week 18: the holidays!

the last of the lathe

Tis the holiday season, so work has slowed a wee bit. Most of last week was dedicated to the stucco sub finishing the details on the metalwork (more metal to pick up...).

speakers of the house

I also spent some time placing speaker guides for the living room:

Still need to install speaker guides for the kitchen, master bath, and master bedroom. Something to do this week during a day off...

doors?

Still no front or back doors, but I bumped into the storefront door sub at the house last Thursday, and he said that the doors were just shipped in and will be installed soon (this week?). He was there to measure the entries to make sure plans and reality were the same (good idea!).

electrifying news...

The electrical sub did a wee bit of work this past week. And he sent over an itemized change order list that was a little disturbing in that the changes cost about half of what it cost to install electric in the entire house. Now don't get me wrong: We fully expect that we would pay for changes, but some of the charges are serious head scratchers. The biggest cost was associated with the fact that what he bid on wasn't the final electrical plan for the house. His guys installed the stuff on the final plan, but then he appears to have assigned change order level prices on the difference between the two plans. hmmm...   Then there are the few things I've noted his gang did wrong that he wants to charge us for fixing ($175 to replace improperly sized junction boxes for the smoke alarms; $225 to move an improperly placed plug 16 inches). Huh? And then there're the changes I agreed to in order to make his job easier (not having to drill larger holes through 1/4 inch plate steel; not having to fur out a wall) to which we've been awarded a change order charge of $600. WTFb??!?!!!?  (What The Frog butt??!?!!!?)

After talking with the builder, we're going to meet with the sub this coming Friday to discuss the change order. Should be an interesting meeting.

the kitchen cabinet

Met with the cabinet lady to discuss the details of the cabinet package for the house. It's been nice working with someone who appreciates modern and has a lot of great ideas to boot. Below aren't the finals, but close. And the initial bid is about 10 percent over our budget; however, we did have her bid out floating wall-mounted bedside tables for the master (the reason we're so particular about those plug locations in the master bedroom).

There's some coordination on the electrical that needs to happen (the cab lady noted that the wires are too low at the moment for our higher-than-standard wall cabs). We'll also have some additional charges to get the master bathroom cabs to float. Two options: (1) metal angle iron or (2) a short pony wall along the back. We'll need to discuss approach and cost with the builder. Ms. Cab also suggests floating the guest bathroom cabinets. Hmmm.... We'll see what the cost is on that.

i can see the light!

Met with the light guy early last week to start putting together the order for the house, and it was an enjoyable two-hour meeting (and that was having pre-chosen 90 percent of our lights!). He was able to find all of our lights except the blue sea anemone:

which we'll pick up on our own (He: "Do you want to see alternatives?" Me: "No. That fixture was closely negotiated.").  He thought it was odd that we wanted the same fixtures (or family of fixtures) in each bathroom. He said a designer the day before had told him that the new trend was consistency in fixtures through a house. He said he didn't believe her. "And here you are, one day later!"

Despite all the pre-selected choices, he was able to help us find a good pantry light and an alternative to our chosen light for the laundry room (what we now call the "Buds & Suds Room) We need an alternate light since the exhaust fan was installed too close to the fixture of choice. Lightman was able to find a thinner and longer version of the one we had chosen that I actually like better. We'll use it (no photos yet) in the master closet as well.

Despite our careful room-by-room approach, we missed choosing a light for the closet upstairs and the indoor lights for the garage (doh!!!). And I'm wondering if our ceiling fan choice for the upstairs bedrooms (8-foot tall ceilings) will hang too low...

trash talk

A potentially troubling development is the fate of our trash and, along with it, the fate of our five star green rating. Is the trash being recycled? This discussion got kicked off by the architect noting that there wasn't any onsite recycling. After checking into the requirements, it *appears* that on-site recycling is not required for a five-star rating, but offsite recycling on the order of 50 to 75 percent is required to get more than one star. I say appears because although the city posts a rating sheet and guidance manual, it says the online only-accessible-by-an-architect-or-builder governs the rating. I've noted 50 to 75 percent because the spreadsheet and guidance document report two different goals.

The builder hasn't responded to our inquiry (the holidays?) on whether or not his trash sub recycles his waste stream, so we're getting a bad feeling that our trash isn't being recycled. If that's the case, we can only hope for a one-star rating, a serious bummer. One of our goals was to get on the Cool House Tour (to give back, if you will...), but the tour only (seems to) accept fivers, not onesies.