Guest bath stone

This is the limestone in the guest bath shower. It's the same stuff that will also be on the floor. We are having mixed feelings about it. It's really neat, but is substantially heavier on the fossils & shells than the samples we saw. We think it looks cool but it's a lot busier. We are going to do a double check with the glass tile today that goes in the liner (the decorative strip around the shower) to make sure it doesn't clash.

The office floor is floated and they are supposed to put in the tile in the next few days. The hot water heater is in & the laundry sink goes in today. Making progress.

It's still looking possible for the 10th, I'm keeping my fingers crossed!

Kitchen tile

This isn't a very good photo, but it should give you the general idea. This is the glass tile that is the backsplash in the kitchen. I got to the house last night about 5:15 and he had about 75% of it up. I think it looks great. It still has the spacers in it and isn't grouted yet, obviously. The grout is going to be gray in color, lighter than the counter tops. I'm very happy with how the kitchen is turning out. It's going to be sharp (it better be for the $$!) when it's done.

I painted the trellis in the back yard so they can move the hot tub back in place. I think they may have painted the garage wall also, which means they can move the washer & dryer back and install the hot water heater. Making progress!

Kitchen counters

Well, the counters are installed. Yeah! They look great. The color is a bit off in this picture. They are actually a bit darker and they have a very subtle pattern to them, like marble, sort of. Anyway, they look great. The overhang on the sink side is a bit bigger than it's supposed to be, but it works fine. The faucet still fits fine (we tried it). The material is Cesar Stone and is ground up & put back together quartz. Doesn't need sealing, isn't supposed to scratch, and is supposed to last longer than the house.

After a lengthy meeting with the builder today, we may, and I repeat may, have a "real" move in date: August 10th. He's heading out of town for a week and wants to be done when he leaves, which is fine with us. I hope we make it. I am so over moving. Move number 6 is next week.

They are definitely making progress on the house. The closet organizers went in today. all the interior trim is painted & the mahogany is lacquered. It looks great! Somebody put up the exterior speakers today & the in ceiling speakers in the dining room. They have also started on the gates, which is wonderful. I'm going to go over and touch up paint the trellis in the back yard tomorrow night so they can move the hot tub back. The builder says once that's done, the electrician will come over & start on stuff.

I put a few more pictures in the album. Enjoy!

General progress

The replacement kitchen cabinets came in & the installer was working yesterday. That's great news because we can move forward with the kitchen counters, which means it won't hold up the tile guy. Yahoo.

The concrete is poured for the front walkway so that's the end of the concrete. There is still some work to do in the front, but mostly just gravel. We toyed with the idea of another surface out there, but at this point, gravel looks like a good option (meaning: affordable).

We are back in rental house number two and will be here for a few weeks. Things are moving along well, but I still don't think we'll hit August 3rd - it's just too close. Maybe the 10th?

I'll try to upload some new photos early in the week. Things are settling down after this last move, so I should have some time....

Progress

Well, something is almost finished :) This is the vanity in the master bath. The installer brought & installed the Limestone slab yesterday and it looks great. It will match the rest of the Limestone in the bathroom very nicely.

The tile guy has been busy prepping the showers for stone, and the shower floors both have mud on them now.

We've got the front walkway laid out & the forms for the concrete should be done today. That will be the last pour we do. We found a spot to incorporate a bench which will be a nice addition to the front of the house.

They have been busy on the inside staining the rest of the mahogany and painting the baseboards & interior door trim. They'll get all cleaned up, then the wood floor guy is going to come and grind the existing concrete to smooth it out, once again, making a huge mess.

Move in wise, we are hoping for August 3rd, but are thinking the 10th is more likely. Someday, we'll be back home. Friday, we move back to house number two for a few weeks, then August 3rd, we are homeless again...

Color!

