On Your Mark...

Yesterday morning, Bob (cabinetry) came out and took the measurements he needs for the bar and wall paneling. We talked with him about several items including the gloss level of the Sapele and the design of the wall panels and cabinet doors. Bottom line is that T accepted Bob's design and we will go with the 30% gloss level.

Before anyone arrived this morning, I stepped out into the sunroom and found a Cardinal had gotten into the room. It was very unhappy, flying from one end of the room to the other. Bouncing off the windows around the hot tub at one end and then bouncing off the french doors at the other. I opened a couple of doors and it finally decided to leave.

Chris was the first one to show up this morning. He continued his work in the garage and then come back to the sunroom. I handed him the four HDMI cables we purchased and he routed them from the location of the television (above the fireplace) over to where they will enter the bar. In addition to the HDMI cables, we asked to have a coaxial and a cat 5 cable run between the bar and the television. He did not stay very long. We returned from some errands about 1:00 pm and he was gone.

About 8:00 am the brick layers arrived (four weeks after we were originally told they would start). They did not lay any bricks today, but they got things set up. Mike arrived shortly after the brick layers and told me that they were predicting one week to finish the brick work. They hauled seven pallets of bricks (3,500 bricks) around to the back, 100 bricks at a time. It rained this afternoon. It is forecast to rain much of the weekend and into next week. Really a shame since the past four weeks have been dry and cool. But, in hindsight, we were not ready for the brick layers to begin four weeks ago. It was not until two weeks ago that Mike had finished installation of the window molds on the garage and just today, Chris finished installation of the garage exterior light and power boxes. Mike told me today that the foreman would get T's approval on the color of the mortar today, but he never came around. Mike also said he has told the brick layers to put a upright "soldier" above each overhead door on the garage and above the fireplace on the sunroom.

As with Chris, the brick layers were gone by the time we had returned from our errands. Another week has gone by with no return of the slate installers.

Mike had told us to expect Jerry (painter/stainer) to show up today to talk with T about the staining. He did not show up, or if he did, we did not see him and he did not pick up the wood samples Mike and I had laid out for him. Mike understands that after next week, we will be gone for a couple of weeks.

One of our errands was to visit Gerald (stained glass) to talk with him about making a couple of stained glass panels for the two upper bar cabinets. T showed him the picture of the stained glass window we have on the east entry of the main house. She told him she envisioned a fleur-de-lis similar to what he did for above the sunroom east door. Gerald said he would send us a proposed design next week.

No Bricks...No Surprise

Not a surprise that, once again, the brick layers did not show up. "Our" Mike and Nate were here to install the last french door and the window above the south door. When it was obvious the brick layers were not going to show, they left. With the exception of the garage overhead doors, the sunroom and garage are now enclosed. The garage doors are due to be delivered around the end of May.

Chris (electrician) did show up and spent the day on the garage wiring. Bob (cabinetry) arrived to do his measurements. We also talked about several issues and he talked with Chris. Hopefully he got what he needed.

We spent the remainder of the day helping our east neighbor move some furniture.

Shocking

Chris (electrician) returned this morning to continue his work. "Our" Mike also showed up. Nate did not make it due to truck problems.

We told Chris that after T reflected on the hot tub sconce positions over night, she wants them to lower the electrical boxes 6". This will put them about 78" above the level of the deck. We also reviewed with T the step lights. She was satisfied with going with the light boxes on the stringers on either side of the treads. At one time, we had discussed using rope lights along the edge of the treads. We also discussed the position of the power outlets along the trusses and the lights over the bar. We are changing some of what is shown on the architectural drawings due to changes that have been made over the past year.

Mike said the the brick layers will start tomorrow morning. Today, another 2,500 bricks were delivered along with the mortar compounds and a load of sand. That makes a total of 9,500 bricks sitting in the front yard.

After talking with Bret (roofing) yesterday, a crew came by and worked to clean out the gutters and cleaned up most of the surplus felt on the west side of the garage. Still some debris over there. I saw one of their crew coming down off the roof with a caulking gun. I assume this meant they were also looking at the flashing around the chimney as I requested.

I showed Mike the Sapele sample cabinet door we picked up from Bob last week. I told Mike that we planned to be leaving town no later than two weeks from today and would be gone for a couple of weeks. Therefore, if he wanted to have Jerry (stainer/painter) talk with T before we left, he needed to get it arranged. Later, Mike told us that Jerry will be here Friday to talk with T.

This evening we got a note from Bob (cabinetry) responding to a voice message I left for him this morning. The voice message was to alert Bob that the electrician (Chris) was in the process of hanging receptacles and running wire for the appliances in the bar. I have provided Chris with cut sheets for the appliances, but just in case Bob had any thoughts about changing the positions of any of those appliances, we needed to know now. The response from Bob was that the locations were not going to change. However, he took the opportunity to mention that we needed to have the electrician be careful about where the power receptacles on that wall panels were positioned. Bob noted that we do not want a wall receptacle crossing the interface between a panels style (or rail) and center panel. It needs to be either centered on the center panel or completely contained on the style (or rail). Good point Bob!! I called Bob to discuss and agreed it would be best for him to come tomorrow (Thursday) morning to review what has been done and make suggestions for anything that needs to be changed. He will also take his measurements and talk with us about the connecting porch. We also need to talk with him about Chris's suggestion of placement of the power outlet above the mantel on the horizontal surface of the mantel itself and the placement of the power outlet on the bar counter in the quartz back splash.

Happy Cinco de Mayo

"Our" Mike and Nate showed up this morning. They worked until about 1:30 pm.

