Week #23 - The Finishing Details - Part Three

(June 21-27, 2010)

Before I start on rehashing the week's developments at Casa Roa, I'd like to point out the new 'look' of the blog. When I should've been busy writing my post, I became distracted by the new design options for the blog layout. This is a vast improvement over previous design and layout options (very limited) and I spent some time exploring this new tool. I hope you like it. I thought the paint cans were appropriate for the finishing phase.

The weekly (or near weekly) curbside view of Casa Roa hasn't changed much in the past few weeks. We still have a piece of plywood up acting as the retaining wall. This stays in place while we wait for the contracted company to finish replacing the water and sewer lines and reconnect our water. I haven't explored the reason why this didn't happen this week but if I was to bet on a reason, it would have something do with delays in getting permits (from the City) to dig up the road. I will reveal this reason when I find out.

Tile and paint continued to be the predominant trades in the house this week. I've included shots of various rooms in the house to show their progress. I don't think the my photography skills adequately capture the colours but you get a general sense of what's going on. Included in these photos are are fireplace mantels that were installed this week. Paint and tile are still needed to finish them off but I think they look great in their raw appearance. Also of note is that the Casa Roa Tour Guide did not make an appearance this week. She's feeling under the weather so she didn't feel she could perform her duties with the same flourish and flare as in previous weeks. :)

(pics: front entry; Kitchen; Great Room fireplace)

(pics: Master bedroom fireplace; Master Ensuite)

Move-in update...isn't going to happen on July 9th. It'll be a week or two after that date.

Week #22 - The Finishing Details - Part Deux

(June 14-20, 2010)

I'm little light on photos this week. Despite my lack of time behind the camera as well as the ongoing rain, there was some good progress on the house this week.

A quick recap...

• Paint - work continues on painting (spraying) trim and painting walls
• Countertops - arrived and were installed. Wow! They are gorgeous. One hitch...There was some miscommunciation (or perhaps a lack of) that resulted in 3 holes being drilled in the upstairs bathroom countertops rather than one. H'mm...costly mistake. I had purchased the taps for the main and ensuite bathrooms (one hole required). So, after some time, my stomach migrated back down from my throat, I regrouped and purchased some different taps which are an adequate alternative. Hopefully this is the only complication that we run into during the finishing phase.
• Tile installer and crew arrived to start installing the slate floor in the mudroom, down the back stairs and in the front entry.
• Back deck was started before the rain started back up.
• The sidewalk that ran down the side of the house to the garage was jackhammered out.

That's all to report this week. Next week is chalked full of painting, tiling, water line replacement, and other finishing details.

Weeks #19-21 - The Finishing Details

(May 23 - June 13, 2010)

Well, I did it again...another 3 week stretch between posts. The good news is that progress on the house continues even when my blog updates are temporarily suspended. :)

The previous sequence of pictures are exterior shots - the first one being the house at the end of week #19, the back of the house remains unchanged through the 3 weeks and finally the front of the house at the end of week #21. Read more to see what happened inside and out.

Let me introduce you to your tour guide for this particular post. Kieran quickly added the word 'house' to her vocabularly. She enjoys going to the house so much that when I do a drive-by only, she starts to fuss and cry about not stopping to see the house (or is it pick rocks outside?). She is easily occupied picking up the small bits of trim waste off the floor, stacking it just so. She also finds the occasional used ear plug. I think I'd rather she collected rocks or played in the mud (see below)!

The largest chunk of work undertaken during the past 3 weeks has been installing trim - window casings, door casings and jams, baseboards, crown moulding and the like. Your guide would like to turn your attention to the leftover materials in the Great Room. Its amazing how much the look of the rooms is improved with some unpainted mdf and some painstaking attention to cuts, corners and straightlines. Your guide presents some other shots of the trim below.

Most recently, the stairway railings were installed. They look fantastic. The painter will take care of staining the railings to match the floors. I think Kieran is mildly thrilled about the railings - she just can't seem to reach yet - but thinks the craftsmanship is up to snuff!

Some important milestones came to pass during this time period. We finally have some of our services turned back on. There is a story behind that 'finally' but I spare the details and mention only that its important that the call centre for your utility provider of choice reinstates service to the proper site. We clearly didn't get our money's worth on the hook-up fee. Enough said (pathetic). The house now has natural gas (as evidenced by the new meter) and electricity. Someone climbed the utility pole outside the house to steal the coil of electrical wire required to hook-up the electricity. Fortunately for us, it's on Enmax's tab to put in new wire. Unfortunately for the thief, there was no money to be made from the aluminum wire he/she/they lifted.

