Awaiting the Khaki Commander

The floors are finished! (Sort of...)

With lower lighting they look a bit darker:

They spent Monday and Tuesday doing the polyurethane coats (one coat each day). That stuff is stout! We were thankful for a good attic fan and low pollen count, cool Spring days. We were able to open the windows in the bedroom side of the house those nights and pull in the fresh air. It was about 60 degrees Monday night so it was brisk at bedtime!

Tuesday was another beautiful day and in an effort to avoid the poly fumes, Ryan and I took an afternoon hike. We have a trailhead right across the street from our house, and while Ryan has trekked up it many times, it was my first time. 

It was beautiful! Lots of busy squirrels and chipmunks, a few birds, and lots of mud puddles after all the rain we've had. When we made it to the top we took a quick breather and soaked in the view. You could see for miles up there.

A big "thank you" to Phil and Bethany for the amazing hiking sticks they gifted us for our wedding. Mine kept me a lot less muddy than I would have been without it!

Wednesday was a busy day, and most of it before 1pm. The flooring guys came around and put up the quarter round. 

Mike was here putting up the bifold doors on the appliance pantry.   

The new food pantry door and above-refrigerator-cabinet were finally delivered, 

so those were installed. 

Mike also put in the little shelves by the sink:

The dishwasher repairman through our home warranty company came and looked into that pesky dishwasher leak. He attributed it to the new line that was put in between the dishwasher and garbage disposal, and with a little of this and little of that he had it up and running. He wasn't here longer than 20 minutes, but it still cost us a service call fee. Luckily, Mike came back from his lunch break right before the guy left, and instead of me having to relay an exceptionally brief and lacking of the right detail explanation of what the repairman actually said, he heard for himself what the issue was. Turns out it's something that Mike and his plumber should've caught so Mike said he'd credit that service call back to us in our final invoice.

Mike also bebopped downstairs and started working on fixing those water spots in the laundry room.

The electricians came through and covered all our outlets, then called for the electrical inspection.

Wednesday night I grabbed dinner with Kathryn and Tecie, wiped down all the walls 

and marked spots that needed paint so it'd be ready for touch-up, and then hung out at the hospital for a couple hours waiting for the latest Labor and Delivery family addition. He was born after I'd left, but he's super cute. (Congrats Bethany, Jake, and Eleanor!)

I highly recommend wiping down the walls before paint. I'm not sure that all painters do this, and in our case it was more than necessary.

That was just ONE wall. I went through 12 Swiffer sheets that looked like this before it was all said and done.

During the cleaning I noticed some marks on the floor in the dining room area. Case in point, the toast shaped stripes:

Up closer, and in other areas of the dining room:

See all those swirly divots?

Thursday items included:
-passing our electrical inspection!!!

-touch-up painting
-the flooring guys came to see the flooring spots that needed to be fixed, but the painter told them I was asleep and not to make any noise so they didn't fix them today. (I was sleeping because I was on call but may not have to work.) They'll be back tomorrow to make lots of noise and fix the floors...when I KNOW I have to work that night. 

-enjoying some outside sunshine with our predominately indoor kitties. And then this one escaped through the fence. 

I chased after her into the ditch (where the deer were that I posted about earlier). As I approached her she bolted back through the fence, but not before I'd made good friends with all sorts of suspicious looking leaves. I showered immediately to (fingers crossed!!!) ward off the poison ivy.

How does this fit through the fence???

Once the floors are completely finished Mike will call for final inspection. OMG-so close!!!

A River Runs Through It

I was contemplating what to write about this week. Honestly, it's been pretty boring over here on Smoke Rise. House stuff has been relatively minimal, or it's gotten a late start, with little completion in the few hours that someone's been here. Well, if it's excitement I was looking for then things certainly picked up yesterday. I went to wash dishes, in our downstairs utility sink, which is directly under the upstairs sink/fridge area. And what do I spy with my little eye?

That line. It's never been there before...and it's wet. I look up, and on top of the cabinets, behind a row of bowls, it's worse.

If ever there was a day for this to not happen, this was it. After 3 hours of sleep, and discovering this at 4:30pm when I have to leave to work an extra 12 hour shift (that I completely regret picking up) at 6pm, my anxiety spikes. I send the above pictures (minus the "fit gif") to Mike and tell him to call me as we have a problem. He calls back seconds later, as I'm measuring from the far outside wall to see where the water might be coming from. Is it the dishwasher? Mike and his plumber discovered the pump has a problem, and it's not something that they'd be considered responsible for, so I've called to line up someone to look at it through the home warranty folks.

