Kings of the Hill

The egrets really liked the dirt mound created by the grading. They appeared very soon after the dirt started being moved. How do they know???

Roots

The front yard was leveled yesterday and here is a "root ball" that came from the area in front of the pump house that used to be the home of several large trees (like the ones that were removed in August). This guy was pretty deep - and a bit unexpected.

Window on the World

Actually, it is only the first photo that is the true window on our little lake world. We LOVE it! We have all windows and doors now and are officially "dried in". Guy handed me the key to the sliding glass doors so I can hang on to it. Great - yet one more thing for me to lose and never see again! Anyway, the song that is stuck in my head is Jimmy Buffet's Window on the World. It doesn't hurt that we saw him in concert last night and he sang that song!

This is the front entrance and the kitchen - with only a small window on the world in front of the house where the sink will go. Do you think we have enough plugs, switches and can lights??

We passed a bunch of inspections this week - electrical, low voltage, framing and gas! Whew!

Spaghetti Bowl

This is the culmination point of all the wires. God help us if one of the circuits is tripped some day!

Wired

We came home from taking a much needed 6 day break to view the progress the electricians have made. It is astounding the amount of wire there is now - not to mention holes in the walls upstairs as that entire floor had to be rewired to conform to new codes. And they are still not finished!

The electrical wiring has to dovetail with the low voltage wiring. Whaaaat??? I am now an expert - well, not really an expert, but at least now I have some slight idea what they are talking about with low voltage, which is: drum roll....security system, internet, cable, telephone and sound system. I assume that the term "low voltage" means something, but, to me, it's just everything else except the lights.

The guy we are working with is very passionate about his profession and extremely knowledgeable and detailed, which means that we generally don't have a clue what he is talking about. His son works with him and helps translate. For instance "network jack" means the hardwired ethernet cable for the internet. Oh. That took five minutes to translate. Oy. Fla Remodel Guy kept disappearing from the room and I kept getting Bob the Builder to bring him back. It was not pretty.

Anyway, we started with a Ferrari (i.e. have the system send hourly updates to your iPhone about what the house is thinking and doing), which was about 3 times over budget. I don't want my iPhone to know those things, so we finally whittled it down to a Ford (except for the den, which is a Mercedes) and are somewhere near the budget, I think. We will have speakers in every room downstairs, in addition to the wine room, so I can blast music as loud as I want when the Guy is not home. I try to turn it down when he is around. When we are 80, he will have better hearing than I will, but will still pretend not to hear a thing I say. Why should it be any different then?

It's Always Something

We passed the HVAC inspection yesterday and the plumbing today, only to discover later this afternoon that the plumber put the shower head on the wrong wall. &*@%&@%# We had discussed this and were all in agreement where everything went. It just goes to show you that you should never take anything for granted and to double check everything that is done.

We are also trying to determine which roof shingle to use. We thought we were using the same one as on the dock, but that message apparently did not get to the person who provided the bid that went into the budget. So, that means to use the same shingle (that we thought we were getting), the cost is $9,000 higher. It stands to reason that someone should have mentioned to us at the time of the bid that the shingles were different than we requested - but no. So, I'm driving all over town today looking at roofs to see what other shingles look like. I swear in one neighborhood, I was concerned that the local "watch group" was going to call the police. The house was on a slight hill and the roof pitch was so low that it was difficult to see the shingles, so here I am casing the joint trying to get a good vantage point so I could see what they looked like. Good grief!

A Benefit to living in Central Florida

Not much going on with the house. We seem to be in a bit of a lull. The windows and doors are ordered, but won't arrive for another week or so. HVAC and plumbing is finished and electrical starts tomorrow. Additionally, tomorrow we meet with the "low voltage" guy. This company runs the wiring for things like cable, security system, phone, etc.

In the meantime, there is always excitement in the area (and it doesn't always include a certain golfer). Possibly the last night launch of the NASA Shuttle went off very early this morning. We love seeing things like this, so we got up at 4 a.m. and traipsed across the street and down to the dock to watch it. Below is a photo of what we see from our vantage point. It is amazing how quickly it travels. It reaches 1,000 miles an hour within the first few minutes. I'm actually a bit surprised that it showed up so well in the photograph - a testimony to how bright it actually is in the sky. We were able to see the solid rocket boosters fall away, but the camera could not capture that much detail.

For those who are curious - Nikon D-80 with a Nikkor 70-300 zoom lens. Shutter speed of 25.

Cool!

ACDC

It's actually HVAC, but I thought this intersection of duct work in the attic was pretty amazing. Busy like an ACDC song. This area is right above the den, but it is also not too far from the AC unit, so I guess that's why so many ducts are converging right here. It is fascinating how they keep the ducts off of the attic floor with these black strips. Wonder how long it takes for them to rot and the ducts to fall down.....

Stairway to.....

Well, not heaven, but almost... These stairs are heavenly compared with what was there before (see next photo).

While not taken at from the same angle, you still get the full effect of the "Brady Bunch" staircase that was originally in the house. I am happy that it is gone.

The new staircase is narrower and more traditional. Interestingly, there are nine steps where the old one had ten. We are not yet sure how the handrail is going to work, but Bob has another home he built with a layout similar to ours, so we can at least see what he has in mind.