Monday February 9, 2015
The work begins on the screen porch fireplace. I started working with the stone supplier, selecting the stone in September. In January I sent photos from Houzz.com to my builder so he could see what I was envisioning for the space. However, after getting an "over budget" bill back in November/December, I became really concerned that my choices in stone, might be expensive. You see, I've since learned that my builder really doesn't tell you what the charges are until AFTER, the product is on the job site and installed. I'm just not comfortable with that. So, in this case, I requested that he look at the photos, and select a stone that would work within the budget AND deliver the look I was aiming for. The fireplace took 2 days to build, with 2 men "working" the stone, and one laborer bringing in the mortar.
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| Backer board visible |
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| No overhang, like opposite side |
They finished. It was after the sun went down. Unfortunately, issues that needed to be corrected when the builder showed up at 5 PM to review the work, needed to be corrected and they had already started to pack up for the day. In the morning it was easier to see the end results. The Pennsylvania Blue stone had not been installed in slabs anywhere on the counter tops, or hearth. Instead the masons had broken up the large slabs into flagstone pieces. The mortar is visible throughout, despite the more "hidden joint" look desired and although the mortar was ordered "white", it had all dried to a yellow buff color. The Granbury stone was not "worked" as a puzzle, but more like a brick layers work. There are other issues, but right now, the builder has agreed to have a meeting with all 3 of us to figure out how to fix the problems.
The wood box, has an excess of mortar, wrong color, blue stone not cut as a slab so large joints show on the counter, and the non removal of backer board, prevented the masons from using larger stones. The fact that this room is slated to have very dark green interior walls, really fights with this mortar color. Looking forward to the problem resolution for this part of the home construction project.
Wednesday February 11, 2015
It's a good day to go on a field trip. I need to walk away from this project for awhile. I need to find some brick for ALL the retaining walls that have started adding up on this new home construction. So I drive to Malakoff, where brick is made right here in east Texas. It's a beautiful day, a bit over an hour drive. The road sides are rural, and scattered with small, and minimally populated towns. Thanks to my GPS, I just keep driving until "Sally In The Box" tells me I have arrived. There is only one traffic light in the town on Malakoff, and I need to turn left. One is sure that this must be a wrong turn, it looks like I'm driving into an abandoned residential neighborhood. Then "Sally" tells me to turn right. Again, a residential road with homes built in the early 50's (I think). Then the gate, an open yard. I'm sure I have arrived onto a prison yard, similar to what I may have seen in "Unbroken" at the big cinema, and then I go under a metal structure and I see yards and yards, and yards of bricks towering into the sky! I've never seen anything like it! It was amazing. Why, you might ask did I go on this field trip? Because here at the plant they do test runs of the lines that they carry nationally. If the test run is not to the standards they need to sell to the masses, they mark the run with a code. These test runs are available for purchase at reduced costs, and quantities.  |
(Left) At the bottom of the picture you can see papers marking the test run number of each batch. There are so many to choose from that it is equivalent to all four sides of a football field lined up with test run choices. (Right) The plant shows the first run choices that are sold to the masses and have passed their test run.
Thursday February 12, 2015
I brought back 4 test runs and put them up against the "Old Chicago Antiques" to see how they would work. The Old Chicago Antiques will be used for the 56 lineal feet of retaining walls in the front of the house (east). But I needed to find something more "affordable" to do the south, west and north retaining walls. Shipping brick to east Texas from east Texas, makes a whole lot more sense than shipping brick from Chicago. Sorry Chicago, I did my part to help your economics for the main house, but now, a girl's got to do what a girl's gotta do.
P.S. Happy Birthday David!!!!!!
Monday February 16, 2015
Today marks the day, we start working on the job site without our builder. He is scheduled for surgery today, and it's unclear when he'll be back to the job site. But one thing that is constant and you can expect it.....Rain! The builder had started to form the driveway the first week of February, but then when he decided to add a retaining wall at the back of the driveway, everything came to a holt. It will now be up to me to get the retaining walls built before the driveway can come in. The result of moving the dirt to form the driveway and then STOP!, has resulted in even MORE mud on the property. If that is even possible....yes, I think it is.