Whilst on the topic of services...

We are required by the City to replace our water and sewer lines to the house. Did I mention in a previous post that its on our tab?! This is the case for both the lines on our property (we have no issue with this) as well as the city's lines from the property line out to the mainline. Eeek! We've known about this from the outset but time has not lessened the sting of this exercise. We're still not sure why we are responsible for upgrading the city's lines but we cannot have our water hooked up until this is done. It is a significant expense that was not budgeted for. This might be an easier pill to swallow had we not known that the City plans to upgrade all the water/sewer lines in the inner city communities in the future. It remains unclear who will pay for this (City vs. homeowners). So, we pay like everyone else in the community that is (re)building. But will continue to monitor the City's plans...perhaps there will be some restitution at some point in the future (wait, that was my deranged voice speaking out of turn). In the end, we should have some better water pressure and some pipes that won't leach lead into our water.

So, we've completed the first phase of the water/sewer line replacement. An excavator (see below - amusing picture) dug a 12 foot deep pit in our front yard then the pipes were replaced and then the pit was filled back in. These pipes will be connected back to main line once the street side pipes are replaced.

Week #18 - Looking a Little Different, Day by Day

(May 17-23, 2010)

The exterior crew returned this week to finish up the exterior siding work. By Saturday, they had most of the siding up and were working on finishing up the installation of the cedar soffits over the front porch. The picture below shows that they got a start on it. Sharp. It is, of course, unstained right now. Even so, it looks fantastic and will keep out the robins and sparrows that have been trying to nest in the porch. The stone installer was over on Saturday to install the paper and mesh in preparation for installing the cultured stone on the front of the house - beneath each pillar and in the spaces in between. The look of the house has come a long way in a week.

The interior finishing crew, consisting of Jason, arrived to start work on installing interior doors and window casings. He was involved with some of the demolition work of the old house and has definitely seen some progress. :) Once he is done, the hardwood floors will be installed. The tile installers will get to work as soon as the tile arrives. This is a week or so away. A sampling of the doors is found in the photo below. This is a shot of the powder room bathroom with the storage closet off to the left. Once the floors are done, Jason will return to install the baseboards and complete the other trim details (i.e. fireplaces).

Kieran's construction repertoire expanded this week with the discovery of sawdust. It was a lot of fun to 'jump' in. Between the park and the house, she is often sporting a lot of dust. She's building a solid immune system. These little discoveries at the house are a welcome distraction when I need a moment to check things out!

Finally, the surprise of the week. I stopped by the house on Saturday to check over the work for the week. To my surprise, I found the mudroom cabinetry in place - lockers and all! Love it. This is going to be a well used room. Some pics below...

A couple of more highlights from Week #18

• The countertops were templated by the stone company this week.
• I paid a visit to Banbury Lane to check out cabinet hardware. I found some really great stuff. Wow! I get my budget in check though and picked some things that I think will work well. We'll see what the final estimate falls before I get too excited about having this selection wrapped up.

All in all, a productive week that finds the house transforming into the finished abode day by day.

(May 17-24, 2010)

Week #17 - Making It Pretty...and Functional Too!

(May 17-23, 2010)

Big, busy week at Casa Roa!!

Transformations abound inside the house. The week began with the wall and ceiling priming. The ceiling was sprayed with a primer paint that was mixed with a type of mud to help smooth out the imperfections left from the taping. This is an important step as the ceilings are being painted (rather than finished with stiple or knockdown). The 'trim package' (interior doors, casings, etc.) was delivered and is awaiting the finishing crew to start installation. The painters will return to paint the walls and ceiling once the trim is up. And the week ended on an exciting note with the delivery of the boxes for all of the house's cabinetry. The functional part... The cabinet maker installed the kitchen boxes, as seen below. Very exciting!! The first two pictures below are of the kitchen and the third one is of the Great Room.

Equally exciting is the start of the exterior beautification process. The siding crew arrived to begin installing the siding and window trim. You never know if you made the right decision about materials until you see them in their intended places. The siding looks fantastic!! I'm pleased with the colour. The exterior work should be completed next week.

