Day 58-62 (December 16-21)

We have made great strides in the last week.  The new project manager is really driving the problem.  He is the same manager that we had for two earlier renovations so there has been no need to figure out our relationship.  He knows what is expected and is moving out smartly--this is really a breath of fresh air and it is greatly appreciated

The bathroom is now completed with the exception of the shower enclosure which is due to be installed next Friday.

The floor in the living room is complete and furniture has been moved back in.  This is not the final arrangement.  That will not be in place until the extension is completed and furniture is moved into there.

The master bedroom has been put back together and the master closet has been reoccupied.  We have full use of our master bath again (yea!).  The barn doors that lead to the extension from the master bedroom are in place.  All that is left is to paint the doors and the valance.

The tiling is down in the extension but it still needs to be grouted.  The first coat of paint is on the walls.  Painting continues tomorrow.  It is the only game in town until after Christmas.  We are very pleased with the way that the stone wainscoting came out.

Starbucks has found that he can get to places in the house via new routes.  He quite likes the idea of completing the new spaces, but he will miss the contractors.  He has become quite friendly with them and looks forward to their arrival in the morning.

The door to the AV room is in place, but there is nothing behind the door yet.  The air handler, the AV equipment, and the circuit breaker box are still required.  After the holiday and painting we will be into finish electrical.  More of the A/C system will also be put in place.  However, the A/C system will not complete until after the stucco which will finish after the first of the year.  This actually turned out to be beneficial.  Because this will not be an air conditioned space on the first of the year, my property taxes will not reflect the addition until 2015.

The lath for the stucco is in place.  We have seen the sample match for our existing stucco, and it looks pretty good.

We expected the deck to complete late last week, but it has been pushed to next week.  It is not critical path yet, so I am not overly concerned.

As I said at the beginning, the change in project manager has put the project into high gear.  The excuses have died off and the deconflicting of the subcontractors has taken a more aggressive tone.  We are very happy to see this amount of progress.

The new security system is scheduled for install on 3 January.  That will leave blinds and the AV system.  The AV system installers want the blinds in place before they do their thing so that the TV can be adjusted to the room properly.

Days 53-57 (December 9-14)

There has been a shake up in the management team for the project.  It appears that the new management is more Type A like Kate and I.  Certainly, there are more workers on site and they are starting at 0830 instead of 1000.

We now have six job sites going at once--the Living Room, the Master Bedroom, the Master Bedroom closet, the extension, the clean up form the driveway refurbishment, and the deck.

First the Living Room.  Once upon a time we had a living room,

then the living room moved to the dining room and the kitchen

except for the sofa that moved to the foyer.  Starbucks was not pleased that the sofa was not right side up and that there was no room to stretch out.

But all is not lost.  There is still an easy chair to curl up in...until it moves again

The passageway to the extension is finally open for a few hours so that we can see what the view will be from the living room once this job is finished,

The tile is going into the living room here.  After watching this for a while, this was definitely one that I am happy to have contracted out.  Up to this point, the hardest working trade that I had seen was the carpenters.  They are mere laggards compared to the tilers.

The tilers came in on Saturday to finish up laying the tile in the living room so that they could grout on Monday.

The Master Bedroom has been almost completely vacated.  Most of the bedroom furniture is in the bathroom and we are sleeping in the guest room.  This is being done to get rid of the hideous popcorn ceiling in the Master Bedroom and the Master bedroom closet.

 

 

 

The upstairs bathroom is nearing completion.  We expect that everything should be done except the shower enclosure by the end of next week.  The tiling is done with the exception of final clean up.  The wainscoting is almost finished.  The sheet rock has been prepped for painting.

As far as the extension goes, the trim is in place around the windows and doors, the REAL HONEST TO GOODNESS doors have arrived and they are installed.  The sleepers for the deck are in place and the trex deck is at 90 percent.  They ran a bit short on materials and will need to finish next week.  All of the mudding has been completed on the inside and it appears that the sanding is nearing completion.  The tiling of the extension floor has started and is about 10% complete.  Most of the baseboards are installed in the extension. Stucco is a bit of a question mark.  The first sample was prepared three weeks ago.  It was judged to be too light at the time but a second sample has not yet made it to us.  Stucco was never intended to be critical path, but it could get that way.

