Finishes, Part II and Waiting for Water

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The thing about relying on "schedules" is that one is frequently disappointed. This past week was no exception. Water main work was supposed to happen last week, but because multiple people from multiple organizations need to be there the work was postponed to tomorrow (Monday). We are assured that the contractor, subcontractor, city engineer and inspector will all be there. If that actually happens we'll have water this week. I've crossed everything that can be crossed and I'm still not sure it will happen.

Suffering from condo and construction fatigue, Scott and I headed north up Highway 101 on Monday to explore the Olympic National Forest. On Tuesday we hiked to the most northwestern point in the contiguous United States, Cape Flattery. The photo above is a cove on the Strait of Juan de Fuca. The land you see eleven miles across the strait is the island of Victoria in British Columbia, Canada. It was a most welcome respite.

Back to reality on Thursday, I was looking for work so I installed the shelf brackets and (with some help) installed the shelving in Scott's office and my pantry. 

The plumber's were on site last week, installing the newly received black fixtures for the bath in the den, the disposal and air switch in the kitchen and the sprinkler head covers. They installed the sink in the garage and started installing the hot water heater, but the location of the plumbing lines seemed to trip them up. I assume we'll get that figured out this week, along with toilets and actual water. 

Except for cleaning, the laundry room is all but complete and looking snappy!

Brian installed the pull-out shelves in the den for Scott's album collection. I then pulled up all the tape and drop cloths, cleaned the shelving and installed additional shelves and the album holders. It's looking pretty sporty and quite like the renderings. The white square to the right of the shelving is the fresh air intake. It will be hidden by the beverage fridge. There are two more fresh air intakes, at the stairwell and in the bedroom. They are part of the reason we don't need an HRV system. The special fan in the powder room upstairs that runs constantly is the other part of the passive system.

The electricians were on hand early in the week and installed a lot of outlets and switches. In addition, most of the appliances have been installed. Above the fridge, microwave and dishwasher can be seen as well as the cooktop, inset to be flush with the counter.

I think this is my favorite photo from this week. In the primary bath the plumbing fixtures, grab bars (that don't look like grab bars,) towel warmer and shower glass are all installed. I just love it. Mirrors in the primary and den bath should be installed early this week. There was a hiccup with the primary bath counter (an easy fix but took a day to get the contractor out) that prevented mirror installation.

We're hoping the electricians will be on site this week. They were supposed to be there for three days last week, but after a day were pulled off to another job. There are still outlets and switches to be installed, the fixtures in the den and primary bath, and five large light fixtures (as evidenced by the large boxes in the living room and bedroom). 

I've been trying to line up someone to come in for new construction cleanup, but as yet haven't found anyone. The company that cleans around our condo common areas was a potential option, but they are tied up cleaning cargo ships (of all things) and don't have staff for our job. I'm at the point where I think we'll be doing it ourselves. We've been doing it all along, every Saturday, so why not? And, of course, who could clean to our expectations...we're pretty picky.

This coming week we are hoping for water, final plumbing, mirrors, final electrical, final countertop finishing, and retaining wall footings (and maybe even the wall itself.) We need water and a driveway along with final plumbing and electrical to get our occupancy permit. My BFF Paula is coming for a visit on Saturday, maybe she can whip the contractors (or the city) into shape!

Finishes, Part I - Counters and Plumbing Fixtures

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While excavation was going on in front of the house the painters were giving the interior its final coat of paint. They finished the kitchen first so the countertops, backsplash and window sills could be installed. They are all made of Richlite, a post-consumer paper and resin material. Skateboard ramps, airplane fuselage, high school science lab desks, siding and many other things are made of Richlite. It is very hard, but can be refinished, and has the same heat properties as man-made stone products. www.richlite.com.

Brian has kept busy, installing the dryer (our first working appliance!) and the fireplace trim, while wrangling contractors and tracking down correct plumbing fixtures.

The plumbers were on site late this week. In the photo below you can see the dishwasher (connected but not working because no water) and the sink faucet. The disposal and air switch, which were on the bid, but not on the spec, didn't get ordered. It should be in this week. There is plenty to do.

I mentioned Brian was chasing fixtures. The plumber installed a complicated bright gold kitchen faucet that was on the original spec and Brian knew it wasn't correct. He found the updated spec, sent to the plumber's office in December, and called them to confirm. Turns out some things were ordered from the original spec. Not to worry, they had the correct faucet in stock and jumped to reorder other items that were incorrect. The big difference is the finish color. I mean, just look at that sexy black faucet!

