Power to the people!

Although we had to fight the power [company] a bit to get it going, the power is now hooked up. Thanks again to Matt for the photo. There should be more posts coming soon about finished floors, appliances, closing, and moving day!

"Show me sand da floor."

"The Karate Kid"....anyone? The floors guys got started yesterday and most of the rooms are sanded and ready to get sealed. The old flooring looks pretty great for the most part. Once all the sanding is done the painters will come back in to touch up the inside and outside and then clean the place up really good before we move in on Friday (baring any major catastrophes with closing this week). I'm assuming the rest of the appliances will show up on Friday as well, which is fine as I'll probably be too broken from moving to fire up the kitchen for a while.

Hallway

Living room

The office. This room had some kind of laminate down that seems to be giving the floor crew a hard time. Hopefully they can get some really rough sand paper and bang it out today and get to work sealing the floors but this is a mighty chore indeed.

Also the gas is now hooked up. Most of the utilities are in place or will be in a day. Water, gas, and power is going to get the official set up on Wednesday. There was some miscommunication between Duke Power and the City of Durham but it should be resolved now.

De Fence

On Saturday our wonderful friends Meg and Erik got married (congrats guys!) and a fancy new fence got installed at the house. These guys knocked this fence out in one day which was pretty impressive to watch. The CPI security system also got installed and today the floors were supposedly getting sanded. My mom and I spent the ENTIRE day packing at the apartment. It's amazing how much crap we have. Thank the sweet baby Jesus this will be the last time we have to move for hopefully a very long time.

Concrete for posts

Posts all up

Mom on site

Nellie and mom both say there needs to be more photos of me on the blog. So here's me standing on a pile of wood. Yup.

I knew the property line went right through the huge mulch pile from when the stump was ground down. I love the neatly dug trench right down the middle of the pile.

Then, from out of no where, a local church marching band decided to get some practice by marching around the block a few times. Apparently these guys are headed up to DC next weekend for some parade but it was pretty awesome to have this music and drumline in the back ground for a few hours in the morning.

I decided to get busy and shovel some mulch back on to our side of the property line before the fence went up. If I waited I'd have to throw it over the fence. I did give myself a pretty sweet blister in the process.

Fence boards going up

Boards stacked. The quickness that these went up after the framing was in place was incredible.

Almost done

We'll have a few trees inside the new fence and a nice big blank slate for a patio or deck or who knows what in the future. I'm really looking forward to getting going with some gardening.

There are gates on both sides of the house

All done!

We cheated this line in a bit to give room for the Leathers' family driveway. We got to meet some more members of the family this weekend. Apparently there are 12 children ranging from 66-45 years old. I'm going to have a hard time with all those names.

Even with the big tree gone we still get a lot of nice afternoon shade in the yard which is nice.

Another shot. Don't you just love batch uploading photos?

There's a nice little nook because of the way the back yard is shaped that will be perfect for trash and recycle bins. Next post should hopefully have some floor shots.

Today at the house

Well our projected closing date has come and gone. Sigh. The good news is the house isn't going any where and we'll be closing sometime next week. Lots of stuff still being finished up at the house and that means more photos for you dear readers.

The lumber was dropped off today for the fence in the back yard which will be going up tomorrow.

The compressor was installed and we'll probably be getting a cage for it as soon as possible. People love stealing some copper as we learned earlier in this venture.

The mantels have been cemented up and will get painted. Now we just need to find some sweet cast iron fire place covers.

The marble threshold into the shower looks great.

Eventually we'll get the glass shower door installed and this bathroom will be basically done.

We had the HVAC guy move the thermostat control over a bit in the hallway to make room for pictures to hang.

Almost finished mantel in the master bedroom.

"The Cob Boys" down the street have also been busy on their project. The back yard garden space is going to be really nice. I'm glad to see them using the "urbanite" that they salvaged from our retaining wall tear down. Urbanite is their term for chunks of concrete they are reusing.

They've added a small addition to the shed.

