week 35: HVACing

Not a lot of exciting stuff happened over the past week. There was a bit of behind-the-scenes back-and-forth on fences (finalizing design, location, and cost), grass pavers (finalizing cost), facing for the cabinets under the peninsula (what and who), countertops (the whats on the peninsula), handrails for the stairs and upstairs "balcony", and other details.

HVACing

One visible thing that happened was the installation of more of the HVAC system. The sub installed registers for the returns and ducts:

Nothing special about the registers (that was one design detail we didn't fret about, in part because the design is set by Austin's green rating and in part because design-savvy alternatives are expensive). One item that has come up is: What to do about the color of the registers where they penetrate the cypress? The builder wants to try and match the wood (but which part of the wood?). I'm thinking we leave them white. There's already a lot of white in the house (with more to come with the fixtures). Worse comes to worse, we can pull them down and paint them "wood" later and see how that goes. Gave a pal a tour of the house this past week, and he suggested leaving them white. He and his wife had to deal with a similar situation, and, after dealing with paint (scratching off) and matching issues, went white. 

The grills went up on the bathroom and laundry ventilation as well. Sure glad I insisted that this vent in the powder pooper be centered. 

I was happy to see how pleasantly minimal the access covers in the upstairs ceilings turned out. These are access points for the zone controllers for the HVAC. Super mellow. Almost wish we had more access points (too late to put in more zones?).

The AC condenser is now placed and installed:

They still need to install the controllers and hook up the gas (I'm guessing that the gas man does that).

Wood for the floors?

The sub dropped off samples of potential flooring for the stairs and upstairs.

Not sure any of these float our boats... We really want high tonal variation in the hickory to yuck up the neoplasticism angle.

moments of bliss

punch list

inside:
- countertops
- guest bathroom tile
- master bathroom tile
- plumbing fixtures
- lighting fixtures
- plugs
- switches
- speakers (us)
- security plug covers (us)
- wifi stations (us)
- living room plug covers (us)
- master bathroom shelves
- guest bathroom shelves
- closet poles
- appliances
- gas
- power
- wood floor
- polish floor
- drywall touchup
- paint touchup
- master bathroom mirror
- guest bathroom mirror
- powder mirror
- kitchen sills
- range hood
- range hood cover
- living room floor plug covers
- railing for stairwell
- railing for balcony
- doorbell chime

outside house:
- outside lighting fixtures
- outside plugs
- cable
- roof over limestone/bookcase bump
- outdoor spigots
- solar (us)
- rainwater (us)
- gutters
- water heater
- doorbell
- garage door
- gutters
- touchup eyebrows
- clean roof

landscaping:
- gate
- fancy fence
- not-so-fancy fence
- back fence
- plant trees
- pavers
- grasscrete
- grass for grasscrete
- grass
- mulch
- stone
- horno base
- horno
- walls
- wall light and address numbers
- mailbox (us)
- feathergrass in driveway holes (us)

I'm sure there are more, but here's what I have at the moment to close the house out...