Snow Falling on Railings

Snow? Again? Time to buy an AWD vehicle. ...

Photo attributed to Anne Bertino.

Curiosity did what to the cat?

Anne spent the first night in the house on Saturday. The cats slowly got used to their new surroundings and started to explore on Sunday. Today they are helping Anne seal the tile with some super green sealing product.

Photo attributed to Anne Bertino.

On the 124th day, God said let there be railings.

And we saw that they were good.

Photo attributed to Anne Bertino.

A few more days

The railings are due to be delivered on Monday. In the mean time, the entrance is blocked with caution tape. I told the builders that it looks like a crime scene. The railings are the last step needed for us to live there.

Not too much else to report at this point. There's a temporary railing on the back patio to make access safer over the week-end. We're close.

Here are a few pictures that provide unique perspectives of the stairs before the railings are in place. ...

We've started to move some boxes in ...

... but the progress is still slow.

The stairs and decks are up. Our design for the 90 degree staircase was executed to perfection. The only down side is the use of treated wood instead of metal for the landings. We made that concession for cost and ease of build reasons. Hopefully, we won't be cursing that decision in the future from a maintenance perspective.

The design of the stairs fit much better with the concept of the house than the design that was supplied by the architects. Notice too the shadows and interesting lines that are cast from the staircase.

The posts that you see are temporary. The real posts for the big deck in front and small deck out back are in now, and hopefully the posts for the stair landings are on their way.

Visits by the San Juan County Inspector are on-going and the appraiser is due for his "final" visit on Saturday - at this point. ...

The inside of the house is done for the most part. At least what can be done is done. I have ideas to "finish" some the low voltage wiring: Cat5 and Speaker Wire. The sound system components have also been picked out and will be purchased after the sticker shock wears off.

Decks Ahoy

The 4 decks are basically complete. There's a small deck in back, one in front, and two landings for the stairs. The stairs will run next to the house then turn 90 degrees at the lower landing.

There continues to be progress inside. Ivan has the inside stairs complete, Wes stopped by to tidy up the cabinets, attach the hardware, install the desk areas, install the media center door, and install the bar top, which was made from a tree that we had to cut down. It looks beautiful. The dishwasher also got installed.

The water tanks are full up to about a foot from the top. That's a little over 10,000 gallons and that makes me feel a whole lot more comfortable.

Grout Redeux

After much consideration we requested that the grout in the bathrooms be removed. We had speced a much lighter color than what was used the first time. I had almost talked Anne into keeping it until we went back to our place in Phoenix and saw the grout there. Then we both decided it had to come out. Oh well, a few steps forward a step or two back.