About one month to move in

Our scheduled move date is July 27, so that leaves us 22 days to finish the house. What's left to be done? Mostly a lot of detail work; the house is now remarkably complete. In the next month we need to refinish the floors (more on that later), install the stair railing and window well cover, finish the electrical, lay the driveway, and get the appliances and carpet installed. The GC is confident we'll make the July 27th date. We hope he is right, because we have a contract to sell our house on August 1st, and need everything out before then. Below are some details on various aspects of the house since I last wrote in the blog.

Ceiling Panels
The panels on the great room ceiling now look great, but what a headache they created. First, look at the finished product.

Kitchen island looking to fireplace (notice tile wall above cooktop) with pendants installed. The thing hanging from the wall is the wiring for the the hood vent and fan.

Great room

The panels are 3/8" white oak panels that were stained and finished. We put a 1/4" gap between the panels and painted the edges (Tricia and I painted them) and the ceiling dark grey. Given the lack of wood beams in our mountain home, this was a good way to bring wood into a contemporary design.

The problem began when the builder puttied the nail holes (see prior post). The putty did not remove as easily as he thought (he should have tested this more thoroughly prior to proceeding on the entire ceiling). In the end, he covered the panels with lemon oil. Prior to covering the nail holes the panels looked perfect; after the lemon oil the panels looked awful. They looked like a body builder glimmering in oil.

Removing the oil felt like an endless project. I spent probably 20 hours on scaffolding and ladders trying to get the stuff off. The builder spent a lot of time too. The breakthrough was when I got scientific about removing the oil. Below is my test sheet for oil removal solvents.

Test panel for solvents

I applied lemon oil and then tested various combinations of ammonia, mineral spirits, and vinegar to remove the oil. We decided that a combo of water and vinegar was best. With that combination in hand, we were able to get the panels looking good again. Tricia took this shot of me applying the final "wipe down" of the panels.

Final cleaning of panels (cloth-on-sponge suggestion by Tricia was key to a smooth finish)

Patios

The cement patios are now in and look good. There are three cement patios and they are all finished the same. We're using a stained concrete with exposed aggregate. We don't have any shots of the final patio, but here are a couple of shots of the patio getting installed.

Mixer delivering concrete (a bit close to the house) 

Installing the front walkways and side patio

The attached video shows how the concrete is smoothed after it is poured.

Smoothing concrete

Cabinets

The cabinets are now all installed and the tile work, apart from sealing the grout, has been completed. Below are a few shots. I apologize if these are repeats.

Pantry

 Coffee bar detail

Dining room

Hardwood Floors

The floors will look good when finished, but it will take two tries to get there. In a nutshell, the crew that sanded and finished the floors was incompetent and the finishes have to be redone. What a hassle given the mess this makes. So today, we begin our second try at finishing the oak floors. The photo above of the dining room gives you a sense of what they look like. Notice the small piece of blue tape on the floor. It marks one of dozens of "holidays" on the floor. There are so many problem spots that the floors need to be completely refinished. Thankfully the sub acknowledged the issue and is redoing the work at his cost.

Landscaping

We've begun landscaping. Our landscaper has already brought in and planted 9 Colorado spruce and blue spruce trees (for screening), and is now installing irrigation (needed if you want the trees and plants to live). Next steps include installing fencing to partially enclose the back yard and provide more privacy, arranging boulders (a significant feature in most western landscaping plans where water is scarce and browsing animals are plentiful), putting in river rock culverts and drip areas, and adding shrubs, perennials, and ground cover in the front of the house and around the patio in the back. I'll close this blog entry with a shot of the front of the house awaiting irrigation and plants.

My next entry will, hopefully, be of the finished house.