Another day closer!

My descriptions have been a little shorter lately because I've been battling the flu. Fun times. We'll do room by room posts after we move in where we give more details about specific finishes and selections.

I know I've raved already about my backsplash, but I really, REALLY love it! Today, Tim put the grout on and I'm very pleased with the choice. It's just the right white. 

When we first started thinking of a backsplash, I fell in love with Ann Sacks Matchstick Mosaic on Houzz.com. It took awhile to track it down, and at $65/square foot, I fell out of love. Even though I still think Ann Sacks' tiles are gorgeous, I'm so glad I went with the Solistone...and saved a ton of money!

Solistone Mardi Gras glass tile in Carrollton, with Snow White non-sanded grout.

Here's a close up of one of the tile remnants. The lines are on a grayish-green piece of paper attached to the back of the glass.

Moving on to another favorite selection: my pendant lights! We bought these ET2 Fizz pendants from Whitmer's Lighting. ET2 has really cool modern lights. Our vanity lights are from ET2, as well. So fun!

The lights were installed last week, but tonight they were finally turned on!

In addition to being mesmerizing to look at, they put out a good amount of light. Niels and I were saying that between the pendants, dining room light, command center lights and under cabinet lights, we probably didn't even need the cans above. But, I'm sure we'll be happy to have them as we age.

The pantry light is working now, too. There's a sensor on the door, so the light comes on when the door is opened. A nice energy saving feature. And convenient, too!

We also got to see the light in D's room for the first time.

And Jim Duffie, our electrician has been busy in the basement, too. Although we aren't finishing the basement yet, we are doing a few things to make it functional until we do.

Yesterday, we saw the water line in the house. And here's the front yard evidence:

But I like this evidence even better!

Along those lines, John, our plumber, was busy with fixtures. Here's the Moen Eva faucet installed in D's bathroom, without the base, which we think is a more modern look.

The Moen Eva shower fixtures were installed, too.

And our port-a-potty days are over! Here's one of our Toto Aquia II dual flush toilets. Toilet seats will be installed shortly.

The painters were back, too. They had a little tiny drywall patch to do in the in-law closet:

 

 The first floor laundry platform was painted white:

And the mantle was painted espresso. I think that was a really good choice. 

We weren't at the house very long last night because Tim, the tile installer, was there quite late sweeping up and getting the floor ready for the carpet crew to get started today! We're really grateful for his hard work. 

Plumbing, HVAC and my Backsplash!

It's Monday, which means another busy week of work on the house. We're t-minus 11 days from move-in. We are so excited!

The first floor laundry platform was built today. It will be painted white. The 5" or so of height will make the side-by-side washer and dryer easier to use from a wheelchair, and will be easier on the back of all who use it.

Big decision in the kitchen was where to put the instant hot dispenser. We wanted it by the prep sink since it'll be closer to the tea cabinet and cooktop. I finally decided to put it on the right side, but centered.

The bench for the in-law shower today. Originally, we were going to tile in this shower with wheel-in accessibility. But then we found this shower, which will work pretty well for us for now. This is exactly the set up I needed after my last surgery. Of course, then we realized that we lost a couple of feet when the duct work had to go in, so it all worked out well. The decision today was where to put the handheld shower. We chose to put these in all three showers for ease of cleaning, but it was especially important in this bathroom. We decided to put the handheld shower on the outside of the shower rather than the inside  since the water will go toward the back, and because if someone is using it to clean or assist someone, they won't have to reach all the way in to get to it.

Another decision made today is to not use the vessel sink. It's just too high for ADA standards, so we're going to see if we can still use a regular undermount sink like we have in the other vanities. The whole reason we got the vessel sink was because we originally thought we were going to have the plumbing coming out of the wall, not the floor. We conveniently forgot that the bathroom is against the concrete ICF wall and garage. Oops.

Speaking of ICF, the one major disadvantage to ICF walls (and it's quite minor compared to all the advantages) is that moving electrical lines can be difficult. You want to make sure your electrician knows what he's doing! Fortunately, ours does. This is a close up of the command center, where I added a new line for additional lights.

A quick peek at our bathroom fixtures. This is the Moen Eva One Handle High Arc Faucet. We chose the one handle over the two handle partly for convenience and partly for ADA-ease. It's a lot easier to adjust the temperature when you only have one handle to adjust. We have a two handle faucet in our apartment and are constantly burning our hands!

Another burning question today. To use the base of the faucet...

Or not?

Here's the thing, D is most excited to see:

No more port-a-potty!

We installed all dual flush toilets, Aquia II from Toto, which are Water Sense labeled. Since we haven't had to pay for water before, we're very happy to water efficient plumbing fixtures. If you haven't used dual flush toilets, it's easy to remember, push the #1 button (the smaller one) for #1s, and the number #2 for #2. In addition to using less water overall (1.6 gallons per flush), it gives the option of using even less water for liquid waste (.9 gpf). For perspective, the average non-Water Sense labeled toilet uses between 3 and 5 gallons per flush.

Our handrails went up today. They look great! I'm so glad we went with espresso instead of white.

Going down to the basement.

Going upstairs.

And back to the main level.

