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| Customer Photo Journal |
 
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February 4, 2005 I just thought I was busy up through the last update. I have really been busy since Christmas getting things taken care of. We are close to the end now as you will see in the attached pictures and notes. The final (3rd) coat of polyurethane will be put on the floors today. After that it will be putting up the last of the fixture lamps and globes, setting the cabinets in the laundry room, putting the fireplace mantle and bookcases in the family room and getting the entire house cleaned. All of the painting is complete. The appliances are set except for the dishwasher which will be set after the floors are dry. I will send out the final update when we get the furniture in the house and somewhat organized. In previous updates I told you about the walnut parquet floors that were made for the house. This will give you some idea of how they have turned out. This is from the dining room looking into the foyer. This picture was taken as they were putting the polyurethane down and has a gloss that will diminish with the drying. I made walnut shoe mold to go around all of the foyer flooring and the base of the cabinets in the bathrooms.  Also in the earlier updates I told you about the foul up with the window in the kitchen and how we were going to solve the problem. This is the stained glass picture that Becky had made to fill in the transom. In the picture you can see the original window and transom and then the “fill in” transom used to fill in where the window was moved down.  Becky wanted a pretty back splash over the kitchen counters and something that was easy to clean. This is the porcelain tile put in both kitchens. This is the game room kitchen in the basement. A microwave goes in the hole to the right.  This is the main kitchen. The pattern is hard to see, but is the same as the other kitchen. This also shows the island with the granite top. Becky is going to put the butcher block I built her several years ago at the end of the island that can be seen. It will also have a matching granite top that will extend the island out about another three feet. The shelves at the end of the bar are for cookbooks.  Another thing that took quite a bit of time for me to build with all of the interruptions of overseeing the job was building the handrails and banisters. The hand rail down the stairs was almost 17 feet long so it had to be laminated out of several pieces of walnut. I was able to make the short handrail out of one piece. The newel post was built up hollow so we could get inside to fasten it to the stair below and wall above. The balusters are 1 3/4” solid walnut as well as this handrail. The balusters are set get in a groove in the handrail and piece on the wall. Filler strips are then used to lock the balusters in place. The whole banister system is very sturdy and with only small nail holes in the filler strips to cover.  All of the suspended ceiling in the basement has been installed as well as the carpet, lights and fans. This is the game room showing the ceiling, fans, lights and floor tile.  This is dining room fixture with the wall sconces behind. The other fixtures have to be “dressed” out after the floor is dry. This was to save cleaning the globes after the finals buffing of the floors.  This is the family room after it was cleaned up to do the floors. The vent free fireplace is covered up at the end of the room and we still have to build a surround for the fireplace and mantel. On each side of the fireplace will be a cabinet that will have glass shelves. There is a granite heath in front of the fireplace and there will be a granite facing that will cover the metal on the fireplace front. All of the material for the mantel and cabinets will be walnut to match the rest of the house.  I am still in the process of cleaning the shop up and will include a picture of the final layout in the next update. This is what it looked like when we took everything to the “house storage”.  This is how it all looked in the house [storage room]. There are still room on these shelves and room for more shelves. It will just take a little time to organize everything. It is a blessing to have all of it at floor level where we do not have to try to get it into the attic. I think this is one of the best features in the design of the house.  I don’t know how the bad weather of last weekend (1/29 to 2/1) affected you, but it hit us pretty hard. We were without power for 45 hours. This is what the house looked like the morning of 1/29:  No, that is not snow. That is ice. We [lost] power 1/29 about 6:30 PM and it did not come back on until about 4 PM on 2/1. The temperature for Saturday night was in the upper 20’s, the high Sunday was in the low 40’s, the low Sunday night was in the lower 30’s and the high last Monday afternoon was in the upper 40’s. The reason for going through all of that is when we turned the heat back on Monday afternoon, the temperature in the [insulated concrete form] basement was 56 and the [steel framed] first floor was 49. Not bad considering 45 hours of no heat and the outside temperatures experienced. That is about it for this. We still have to get some things done, but it is getting close. Fred |
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