Laurie's World

Oh HAPPY day…After a delay of 5 days…we got our granite today. First I will let you know how we ended up with an installation date of the 26th. There were some scheduling errors at FineLine and they gave our appointment away last week, one day before our appointment. They have made amends with us…and now that the granite is actually in, all is forgiven! I am so delighted with my colour choice! It is gorgeous and Troy is happy…he had not laid eyes on this granite choice until today when they showed up with it…all 3000 pounds or so of itWell, that being said, he actually had no idea what cabinets were coming, what floor was coming, the lights that I had bought or paint colours—you get the idea

So this is what the "kitchen" looked like this morning when the guys got here and laid out the templates one last time…

Here are the guys working on it…They got here about 10:45 this morning and were still here at 6:45 when I left to go pick up Jackie from her friend’s house…this installation thing is much more of a process than I ever imagined! The work to make the seams as invisible as possible…as well as installing the sinks–WOW! Oh yeah…and smelly too…the epoxy is nasty stuff…like brain damage nasty stuff. SO between my painting (I have to do something to keep me busy) and the epoxy…it was a no kid zone in our house today!!

Now…here is the finished product tonight after it has been cleaned and sealed…NO TOUCHING til the morning…so one last fast food meal tonight for us

If it helps give some persepctive…that corner sink you see is 33" wide–that is almost 3 feet–it looks small in this picture

And they even managed to get the granite on the cabinets in the sunroom…despite all the upper cabinets and clutter!

So the plumber (provided by FineLine–see I told you they are trying to make it up to us) is going to be here between 10 and 12 tomorrow…He is going to hook up all our taps and sinks, hot water dispenser, garberator –and this is very VERY good!! As I am sure you can imagine…Lowes is coming to install the dishwasher on Friday–then life will be REALLY good!The millwork is being delivered on Friday and Leroy (cabinet guy) is coming back next Tuesday or Wed to finish installing the upper cabinets, the cabinet hardware and the trim. IHe will stay until he is done…then it is all about me and tile at that point. I got all the doors and their jams in the mudroom area scraped and painted and new (silver nickel) door knobs and hinges installed in the last three days. I am going to order carpet tomorrow, so we will have carpet installed within the next two weeks in the family room, sunroom, stairs and hallway upstairs.

We are still waiting on the floor warranty determination…not holding much hope on this one being easy. And we do not know if we should carry on with the installation or not…GRRR!…Oh well, I am not going to let this spoil my GREAT day!

Long story, but no granite today…

On the 26th they say…

Hi everyone…well…I am going to write a blog entry for the last night before we officially start our battle with the flooring company. I am planning for the worst and if it is not a fight, then that will be great…and if it is a fight…I won’t be surprised. The flooring inspector is scheduled for tomorrow am. SO wish me luck….

John and Jose were here again today…sanding and texturing the places where we wanted the drywall fixed. OK…so I saw something today that amazed me and caused me to cringe like nothing so far in this renovation. John took an orbital sander to the dry mud on the walls. Now in the essence of getting the job done quickly…I thought it seemed reasonable…but I have never seen a mess like this…He did not put up any sheeting to protect any part of the house, did not drape anything, did not seem to notice that the dust was so thick in the air, it was hard to see the other side of the room. SO…nice guy…but not recommending him…that and he told me on Monday he is getting out of the business…GO FIGURE!

Our appointment for granite installation was confirmed for this Friday (the 21st) between 1 and 5…WAHOO!! I got the dry layout for the Butterfly Blue on Monday night…It has one area of "movement" (see how I have reframed that??) in the island, but I think it looks fine and I am sure I will be very happy…so I "OK’d" it and they moved ahead. SO…very excited!!

We got our gutters installed last Friday and Saurday…JUST in time for the rain that started on Sunday! Looks great…so now other than sealing the rest of the concrete and having Manuel come back to finish the retainaing wall (that is a whole ‘nuther story), the outside is done. The grass is starting to grow…we have nice green peach fuzz out there…
Manuel has kind of disappeared…He has not been here since last Wednesday, spoke with him briefly yesterday morning, he assured me he is coming back. I am assuming that since he is not here, he must be at my pal Rick’s getting his grass seed down (I hope!)