24 feet from the outside wall. Upstairs I go, and at 24 feet from the outside wall it's the fridge. Something behind the fridge! Another water problem? Sheesh! I alert the floor sanders. Supposedly they were going to start staining tonight, but they'll have to wait now. Not that they seem to be in any big hurry. One of them, who is on what must be his 14th cigarette break since noon hollers from the back porch, "that your pet deer?" I'm sorry, "what??" He points out a doe that's resting in the foliage between our back yard and the neighbor's. She has a friend with her. This is the best picture I can get:

See her peeking between the slats? Well, I'm glad someone is enjoying their day.

The water is cut off at the street, I brush my teeth with water from our Brita water pitcher, but no shower, then I head in to work. Ryan sets up some fans to run overnight to speed up the drying process, so work can continue. One behind the fridge, and the other downstairs.

I get home Thursday morning and the pieces of wood behind the fridge are capout. The wall isn't in very good shape either. 

That water did a number on those boards; water stains and warping. At the beginning, in the planning process, Mike mentioned that wood in a kitchen was a bad idea. He didn't recommend it, but it was up to us. "It's not 'if' there's a water issue, it's 'when'," he said. Point made, Mike. I didn't think anything would happen this soon but we're committed now, just keep rolling with what we've got!! Mike says they'll be by during the day on Thursday to replace those boards, then the sand/stain guys will be back to do their thing Thursday evening. Well, it's 8pm on Thursday, and while the boards got replaced, the sand/stain guys are a no-show. Maybe tomorrow? This flooring process is taking

I'm working for the weekend...again. Maybe we'll get things completed next week! Keep your fingers crossed for us. Well, mainly for Ryan. He'll be tolerating a maniacal wife if this doesn't get wrapped up soon.

And as I'm sure you only read this post because of the title and were expecting Brad Pitt, here ya go:

"Catch me on that line you sexy man-beast, put me in your little wicker basket, and carry me up river!"-said every woman ever

Hurry Up and Wait

After all the noisy productivity of Monday and Tuesday, the relative silence on Wednesday and Thursday was welcomed. I suppose it would've been nice to see a few loose end type items being taken care of, but no one being here did give me a chance to "tag" any areas of concern uninterrupted.

I approached Mike last week about a few areas I had noticed that needed some attention. This wall isn't level down to the trim in this spot. There are a couple microscopic divots here. This whole area needs to be repainted. Mike reassured me that they'd planned on doing some more painting; the baseboards in particular as the floor installation process tends to leave the trim in need of touch up. His suggestion was to go around with painter's tape and mark what spots I was seeing. I tagged this and that, some areas where old paint was coming through, other's where it hadn't been painted at all, and other spots where it was just a reminder for me to ask Mike about something in that spot.

-----BREAK----

I have to go to work...

Ok, now it's Saturday, I'm back...

I wanted different knobs on our appliance pantry than what we'd put on all the other cabinets. Of course I fell in love with these knobs from Anthropologie:

But at $18 bucks a pop, dropping $100 on 5 knobs seemed a bit ridiculous (even if they are fabulous). So looking around, Hobby Lobby actually offers some neat looking knobs, AND they were having a sale this week. 50% off!

I brought home a few different options:

And ended up liking the one on the far right the best. I hurry back to Hobby Lobby the next day to scoop up some more (this was the last one on Wednesday, but the lady said they got their truck that afternoon and she thought there should be more on the shelves come Thursday). I get to the knob aisle, and there's one. Only one more. Harumph...Guess I'll just have to keep checking back, and buy them gradually!

------BREAK------

I just found out the new episode of Outlander came out On Demand early, so I need to watch summa this before work:

Ok, back again. It's Sunday now and I'm trying to type up some more before I go to work...again. (That episode of Outlander was pretty amazing if anyone was wondering!)

So after the floors got dropped off two weeks ago, and then we waited, and then they installed last Monday and Tuesday, and we waited again, the plan is to have them sanded Monday and Tuesday, with staining and polyurethane coating going on Wednesday and Thursday! Anticipating the floors getting done and this whole thing wrapping up, I figured I ought to test out the dishwasher as it's the only fixture left in the kitchen that I've yet to ensure is functioning properly. And I had a big box of plastic cups and mugs that needed to be washed. So in they go. I go to check on it about 45 minutes in to it's cycle and I see this:

Hmmmm...

