Not Much to Show This Week -- Wk 65, 9/21 -27/08

As might be expected, we hit a few hurdles this week. We have been pretty laid back about how long this is taking, but now I'm getting a little concerned. In order to lock in our loan rate, we have to have a certificate of occupancy by mid-October. We can't get that until we go over the hurdles.

The major hurdle is the grading. It didn't pass inspection by the county this week. We are going to have to do some more erosion control work on the east side of the house. The other inspections can't be done until the grading is completed and approved.

We decided along with our builder, Dave, and the grading guy, Cisco, to do whatever is required to pass inspection, but not go any farther into landscaping that area because we have a plan for that coming from ZonaGardens. So Cisco will do the 3:1 slope grading where possible and use rip rap where we want to save some trees so the bank will have to be more vertical. It works out to about 50 feet of rip rap. The link goes to a picture of a combination of rip rap and gravel. The rip rap is the larger rocks to the right.

The parts without rip rap will have to be revegetated with a native plant seed appropriate to the area. That grade number means that for every foot of vertical bank, we have to slope out 3 feet to flat. So for most of the east side of the main driveway, the slope will have to extend out 9 feet.

So what can I show you this week? Well, the parapet cap got done.

This picture shows it and the house that's being built behind us. We took a looksee inside it this week. They have tile and carpet on their floors and huge rooms. The house is much bigger than ours and their covered back porch you can see here is enormous. They also have 3 fireplaces, one in the great room, one in the master bedroom and one on the back porch.

This is facing south from the deck.
And this is facing northwest from the deck.
This is the area over the back porch roof.
I just had to take this shot of going up the stairs through all the protective covering. The masons did a great job of cleaning up after themselves and keeping things as neat as they possibly could. Walking through this as the plastic was fluttering in the wind was fun.
Here's what it was like going back down after they finished. The final painting will include the doors in this area. Trout decided he wants his doors painted blue. Shall we do this garage door blue, too? Or should it be red or green?

This is the stairwell with the parapet cap finished. The mural was grouted, but hasn't been cleaned up yet.
This is the intersection of the shop wall and the garage wall.
They grouted this mural, too, but it also hasn't been wiped clean.
This is the great room from the kitchen sink.
They installed the shop bath light bar. It doesn't look very bright here, but it lights up that whole little room.

The master shower is almost done. This looks good.
The pebble floor has been wiped clean but not sealed yet. When it's sealed it will take on a shiny look. This also shows the "rough" edge of it.
It looks like the pebbles are spilling out onto the floor.
One major accomplishment of the week was that the window and door company came out to install the screens, adjust the doors, etc. They hoped to finish in one day, but when we were there on Saturday we could see that they still had a little work to do.
Someone asked what the inside of the sink was like, so I took this picture to show the short divider between the disposal side and the sink side. It really functions like one big undivided sink.

Now for the new pet. These are pictures from a website I recently discovered, Reptiles and Amphibians of Arizona. When we were out there on Wednesday, the place was a beehive of activity with all kinds of people working all over the place. The one grouting the front porch mural noticed something coming out from under some cardboard laying on the ground. I was so fascinated, I neglected to take a picture, but they said it was a kingsnake. This is the picture from that website.

It had its little head sticking out from under the edge of the cardboard and raised up above the ground about 10 inches. Our neighbors said they had never seen any rattlesnakes in the immediate area. If there are some these guys around, that's probably why. This is what the link says: This is a powerful constrictor that preys on snakes (including rattlesnakes), mice, rats, lizards, amphibians, reptile eggs, small turtles, and birds. One of the guys took a long tube, moved the cardboard and Wilbur (as I dubbed him) slithered off to the south into the terrain. By the way, kingsnakes are not venomous.

One day Trout decided to drive past our turnoff toward Kitt Peak. We got to a point on the edge of a hill where we could look back to see where we're building. My camera isn't quite up to this long a view, but I cropped this picture so you could see our house smack dab in the middle. You can see the red shop and the big door. The colors make a big impact close up, but from this distance, the light colored houses and roofs seem to provide the greater visual pollution.
And here's what our little development looks like from that hill without the cropping. Our house is off to the right of center. That's a dust devil in the foreground.
So, at this point, barring any further delays, I think we will be moved in by the end of November. That means one more Halloween here at our rental and probably the last time we'll have any Trick or Treaters for a long while.