hooked up the natural gas to the fireplace and waited for the City inspector to arrive.

Yesterday, we received the television mounting bracket but not the recessed wall box. I sent an inquiry to the company and they responded that it should arrive on Monday.

The fireplace installer reappeared today to finish what they started yesterday. The position of the vent is about a foot lower than I expected. T says it will be fine. I do agree it is better than an ugly stove pipe coming out the roof. While it appears to stick out quite a bit, the brick still has not been put on and it will be about 4" thick. I also suggested to T that we might want to consider having the silver trim around the exterior fireplace glass powder coated to coordinate with the vent cap.

The brick delivery did not take place. Not a big surprise. Don't know if they are still plan to start next week or not.

T and I went over to visit Bob (cabinetry). When Bob came to the house a couple of weeks ago, we showed him the paneling in the main house and discussed what we wanted to do on the sunroom bar and wall panels. Subsequently, Bob manufactured a sample cabinet door in Sapele for approval. The same pattern would be used on the wall panels. He noted that he used a 20% gloss as opposed to the 30% that was on the sample of Sapele he gave us a couple of months ago. He said he went with the lower gloss after seeing our main house woodwork and seeing how much sunlight will be coming into the sunroom. The lower gloss will result in less glare. T's initial reaction was that it conforms with her vision of rustic elegance in the sunroom. We told Bob we would consider it over the weekend and give him our final answer.

 

We went over several other items with Bob. Of the samples in Bob's shop, T tentatively selected the bar cabinet pulls. I believe she wants to look further however.

We also discussed the mantle that Bob will make out of Sapele, with no drawer.

I asked Bob if he had heard from Robyn at the plumbing shop regarding the faucets T has chosen. He had not but said he would call them. He said he would order the faucets and avoid having us pay retail price. I liked that! 

Bob said he planned to come to the house sometime next week to take the measurements he needed to get the work going. I asked Bob if his proposal included paneling the connecting porch. He said it did not. I suggested to T that it would only make sense to have it done to match the paneling in the sunroom. Bob suggested that we look at it next week and decide. After returning home and looking at it, I am convinced it is the right thing to do.

T also brought up the topic of lighting above the sink. Bob's conceptual drawing envisioned two recessed lights over the sink area. T is thinking we might want to just go with one hanging pendent light. Considering 62" width of the counter behind the sink, I suggested we go with two recessed lights with one pendent hanging between them.

Bob also showed us a sample of "antiqued" mirror which he thought we might want to consider. The answer was "no". We actually have this type of splotched mirror over several mantels in the main house. Those mirrors are not "antiqued", but showing actual deterioration of the mirror silvering. So while it would fit in with the main house, we prefer to have a beautiful beveled mirror in the sunroom bar. We also talked about the glass cabinet doors on each side of the bar. T is considering the potential of having stained glass made for these cabinets which would compliment the stained glass window over the south door. I like the idea.

In the mail we got another invoice from Tyler (architect) for construction support services. This payment would represent 90% of the total contract amount. I sent Tyler a note stating that I do not believe we are anywhere near 90% complete with the construction. I stated that, in my mind, one of the remaining issues is the sunroom ventilation issue. Tyler did work with the distributor of the fan (that I had identified) and with the cupola manufacturer to ensure it would fit. However, I do not believe the ventilation equipment has been ordered or that we even have a firm commitment on who will install it. Once that is done, I stated I would pay the invoice. No response yet.

No Fire Yet

Today the fireplace arrived and was set into place. Still need to provide power and gas hooked up. They also apparently forgot a piece of the stove pipe.

We received the television mounting bracket and the copper sink today. We did not received the recessed wall panel for the television. I sent a note to the manufacturer asking for a shipping date.

Tomorrow, we are going to go up to meet with Bob (cabinetry). He has our sample bar cabinet door ready for us. We have told him we will accept his proposal for a Sapele mantel. We will specify it to be 55 inches wide, 8 inches high and 11-1/2 inches deep.

Tomorrow, we are expecting the brick to be delivered.

Fireplace Tomorrow

"Our" Mike and Nate showed up to continue installation of the interior gable boards. It looks as if they finished and it looks good.

It does not seem that any of Frank's crew (HAC) showed up today or, if they did, they did not stay long and did not do much.

Mark (plumbing) dropped by to see the handy work of his guy who finished installation of the second sink in the garage. The garage now has running water.

We are expecting Bobby (fireplace) to show up tomorrow to install the fireplace. Mike said the brick will be delivered on Friday. He instructed them to spot the bricks on the east side of the house (on our side of the property line) and they will just have to haul them as needed to the back yard.

I also got a call from Bobbi (hot tub) saying our hot tub will be delivered by 10:30 am next Tuesday. I let Mike know. We will need to ensure the bricks are placed so that there is a path to get the hot tub to the sunroom.

