Faux What, Part Trois

The doors to the kitchen pantry were painted white and they stuck out in a turquoise room with mahogany cabinets and darker granite. Since we loved the work our faux painter had done, we asked her to paint the view out our back door on the pantry door. She incorporated all of our favorite things, Equity sitting on the dock, the boat (wine barge) heading out, a pelican sitting on the idle slow sign, the osprey nest, the shuttle and, if you look closely in the clouds, you just might see some mouse ears to symbolize the fireworks we see every night! Quite an improvement over a plain white door! Oh, and she painted the bottom to match the cabinets!

Faux What, Part Deux

In addition to the mural on the back wall of the wine/dining room, we asked our faux painter to paint the entrance, which is a small hallway under the stairs, to look like an old barrel ceiling with a few niches containing some of our favorite wine. Here is the end result. We think it is fabulous and hope you agree!

Is That a Light at the End of the Tunnel or a Train?

A couple of weeks ago, I drove to Tennessee to pick up a couple of pieces of furniture for the house. Many thanks to my mother (and to a prodding cousin) for the marble top table that fits perfectly in the foyer niche! I also took mother to VA to see the baptism of the twins. Overall, well over 2,000 miles in less than a week. Since I have been back, we have had multiple crews of people in the house almost every day - exactly 15 out of the past 17 days, thank you very much. It's enough to make you want to drink - oh yeah - THAT'S the reason!! Tempers are running short and we are damn tired of it. However, it is not over, but we think it's close - or it could be that train! I pray it's the Hogwart's Express coming to take me away!!!

The floor guy came by and tested the moisture again and it really is coming down. Verrrryyyy sloooooowlllllyyyy. He said he thinks it will be several more months. BIG sigh! We'll just have to have our open house party and point out to everyone that if we start dancing and stomp very hard on the floor joints that it might help flatten them out! Any excuse to dance, right?? It doesn't help the floors that this has been the summer of unprecedented heat and humidity. And yes, the biggest drop in the moisture was right around the dehumidifier. The dilemma is this - at what point does the humidity get so low that it negatively affects the 130 year old piano? No one seems to want to be the one to do that, so we will keep it slow.

Anyway, it's Friday after 3:30, which means no one else today. Yea! However, we get no reprieve since someone is coming on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, and.......

I think we will hit the wine cellar this weekend!!

Where Are We?

We were out puttering around the lake the other day on the Wine Barge (nickname for our boat) and I was totally relaxed and not paying any attention to anything. I did realize we were getting close to home, but didn't really know exactly where we were. I kid you not, I looked at the house we were coming up on and said - out loud, no less - "Whose house is that?". That's either really pathetic or it shows what a tremendous remodel job we did - or, as I choose to believe - it's both! A friend came over for the first time the other day and said they missed the driveway because they did not recognize the house! Cool!

More Something Old

Here is a close up shot (ok - it's a bit out of focus) of the fantastic job the metal craft people did on the old wrought iron table. It really is an outstanding job.

Something Old

We are the new owners of the wrought iron table and chairs that my aunt and uncle had on their patio for as long as I can remember. They are heavyweight and very well made, but did have a bit of rust on them. Too much for us to try to refinish, so a friend who owns a metal craft business offered to refinish them for us. We got them back the other day and they look fabulous. The photo can't do them justice, but you can get the feel of how they look with dark green paint. It goes very well with the outside color of the house. It's also a good look at the railing on the deck.

Entertainment Center is not Entertaining

I thought this topic merited it's own post, so here goes.

We are still struggling with the entertainment center. The painters have mostly finished, but we can't find someone to assemble it and install it for us. The guy who built it, John Watkins who's company name is J & J Construction Services, totally flaked out on us and has refused to return numerous phone calls. He did a fairly good job building it, but since then he has totally let us down. No one wants to finish something someone else started, so that part is problematic. I will say that John Watkins was not one of Bob's people (none of them had the time to build the entertainment center for us). He is the custom cabinet guy referred to us by Lowe's in Winter Garden, Florida, and someone they use for their cabinet installations. I'm not sure I will ever set foot in that Lowe's again and I will take every opportunity to tell people that their guy, John Watkins is a first class jerk for leaving us in a bind. We did not pay him in full, so he is walking away from money and not fulfilling his contract with us. Once again - John Watkins, J & J Construction Services, and he operates out of Winter Park, Florida. We DO NOT recommend this man.

Update: Fortunately, through a series of referrals, we have someone starting on it tomorrow. We have the photo from Watkins of what the assembled product is supposed to look like, so let's hope it is not that difficult to figure out.

Stay tuned!

Goings On

Last week was a busy week. We had people at the house every day and, thankfully, I was out of town for most of it! But, most importantly, we rented the house-across-the-street to some great people who purchased a house under construction down the street from us. They need a place to live while they finish the house. Funny, this will be the third consecutive family living there while they are waiting for their house to be built or remodeled! It is the perfect temporary home (permanent also) and we are pleased to get it rented so quickly to such a qualified family.

The HVAC has been calibrated and now the thermostats more accurately reflect the temperature and regulate the house better. The jury is still out on whether we need two units or just the one, but for now it is much better. The electricians came and changed out all of the dimmer switches since we didn't like the ones they put in originally. They also hung the chandelier in the foyer, so that is the last of the light fixtures. Yea for small victories!

We are almost finished with the door into the wine/dining room, so photos of it will be coming soon. It is SO cool. Not at all what we first envisioned, but much better than the original plan. We finally decided on the size of the glass table we need and it will be ordered this week. Oh my, we might finally have one room finished! Of course, we have another idea of something we want to do, but it's not urgent and will not hold anything up regarding using the room.

It Might be my Imagination

I think the floors are coming down!!! We have one de-humidifier running 24-7 and I really think the boards immediately around it are flattening out. If this is the case, I will give up hearing anything for the next few weeks and get about 5 de-humidifiers! The guy with the probe - sounds worse than it is - it's not for humans....really! - is coming back early next week to measure the moisture again, so that will be the real test. So...we'll see if my eyes are playing tricks on me because I really, really want the floors to not be warped and I may just have conjured up an optical illusion of nice, flat floors. Keep your fingers crossed!