More changes to the house and dealing with utilities

Cindy and I have changed the design of the master bath shower and the carpenters should finish that change, the new wall near the guest suite, and the boxing in above the built-in’s next to the fireplace this Friday or early next week. We believe these are the last changes.

 

Today Cindy has been trying to get a deliver date from the window guy on the windows that they made incorrectly. That has been a challenge, but the delivery date is now this Friday. We’ll see.

 

Then she tried calling the gas company and the rep there was rude to her and simply told her that she need to have her contractor get the initial gas service and would not give her any more information about how to do that.

 

Then she called the US postal service about getting mail to the new address and the person just said, “Well submit and change of address and it will just happen.” But we are not moving yet. “Well just do a temporary one and then change is back.” Sure, can you imagine how messed up our mail would be if we did that! So I ordered a trial subscription to Better Homes and Gardens and put the address of the new house. We will see if any magazines get delivered. We already sent ourselves a Christmas card and it never arrived nor did it get returned to us. Who knows where it is.

 

So Cindy was a bit frustrated with customer service people today. I did find a place on the gas company web site where builders request new service. So I put in Mentor Custom Homes and the company and our apartment address as the contact information and sent off the request. I assume that someone will contact me to get the details. Who knows, we may get to the house one day and find a gas line has been run.

 

Such is the life of building your own home.

 

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

 

Another change on the house

Nanny and Poppy saw the house this weekend for the first time. Of course we put them to work right away. Poppy helped me with a bit more wiring and other little things. Nanny was on clean up detail with Cindy picking up trash that was blowing around and left around the site. We were talking with Nanny about the nice patio and deck and how it would be good for parties and just enjoying nature and as she was walking into their bedroom from the patio door she noted that it would be nice to have a wall and door there so they could close that and then they could go from their bedroom to the bath room with coming in to the rest of the house and then we could party all night long and not bother them!

 

The truth of the matter is that Nanny normally stay up later than I do, but I do have a place to go and be a bit away from the rest of the house. It turns out that Cindy and I had consider having another door and wall to make the guest bed room more private but we did not way Nanny and Poppy feel like we had built servant’s quarters for them. We should have asked when we had that thought, plus once you see it in person, it does make a lot of sense to add the wall and door. So later this week the carpenters will be back and do that plus a few other things that are needed.

 

I have include a diagram of the new wall and door on the message list site plus some more pictures of the deck and rooms. Go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SteveNCindyHome/

 

 

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

 

Problems with the windows

Today we are dealing with problems with the windows the 5 windows that are high in the family room on the deck are the wrong size. These windows were roughed in for 3’ wide by 5 ‘ high which mean that the rough opening should be about a 1/2 to 1/4 inch less than that. But the window company did not make these windows a 1/2 under sized that they did all the rest. Some are exactly 5’ tall and some are 2’ 11 3/4 or a bit more. So we will have to do battle with 84-Lumber and they will have to do battle with the window manufacturer. The three windows up high in the living room are not right either. My guess is that they were not ordered properly. We will get this all worked out with the lumber yard and the window company.

 

Cheers, Steve

Steve Aughinbaugh

Manager, Plano Engineering Sustaining
McAfee, MS 3N035
5000 Headquarters Drive
Plano, Texas 75024

972-963-7496 (office)

972-989-6770 (cell)

steve_aughinbaugh@mcafee.com

 

Another busy day

Today was another one of those days where a lot was going on. About 10:00 this morning I started getting calls about the house. The general contractor called and there is a problem with 1 to 3 of the small curved top windows above the living room windows. There were made incorrectly. You would have thought that the guy window guy with the plans would have ordered the correct sizes, but he did not. So he will have to come out and measure and re-order the correct windows on their nickel. Then the fireplace installers called and they did not have the access code to get in the airpark and they wanted a check before they started. George talked them into starting while I was driving out there. Then the HVAC guy called. The place where we were going to put the outside HVAC conditioner coils was stolen by the electrical guys for the electric meter and messed up our plan. But we worked that out and found another spot that is just a good and perhaps a bit better.

 

All is better now and by the end of the day all but three of the windows will be installed. The fireplace insert is in and we have plan the AC units. I took some pictures of the windows. Go to http://groups.yahoo.com/SteveNcindyHome and bring up the Windows photo album.

 

Cheers, Steve

Steve Aughinbaugh

Manager, Plano Engineering Sustaining
McAfee, MS 3N035
5000 Headquarters Drive
Plano, Texas 75024

972-963-7496 (office)

972-989-6770 (cell)

steve_aughinbaugh@mcafee.com

 

Messy worksite

I never knew that building a house was such a mess. There is trash everywhere, sawdust all over the house and building material scraps everywhere.

Data, TV, intercom and phone wiring

Last weekend I pulled about 1,000 feet of cable through out the house. I have about 500 more feet to run. I decided to run my own cable for the network, intercom, TVs and phone lines. I have it all going to a closet at the top of the back stairs next to the media room. Right now there are abou 35 cables going into that closet plus the electricians have run all of the security wiring in there also. It will allow me to keep the house up to date as new technology comes out and for me to automate the house. At some point the house will talk to us as we enter or leave and arm the security system.

Roof is finished

They put shingles on the roof last week and most of the electrical and HVAC stuff has been roughed in. We are waiting on windows now. They should be installed next week and then exterior doors. We are in the process of finalizing the stone and brick and the labor for that.

I ran the thermostat wire for the two Rinnai tankless water heaters. We have the thermostats in by each tub/shower and in the kitchen. This weekend I will work on pulling telephone, internet and cable.

We bought the exhaust fan/light units for the 4 bathrooms and the powder room this week plus the vent-a-hood for the kitchen so the vents for all of them can be run. We also need to get the fireplace insert so that can be roughed in.

Always something to do. Speaking of that we ordered the SPA tub on Friday and on Monday the called said it was ready to be picked up. So we need to go get that on Friday. Busy, busy, busy.