Spring Fever -- Wks 37-38, March 9-22, 2008

We don't have a lot to show at the house for the last couple of weeks. We've been in the project management doldrums with things having to go in a certain order interrupted by family responsibilities keeping the plumber away from the house. However, that seems to be settled now and I think we will be moving on.

We did get some decisions made, though, and as I prepared this, I realized how many.

We picked our Talavera sinks for the master bath and the guest bath. I don't have pictures of them, but Trout's is the same pattern as the gold "feather" tile at the left of this grouping. This is sort of what his vanity tile will be like, but with more variety in the field tile and the feather tile will be set diagonally.

My vanity tile pattern is a little less complicated, but between Trout, Vicki (the other half of Meadow Briar Homes) and me we decided on a sink that has all the colors of the pattern tile -- and more! We were leaning toward just a blue and white sink but decided that was too plain.

The sink we picked for the guest bath has prickly pear in the bowl and is trimmed with the same terra cotta peacock feather design as is in these tiles we'll be using for the guest bath.

While noodling around at an online lighting source, Lamps Plus, I found this vanity light with sconces that match for the guest bath. It can be mounted with the shades up or down and I think we'll mount it with them down. If our local lighting provider can't get it, we will order it online. I love the way the scrolls sort of match the scrolls in the "Maya" border tile for the guest bath -- even down to the place where they are "banded" together.

We had to make a final decision on the refrigerator and freezer so Dave could frame in the area around it. This is how that turned out, although I'm not sure you can really see much in this picture. The space it fits in is bordered by the 2x4 at the right edge and the multiple 2x4s on the left.

I had been dithering about this for a long time, debating with myself on whether to spend a lot of money or go with Sears Kenmore Elite for this set. After a final look at Consumer Reports and in person, I decided that none of the other options were really much better and certainly not worth the extra money, so we will have this unit in our kitchen. The freezer is on the left and the fridge is on the right. They are counter depth (24") like the one we had in WA. I have come to despise full-depth refrigerators with the freezer on the top after living with two different ones the past 3 years. If you want to see what this is like inside, go to your local Sears store. I'm sure they will have them on display.

When I had to commit to the fridge/freezer, I decided I might as well go ahead and make the commitment to the other appliances I'd picked out in the past. So we will have a Sears Kenmore dishwasher (Trout's favorite appliance)...

...a GE Monogram gas cooktop...

...a Best by Broan rangehood...

...and a GE thermal oven/micowave combination.

That was the extent of the decisions we had to make away from the house, but they were pretty significant.

Back at the house, I worked with Dave on the design of the tile around the master bath tub. The design will use the tiles below plus some dark blue trim tile. The stars are the "field" tile, the pictographs (and there are two other images besides the hand) will show up in a few places and the swirls and espadas patterns will make a double border.

So here's how the base of the tub looked without the tub in it. For inspection purposes, Dave had to tile that. It was a new requirement of the county's. We've been hitting a lot of those on this project.

And here's how it looks with the tub in. Yes, the tub actually is holding water. That's a good sign.

Here's a closeup of some of the tile. It looks absolutely fabulous in person.

If you were worried, the guest bath tub also holds water. Because it's not dropped into a platform like the master bath tub, it didn't have to have any tile around it for the inspection. In fact, Dave moved the temporarily framed linen cubbies away from the back of it for the time being.

Lani and Kelly hadn't been out to the house in awhile. Her mom (who is my age) bought Lani's step-father, Gary, a ride in a WWII trainer plane at Ryan Field. We met the whole family there, I took pictures, of course, and we had lunch before everyone came out to see the house. Gary (Trout's age) was a local developer and he was very impressed by the quality of work being done in the house. He said Dave and Vicki were doing a great job.

Lani loved our semi-industrial windows and doors. Here she is getting brought up-to-date on the fireplace by Trout.

She took a picture of Trout and me with it.

On the other side of the room the corbel brackets for the kitchen bar turned out really well, we think.