The roofers showed back up today. They installed the ridge vents on the two south dormers and they moved the two small finials to their proper spots on the south dormers. I need to take the binoculars out tomorrow to see if there is any obvious issues. They may believe they are finished with the roofing job...finally. On January 31 they started what they claimed would be a five day job. We hope they are finally finished. It has been 13 weeks since they started. A small portion of that time was weather related. A very small portion.

We got the quote from Bob (cabinetry) on the Sapele mantel piece. The quote included an option to install a drawer in the mantel. Bob recommended not to include the drawer unless it was required. His concern is that the wood joints on either side of the drawer would distract from its appearance. Bob also said our Sapele cabinet door sample is in the finishing shop at this time and it should be ready for us to pick up on Friday.

Today I signed a three year contract with a new security company, FrontPoint. I spent quite a bit of time on the phone this morning talking with Tarik, the sales rep. He was very knowledgeable, but I stumped him on a couple of questions which he had to discuss with his supervisor before answering. The system is completely wireless and cellular. Except for the video equipment, all the equipment they offer is all GE manufactured. Our intention is to ultimately drop our current security company, but for now, we are just getting the equipment needed for the sunroom and the garage. The system is expandable. We are getting two window/door sensors, four motion detectors and three overhead garage door sensors. We will put the two door sensors and two motion detectors in the sunroom. The other two motion detectors and the three overhead door sensors are for the garage. They are giving us a 60 day trial period. Assuming all goes well and we keep the system, we will look at purchasing additional equipment for the main house.

Closer

Beautiful spring day

Mike and Nate were back this morning. T and I were out during the afternoon. Mike said that John (HAC) stopped by but was called away on a service call.

A representative of the brick company came by with a couple of samples of brick. T decided on the right one. The rep said they would start delivering on Friday. We don't expect any significant bricking until next week. We also talked with Mike about the west porch, deciding to shorten the width of the porch so that the steps would not extend beyond the side of the main house. T also told Mike that she has decided to use Tiger Wood on all three exterior porches/decks instead of a synthetic composite.  I also suggested to Mike that he arrange to have his painter/stainer get with T before we leave on our week-long cruise in mid-May. Mike gave us an estimate he has received from the painter/stainer. Very impressive.

This afternoon, we went to the plumbing showroom recommended by Bob (cabinetry). We again talked with Robyn. T selected a Perrin & Rowe (Rohl) faucet.

We did not ask the price. I looked it up when we got home. I then started to hyperventilate.

When we got home, we inspected Mike's work.

West Interior Gable Covered

During lunch we got a call from ABC Supply telling us that the basement door was to be delivered today and they wanted payment. I thought we had already paid for this, but gave them a CC number. When we got home, Mike told us the door had arrived and here it is. I will check to ensure we had not already paid for it.

 Apparently John uncased the interior heat pump "head". It appears larger than I envisioned. I hope we can paint it to blend into the gable. T is not overly concerned which gives me reason to be optimistic.

Let It Rain!

"Our" Mike and Nate showed up this morning to continue with the window installation. They got all the hot tub bay windows in and installed the two personnel doors. Only the window over the south personnel door and the southeast french door is yet to install. The french door will not be installed until after the hot tub has been brought in. It is much quieter in the sunroom now. T noticed that the new personnel doors look narrow. Compared to our doors in the main house, they are about 5" narrower.

They also started construction of the exterior west porch off the connecting porch.

I asked Mike where the brick layers were expected. He said he did not know but would call them. They were originally scheduled to be here last week. As late as last Friday, Mike assured me they would be here today. This afternoon, Mike told me that he had just talked with the brick layer and was told the bricks were "on order". What?!??!!??! We have not even seen a sample of the brick! Where were they ordering them from? It sounds like it may be awhile before the brick is installed.

Frank (HAC) showed up with Tim and John to complete the installation of the radiant floor boiler. They got it circulating and warming up. On the first warm up, they want to go slow. They shut it down and will be back tomorrow to continue. They also hope to start installation of the heat pump "head" and running the refrigerant lines. Mike needs to put up the interior gable wall first. I warned Frank that we will be staining all of the interior wood, including the gable surface to which he will be attaching the heat pump head. He will need to remove or somehow cover the heat pump when that happens.

They also finally got the condensate pump plumbed so that we no longer have a piece of tubing running along the floor to the surface drain.

No further information on the roofers. No further information on the cupola fan.

After Mike left for the day, T and I inspected their work and noticed that the exterior west porch installed today extended too far west. It appears Mike was going by the drawings where the steps from the west porch to grade would extend about two feet beyond the side of the main house. This will be awkward and we had previously talked with Mike about shortening the porch and pulling the steps back so that they would be flush with the house. So that I would not forget, I called Mike and reminded him. He agreed and said it would be easy to fix. We will talk with him more tomorrow about this as well as about the decking material for the exterior porches and when T needs to get with the painter/stainer.

Over the weekend, we decided not to expand our current hard-wired security system into the sunroom and garage. Our security company (who we have used for the past 12 years) has convinced us that we can do better elsewhere. I am exploring wireless cellular options. We firmly believe we will end up dropping our current security company and going wireless throughout the main house as well.