Thursday: Odds and ends (8/25/11)

On Wednesday, they sanded and coated the columns and the porch ceiling with Sikkens.  I really like the rich tone.

And the carport ceiling.

I believe that they applied another coat of sealant to the chimney above the roofline as well, but it looks like we might still be getting some moisture wicking down the grout.

And while I'm waiting for the grass to grow...

...I'm building some of the base cabinets...

...to go in the kitchen.  This should help us determine exactly how long the counter should be.

Wednesday: News from North Carolina (8/24/11)

Remember the beautiful reclaimed heartwood pine flooring from North Carolina with the tung oil finish (bottom right)?

And remember how happy this flooring is going to make our dog?

Here's the mill in North Carolina where it's being prepared for shipping. This lovely gentleman, known locally as 'el hombre de la muchachas', is wrapping it up preparing to ship... this week, I think? Yay. He deserves a little vacation to get back to his muchachas, no?

Tuesday: Always to be known as the Great Quake of '11 (8/23/11)

That was pretty cool.  I walked out to the truck, sat in it, and it honestly felt like two large men were in the back of the truck in a massive struggle.  I actually got out and looked in the back, and clearly not finding men in the back of the truck, realized it was an earthquake (genius!).  Sheila was massively impressed with this incredibly dangerous experience.  Here's a photo of our damage, which should probably be taken as a great credit to our builders:

One lightly bruised cherry tomato which had fallen from the top of a cabinet in our basement pseudo-kitchen.

Saturday: Rain and IKEA, in that order (8/20/11)

So this is how the front yard looked Saturday morning after that brief heavy rain the night before.  Not too bad...

...except where the runoff broke through the silt fence...

...depositing mud, straw and seed down the sidewalk and into our neighbors' driveway.  The builders sent a couple of guys to clean it up pretty promptly.

And on the other side of the property, this is what the BMP looks like after (12 hours after) an inch of rain.  Our neighbors must just LOVE us, don't you think?

Then, just to keep things exciting, we got our IKEA delivery.  It doesn't really look like 154 packages, but some of them are very small.

Friday: IKEA, IKEA, IKEA and rain (8/19/11)

On Friday, the landscapers finished up the BMP and "hydroseeded" the lawn.  I wish I'd gotten a photo.  They directed this huge hose that sprayed high arcs of bright green fluffy stuff that looks like streamers cut into tiny shreds, that I'm hoping contains grass seed.  I only glimsped it before heading back to IKEA on a day that had screwy traffic caused by road closures allowing for the 9/11 memorial motorcycle ride.  It took less than five hours total.  That's a good thing...

So we got 10% off our order.  When I got to the cashier with the bar-coded order sheet and the $1.49 door mat I felt we needed with all the dirt getting tracked in, a nice family with five carts of dining room chairs suggested I go ahead of them in line, thinking I was only buying a door mat.  I thanked them profusely and asked the cashier if the cabinet order purchase would be quick (after what I'd been through) and he assured me it would.  He scanned that and my door mat and said, "That will be [a few thousand dollars], please."  I said, "For a door mat?!"  Luckily, he thought that was funny.

That night, we got a deluge - I think it was an inch of rain in an hour.

And we're expecting an IKEA delivery of 154 packages on Saturday.

Thursday: Starting the IKEA process (7/18/11)

Thursday morning, we had a brand new silt fence.  I left for IKEA to buy the kitchen cabinets (on sale through Sunday), timed to get there right when they opened at 10.  I waited half-an-hour for someone to help me, having two small questions before I place the big order.  Someone helped me for an hour-and-a-half before I had to leave to pick up Sheila from camp.  Bad plan on my part.

Wednesday: Grading and gutters (7/17/11)

Most of Wednesday was spent seeing this guy fly by the windows a million miles an hour.  It's just incredible how fast they go.

They worked on the grading on this side, covering the sides of the piers...

Here's a closer view of the grading along the front of the porch.

And they extended the BMP to it's full gloriousness at 65 feet long.

They also replaced the gutters and downspouts which had long been missing on the remains of the original part of the house in the back.  This makes me very, very happy.

Sheila would be mortified if she knew how I beamed at the gutter guys when they came.  They all smiled and waved at me - it's probably rare that they get greeted like rock stars by homeowners.

Tuesday: A jungle, abated (8/16/11)

Sheila was taking a half-day acting class for a couple of weeks, and mentioned to me that they could film an action sequence in our front yard because it looked like a jungle (albeit a jungle of shin-high weeds...).  Also, I encouraged a neighbor who asked if she could dig up a pretty grass plant growing along our front silt fence.  Twenty minutes into Tuesday morning, and it was all gone.

They got an incredible amount of work done in one day.  They absolutely tore around in a little front loader and got the front yard pretty well graded.  Note that the soil now covers most of those huge concrete piers under each porch column.  It's nice to have them somewhat hidden, as well as having a shorter step down from the porch, as we're not planning to have any railings.

A view from the other front corner...

...and from the back.

This is the beginnings of our infamous BMP (infiltration trench), required by the county to get our permit initially approved.

And then a month lapsed... (7/18/11 - 8/16/11)

Wherein we went to Utica and met Shelly's ttoodle (Tibetan Terrior-Poodle mix), Mouse.

Then we went to Syracuse to see Jack's parents, where we visited gorgeous Skaneateles (sp?) Lake...

...and these lovely people tried really, really hard to keep our dog.