And Trout's excited about the spread of the light from the SolaTubes in the shop. It's just what he hoped for. They don't have the lenses on them yet, so you can really see the area they will cover in this picture.

I don't have any pictures to show, but something else he's excited about is a spur-of-the moment decision to put a mesquite floor in his shop office. He and Kelly went to a wood source down near Tombstone who had some old, well-aged, mesquite tongue-in-groove flooring laying back in a corner. He said they could have it for a very good price, so they snapped it up.

He may also replace the exterior door to his office and the one to the understair storage with a mesquite one. With the termites in this area, I'm not so sure the wood floor is a good idea, but it's his man-cave and he paid for it (and will pay for the mesquite doors since there are already two doors there that are part of the house contract), so it's up to him. He can reuse one of those contract doors for the door into the shop from the office. I don't know what we'll do with the other one.

Now for those of you who may have been curious about the Ryan Field thing, here's the plane. I love the way you can see the prop in these pictures even though it was running. I could actually see it through the digital camera lens, but not just with my eyes.

And here's the pilot. Not exactly like Lee, eh?! Both pilots had pony tails. The other one's was gray.

It just keeps looking bigger! Week 21 -- 11/19-23/07

This was a short work week due to the Thanksgiving holidays. Still a lot was done & the place looked even more like a house by the end of the week.

Kelly, our friend & cabinetmaker, came to measure for the kitchen, laundry & master bath cabinets. He said it looked like a strip mall. So this week you can imagine where the UPS store, the fast food joint & the ice cream place are. There's no question but that Brake Max is at the end.

The week started with our first out of town visitors -- Sally from WA & her son, Mark, from Phoenix. That's the front porch they're standing on. I'm standing on the footing for one of the posts that will hold up the roof of the front porch.

This is the shop with a pretty good view of what the viewing deck on the right will be like.

This is just the house by itself. See, it doesn't look so big without the shop attached. And it's not that big. Many of you have houses with much more square footage. The house interior is actually only 2336 square feet.

Most of the interior rough framing was completed this week. This is the kitchen in the foreground.

Remember when we were struggling with the fireplace last week? Dave, our builder, did this mock up for us to look at. You can barely see the strings indicating the shape of the cone. We made some slight changes to make the shape a little more dramatic -- narrower at the ceiling, sticking farther out into the room at the hearth ... Check back next week to see how it came out.

Most of the sheathing was completed. Much of the work done you can't see because it was done on the roof. The guys framed the crickets that lead to the scuppers. You can see some of the scupper holes in this picture of the west side of the house. These scuppers will empty onto the back porch roof.

This is the garage with its scupper holes. Several are required to help drain the shop roof. You can barely see one from the shop roof on to the garage roof at the right. There are 4 coming off the garage roof.

This is a closeup of a scupper hole. The sky sure was blue that day. I must've taken this picture pretty early in the morning.

The route we will likely tell people to use to get to the house will bring them to the entrance on Lynnette first.

If they miss the driveway, they will see the south side of the house.

And if they keep going they will look back over their right shoulders to see the back porch.

If they go on around the corner & come in the back way off Cinnabar, this is what they'll see.

For those of you who think there's nothing to eat in the desert, this is a barrel cactus fruit. There's a show on TV where a guy is put in wilderness places alone to survive for about a week. I saw the one where he was in the Sonoran Desert down here. One of the things he said was that he could find much more to eat here to survive than he was able to in a forest in BC or Alberta.

Week 13 -- Lots of Homework

This week started with a meeting with the builders to firm up decisions previously made & to make some we couldn't make until now. They needed our input before Trout left for WA. It turned out that I needed to do lots of homework picking fixtures for the baths -- especially the faucets -- after he left. After months of online as well as brick & mortar showroom research, I decided to try to get everything from Kohler. It started with the kitchen sink faucet. Well, I guess it really started with the kitchen sink.