All in all, much progress was made this week.  This is the first time in seven weeks that we have had workers here every day of the week.  Hopefully this drive to completion will continue.  Next week, the project manager who did the previous two projects is assuming the reigns.  We will be happy to see him.  We have faith that he can keep the momentum of the last week going.

Days 43-52 (24 November - 6 December)

'Twas the week of Thanksgiving and all through the house, not a craftsman was stirring . . .

We figured that the Wednesday before Thanksgiving as well as Thursday and Friday would be a loss, but we had not counted on the entire week.  There was one major accomplishment--the upper window is in place.  It is not going anywhere.  The clearances on the sides were on the order of spark plug gaps.  I will give the installers credit.  They knew how much they could groom the windows without damage (groom (v):  beat the crap out of to establish the proper alignment without cosmetic damage).  The rest of the week was consumed on our part by getting all of the exterior Christmas decorations out of the attic, tested and in place.

But the construction gods have a sense of humor.  If you complain about too few craftsmen, they will hear you.  Days 48 and 49, the Monday and Tuesday after Thanksgiving were a bit slow--the troops were massing for the assault.  On day 50, the masons showed up to replace part of the driveway, the drywall people showed up to start mudding the extension, the tilers started tiling the bathroom, the painters asked for a paint schedule so that they could start painting the eaves and fascias (which they did).  At the same time, the Trex was delivered for the patio, the last of the floor tile was delivered, a new order for a few extra glass tiles was processed and delivered, and the sills for the large lower windows showed up.  The framing for the towel hook and medicine cabinet was completed. The forklift path to our door is well worn.  Grass?  I think that there used to be some back there.  Oh yea--the forced ventilation for the extension arrived.  We were warned that the dust from the sheet rock sanding would be extensive.  Hopefully, this contraption will reduce that problem.

Of course, you must be careful what you ask for.  How much can be done by Christmas has turned into how quickly can you vacate the Master bedroom, the Master bedroom closet, and the living room for work on the floors and ceilings.  It looks like a good deal of next week will be consumed relocating about half of the crap that we own.  Again--be careful what you ask for.

We had thought that the garage would be a large enough lay down area for materials.  WRONG.  The backyard is now taking up the slack.  Hopefully, this will be the case only for another couple of weeks.

 

Days 38-42 (16-22 November)

The pace is starting to pickup, but it will be only temporary as work will stop mid-day next Wednesday for the Thanksgiving break. 

The good news is that the framing inspection was finally completed satisfactorily.  With all of the steel reinforcement that was put into the framing, I know where I am going in a big storm.

After numerous tries, a door was delivered for the main entry.  The door itself is just a temp door, but at least we have the final frame in place.  Having that door in allows us to wrap up demolition, removing the vestiges of the old back wall as well as the windows that lead to the family room and the master bedroom.

All of the insulation is up.  I asked how long it would take to insulate the whole addition and I was told a couple of hours.  Surprisingly, one guy did hang all of the insulation in just over two hours.  I was pretty impressed.  Once the insulation was up, it became apparent that we needed to move the LV speaker wires so the installers could find them when they cut the ceiling open for the speakers.  Not a big deal.  We also cut a hole in the old (now covered) roof and ran a service tube from the preexisting attic to the A/V room.  This will allow us to get CAT 5 cable and Internet to the A/V room along with the DirecTV feed.

Sheetrock started going up today.  They will be working tomorrow as well in an attempt to finish early before the Thanksgiving break.  They think that the they can be done hanging drywall by the close of business on Monday (giving them the rest of the week off).  I had not realized earlier that the guys who hang sheet rock are not the same folks that mud it and prep it for painting.