Brian installed the maple butcher block counter tops in the butler's pantry/Beth's office. They look better than I hoped! They need to be sanded then finished with a UV poly sealer. That will happen in the coming weeks.

Below is the kitchen/living room wall, complete except for touchup and electrical work. The electricians will be on site next week to complete finish electrical. You can also see the steel shelf above the kitchen counter in this photo.

Across from the living room cabinets above is the pony wall surrounding the stairwell. It is topped with the same countertop material. The photo also shows the newly painted stairwell walls and the stairwell window, finally uncovered after almost 6 months! The shelves in front of the pony wall will be mounted to the wall.

The sink in the powder room is installed, but part of the bottle trap that came with it didn't actually fit the thin bottom of the sink. The plumber's office found a replacement, but we have to purchase the entire fixture. Looking at this photo now, I'll have to talk to the plumber about matte black waterlines and valves. The tiny sink is tinted concrete in mustard. There will be black shelves to the right of it.

The primary bath got lots of love last week, too. The black stripe above the steel shelf is now painted and the counter, faucets, shower head, hand shower and control are in place. The shower glass and all the bathroom mirrors will be installed next week.

The primary bedroom got its feature wall this week. It looks dark in the photo, but the color is just a shade darker than the wardrobe doors (currently covered with blue plastic). The painter has just a couple touchups to finish, likely on Monday.

And we can't seem to go more than a few days without an inspector onsite - this time it was the big guy checking in, not ten feet away from me when I took the photo. 

Next week we'll see a lot more going on inside - finish electrical, more plumbing and appliances. But the BIG news is that water main work is expected to complete this week - fingers crossed!

Sewer News, Excavation and a Pipe!

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Last week was busy. With the interior painting almost complete Brian has been working on fixtures and finishes. Anything to keep busy while the sub-contractors do their thing. First up...house numbers!

The excavators finally received the part they were waiting for (actually, another plumbing company had one in stock that they didn't need) to start the sewer connection work. Being a one hundred year old neighborhood, however, you never know what you will find. 

The first interesting thing they found was an existing sewer line connection, right where we needed it. A call was made to the city engineer to let them know. Then the excavator dug down from the sewer line exiting the house to the sidewalk and found (and broke) an unexpected six inch clay pipe. Another call, this time to the city's planning department who is responsible for all the infrastructure records. They came out within 20 minutes and had no explanation for the pipe. They asked if the neighbor's would run water or flush their toilets to see if it was a live line, expecting a deserted line. They found a live sewer line connected to our neighbor's house, up hill to the west. 

A call to the city engineers was placed to decide what to do about it. Obviously we had to repair the line and the city engineers required a clean out for the line (the green pipe shown above). The excavator asked if we could connect to that line, silly excavator. No, the city engineers said they must install a separate sewer line connection, with clean out, about a foot east of the neighbor's existing sewer connection.

The above photo shows our sewer line and clean out in black, skewed to the east, and the neighbor's clean out in green, both fully set and connected to the sewer main. By the way, we had another inspector on site. Meet SPuR. Also known as Sparkle Princess Rainbow to the excavator's daughter. He's about 9 weeks old and absolutely adorable. No, he's not ours but was on site and made my day.

On his walk later that day, Scott took photos of the house from the lot below. It's looking pretty great!

Excavation continued in the front yard the next day for the retaining wall. It appears to be, and is, quite drastic. The retaining wall will be just inside the property line requiring the footings to also be inside the yard. Since the retaining wall will be just over five feet at the corner of the lot it requires a 3 foot, 8 inch wide, 1 foot deep footing inside the property line. They also removed the railroad ties on the east side of the house and leveled the soil to match the grade to the east.

It was on this day that I decided to trip on a rebar spike and land nose first on a piece of 1-1/2 inch metal rod. Brian got me to the emergency room where I received a CAT scan and nine stitches. I'm ok, but I feel a bit silly. I joked that I looked like I lost a bet with a hockey puck. Scott's son Andrew said he needed photos of me in a hockey sweater. So there you go.

Like all that wasn't enough...The pipe for the water main replacement arrived on Tuesday this week! It's 220 feet long, the welds inspected and approved by the Portland certification guy and the city. Water main replacement begins next week!