Building Authority Final Inspection

We have reached a major milestone this week!  Pending the final inspection on the plumbing (which is done by the health district in this county), we will have our Certificate of Occupancy!

Still have several little things to finish up, but nothing more that is required to satisfy the Building Authority.

We have made progress on the panels that go around the whirlpool -- they should be done this week, except for maybe painting them.

We have to put up the curtain rods which will be trivial.

We have to take the windows out of each window so we can finish staining them.

We need to have some finish grading done in the yard (looks more like a jungle right now -- can't mow it the way it is).

We are waiting on the kitchen countertop and master vanity top.  That should be done in a week or two.  We are also still waiting on our cabinet makers to come back and finish the trim on the cabinets.  They had to have a saw repaired which created a delay.  I need to call them or go see them...

Home Improvement in Tennessee...

This may not be a TV episode, but a lot of improvements have been made to our home in Knoxville...  Our pastor there has been a very busy man and has made a lot of progress!

My wife took lots of pictures, and I'll just post them here...

Shutters -- Finally...

So, today, I had a few minutes to kill, and decided to please my wife by putting up the shutters out front...  It really gives it a nice, finished look, and she is indeed pleased :)

Vent Pipe and Deck Skirting

Well, the work is definitely starting to slow down here as we near completion... There is still more to do, and today we were able to make a little more progress.

We now have just one more of the boards to put around the deck as skirting, and that part will be finished -- well, with the exception of gluing the decorative railing top down. Trivial job once I get to it... Maybe yet today -- who knows...

And, we found out that a metal roof with 6-12 pitch is very difficult to scale, and so my dare-devil son volunteered. We threw a rope over the top and he tied it around himself (trying to keep from strangulating himself), and he went up, drilled the hole with a hole saw. Then, after I put the vent pipe through, he put the boot over the pipe and caulked it, and then screwed the boot down in several places. So, now to wait for rain and see if it leaks... I should note that we had one partially used clear caulk, but it was clogging up, and simply would not squeeze out. So, we decided to go ahead and switch to a new one which was white. We had no more clear, and the clouds were quite ominous, so we didn't feel we could afford to wait.

So, right now, it looks a little like Big Bird landed on our vent pipe... There is a nice size white splotch that he had trouble trying to clean up without it just smearing even worse... As long as it doesn't leak -- that's the main thing! Sorry, but I'm just not going to put any pictures of Big Bird's mess on the internet! You'll just have to come visit if you really want to see it ;)

Stairway Details...

We are getting close to being finished with the building of our home, but things seem to continue dragging out...  My immediate goal is to get pass our final inspection and get our Certificate of Occupancy.  There are only a couple of details holding us back (as far as I know) -- the banister on the stairway, a few unfinished electrical outlets, and the vent pipe still needs to be put through the roof.  The outlets can be finished easily or just a blank plate put over them (until they can be done later), and the vent pipe won't take long to finish -- once I get up on the roof and cut a hole (finally got the hole saw to do this).

So over the weekend, I turned my attention to the stairway and the details associated with it.  It goes up into the attic, and there were no walls up there on the sides, so I needed to add some walls on both sides of the hole.  They are framed and drywalled on one side, so that should be ok.  Then, one side of the stairway was opened, and needed a handrail, and so I had to figure out exactly how I was going to put that up, satisfying the details of the code.  So, I now have most of that done -- not quite complete yet.  I need to install the newel at the bottom and finish the balusters on the side at the top -- most of them are on, but there is still a hole at the top.

I decided to take a 2x4, rip it down to a 2x2 (1.5x1.5 actually), and then use the router to round off the corners, and then use it as the banister.  That really worked great, and I have talked with a builder friend who actually suggested that I do this -- since this is just an attic stairway and not in the living area where a quality finished look is not really necessary.

Here are some pictures -- I am working on putting drywall in that storage room, but I mainly needed to get the drywall on the walls above the stairs.  The drywall looks a bit like patchwork because I'm having to fit it in behind the stairway, and the walls are 9' -- I don't have any more of the 54" pieces like they used in the house...

When It Rains, It Pours!

And it definitely poured Saturday morning!  More on that later...

Made some good progress on the stairway handrail this weekend.  It isn't finished yet, but at least I know what I'm going to do.  This stairway is in the storage room leading to the attic, so it doesn't have to be finished quite like an interior stairway.

I plan to actually use a 2x4 for the rail itself, ripped down to a 2x2 (actually 1.5 x 1.5 inches), and then rounding the corners off.  I will use a 4x4 as a newel at the bottom for the rail to end at.

Then when it was about time to wind down for the night, we discovered that the sump pump float switch had gotten stuck, and the heavy rain had flooded the basement floor -- about 4 inches, maybe a little more.

There was a lot of stuff down there, but a lot of it was up off the ground far enough to not get wet.  There were some things that were ruined, and that is a pain, but the water heater, the well pump, and the radiant heat water tank were all up off the ground far enough to not be affected.

We ended up spending a good part of Sunday afternoon bringing things upstairs and cleaning them off the best we could -- us with mud all over us, too...

So, we made some real progress this weekend, but we had to take some of our time to just deal with another one of those frustrations that happens in life...

HVAC Finished / Deck Rail Finished

The Wenig's were here for the last two days, and they have completed the installation and testing of the HVAC system -- the register covers, bathroom fans, and thermostats were the main things they had to finish.

Meanwhile, I worked out on the deck and front porch the last day and a half finishing the handrail all the way around...  The only thing not done on the handrail is gluing the top decorative piece down.  They are fit pretty tightly, so they aren't falling off, but they do need to be glued.

And, then I also need to finish the skirting around the deck, but that is mainly cosmetic, and my goal right now is getting the Certificate of Occupancy...

Here are some pictures...  Almost forgot to mention that I put up the house number on the front the other day -- it looks pretty nice, too...

Cooktop...

Well, today, I have worked on making sure the cooktop is going to work with the cabinet (wasn't sure because of some miscommunication).  So, I cut the hole in the plywood temporary "countertop", and we have the stovetop setting in place now.  No electric or vent hooked up yet, but for an idea of what it will look like...

Here are two pictures...

Oven, Dishwasher, and Warming Drawer Installed and Working!

We were able to get the Oven / Microwave Combination, the Dishwasher, and the Warming Drawer all installed this weekend.  They look pretty nice with the black fronts and the dark cherry cabinets...  We're just waiting on the countertop now which will also be black quartz with sparkles in it...

Here are some pictures...

Cabinets Progress...

We still have some work to do, but we have the cabinets well under way.  There are some unplanned adjustments, but nothing too drastic...

Here are some pictures of the kitchen, one of the shelf on the dining room wall, and a couple of the master vanity cabinets.  You'll see that we temporarily put plywood on the cabinets since the countertop will take some time.