Monday is the final inside spray for termites (at the joint between the old and new foundations and up in the bathroom.  Work on the bathroom starts in earnest Monday.  I am sure that it will be hard to jump start the process a week from Monday, but I am sure that it will be a challenge.

Days 34-37 (November 11-15)

This week took on more of administrative tone.  We had several inspections--Rough Electrical, Rough Mechanical, Rough Plumbing, and Framing.  There were no problems on Rough Plumbing and Rough Electrical.  There was one minor hit on Rough Mechanical that took less than 15 minutes to fix.  A reinspect the next day cleared the issue.  The Framing inspection revealed two issues, one administrative and one actually requiring work.  The plans for the extension failed to identify some of the hurricane mitigation straps that were installed by the framers.  The plans needed to be revised to reflect this for the county records.  Additionally, because of the large upper window and the lower roof pitch, the inspector wanted additional steel strapping installed for hurricane mitigation.

Unfortunately the architect is on vacation until Monday, so the revision to the plans and the ensuing reinspect will be delayed until next week.

The slower production period gave us plenty of time to get all of the low voltage wiring in for the Audio-Visual system.  It became apparent quite quickly why the installers were charging $100/wire for the prewire.  What I thought would be a half day job turned into a two full day job, most of which was spent on a ladder. 

Doors!  You would think that after building structures for centuries that had doors, getting the right one delivered at the right time would be a no brainer.  Not so fast.  The outside closet door frame and the main entrance door frame have been delivered twice.  Of the four frames that arrived only one was correct (the outside closet door).  As for the doors themselves, they are lost somewhere in the logistics chain.  Hopefully they will be found soon.  Until then, there is a dummy door on the closet and nothing on the main door.  At least the barn doors for the master bedroom arrived as scheduled.

Day 29-33 (3-9 November)

Although not counted as work days on the initial schedule, there is quite a bit happening on Saturdays.  Last Saturday, the roofers laid down the peel and stick on the roof to make it water tight.  This Saturday, the roofers are back to complete the fascia and the shingles. 

In between roofer visits, we have gotten quite a bit done--especially when you consider that Monday was basically lost due to another Nor'easter (the 5th one that we have had this Fall--very unusual).

We also came to a couple of places where the blueprints met reality and reality won.  As a result there have been a few design changes.  The biggest changes took place in the A/V closet.  The original plan was that there would be nothing in that closet when the project was completed other than breaker box and the A/V gear.  There was to be a drop ceiling to allow running of services like internet and alarm wires if needed.  There was also going to be a mini-split A/C unit in the main room above what was the pre-existing wall.

As the electricians progressed with the rough electrical, the drop ceiling began to look less practical.  Keeping the vaulted veiling through the A/V closet gave more room and allowed bringing in services through the upper wall of the closet.  This became the obvious answer when we spoke with the A/C installer.  He was opposed to the mini-split because of the location.  In that location, cooling coils would have to be run on top of the old roof to the outside for the heat exchanger.  In the even of a leak, they would be inaccessible.  He proposed putting a conventional system in with the air handler in the back corner of the A/V room.  Doing so would take away the noise from the main room, allow the cooling coil run to be short and back through the outer wall (all easily accessible if required).  The tipping point was that the price was the same, the proposed unit removed humidity, and the warranty was 5 years longer.

The windows are in but the doors have not made it yet.  The contractor is having problems with the distributor.  He is continuing to work that issue, but in the mean time, waste doors will be installed so that we can enclose the space and start working on the insides of the extension.  This weekend Kate and I will be doing the prewiring for the A/V system.  The A/V installers have been real good helping us prepare for the system install, but it was obvious from the pricing that they did not want to do the prewire (at $100 a wire).  We should be able to knock it out of the way in a day and get out of the critical path.

We could be into insulation and drywall by the end of next week if we can closeout a few minor issues.  That would put us on schedule.

Oh--that's right.  There is a bathroom renovation in progress also.  The bath tub is in place and the rough plumbing is complete.  There is more rip out to do before we get to rough electrical.