I got the handles (knobs and pulls) for the cabinets yesterday. 89 knobs and 50 pulls. That includes 20 knobs for the bathroom cabinets…so it is not like there are that many cabinets or anythingand some of the drawers are getting 2 pulls (any drawers over 24" get 2). They are simple satin nickel–thought with that many they had to be simple or it would be a little much…and the cabinets are simple…

I have been caulking the trim on the colums outside to be ready for Mario who is coming back this weekend to paint the front door, the french door and the four columns…so I guess that is one other thing that needs to be finished outside…that and Troy has 2 more septic cover lids to build.

OK…so that took me a few days more than I thought to get back on here to post an update…But I have a few minutes this morning before Big John, and crew, comes by to start installing the gutters…WAHOO! The only thing I have to think about with this one, is how much is he going to wreck my new topsoiled and seeded lawn with his ladders?? Yes, we are in the process of getting a yard back. Except…that is one thing I do not have a picture of…I will work on that

So Manuel and Giovanni have been here working on the yard…brought in 22 cubic yards of topsoil and a bunch of rock, some peat and grass seed and we are all good. Decided that it make a bit more sense to just have these guys come and do this than try to do it myself…They rototilled the 3 way topsoil in and raked and rolled twice, spread the seed, put down peat (from CANADA–as I think almost all spagnum moss is), created mounded beds (that I need to bark in the spring), planted the shrubs I bought…and now my big job is to water twice a day. So that I can handle. They are also building the block retaining wall around the back patio as well as moving the existing block wall forward about 4 inches (sounds crazy, but had to be done to match and look right). We got referred these guys from our pal Rick in Reintree. He is also using him for some similar things in his yard and was pleased. So far so good.

Jose (drywaller) was here yesterday as there are many many places where the drywall needs to be fixed. Not so happy with the end product of this company…Lots of fixes and it is taking them too long to get out here to do this. Jose understands but he is just an employee…it is John that needs to deal with me on this…SO anyway, Jose was here and got all the mud on, word on the street is that John will be back on Sunday for sanding and texture. He better be!!

We got our main fridge and our range installed on the 4th…got some pix of that…Wow…very nice. Need to have the warranty company come out though and make some adjustments though. I guess the $500 I spent to have the fridge installed does not include adjusting doors or hose attachments…SIGH. The $500 I spent to have the range installed was worth every penny though…no problems there. Actually the whole bill was worth it as these were some heavy appliances…the fridge weighs close to 800 pounds and took 5 guys to get it in the front door, and the range 650 lb (they brought that one in the back)…so we would not have been able to do that ourselves!!

Now the sad news…there is something wrong with my floor. Not sure what…but the finish is cracking lengthwise down the boards…just some of them, but enough that I am not going to accept it. We are waiting for the "inspector" to call and set up an appointment to come out and have a look to determine the cause. Our fate is in his hands…I am not looking forward to this fight…

Now for my granite issues…FineLine Pacific only has three slabs of my colour choice (Butterfly Blue) left. It is being discontinued apparently (how does this help me??) So this should be enough to do the areas we need, other than when I went down there to look at the slabs, they have big (ready for the technical term?) "eggs" in them. For those of you unfamiliar with this jargon…this would be the dark colour splotches (my word) that are in the granite. So I have 2 choices…live with it…or pick another colour. So I have requested a drylayout of my template against these slabs to see what it looks like. If it is OK, then we go ahead, if not then we go to colour choice #2, Sapphire Blue, (which is more expensive–go figure!) Hopefully, this does not impact my Sept 21st installation appointment (which I have waited 5 weeks for).

Here are the Trex Deck covers Troy is making to cover our Septic tank access holes as well as the clean-out T for the Septic and the electrical box for the septic…

And here is the BBQ/smoker area…It is all trimmed out, but I have to call Mario back to finsh the painting. he has the four columns to do as well as the front door and the french doors in the back…Note our beautiful morning sun

Here is our pile of bricks for the retaining wall that is going around the back patio…

and the wall they are moving forward…

And our front…

Well…Here we are going into our second week of school.

I do have some action (some good and some bad) to report and some pictures to post.

Check back in later today…I have to run out Costco Home to deal with granite issuesBut I just wanted y’all to know i have not forgotten about you!