Cha-Cha-Cha-Changes

As you can see from the new main photo, we have the makings of a real house on our hands. First of all, mucho thanks to my friend Meghan for her assistance in getting the photo and title in place. She is a photoshop whiz, photographer extraordinaire and all round great person. Check out her blog, adventuresinwonderland. A link to it is on the bottom right of this blog.

Anyway, we now have stucco and dry wall and it's beginning to look like a real house. Yea! (note the lack of a garage door.....) The color is the stucco color, not the final color. Additionally, that window with the red tape around it will be replaced some day (soon??) when they finally get the correct one made. It's been a chore getting that one little window redone - you would think it was a big picture window, not the power room one.

Here is a photo tour: this is the back:

This is the kitchen - sure do hope those cabinets fit the way we think they will...

This is the den. The coffered ceilings will look fabulous when they are finished.

And this is the master bedroom. (I caught a bit of the door frame in the photo - oops)

Trim starts on Tuesday and then paint. This is really moving fast. Help!!

I know it's around here somewhere

Now that we finally have typical Florida weather back, it is shorts and sandals weather. I do, however, have a problem with that.

I had to attend a conference a week or so ago, which meant that I needed to find the box labeled "spring and summer shoes". No problem with that as I knew exactly where it was. The problem I am having, however, is finding the box labeled "shorts". I know it's around here somewhere, but exactly where is puzzling.

Just to give you a flavor of our "camping" situation in the house-across-the-street, I have my office set up in the largest of the extra bedrooms. However, I share this room with five wine refrigerators, three book cases, three (oh - make that four) filing cabinets, all of our artwork that did not fit on the master bedroom wall, and various assorted boxes and plastic tubs. The living room is filled to the brim with the kitchen cabinets, appliances and granite we brought with us from Texas and it also has assorted boxes that we couldn't fit anywhere else. It is here where I think the "shorts" box is located. If not, it is in storage and I'm going shopping!

Comic Relief

One of the other things I told Bob the Builder very early on is that he needed to make sure we always had electricity to our boat dock so we could lower the boat into the water. I specifically told him that he didn't want to get the phone call from me if that happened.

Well, I know it has been a very bad winter for everyone and although our weather is very mild in comparison to the rest of the country, it has been cold here this winter and we haven't been out in the boat much at all. When the temperature on Saturday was in the mid 70's, we made plans to head out for a late afternoon cruise that we both were really looking forward to.

The Guy was running errands until pretty late, so I went over to get the boat ready to go. Guess what - no electricity! I didn't think it was totally off - only that there must be somewhere to turn the electricity on, but that didn't stop me from leaving Bob a message that went like this "Bob, this is the call you didn't want to get from me....."

In addition to the boat issue, I noticed that the dry wall guys, who had worked most of the day on Saturday (I took them cookies) had left the garage door open. The door is very old and weighs over 300 pounds, so I really didn't want the Guy closing it on his own. Bob knows this. So, the phone call went on to say, by the way, the garage door is open and we need someone to come over here and close it.

About 15 minutes after leaving the message, the Guy gets home and shows me where the breaker is to turn on the dock electricity. Okay. That's good. Then, when I told him about the garage door, he cracked up. Turns out they removed the garage door about a week ago. What????? While YOU are still laughing, in my defense, I was out of town until late Thursday and didn't really pay attention to the house after everyone left on Friday, so I didn't know the door was gone - really!

So, I left Bob a "mia culpa" voice mail saying that "nobody tells me anything!!". He told me that I made his weekend and thanked me for the comic relief.

Anything for a laugh, I guess, even if it is unintentional!

More on the Roof

Well, to complete the roof saga - it rained cats and dogs and the roof leaked. No big surprise there...

The Guy insisted that the roofer come out to look at it, and lo and behold, he discovered that the felt was torn in several places, which he says is not unusual. Whatever. Anyway, he fixed the various tears and there were no more leaks. Whew. That was harder than it needed to be.

The rain finally stopped on Friday night and on Saturday they finished the roof. It looks great and we will see if it leaks again.

This post is actually being published a week after that last rain event and it is pouring again. Oy! However, it's a great test to see if we are truly "dried in".

Stay tuned!

