Another Week

Welcome to any new viewers from California. Jon tells me he has been giving out my blog address as he visits friends there. This has been a week with lots of work happening but not much to see. The tape and texture crew has been there for a whole week and boy do they work hard. Lots of the subs pack up at 2pm and go home but this crew worked until 4 or later. They have finished for now. Unfortunately, since our doors are late they will have to come back and do the areas around each door when they arrive, and again it will be a 5 day job. Drying is needed between different coats I gather. The good news is all the doors are expected by mid-week next week. We had heard one was going to be several weeks behind the others, but they all took so long it caught up! So the texture crew only needs to come back once. Our glass block shower wall is being laid today so I hope to have something new for you all to look at shortly. It is going to get really busy in a couple of weeks, when all the orders we are placing now start coming in so keep checking back!! My husband assures me this house will get done!!!!!

Drywall Installation Complete

The drywall is all in and taping and texturing starts tomorrow. Unfortunately all the doors are not here, so the whole tape/texture process will have to be done again when they arrive. But we can get the trim worked on while we wait. It really looks like a house now. We are busy finalizing the tile details this week. (Which would YOU pick --the tile for $55/sq.ft., the one for $23.90/sq.ft., or the one for $8.90/sq.ft.????) Ah, decisions, decisions!!!!!

More drywall, great room with scaffolding and library windows in background. 

Drywall,looking from kitchen into dining room. 

Some Interesting Links

Actually it is too early in the morning for me to figure out how to make a link, but there is a great blog I've been viewing for the last week or so about the destruction and recovery in the Gulf. It is: http://dancingwithkatrina.blogspot.com . On Saturday they added a link from their site to one of an ex-professor, who is a photo journalist with the NYTimes. His montage of damage from Katrina is very moving. Their link is on the right side of the screen.
As far as our house, drywall should be done by this afternoon and inspected tomorrow. I hope to get a photo of it soon (we have forgotten the camera the last 2 days!).

Drywall

We are thrilled to report the drywall is being installed. Several rooms are completely done and many more are half done. Some have the ceiling and top section of the walls in and others have the bottom portion covered. We will have bullnose corners and I think that is a part of the tape and texture rather than the drywall install. If I am wrong then there is more left than I think. We have entered the fun (?) time of actually ordering all the items we've been making decisions about for months. And, of course, discovering what we had picked that has been discontinued. That is a whole other story...to be saved for another day!

The great room in process. It is really looking like a house now! 

We have some drywall and a few doors, as this shot of the garage shows. 

Insulation Installed and Monsoons Moving On

Our house is fully insulated, as you can see from the photos, we have both the fiberglass batts and the blown in cellulose type. We can tell that the house is already cooler inside than it had been. Of course the monsoons seem to have come to an end and the days are a bit cooler outside so perhaps it wasn't the insulation. Thursday and Friday we had two last storms. Friday we were at the lot for most of the day and got to see where the heavy runoff goes. We also discovered one more roof leak. Sorry to see it, but since we may not have any heavy rain for several more months we really were glad to know there is a problem now rather than later.
The second family in our little subdivision has moved in. He told me it is rather like camping out--Their cabinet man hurt his back and they still don't have completed cabinets, just the frames. We are neck and neck with the third family. They got their building permit 3 months before we got ours but they ran into rock which really set them back. I think they are still at least a month ahead of us but we heard their builder told one of the subs he was worried we were going to finish before him. It seems we all have various delays so we doubt we'll be ahead of them in the end. For months it has been only the 4 families building but just this last week someone else started preparing their site. It is fun to see how each house develops.
I had a fun week in Atlanta visiting my daughter and my oldest son. When I get pictures from the visit I'll post one. (Hint, hint, Anna!) We got caught up in the gas buying frenzy--there must have been a 100 cars all coming at the station like at a target, no order, a line for each individual pump. And we visited CNN right as the troops were driving into New Orleans. I was more interested in watching their coverage than the tour. Glad to be back to the desert and the "dry heat".

Insulation in dining room ceiling. This is the itchy fiberglass type.  

Insulation in the kitchen area--this is the blown in type. Boy does it make a mess! But it doesn't itch!