Check the details

We're both accountants, so we're both detail-oriented. This week, they finally did the tile detail in our master bathroom floor, little insets of the "trim" tile. Looks nice, doesn't it?

The City inspector must have come by again this week, he inspected the connection for our gas cooktop in the kitchen. Apparently, he didn't like what he saw, and wrote quite a lot of notes about it. Good! He's doing his job. The builder will fix it.

Finally, your blogmistress had continuing education today, part of the required 40 hours to maintain the license. Check out the sign I had to stare at all day. This was some sort of Excellent Service Award the chapter won. I'm embarrassed that my fellow CPAs didn't catch the glaring misspelling at the bottom of this banner.

On a clear day. . .

We haven't had a clear day for awhile, but today they removed the protective film from our windows. Wow, those babies are really clear. I almost thought they had removed the glass.

What else happened today? Well, a guy was fixing spots in the drywall, and that was about all we could see. Then we looked in the garage - empty boxes from equipment they installed. Here is the garage door opener. Notice the remotes tucked in there.

And the air conditioning units - two of 'em. We'll have to plant some shrubberies to hide these.

Big one and little one. We hope the new house is a lot cooler than the old one was.

Cool ride of the week.20

This week we have this hot Lamborghini, parked on the street near our apartments. Would you park a car like this on the street? I wouldn't.

At the other end of the luxury spectrum, we have this pedal-powered job. I think it's a bar on wheels, but it's powered by the patrons. At least they can pedal off some of their brewskis. Looks like fun!

Drive on in!

It finally stopped raining long enough for the driveway to be poured yesterday. They also did our front sidewalk:

Here's the double-wide driveway.

Here's the spot where our bbq pit will live, just off the back patio. No more standing out in the sun, or rain, to grill. That'll be nice, hubby misses grilling.

Here is the view of the driveway from inside the garage.

The lights are on now, so the builder went through the house the other day and circled all the little spots on the drywall that need to be fixed. Places have been dinged up, stuff happens.

Finally, you can see below that the Asian jasmine around the base of our tree has met its Waterloo. Good riddance! That has been a few months of pulling and sweating to get rid of.

Meter dude

Today our permanent electric meter was installed. The workers won't have to run extension cords from the temporary meter anymore, they can just plug their equipment into the wall outlets. It has been raining a lot and it was really muddy under the meter - the poor slob who had to install it probably wasn't too happy. Tough rocks, as Mom used to say, at least he has a job.

They have also installed the glass in our cabinets. These are the cabinets where you show off your pretty stuff, not the chipped coffee mugs from your previous employer.
The butler's pantry, below, will have a mirror between the top and bottom sections, so it will cover that hole they cut in the drywall.

Spiegel

No, not the catalog (Chicago 60609), the mirrors! Today we checked the house, and most of the mirrors have been installed. Here's one in an upstairs bathroom.
Behind hubby there is the big mirror in our big closet. I guess the camera couldn't decide what to focus on, so everything is blurred. It's a nice big mirror.

And here is one of the sink mirrors in the master bath, complete with frame.
The electric company was supposed to have installed our permanent meter by today, but they didn't. We'll have to call & fuss at someone tomorrow.

It was a dark & stormy night . . .

Not really. It's raining a little, and we're too lazy to drive over to see what happened at the house today. Unless the power company showed up to install the permanent electric meter, probably not much.



Back to the dark & stormy night - there is a bad fiction contest called the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction contest. Your blogmistress, after volunteering at the Houston Rodeo earlier this year, got inspired and entered the contest for the first time. Alas, not even an honorable mention. Here was this year's winning entry:



For the first month of Ricardo and Felicity's affair, they greeted one another at every stolen rendezvous with a kiss--a lengthy, ravenous kiss, Ricardo lapping and sucking at Felicity's mouth as if she were a giant cage-mounted water bottle
and he were the world's thirstiest gerbil.



This winner was written by Molly Ringle of Seattle, WA



Here is my entry, at least what I can remember. Note the circular theme:



As the sights and sounds of the rodeo swirled around his Stetson hat like a funnel cake cooked in grease that needed to be changed, but wasn't, because changing it would eat into the profit margin, Turner boarded the Tilt-a-Whirl and tried, but failed, to conquer his fear of motion sickness.



Well, there's always next year, blog fans.

Cool ride of the week.19

This week, we have a cool ride sent in by guest blogger, brother Bill! Here's a 1946 International pickup he checked out at a car show in Tawas, MI. You can always spot a cool ride in Michigan during the summer.