Roof and Rain

Well, the roofers have topped the insulation guys on my "not happy with" list. They started on the roof on Monday - put on the bottom layer and were finished with that on Tuesday. They needed an inspection prior to putting on the shingles. Since all weather forecasters said that we would be getting between 4 and 6 inches of rain on Thursday and Friday, they needed to be finished on Wednesday. I discussed this with the head roofing guy and he said, no problem, they would finish on Wednesday - that it would only take them a few hours.

Our superintendent got the inspector out at 9 a.m. Wednesday morning and received sign off right away. No roofers. 10 a.m. - no roofers. 11 a.m. - well, you get the picture. Finally they arrived at 1:30 p.m. Since the head guy said it would only be a few hours, I though we would be fine. What do YOU think???

We had a thing to go to and got back at 6:30 p.m. and they were still working. I sure wouldn't want to be the person on top of the roof when it is getting dark.... Anyway, you can guess the rest. IF they had shown up at 7, 8 or even 9 a.m. today (Thursday), they probably could have finished the job. But they did not show up at all today and only half of the house is finished.

Of all times for the weather forecast to be correct. We had wind, tons of rain and tornado warnings starting around 1 p.m. The Guy kept calling to find out what the deal was, but no one wanted to talk to him, apparently. The insulation guy (you know, the one who really likes me!) informed us that if any of the insulation got wet that it wasn't his problem. I guess I can't really blame him. But, hey, everyone knew it was going to rain. Why was the insulation installation scheduled before the shingles were on???

Tomorrow should be really fun - with the Guy crawling around in in the attic to see what got wet. OH, and it's supposed to be a rain repeat tomorrow. I think I'll hide!

Are we having fun yet?

Oh, by the way - Hall Brothers Roofing.

Who Needs Insulation Anyway?

I'm really beginning to dislike all insulation and especially the people who sell it. I have said from day one that I want the least toxic insulation possible and absolutely NO fiberglass. I did some research and found that I was most comfortable with an insulation that is made from the scraps of bluejeans - really! Well, you can imagine when the sub contractors got ahold of that information, they thought I was nuts and treated me the same way.

I actually had one insulation guy tell me that the foam insulation he uses which is manufactured by a chemical company is 100% safe with no off gassing or shrinking (as has been reported numerous times). He said with a straight face that he believes this because the company told him so. Hello - CHEMICAL!!!! I replied that if you have to use a haz-mat suit to install it, then it is not safe in my book. We didn't use him.....

Well, despite what I read in my research that the price of the blue jean insulation had come down in recent years, it turned out to be over three times the cost of other choices. My theory on that is simply because Florida is the LEAST environmentally friendly place I have ever lived. More on that later.... but the material is simply not available here in the quantity we need to do the entire job, so the shipping costs help increase the price.

Anyway, we agreed to use cellulose, which is essentially recycled newspaper. Not so bad and acceptable to me. There was one location where the Guy agreed to use fiberglass bats because we needed it for sound attenuation. Okay - one place and that's it.

So, the installation began yesterday and lo and behold - fiberglass insulation almost everywhere. WHAT? What a mess - the insulation guy was a jerk and I won't bore you (more) with all that transpired, but they must pull out the fiberglass they have already installed and replace it with - you guessed it - blue jean bats. Unbelievable! The cellulose will go in the other, already agreed upon, places.

This whole insulation debacle has cost us at least a week, if not longer. The sheetrock goes on next so hopefully that process goes smoother. I would prefer low VOC sheetrock, but didn't dare suggest it. I was ready to throw down the gauntlet with insulation, so I won't fight the fight with other materials which are also toxic.

All this, just because I want to be able to breathe easier - literally! Oy!

It's Gone!

Yesterday was a big day. The pump house was demolished. YEA!!!! I cannot stress how happy I am for that building to be gone. It was the topic of several discussions because the Guy wanted to keep it for reasons I never understood. It was a building we never used and it made the driveway very skinny and difficult to navigate. I'm happy to say that I'M not the one who scraped the fender of the car on it. :)

Anyway, the discussion was ended when that location ended up being the only logical place for the septic system. Whew - that was easy!

Now you can really see the house from the street. Not sure if that's a good thing or not. We will install some more trees and shrubs, so it won't be as visible as it is now. But at least we won't have that building that people kept asking us "what is that for?"

Before:

After:

During: Note the lovely toilet. It was a fully functional building.....