This is the only wall in the house with strong color on it. Everything else is is shades off off-white, mostly in the gray family. This is the wall with the TV on it & we thought it would not only make a nice accent in the living room, but be a good background for TV watching. I'm really pleased with how it looks. They are done with all the wall color & are going to work on the trim Monday. On the recommendation of our builder and Mr. S.P., we are going to do the trim a bit darker than the wall color. I think it will look great.

We are now in house #4 and will be here for about a week, before going back to house #2. Literally, our possessions are in boxes, scattered to the four winds. I know where my suitcase is, and the coffee maker, and that's about all that matters, right?

I put a few more pictures in the photo album. The tile guy has started on the showers & the gutters are done.

Bagged

Not a very exciting picture, but a picture none the less. Here's a shot of the kitchen, all wrapped in plastic. They've got the walls primered and the ceiling painted. Today they start on the color. I only stayed in the house a couple of minutes as it smells pretty toxic right now. If you look on the living room wall, you can see the three squares where we painted sample colors. I don't know if I mentioned this, but we learned *after* we painted them that we weren't supposed to paint directly on the plaster. They now have to Kilz or something over them so they don't show through. Live and learn...

The gutters also got installed yesterday. We now have lovely, color coordinated, made on site "real" gutters. They look nice.

And finally, we are moving again today. So long house #3. We are actually spending the night with friends (thanks J&R!) tonight so we can be moved out & clean house #3. The tomorrow, we are in house #4 for a little over a week, then we move back to house #2 until August 3rd. After August 3rd, who knows...

Minor update, making progress....

No new pictures for you. They started painting the inside of the house yesterday, so basically, it's all wrapped in plastic. The primer is done, and they start with the color today. The tile guy starts Monday, and we are being told that will take two weeks, but I can't imagine it would take that long....? The wood floors go in after that, with the electrician & plumber working around everybody else. The front walkway gets poured next Tuesday, and that will be the end of the concrete. I hope the gates & fences go up soon after that.

We find out today if we have to move across the street tomorrow or Friday. We are hoping that we may get lucky and may not have to move at all, but we don't know. The downside to that is this house is *tiny* and the bedding is somewhat torturous. Not moving would be nice, but having a better bed might make up for the inconvenience.

Had a surprised visit from Michael & Victoria yesterday, and we caught up a bit over dinner. The weather has been really odd. Sunday & Monday were warm & sunny with no wind. Yesterday was overcast and dead calm when I got home, and it actually sprinkled for about one minute. Very strange. We'll see what today holds!

Patio pictures

Here's what the side yard/patio is looking like now that the forms have been removed. Most of the spaces between the squares/rectangles will be filled with Mexican black pebbles. Should look nice. There are some planting areas near the fence and we'll be having more planting containers in the back than we had before. The metal brackets you see outside the door are for a short hip wall that will help hide the trash & recycling.

They have started masking & bagging stuff inside for painting, so it looks like that's next. That will be an exciting change because when they are done painting, they will be able to get the electrician back to start putting up switches & fixtures. We have to pick a color for the gutters this week, and we think we are just going to do a dark brown to match the fascia. Also, we've been looking at house numbers & cut out some yesterday to tape to the house & help with placement & size decisions.

I've added a few more pictures to the photo album. Completely off topic - we saw Kathy Griffin in SLO last night. Very funny. If you've ever seen "My Life on the D List" we can confirm she does work hard. We've seen Whoopi, Ellen, and Margaret Cho before, and at the most, you got a set that was 1:15, maybe 1:20. Kathy did two hours straight through. That's a lot of talking and it was hysterical! Also, our friend David came up from Orange to see the show with us (we had one xtra ticket). He is now officially the only person to have stayed with us in all our various homes these past six months. We treated him to dinner as a special prize :)

More cabinets

Here's a shot of the aluminum & "glass" cabinet doors. This is the set above the sink, but there's two more sets in the kitchen, all uppers. They don't have the handles on them yet, but they look cool, I think. There is still lots of trim work to do on the cabinets as well. Supposedly, our replacement cabinets will be completed on the 9th & we should have them the week after. The finished the driveway & are almost done staining all the window sills & door trim inside. More pictures later....