Also this week, we have a 1957 (I think) Ford Ranchero. Our dad worked at a Ford dealer when we were kids, and our family always referred to it as a Rancheroo. Here's another guy who has taken off the door handles, mirrors and other exterior trim. It would look better with wide whitewalls, but it's his cool ride, not mine.

Let's review . . .

Your blogmistress took Spanish classes in high school (and college). In high school, as we were nearing the end of the school year, a member of the senior class asked if the teacher would give us a review to help us study for the final exam. "No, you're a senior now, you need to figure that out for yourself. " Bazinga! As much as I loved that answer, since there isn't anything too exciting to report at the house right now (a/c vents? zzzzz), let's see how far we've come in the past few months.

This was the lot after it was prepared for the foundation pour in early April:

This was the first day of framing, around April 15th:

And here is where we are today, nearing completion. Our builder divides up the process into 10 stages, with stage 10 being Done. We are now at stage 8, where they will begin to install flooring. They leave that until last, so the workers don't trample the nice floors to death.

The lease on our apartment ends in 8 weeks, and we're confident we'll be in our new home by then. There are lots of things that still need to be done at the house, but if they've come this far in 3 months, we think they can finish what's left in 2 more months.

Tub surround, and getting ready for driveway

Quick trip to the house today, they have swept up all the sawdust & scraps. Some of the accent tile was installed on the tub surround. Not sure when the tub itself is going to make an appearance.

These guys were laying out the forms for the driveway, look at its double-wide splendor! Anyone who visited our old house always cursed our narrow driveway.

We just stepped outside and watched the International Space Station fly over. Now THAT's a cool ride!

Lighting & more tile

To compensate for the recent solar eclipse in the South Pacific, or maybe just because it was next on the list, they installed our lighting today. Here's the light in the breakfast nook.

This one hangs over the cooktop. We need to take our level next time, it seems to lean a little. They'll fix it.

Here's the dining room.

This giant pendant light hangs over the staircase. In the background is the light in the entry.

Back to tile - our shower pan passed the test, so they tiled up the shower today. Check out that nice accent stripe.

Here's a closeup of the accent tile.

Finally, I have wanted to park the Smart this way since I bought it, finally had a chance today. This is our apartment complex, and that space is meant to be for two cars only. Plenty of room for the Smart! I was only there a minute. I've heard it's illegal to park on the street this way. But it's cool, right?

Cool ride of the week.18

This week's cool ride is my hair stylist's Mercedes 380SL. She's had this car for about 30 years, but she has decided to sell it.

She has taken great care of it, and it shows!

Hey - someone already moved in

Mothra!

Admit it - you used to watch Godzilla movies.

Faucets & toilets & tubs

oh my! Today they installed some of the plumbing fixtures. Here is one of the tub/showers upstairs:

And here is a faucet in the master bathroom:

Here's the kitchen sink & faucet, plus garbage disposal, can't wait to grind up some junk in there:

Look, it has the pull-out sprayer:

Beaming

Today, two carpenters worked on the beams for our bedroom ceiling. They were cutting the lumber when I visited at lunch, but they had done some prep work already:

Here is a final look at that awful dumpster - they hauled it away today. You can see it was 'tagged' recently. One of the tile workers told me that there will be very little trash now, I guess they can haul it away in the back of their trucks.

Give us a splash of tile

It's a 3 day weekend for us, but not for the tile workers. They have installed the backsplash in the kitchen, a nice mosaic:

And here is the fireplace surround. I can't remember the color of that tile, either.

Next is the tile in the master bathroom. We went over this morning (Monday) and they have put the hardie back in the shower (that wallboard that's made for wet areas), plus painted it with some black tar stuff. The tile guy told me they have to let that dry for a few days, then they'll test the shower pan. Good - we don't want any leaks there.

The apartment complex we're staying in during the build is very close to downtown, and yesterday was the Freedom Fest. They had a lot of bands playing all afternoon, and the bass made our walls seem to thump. At 9:30, they had fireworks. Hubby gave me a digital camera last Christmas, which I have been using to take pics of the house. Last night I got out the instruction book, and there was a "fireworks" setting. Let's use that! It was a slooowwww shutter speed, but I just snapped away. Look at these images, unlike any fireworks you've seen:

How about this one - chasing the dragon! I must have moved the camera a lot during this exposure.