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

 

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.