We have lights!

We have lights now, but no electricity. The light fixtures have been installed but we have to wait for the final inspection next week to get the electrical meter. We do have a gas meter. Getting that was a bit of an issue. But a few phone calls to city hall to get them to tell the gas company that the lines had been inspected freed it up to be installed. The staining and painting are done. Most of the plumbing fixtures have been set and all of the granite counter tops are in. The lights and faucets look great. The kitchen backsplash including the gas cook top and pot filler are in also.

 

This week the flatwork is going in. The patio area will have some concrete there and there will be a concrete walk to the front door from the drive/taxiway and parking ramp. The HVAC guys will trim out the system this week and then we should be able to get our final building inspection so that we can get an electric meter installed.

 

The last two weeks have been pretty busy and I am sure that I forgot some of the stuff that was completed. We actually drove to Lubbock this past Friday/Saturday to clean out the rental house there so that we can sell it. We are ready to get our weekends back to just relax and enjoy friends and non-house building stuff!

 

Cheers, Steve

Steve Aughinbaugh

Manager, Plano Engineering Sustaining
McAfee, MS 3S099
5000 Headquarters Drive
Plano, Texas 75024

972-963-7496 (office)

972-989-6770 (cell)

steve_aughinbaugh@mcafee.com

 

Still moving along

The septic tank was set today. It is a three compartment tank that is about 8 feet wide x 18 long x 10 deep and the top is about 4 feet underground. Air is pumped into the second tank to promote and feed the bacteria. The third tank has a basket of chlorine tablets to treat the water that is left and then there is a pump that goes to sprinkler heads that are in the wooded area behind the house that comes on whenever the water level gets high enough. That was probably more than you wanted to know about our septic system, but there you go.

 

The stairs and railing are completed and they look great. We also had the Brazilian cherry solid wood floors installed in the dinning/living room and study.

 

All of the bathroom tile is in also including the radiant heat floor in the master bath.

 

I created a new location for some of the pictures also at: http://family.webshots.com/album/561207017OFYisn?vhost=family if you want to take a look at the history of building the house so far.

 

It looks like we will move in near the beginning of June or sometime in June.

 

Cheers, Steve

Steve Aughinbaugh

Manager, Plano Engineering Sustaining
McAfee, MS 3S099
5000 Headquarters Drive
Plano, Texas 75024

972-963-7496 (office)

972-989-6770 (cell)

steve_aughinbaugh@mcafee.com

 

The stairs are going in

The back stairs are almost done and the front stairway is under way. Both stairs are wrought iron balusters with solid oak treads, risers and railing. The same railing will also go around the bridge and game room balcony. I added a couple of pictures of the back stairs and a picture of the garage doors while they were being installed. On the curved entry stairway it was interesting how they laminated it together and formed it to the curve of the stairway. I added a picture of this after they had taken most of the clamps off.

 

Cheers, Steve

Steve Aughinbaugh

Manager, Plano Engineering Sustaining
McAfee, MS 3S099
5000 Headquarters Drive
Plano, Texas 75024

972-963-7496 (office)

972-989-6770 (cell)

steve_aughinbaugh@mcafee.com

 

Red letter day!

The brick and stone is complete! The brick and stone mason finished the house today including the fireplace hearth and the floor of the porch. The stone and brick look great and the fireplace is impressive.

Cindy and I spent the day picking up the trash in the house, scraping the drywall mud up and sweeping. We are really getting tire of do that! While we were doing that the brick guys were finishing up these guys have work 6 days a week and 10 hour days for the past 4 weeks. They are some of the hardest working people that we have seen and they have excellent workmanship.

I am too tired to write more but I did post some photos of the brick and cabinets.

Cabinets, doors, brick and stone

Well, we have rolled into April now and the brick and stone is almost done. The front of the house is complete except for a few details. I have added a few pictures to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SteveNCindyHome. The brick layers are doing a great job. We decided to take the stone around and over the garage doors and around the back side of the garage to the corner of Nanny and Poppy’s closet. The arches over the entry look great also.

 

The cabinets are in. I added some pictures of them and will add a few more a bit later. The cabinets around the fireplace look great with the stone and wood. The closets are pretty neat as well. It is fun to be able to design the layout your closets. Our trim guys are just great and perhaps even artistic. The detail over the front door and the study French doors are very nice.  Most of the trim is done. Some crown molding and base still needs to be done and should be completed in the next few days.

 

We decided to install Bella Brazilian Cherry solid wood floors in the dinning/living room and the study. Oh, I just remembered and I have to get some pictures of this, but the study has fantastic looking oak beams on the ceiling that one of the trim guys built. So, things are moving along quickly. It looks like we may move in before Cindy’s birthday in June!

 

Enjoy the pictures.

 

Cheers, Steve

Steve Aughinbaugh

Manager, Plano Engineering Sustaining
McAfee, MS 3S099
5000 Headquarters Drive
Plano, Texas 75024

972-963-7496 (office)

972-989-6770 (cell)

steve_aughinbaugh@mcafee.com

 

March update

Things have been moving fast at the new house the past 3 weeks. we now have all the interior walls drywalled and textured. The insulation was sprayed and the house was caulked and sealed. The brick and stone is about half the way done. Take a look at the pictures on the SteveNCindyHome yahoo group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SteveNCindyHome/

We spent the past two days driving all over the DFW area from north Fort Worth to the south side of the metro-plex to Richardson to the east and Denton to the north buying 920 square feet of ivory travertine tile. Home Depot had a clearance on 18 inch ivory travertine for $1.99 per sq ft. It normally is $5 to $8 per sq foot. We got 700 at one store then 9, 100 and 111 at another.

We are looking at hard wood flooring and I believe that we are going to use 3/8 inch solid pre-finished Brazilian cherry or mesquite. We only need 500 sq ft of that. We are getting the cabinets installed next week. They are being built right now. We have picked the granite for the kitchen and to downstairs baths plus the upstairs wet bar. We are using new venetian gold in the kitchen and tan brown in the other areas. We also have the kitchen back splash picked out and are now working on the master bath and Nanny and Poppy bath. We are close on those.

We have also settled on the plumbing fixtures and have the order ready for those. We have to pick the lights but think we know what we want there except for the ceiling fans. We will probably just look for fans on sale.

So, all is moving along well.

The house passed the plumbing, electrical and framing inspection

The house passed the plumbing, electrical and framing inspection so now we move on to insulation, drywall, brick and stone. Over the past two weekends I have set 4 external doors and the interior doors in the garage so that the walls that need to be insulated have all the doors. The only place this is not true in the patio sliding door for the deck. That door should arrive this week and I may be able to get is set before the insulation guys are done. All of the outside soffit and trim work is done and all of the interior framing is completed.

 

Cindy and I have the plans for the cabinets and for the most part have picked the tile for everywhere. We also ordered a 36 inch round tile medallion compass rose that will go in the entry foyer. Since our 8^th anniversary is coming up and one of the gifts for number 8 is pottery, we decided that this medallion was sort of like pottery and it could be our 8^th anniversary present to each other. Attached is a picture of the design but we changed the colors of the other half of the 8 center points to be black (like is show and a gold travertine instead of the light travertine shown.

 

 

 

The brick and stone were delivered yesterday and that should start going up in the next few days and the drywall should be delivered today or tomorrow and that will start by next week. So things are moving forward quickly again.

 

Cheers, Steve

Steve Aughinbaugh

Manager, Plano Engineering Sustaining
McAfee, MS 3S099
5000 Headquarters Drive
Plano, Texas 75024

972-963-7496 (office)

972-989-6770 (cell)

steve_aughinbaugh@mcafee.com