Chris and John (electricians) also showed up. Josh, the electrician who had done most of the work up to now, quit. Chris is now leading the effort. He seems very competent. They worked most of the day installing electrical boxes and conduit.

Chris raised some questions about the electrical switches and we discussed the wiring for the television. I showed him the pan we bought for the television. We also talked about the outlet over the mantel. Chris suggested we actually let them mount the outlet box on the horizontal surface of the mantel. An excellent idea!

We also talked with Chris about the fan and ventilation louver. He had no issues about installing them and indicated he would order the equipment. I gave him the quotation Tyler had gotten from the Patrick (distributor) and also the emails between Tyler and Patrick. I told Chris I was confused as to whether or not we needed to order the controller. I told Chris we wanted to be able to select between OFF, ON, and AUTO (where the thermostat or humidistat would turn the fan on and off). After Chris read the information, he was confused as well and said he would call Patrick and sort it out. I liked that!!!

At 10:30 am, the hot tub showed up. They got is unloaded and into the sunroom without incident.

It looks very big! It started leaking water! I suggested to them that it would have been lighter if they had delivered it empty. They did not get it.

The brick layers did not show up. No idea what to expect.

I did get an invoice from the roofers claiming the work to be complete. I called Bret and told him that we still needed to have the gutters cleaned, the leaf screens put back on the gutters and the left over debris hauled off. Bret was very agreeable and said they would be over this afternoon to take care of those items. They never showed up.

Looks Like A Promising Week

"Our" Mike and Nate showed up this morning and worked on putting insulation around the windows of the sunroom, putting in the sunroom soffits under the east gable and caulking around the soffits on the sunroom and garage. Perhaps in anticipation of the brick layers.

And YES!, the bricks showed up this morning. Looks like about 7,000 bricks. T inspected them for color and declared them satisfactory. 

When Dave (USPS) delivered the mail today, he tried to convince me that he had delivered the bricks and wanted to discuss how many stamps were needed to cover the postage.

I did not talk with Mike at all today, so I don't know when the brick layers are intending to start. The slate installation on the garage is still incomplete.

John and Tim (HAC) showed up to continue working on the heat pump installation. The got the interior "head" mounted and are running the refrigerant lines. When the "head" sat in the basement, it looked huge. However, up on the west gable, it does not look so big. If we paint it so that it blends in with the stained wood, it will be fine...just as T said it would.

Refrigerant Lines

 The pan for the television mount arrived today.

We got a reply from Tyler regarding the note I sent over the weekend about Bob's (cabinetry) assumption that the sunroom walls would be dry walled and then covered with the wood paneling. Tyler stated that when Bob was here a couple of weeks ago, Mike suggested using plywood instead of drywall. The drawings do not call out either. Mike must have suggested this to Tyler because neither Bob, T or myself heard the suggestion. I did notice that about 25 sheets of 1/2" plywood showed up in the garage on Saturday. That issue is now resolved.

Tyler also responded to my note regarding the invoice from him I was questioning. The response about the payment amount did not make any sense, but he did say that he talked today with Mike (I did see him in the back yard talking with Mike today) about the ventilation issue. Mike said he was going to be talking with the electrician this week and would see if the electrician is willing to install the fan and vent louver.

Wait And See

No idea of what is coming up this week. Tomorrow (Monday) will be the third Monday that we have been told that the brick layers will start. We were also told to expect the bricks to be delivered last Friday. They were not. Mike mentioned this past week that he expected the slate installers would finish their work on the garage before the brick layers started. I agreed with him that I would not want to be laying bricks underneath the people installing slate on the gables. However, nothing has been done on the garage slate for over a week. The east gable is still about 65% complete.

There is a cardboard box in the sunroom labeled in such a way as to lead one to conclude that it is the stone veneer for the interior of the fireplace. There is also written on the outside of the box "wait until the 6th". Don't know if that implies the fireplace installation will resume on May 6th (Wednesday).

T got a call from Bobbi (hot tub) yesterday asking if they had already delivered the electrical disconnect. They have not. Bobbi confirmed they will deliver the hot tub on Tuesday.

Bob (cabinetry) sent us a note on Friday asking when the final french door will be installed. He intends to come out and do his final measurements this coming week. I told him the door will not been installed until after the hot tub delivery, scheduled for Tuesday. Subsequent to that, he would need to contact Mike to find out when he intends to install the door.

Today is a nice sunny day. I took the Sapele cabiney door, that we had picked up from Bob on Friday, plus the Sapele sample out to the sunroom and asked T to come out to view the two wood samples in various locations in the room. You may recall that the "gloss" of these two samples was different, one (the door) being 20% and the other 30%. We looked at them in the location of the bar (which will not get any direct sunlight) and over by the hot tub (which will get the most direct sunlight). T came to the conclusion (and I agreed) that the 30% gloss was a better choice. In the darker bar location, the 20% gloss just seemed "unfinished". We will talk with Bob when he comes next week.

When T and I visited Bob on Friday, Bob mentioned that he was going under the assumption that the wood paneling would be on top of a dry wall (gypsum board) surface. He also said that when he came to our home a couple of weeks ago, he mentioned this to Mike, but Mike implied that he thought the paneling would go directly on the wall studs. Bob assured me that there would be dry wall and that the drawings (Tyler's drawings) supported this. When we got home, I looked at the drawings and they do not show a dry wall underneath the wood paneling. Sensing yet another disconnect, yesterday (Saturday) I sent an email to Mike and Tyler, and copied Bob, saying that Bob told us he was expecting dry wall. If this is not the plan, and if this assumption may cost us money, it needed to get it sorted out quickly.