On the selection front, I tackled the mother of all selections this week - lighting!! This was clearly the toughest decision or rather 22 decisions that had to be made yet. I enlisted some help from Sue (and a variety of friends and family on a couple of tough ones) and within the week, had picked out all 22 interior and exterior lights. The number of lighting options out there are far more numerous than paint colours. But once you start weeding out the ones that don't fit your criteria, the field is quickly narrowed down. And then it seems that you don't quite have enough choices. :) Ah - good to have that job behind us.

Week #16 - Mud, mud and more mud

(May 3 - 9, 2010)

Week #16 was all indoor work thanks to the blast of winter weather we had. By the end of the work week, the mudding crew had finished their work of art and the final sanding of the drywall was completed in preparation for the finishing crew. The siding crew wasn't able to get started on the exterior much to the delight of the robins trying to nest in our front porch.

Decisions this week revolved around the orientation of tile and hardwood. The 'details'. How quickly turning tile can give a room the wrong look or installing hardwood in the wrong can create a bowling alley in the comfort of your own home. This is where the help of the experts is critical to provide perspective on what does and doesn't work and the obvious and not-so-obvious reasons why things have to be done just so (i.e. bowling alley). Fortunately, all invites to the house will not include a byobs (bring your own bowling shoes) following this key meeting.

I got the lighting selection process kicked-off with a browsing session on the web. And I thought paint selections were going to be tough. The good news is that I know what I don't care for. The bad news is there is an awful lot that I like. I'm enlisting the help of Designer Sue to help with the hunt - scale, colour, wattage, and the list goes on. Hopefully I have good update next week on the lighting.

That's all for this week. Watch for some progress shots from next week - primer and paint, interior doors, trim and other finishing details begin. Catch you next week.

Week #15 - Boards, Mud & Tape

(April 26 - May 2, 2010)

The rooms in the house really started to take shape this week. A drywalling crew arrived on Monday to 'board' up the house - meaning, they hung the drywall. A team of 6 guys worked all day Monday and a couple of hours on Tuesday to hang drywall on the main and second floors. Fast, fast work. It brings us one step closer to a finished home now that we can't see between through the framing from one end of the house to the other! Surprisingly, the rooms don't look any smaller boarded up than without drywall.

The gas was supposed to be hooked up on Wednesday so that the furnaces could be fired up in preparation for the mudding and taping crew. Supposed to was the operative phrase - it didn't get hooked up Wed, Thur or Fri this week but this did not stop production. Some heaters were brought in to warm the house, allowing the mud/tape guys to get started on Thursday. I stopped in on Thursday to find 2 guys in shorts and t-shirts walking around on metal stilts. Talented and fast. They put up rows of drywall tape like nobody's business. Kieran thought they were pretty interesting too. :) Estimated time to completion for tape and mud is a week Thursday. Judging by how they motor around, they could be done sooner! Here are some pics of the house with the drywall and beginning stages of the mudding and taping (mud/tape guys on stilts; Kitchen; Great Room; Kieran's room; Master bedroom).

Keeping with the 'building a better house' theme by actually using insulation, the attic insulation was blown in on Wednesday. For the first time, I actually felt too warm in the house. Hallejuah!!

Work also started on the planned replacement of the water lines on our property that tie into the city's water/sewage system. This involved cutting holes in the basement to run the lines. With any luck, we'll start the process for bringing the lead content of our water down while increasing the water pressure to the house. There is some work that needs to be done by the city on their lines to make both of these things happen. A discussion for another time...

The exterior siding material (James Hardie fibre cement siding product) was delivered on Friday. The installers should get to work on that next week.

This week was also very productive from a materials selection standpoint. All the interior paint colours were selected on Friday. Yeah! Designer Sue brought some great options over for the hearths of the fireplaces. We settled on two granite samples which are going to look fantastic. We also received a quote for the exposed aggregate material that I'd like to use for the front porch and stairs. Paul sourced a supplier that has a thinset product that looks amazing. The price was right so we have our front porch material selected. Another check. Finally, all of the floor finishes have been finalized. I was waffling on a slate option vs. the exposed aggregate material for the mudroom/back entry. Slate is the material of choice and with that, the flooring selections are fait accompli. So while the selection list is reduced by another few items, there are still some big (lighting) and small things to tackle.

8 weeks and counting...