Two of our thermostats went in today. Another energy-saving feature we included with the build is zone heating and cooling. Our house is divided into four heating/cooling zones: the upstairs, the basement, the in-law suite, and the rest of the main level. Each zone is controlled separately. So, we can set the temperature upstairs (where the bedrooms are) for a comfortable sleeping temperature at night, and a more conservative temperature for the rest of the day. We can heat the basement only when we use it. We made the in-law suite a separate zone so we don't have to worry about heating or cooling when we don't have guests.

The HVAC team was busy installing registers in all the rooms, including this one above the pantry. 

We had wanted this one centered, but the framing didn't let us.

And then, the highlight of our day came from Tim, our tile guy: My backsplash!!

First, I had to decide on the grout color. Platinum, on the right, was too blue, so it was easy to eliminate that one.

I decided on Snow White, which is not quite as bright as the other choice, which is fittingly called Bright White. Snow White is on the left in the above photo.

So I'll always remember:

Getting to work:

The first "square" is up! I didn't intend to match my paint with the backsplash, but I'm glad I did.

Here's the progress as I was leaving to take a tired boy home. I. LOVE. IT.

Now I'm just waiting for Niels to get home for a crisis-averting day at work so we can see the rest of the day's progress...and see if we can have the bath faucets put in without the bases.

Build - Day 47 - August 29, 2011

First of all, happy 49th monthaversary to my lovely wife... Love you!. So, that marital duty performed; on with the show...

Today is one of those very 'sexy' building days when they are running wires, cables and PVC pipe. Not a lot of photographic progress and when they are done it almost looks more messy than when they started. Yet, it's all part of the process to make our dream house actually function the way we designed it.

The one item that did show progress was the arrival and installation of the jetted tub in our master bath. We know, a jetted tub is not the 'greenest' product on the planet but we will not use too often so we'll let that one slide.

Over the last few days they also prepped the porches and the garage for the concrete later in the week. The plan is to put those in on Thursday. We also found out last Friday that our nice sliders, which we intended for wheelchair access, aren't even close to 36". Uh oh.

Since we are trying to incorporate as much universal design on the first floor as we can afford, being able to have a wheelchair accessible entrance is pretty important. Our parents are baby boomers, plus if one of us gets in an accident and ends up in a wheelchair at least we know we don't have to demo our house just to get in. The plan was to use the back-deck into the in-law suite as that accessible entry but as we discovered that the sliders closed the door on that idea, so we're adjusting our front entrance from a single step to a slight slope. More like this:

One setback we discovered today has to do with the top part of our in-law suite shower. The first time, it arrived damaged. This one was fortunately dent and scatch free. Slight issue: it's not the same color as the rest of the shower... oops! ;-) Ah well, we have some time before we move in so plenty of time to get that fixed. Sure glad we didn't use that supplier for our kitchen cabinets though...

And here are those 'sexy' pictures...

The manoblock; each faucet in the house has its own connection. Guess you can guess the meaning of the colors...

The wires are just hanging out...

One of the must-have items; Central Vac.

Master Bath 'command central'

Our tub is in. Opted for the 5ft so we can have wider surronds. Safer for the vertigo-challenged among us.

A 'sexy' picture to end it for tonight...

Build - Day 42 - August 24, 2011

We're baaaacccckkk! ;-) Not a lot of visual progress this week. The crews have been busy on the inside of the house and the plumbing and HVAC lines are mostly done. The biggest visual impacts are in the basement, bathrooms and attic space.

The other things happening are outside of the new house and relate to flooring choices. We've settled on our tile (Emser Strands for floor tile, Solistone Carrellton for the kitchen backsplash) and know we will be doing cork in our kitchen and dinette. We're not sure yet on the type of carpet but are leaning towards either EverStrand (Mohawk) / Green Smart (Bliss) fibers which are both made out of recycled PET bottles or the SmartStrand (Mohawk) that is made from corn in a methane-powered factory which a near unbeatable stain resistance.

The other item that rocked our world this week was the 5.9 earthquake in Virginia. That is about 8 hours from here but was strong enough to give you some weary sea legs similar to your first voyage at sea. I wish we would be in our new house which is basically earthquake proof with 6.25" of concrete for all exterior walls from the basement to the attic. To be honest, the 5.9 quake was the largest in 150 years but it is still nice to know that mother nature would need to bring her A-game.

Also, when looking at our toilets our GC realized that in one of the bathrooms our toilet was directly over a floor support. This would have mend a switch to a single-flush so we're switching the vanity and toilet location so we can keep our dual-flush toilets.

On the back patio we've added two gas lines; one for the grill and one for some overhead terrace heaters you'd normally see at restaurant patios. This will extend the usability time of our back patio far into the fall and winter. We're looking forward to a nice grilling session outside watching the snow fall outside from our heated patio.

Alright, off to load some pictures so y'all can see the progress too... and here they are:

Electrical boxes for switches and outlets. We're using the rocker style switches instead  of the regular switches.

Plumbing for the main-level laundry.

The product box...

The product used (with insulation surrounding it)

2nd story laundry room plumbing

Basement plumbing (left side is the rough-in for a future planned bathroom)

Return-air roster

The flooring choices: espresso shaker cabinets, white quartz counters, kitchen back splash, Emser floor tile, cork sample and carpet sample all in our colors. We think it looks pretty good... ;-)