Tuesday February 17, 2015
Today, there isn't really too much of anything going on. The painters are here and I do order my wood counter tops from my Ohio contact. They should be here in 4 weeks! I use some of my painter's tape to start marking the walls where the trades have damaged up the walls since the drywall company was in. Because this home is not laid out with so many "open" spaces, it has apparently been harder for the trades to navigate the materials and their tools through the spaces. It happens, but so sad, because the dry wall company did an AMAZING job on the sheet rock the first time through.
Wednesday February 18, 2015
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| Even the cabinet drawer insert details on cabinets to be painted |
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| Caulking just about every joint |
Today is a really good day. The painters are inside caulking and filling all the nail punches left behind from the nail guns installing cabinets and mill work trim. It's actually colder in the house today, than it is on the outside.
It's a bit on the cool side, but the sun is shining and I hired a work crew to move the dirt, install drainage, sidewalks in the backyard around the pool. My builder advised me that they can't put a concrete truck on my concrete driveway without cracking it. So, I needed to get someone in to do the concrete work for the sidewalks. Since he is unable to be on the work site after the surgery, I'm contracting this one. It is far easier for the drainage to be installed in this area before the concrete is poured so I am approving that work to be done by this contractor as well, since I don't have a proposal from my builder's sub contractor yet. Gotta work when the sun shines! Speaking of which.....
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| Work boots were made for this sort of thing! |
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| My new trench |
Fortunately the back yard has dried out for the crew I hired to work.. But the driveway is a total mess, and unable to dry out because of the way the water now just "sits" in the recently contoured driveway in the far back. So while everyone is working at their jobs, I pick up a shovel and start digging a trench on the newly contoured soil. You can go back and look at the photos I took on February 16th, to see that in 2 days that water was still sitting there. With the temperature hovering in the 30-40's it won't evaporate, that's for sure.
I'm in the process of interviewing contractors for building the retaining walls, and if this water doesn't get out of here, I don't know how anyone can work to get that part of the job done.
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| Thank heavens for some left over planks to walk on, every once in awhile. |
Thursday February 19, 2015
Okay, I can't believe it! The sun is shining and we are going to be able to get this done and pour the concrete today!!!!!!!! You have no idea how rare, wonderful and special this is. Who knew I could be so happy pouring concrete. Just to make sure, they bring in a larger crew to make it happen. The driveway is still a mess and in-passable. But where there is a will there is a way. I like these guys, they make things happen. They decided to have the concrete truck arrive and just barely pull into the driveway. They then load the fresh concrete into a little bob cat land mover and drive that around to the back to load it into multiple wheelbarrows to it's final destination. A lot of effort, a lot of man power, but with just a 48 hour window, it just has to happen. The forecast for tomorrow is........drum roll......Rain!
Today, I also spend some time measuring for shutters. The builder does have a line item for these in the budget. But the hardware costs are off the charts! So I'm looking at sourcing the shutters and hardware from the same company. Founded back in Doylestown PA, where I use to work at Carl N Rist. Go figure! Small world.
Today the painters are still hard at work, and my builder's, preferred stone counter top fabricator, arrives to template for the counter tops, now that all the cabinets are installed.
Friday February 20, 2015
The threat of rain is still on the horizon, but it has lightened up a bit for a crew of 2 to finish up the work today. I have asked them to install some road base fill to lay between the sidewalks for the synthetic turf we plan to use in this area. It doesn't seem practical to lay natural grass inside the pool area. In addition, ever since I moved to Texas, I've missed those days when I could put a picnic blanket out on the lawn and read story books to my children. Now that I have a growing family of grandchildren, I'd like to be able to read them stories out on the lawn, without the fire ants eating me alive. But I will require some assistance getting up. Please adult children of mine, please be on stand by.
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| Not to worry, the pool will be white and clean at move in. |
The sidewalks while finished, are not quite "finished". I've retained the services of another team of masons to do a beautiful combination of blue slate and old Chicagos over the concrete pour. This work, is not so critical for completion. Pouring the concrete was.....we really don't want to delay our driveway pour any longer.