Over a year ago, Trout decided that he wanted the biggest sink possible. He saw this one in a local showroom & it was love at first sight. The normal sink is 33" wide. This one is 43" wide. It will be cobalt blue. The actual sample is darker than this looks online. This is a picture from Kohler's fabulous website. The model is K-5850-3 Cantina.

We planned for a single-hole sink as is shown in this picture, but then we decided to install a Reverse Osmosis system for drinking water. That means we either need a 2nd hole in the sink or to mount the RO faucet on the countertop. We decided to go with the 3-hole option for this sink. One hole will be for the drinking water faucet, one for the regular faucet & the last will be for a soap dispenser. I always thought soap dispensers were a little too high toned for me, but oh well...

That brings us back to the faucet. Trout wanted the one with the longest reach I could find since the sink is so big. That turned out to also be a Kohler product & down the Kohler road I went. This is what we chose -- a K-10433 Forte pullout faucet followed by a K-1893-C soap dispenser.

Having selected this Kohler Forte style, I used it just about everywhere else I could. This is going to sound like a Kohler commercial, but of all the manufacturers I considered, they seemed to be the best at having things that followed through from room to room. This K-10217-4 Forte tall faucet is the one we will have for our master bath sinks. The one for the guest bath will be the same except shorter.

We will not have vessel sinks like this. Our sinks will be very large (21x17) oval Talavera ones. We are likely to have the faucets mounted off to the side rather than in the center on the back side of the sink as is normal. The faucets will be mounted on the countertops because there are no holes in the Talavera sinks.

I'm almost afraid to post the toilets & master bath tub because the online color is so off the sample. It's called Sunlight & shows up very yellow, but the cast iron sample is much more muted. In fact, it is exactly the same as the color of the white, even the solid white, Talavera tiles we will be using in the baths. I am a little iffy about this, though, & intend to see a fixture for real, not just a sample or online before they are ordered. Both house toilets will be like this K-3489 Cimarron. This K-839 Maestro tub is a drop-in one for the master bath, but the one in the guest bath will be the same color if not the same style.

This doesn't look like much for all the hours I spent on it, but most of the time was involved in trying to educate myself about what was really needed where. After a couple of calls to Kohler, I think I got it straight, but I hope our builders or the plumbers, the Duchenes, correct any ignorant decisions I may have made. We still have to finish up the selection process for the Reverse Osmosis system, the utility sinks in the shop & garage, Trout's shop bath & the laundry.

Speaking of the Duchenes, I spelled their name wrong last time. They are of Mexican heritage, but according to the genealogical research one of their cousins is doing, they are descended from a French soldier who came to Mexico with Maximillian & decided to stay, so their last name is French, not Spanish. Here are 3 generations of Duchenes fixing a pipe that the pad prep guys broke while filling in after the rough plumbing.

We went out to the lot on Tuesday after our meeting with the builders on Monday. As we were driving home, Trout, who rarely shows any excitement about anything, finally admitted he was getting a little stoked about the project. Here he is talking to our builder, Dave, about some construction issues with the shop.

Part of what they were talking about was how the columns down the center of it are going to be supported & what needed to be done with those that are at the walls. Here are some before & after pictures of the footings for those columns. The first 2 are center columns & the last one is a wall column.

Since we're talking about structural issues, this is a picture of the footing for one of the porch posts. It obviously doesn't need to have the strength of the shop columns.

With the forms in & the dirt flattened out the house shape is starting to be a little more understandable. So here's a series going from left (the guest room) to right (the shop) as if you were facing the front of the house.

The guest room with the guest bath & the great room beyond.

The entrance with the great room beyond. The guest room is to the left & the office is to the right.

The office with the kitchen & nook beyond.

The laundry with the master bedroom beyond.

The garage with the master bath beyond.

The rest of the garage with the courtyard beyond.

The working area of the shop with the shop bath & office beyond.

The parking area of the shop.

Ending with a view picture is usually fun. This will be the view from Trout's shop office. Unfortunately, the shop office is not designed so that he can sit on the toilet in the shop bath, open the door & see out the windows. I'm sure if it was he would.