All Quiet on the home front

Mother nature has not been nice as of late.  We have had the new shingles scheduled to go one for the last two weeks but Mother Nature has not been co-operative.  Cougar Roofing was catching up with other jobs that have been delayed when a Colorado Low moved on through.  This latest blast of rain and snow will undoubtably delay us by another week or so pushing the inspection to next week or so.

That being said the Electrical rough ins are pretty much completed, Plumbing lines are run, Mechanical connections just need to be tapped into the existing system so we are good to go.  Insulation and vapour barrier will be completed just as soon as we get the go ahead from the City Inspectors and then drywall.  Realistically we are looking towards May for a completion date for this first phase of the house :(

Oh well even Rome wasn't built in a day.  I'll try and be more vigilant on the posts but there has been nothing to say as of late.

Sarah's Room

Even though there isn't any drywall installed yet we are starting to put together the different finishes for the rooms.  Over the next week or so we hope to have all of the "major" decisions made so that we can begin ordering any items that might be a long lead item or require some proper planning.  We're not sure what will go where yet but Sarah's room has begun to take shape.

Starting with the floor we have found a Tiger Bamboo engineered pre finished hardwood.  The colouration is unit as the bamboo is cut up into strands, 1/2 of the cuttings are steamed to create the deep colour, the other 1/2 left natural and then formed into blocks of solid wood and finally milled to the shape of the hardwood planks.  The look is unique for sure.

The Headboard wall in this room will be the Accent wall.  The Black and White wall vinyl will create a dramatic impact, especially when combined with the vibrant pink and purple.  of the other walls.  We are still hoping to have a dance ballet bar somewhere in the room, ideally in front of a mirror.

Next up - planning Joshua's room.  I think this room will actually prove to be more difficult as he is that much younger and has SOOOOO many different interests.  As Sarah is becoming a tween she will grow into the funkiness of here room.  With Joshua we don't want to create a grown up room just yet but it still needs to allow for him to be a kid but not to childlike.  We shall see. 

The Kitchen

We are getting closer to making our final selection for finish materials on the kitchen.  Our anticipated installation of the kitchen is in the next 5 weeks so ALOT of stars need to align for this to happen.  Realistically the end of March date is now the middle of April but I am holding out hope.  

Mark Silvaggio of Grade A Millwork (www.gradeamillwork.com) Has taken his rough measurements and is awaiting our final decisions.  The following two images were created by him as artist renderings (computer generated) of what the kitchen will look like.  They are quite close, minor differences that most people wouldn't take note of.  

Plumbing Connections

Goldstar Plumbing has installed and or connected about 90% of the New Addition plumbing rough-ins.  Dave figures he will be back tomorrow and have the other 10% connected so we will be ready for the next stage.  That is the good news.  The bad news is when he re-connected the washing machine he confirmed my fear that the frozen pipe issue we had earlier was actually the internal cold water intake on the washing machine.  Not insurmountable, just a pain in the ***.  I will be calling a washing machine repair person tomorrow and HOPEFULLY we will have a washing machine within the wee.  We shall see.

Plumbing and Heating

We were able to pick up all of our plumbing fixtures this week.  Everything is being stored in the old dining room and it resembles a Kohler store room.  Cindy of Ram Marketing (Kohler Representative) was able to work with us and we selected everything from their lines for the Kitchen and the two Bathrooms.  I can hardly wait to have everything installed as there is some pretty cool pieces.  Probably my favorite will be our kitchen taps.  For a quick view go to www.kohler.com and search for 'karbon'  

This past week saw the plumbing and heat lines from the second floor through the main floor and down into the basement.  Hopefully by the end of this coming week we will have more things connected.  

The next shot is the ceiling of the kitchen.  We will have lots of natural light  from the two windows but we will also have ample light from all of the pot lights and pendants.  The pendants need to be selected this week but we have a good idea of what we want.

Finally up in the second bathroom the tub is installed and there are more Kohler products.  The tub is 5'-6" long (6" longer than typical), 36" wide (6" wider than typical) and 22" high (4" taller than typical).  There are no jets but it still will be a great soaking tub!!

Kitchen

Probably the most common question that people ask us when they hear we are renovating the house and the full extent of the renovation is what are you doing for a kitchen?  Thankfully we have the half bathroom in the basement.  The sink is smallish and not really conducive for doing dishes but we are adapting.  In retrospect we should have put the old kitchen sink in the bathroom.  As we are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel we only have a few more weeks (months??) of living like this.

While it isn't the fullest pantry we are by no means  like old mother hubbard yet.  It will be nice to have a properly stocked kitchen but that will be here soon enough.