Greg, Jeremy, and Matt(?) were busy today getting up the first layer of adobe like spackle on the outside of the house. This wall will eventually be an interior wall.

I'll be really interested to the follow the progress on this house.

My mom, Ken, our painter, and another local contractor talking shop on over our future fence.

Can I close now? How 'bout now?

Lots of finishing stuff happening at the house. There has been lots of drama with getting the closing done. We were supposed to close today (Friday the 20th) but have had some issues with the loan people sitting on some information that slowed things done. Whatever - the house isn't going anywhere and hopefully we'll be closing some time next week. All that annoyance aside the house is looking awesome and getting very close to being done. These photos are actually a few days old at this point so there are even more things done at the house but I wanted to get these up so you can see what's happened since the last post. Also, I figured out how to batch upload photos so get ready for a picture extravaganza.

 Miles has been pushing himself and his subcontractors really hard to get things finished up. Everyone looks a little haggard and tired but we really appreciate his hard work to get the job finished.

 The gutters are up on the back of the house.They look great and will get painted the same color as the rest of the trim eventually.

 Motion lights are up on the back corners of the house.

 This is the vent for the hood vent over the stove which is now installed.

 You can see the splash guards on the gutters in the spots that really dump water when it rains. The gutter will be tied into a buried pipe that will drain water away from and around the house.

 The orange flags mark the official lines where the fence will go. That should be going in on Saturday.

 Outdoor outlets are in.

 This is the pad for the A/C compressor. I think it now has the compressor sitting on it but like I said these photos are a few days old.

 Another gutter photo.

 Miles redid the back door threshold which looks a lot better and the drip guard should divert water away from the siding. 

 Lights are all in! Well mostly. A few of them are dummy lights that will get replaced once they get in from being ordered. This one in the kitchen is my favorite by far.

 Another light (this one from Ikea) and you can see some of the finishes in the kitchen. My mom has also been in town this week helping me pack our apartment generally offering emotional support during all this craziness. I can honestly say this is one of the most difficult and stressful things I've ever done. Harder by far than planing a wedding or even grad school. But it's a good stress because we're really excited about it. FIRST WORLD PROBLEMS!

 

 Hood vent.

 Garbage disposal. and plumbing under the kitchen sink.All the inspections - building, plumbing, electrical, and HVAC are all passed. Congrats and thanks to Miles and all the subcontractors.

 Another view of the kitchen.

 Pantry for the shelving. And why is there an outlet in the pantry you might ask? Because we'll be putting in controls for the installed speakers in the house and back yard eventually. Thanks again Clapp boys for the great idea.

 Back porch light.

 Awwww.....It's cute.

 Lights.

 I love this. Miles left the box and plastic bag over the hallway light in the hall to protect it from dust while things are getting buttoned up. Great idea.

Hall bath light.

 Toilets are in and usable. I've already taken the browns to the super bowl. Sorry for the TMI but this is an important step in any mans life and I felt a huge sense of accomplishment in breaking in the bathroom for the first time.

 Plumbing trim is in.

 Shower head. 

 Delta Leland for all the bathrooms if you're wondering.

 Emon made some really nice thresholds using old wood from the roof. 

 40 Gallon water heater is installed.

 This is a dummy top and faucet to stand in while inspections are done. Once the correct size vanity top comes in we'll switch out faucet for the Delta Leland faucet with the 8" spread.

 More master bath stuff.

 Shower trim in the master bath. This head will get replaced with one that has a hose and pull down head eventually but this will work for the time being. Hopefully that other head got ordered with the other fixture stuff. There's always something to check on.

 Grout is done.

 Tile work around the mantel in the office. The floor guys have already started sanding the floors and they are going to look SOOOOO good. Can't wait to see those finished.

 Hallway can lighting.

 Laundry closet is ready for appliances once the floors are finished.

 Side light on the front porch.

 

 Under counter lights in the kitchen.

 

Kitchen faucet - Danze brand. I really like this guy and the modern pop it gives to the home.

More photos to come soon. Stay tuned.