Continue to observe....

I then proceed with hurrying to catch and sop up water.

Oh, my poor floors! 

After the cycle finished I opened the door and see that the dishwasher isn't draining in the slightest. Those Shamwow rags ended up being the best for absorbing water over and over vs. the standard rag towel. I, of course, send Mike an email right away and he said he'd get a plumber out to look at it. Fingers crossed it's an easy fix! It worked fine in the old kitchen. I'll let you know what ends up happening, but if the answer is "you need a new dishwasher" you can expect to see a broken dishwasher sitting there for a bit. 

P.S. Mike said the floors would be fine!

Floors!

Monday morning I get home from work and Mike has met the flooring guys at the house. They commence with laying out pieces and they start hammering, nailing, knocking, and making all other variety of noises. Ahhhh....sounds like progress!

I go bunker down on the couch to watch T.V. and otherwise embrace the stupor that overtakes me when I get off of three shifts in a row.

I'm in the middle of a perfectly mundane episode of House Hunters when lights, T.V., and the sawing overhead abruptly turns off. Oh hell, pull your hair back up Sam, they're going to have to come down and turn whatever breaker got flipped back on. I wait...and wait...and no one comes down. I muster up a few ounces of energy and climb up the stairs. The guys are outside on a smoke break, and we chat on whether it's just us or the whole neighborhood. We hear sirens off in the distance. Maybe someone hit a pole? Our friendly neighbor, Carolyn, starts walking up and asking if our power is out too. Well, that takes care of that; the whole neighborhood is out. I invite her in to see the progress and she's all kindness. We chat about kitchens, gardening, and delivering babies. I'm and L&D nurse and she's had 8 kids. This could go on for a while, but it doesn't because she has to get back to her brood. I go back downstairs to take advantage of the relative quiet. 

After obviously slipping off with Mr. Sandman, I wake up an hour later to air compressors and nail guns going off. Power's back on! Come to find out it was some sort of outage at the power station. After much hustle and bustle, they've got the living room finished:

And they've started in on the other areas:

Mike says Monday and Tuesday for getting the floors down. They have to sit for a day or two in their new location, and then they sand them down. He projects the sanding to be on Friday and next Monday, with staining and the polyurethane to go down over the following Tuesday and Wednesday. We're so close!!

Slow on the Home Front

This week has been pretty dull at the Wall residence. Monday we had the city plumbing inspector come by and we got the all clear in that department. The floors, after being dropped off last Friday, were to sit for 5-7 days and then they read the temperature, humidity, and/or other factors on Wednesday to determine that it's safe to start putting the floors in. Well, it's Thursday now, and no one came by yesterday. Mike said the flooring testers should be by today to get their necessary readings, with installation starting tomorrow.

Today, Mike and Wayne are here doing odds and ends. The glass has been put in the sideboard's doors. 

The toe kick vent was added. (I had spoken with Mike about that vent earlier in construction and he said he'd add it. When I noticed it still wasn't there, I reminded him about it. He said today that he'd forgotten about it; thank goodness I said something!) 

Outlet covers are getting replaced. Yeah! No more loose wires dangling about!

My personal projects have included working on that butcher block top, and I must say, it's looking darn good! After Ryan sanded it to smithereens, it was looking  a little gray (a la Restoration Hardware), and while this shading appeals to me, this is not the area we wanted to implement it. So Wednesday I did a couple coats of the stain, a few hours apart, and those wood filler spots that were the bane of my existence? Gone! The stain seemed to amplify the sanding lines and the retained original stain in a couple spots, but hey, that distressed look is still "in," right? 

Quick update: after typing this up on Thursday, I was trying to upload pictures and the computer froze. That gave time to say: the lady from the floor place came by late on Thursday and said the floors were good to go, but the guys would be coming on Monday instead of Friday. Ok, sure, fine, at least I'll get to sleep in my own bed on Friday before work! And someone from Ceramic Harmony came on Friday as well. The grout/sealant/whatever it's called in one of the joints between two slabs had not sealed completely, so he fixed that and added some extra sealant over a suspicious looking fissure. All better.

Hoppy Easter weekend!