(Left) The concrete step up is for the air conditioners. However, I made it just wide enough that the step down can handle my red cedar potting bench that I built for our Frisco home. It will also serve as a barrier to hide the AC units from the pool deck view.
Monday February 23, 2015 - Icy Mix (No work today)
Tuesday February 24, 2015
Painters are at work today, God Bless them! At least while they are working the job feels like it's still plugging along. The painters have a listing of paint colors by room and by color, but they asked me earlier today, if I can post the color selections on 8" x 11" sheets (just like I did for the drywall contractors). So tonight I work in my apartment painting up sample pages using all those "Color To Go" containers that I have acquired from Sherwin Williams these last several months.....and still I have more containers than I will actually be using on the finished job.
Tip:
This actually turned out to be an excellent exercise. After I painted all the squares with the selected colors, I found 2 ceiling choices that did not go together very well with the wall and trim selections as much as I had thought. I was trying to make it easier on the painters, by keeping the ceiling paint uniform through most of the home. But that decision didn't work very well for those 2 rooms. Glad it was caught in time.
Wednesday February 25, 2015 - Snow AM(No work today)
Thursday February 26, 2015 - Cold/Sunny (No work today)
Friday February 27, 2015
Another field trip day. It didn't look like any work would be done today so I went to pick up the thin brick in Dallas for the wet bar walls, and visit Datile's Slab yard to see if I could find a counter top material for the scullery. The builder's fabricator had limited inventory when I visited earlier in the week, and I need to find something quickly. Unfortunately, his fabricator would not show me their stock until AFTER the templating was done. So I've lost a week on this one.
To my surprise, I get a phone call from the mason that I contracted for the retaining walls. They are at the site, starting the footings....while I'm in Dallas! They assure me, I have nothing to worry about and they know what to do. It will be Monday before I can get back. I am now snow and iced in at Dallas for the weekend.
Monday March 2, 2015
They spoke the honest truth! They did just what I asked for, and they hand dug ALL the retaining walls, because the site is just too wet to bring in any equipment! Thank you, thank you, thank you!
The painters are there too, and want me to do a walk through with them. I finish up and head out to yet another slab yard in search of that elusive island counter top....and still waiting to here back from my builder's fabricator on pricing.
Tuesday March 3, 2015
I had hoped to meet with my builder today, but he still isn't cleared by his doctor to get back on the job. It's still a busy day. I go to my builder's granite fabricator asking for pricing...person that does it is "out of town". I drive to the job site to meet with the trimmer to go over the stair parts. He complies a list of materials, and it's my job to go to the lumber yard and place the order. Later, I go back to a competitor's granite yard, where I think I've found something I can fall in love with, AND they give you pricing on the spot! I like that!
Wednesday March 4, 2015
Heavy rains all day!!!!! It's been cold at the job site and I'm tired at the end of the day, so today I treat myself to cleaning up the apartment, vacuuming WOW! and working on the landscape plans so that I have something for the irrigation contractors to work off of. I also have an appointment with a landscape contractor tomorrow, so I need to come prepared. Soup for dinner!
Meetings, meetings, meetings, lots of meetings.
Blue printers first thing, followed by mirror sample pick up in town, followed by builder's fabricator( yay they emailed pricing, but with errors), meeting with builder at his office (he hopes to start swinging by job sites next week), off to the job site to meet with landscaper, drywall contractor, and the mason building the retaining walls to go over selections of brick material. Hubby is in town to make dinner, while he waits for me to roll in after 7 PM, pack our bags and head out to Baton Rouge LA for our grandchildren's birthday party.....
On the way out of town, stopped by the granite yard to show the hubby the granite choices that I've been thinking about......
Came home
Sunday March 8, 2015 to rain, forecast for
Monday March 9, 2015 , rain.........
So this has been a month about rocks, paper (paint sample tear sheets), cutting the cord with some fabricators, and shooting from the hip without a builder available to man the ship. You just wait! Once we move in, the forecast will be drought!
Keep warm and safe everyone!!! Til next time.
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