Fireworks?

For the first time I can remember, the fog was so heavy last night that we could not see the fireworks at the pier. We wandered down to the beach & sat in our usual spot, but couldn't see squat. Oh well. Also, as they had increased the "no fireworks" fine to $2,000 this year, the beach was pretty quiet. Definitely not the war zone it often is. Additionally, in the 30 minutes we were there, 6 sheriffs on quad-runners came by at various times, and the one group of people lighting off safe 'n sane stuff next to us apparently got off with a warning.

I have to say, while the war zone is usually pretty cool, I'm always saddened the next day to see spent fireworks laying around on the shore. And, it's just a matter of time until somebody's house burns down. This year was quieter than last year, and if the trend continues, next year should be downright peaceful :)

Still, it was a great day & a nice night. In house news, the cabinet installer worked yesterday getting the aluminum & glass (which actually turns out to be some kind of polycarbonate) installed. They look cool...

And I have to sign off by sending birthday wishes to Simon & a certain somebody else :) Have a good one!

Photo Album mess

I think I got the photo album squared away. I had to copy a bunch of older pictures from one album to another, and they lost the captions on the way. I've spent enough time at the computer on a beautiful sunny day, so I'm done for now. You should see a bunch more photos now. I'll add captions later on....

Happy Fourth!

I didn't even go to the parade this morning. That's the first one I've missed in years. Just didn't feel like it. We have two friends coming over for dinner tonight, but other than that, this is the first fourth without company in quite a while.

Here's a picture of the cement truck from yesterday. There is still one more pour, for the front walkway, but that will happen later. I think the patios are going to look great when they are done. Most of the places where you see the wood formers will be replaced with pebbles, so the patio shapes will give the illusion of giant pavers.

The move in date has been moved up a week, so we rented the house we just moved out of for the last two weeks of July. This means, of course, moving again. Oh well. The bad news is because of the delay we might lose our lock on the loan, and rates have gone up 1/4 point. We are hopeful they can work something out.

I finally uploaded a few more pictures to the library - enjoy! Also, I figured out that I had been uploading photos to two different online albums. I couldn't figure out why all my new photos weren't showing up. I'll get that straightened out later...

Busy week

The past week has been very busy for us, and for the builders. We had to move out of house #2 last week, and we were also leaving town on Wednesday for a few days. The timing wasn't ideal, but we managed. We finished up moving before we left town Wednesday morning. While we were gone, they made a lot of progress on the concrete outside. You can see some of the side yard here looking into the back yard. The concrete for the hot tub isn't poured yet; you can see the forms for it behind it in this pictrue. The area on the left that is still dirt will be the grass area. And, if you see the square hole in front of the hot tub, that's where the fire pit will go. All in all, very exciting!

What's less exciting is the general state of our stuff right now. Currently, we have dressers of clothes across the street in the garage, as well as some of our food in the fridge, which is plugged in in the garage. Then, we have a bunch of stuff from the last house in a storage unit. And finally, we have kind of the bare essentials with us in the new temporary digs. This house is probably 600 square feet, max. And it's well, let's just say "it's a funky beach house." Don't get us wrong - we are happy to have a place to stay (especially rent free). It's just going to get old living out of suitcases for the next 3 or 4 weeks. Oh well. What's that Doris Day song?

Our computer is in storage, but I"m going to see if I can't get some photos on the laptop & upload them tonight. I realize I've been lax with the photo album, so I'd like to catch up. On other interior updates, the mahogany trim is going up inside, the kitchen & master batch sinks are placed ready for their slabs, the guest bath vanity top is in, the tile is all on site. So, lots going on. We just want it to be done, um, about a month ago! That's it for now, I'll try to get back on the ball this week. The dogs get to come home from the kennel today, and I'm sure it will be oh-so-cozy in the house with them. Regardless, I'm looking forward to seeing them.