House Update-mostly (11-08-15)

Not much is going on in our lives other than the house and pool, so that’s what this post will be mostly about. 


There is one adventure we’ve had in the last week or so.  The weather has cooled off enough to take the Jeep off-roading.

It’s part of the reason we wanted a Jeep, to be able to explore the desert, without the need for roads.  Since it was our first time, we tried not to test the capabilities of the Jeep (although I thought we tested it pretty thoroughly).  Paul was happy with the performance, for sure. 

We stopped along the way to have lunch, and climbed up an outcropping of rocks, but we hightailed it back to the Jeep when we discovered that we had disturbed a bee hive.


So, as for the house, there has been a ton of action going on!  Starting with the inside:

the granite has been installed…

There is an enormous amount of granite in the kitchen…its hard to see the true color in the pictures but the picture above shows the coloring the best.  The granite is called Blue Pearl and has gray and blue with some brown and black in there too.







When we were hammering out the contract for the house, we elected not to put granite in the laundry room and told the builder that we would supply a piece of laminate for the counter top.


When the time came to buy the laminate, we drove around town looking at all the places that sell granite, and found a remnant piece for just $120, about the same price the laminate would have cost.  Paul prepped the cabinet, and cut the granite to the right size in the bed of the truck.

….and it worked out perfectly!

After the granite was finished, the back splash was next…

I really like the way it looks with the granite! We also, as you can see by this picture, have a microwave/convection oven now.  It’s the only appliance that has been installed, so far.

Little things have been getting done inside as well, such as the installation of the baseboard, the door hardware and all the closet hardware.

On the outside there is also plenty going on, and that’s what has been keeping us the busiest.  We are putting up the fence ourselves.

This fence is “temporary” and will allow us to put up the full fence at a later date, once the house has passed all its inspections and the landscaping has been done.

Instead of setting the fence in cement, we are sleeving the wrought iron post over a temporary post that we have pounded into the ground.  Paul calls the post pounder the “whammer jammer”.

Once we had the spacing correct, we actually had to take back down the sections that are close to the house.  We left the posts up so it should be easy to re-install the sections. This week they are spraying the finish coat of stucco on the house and it makes a mess.

We had other things to do in the yard as well.  The power company let us keep the old power poles and we will use them for erosion control and landscaping. Final grading of the lot will be done next week, while Paul is in Michigan, so we have to clear the lot of all our stuff, so nothing will be in the way.




The outside stonework is finished now as well.  By the end of this week, the exterior of the house will change completely.  Not only will the stucco be the right color, but the roof will be finished as well. 

The pool is also coming along nicely.  The tile should be finished today, and then the travertine deck will be next.

 

While wandering around in the pool I realized that I was going to have an issue. The bench seating near the spa sits quite low, making it quite a big step to get in and out of the pool from there. We talked to the pool contractor and he is going to add a step at one end of the bench seat, which will help a lot.

Over the next couple of days Paul and I will be taking some time off, in between the projects that have to get done by next week. We have good friends rolling into town today and tomorrow. 

We spent last Thanksgiving with these two couples in Terlingua Texas, and we’re looking forward to seeing them again!