Day 140 : Central vac

Wow! It's 20 weeks into the building phase already. But we are only days away from wrapping up. The (hopefully) last week of construction started slow. Todays main topic was the installation of the central vacuum unit.

The wall intakes and some piping (the part that is now hidden behind drywall) has been installed a while ago, but the vacuum unit itself and the rest of the piping and control wiring has been done today. Here is a photo of the rather large unit mounted inside the utility room.

Day 138 : Bathroom vanity countertops

Doris wanted to have concrete countertops with integrated sinks for the bathroom vanities. We had a hard time finding someone local for this job. All out of state manufacturers are killing you with shipping/installation cost. Eventually, we discovered a company in Montpelier, called "Anomal". They do custom concrete work, mostly for restaurants (concrete bars like at several fancy Montpelier restaurants or Piecasso in Stowe). We met with them a while ago and looked at some of their installations. After some back and forth we decided to work with them. We met again earlier this month to discuss the design, size and color (matching our tiles).

Today our countertops for Master Bath and Powderroom arrived. And they are gorgeous! See for yourself:

In the meantime, the painters are back to finish the inside trim. We worked all day today in the porch (sanding, applying one coat of UV/stain protection). Light fixtures and electrical components are also being completed. For example, we have the heat pumps working since yesterday!
The kitchen countertops are scheduled to be installed on Thursday.

The bottom line is that we hope to move in next weekend!!! At least we will be moving the bigger furniture pieces to Westford and then do the rest over the coming weeks.

Day 135 : Cable railing, kitchen progress

Just a quick update on the progress: the kitchen appliances have been delivered yesterday and are being installed piece by piece. Here is the wall oven and microwave:

On the outside, the cables are being installed in our railing. We will have the same setup on the interior stair railing. More on that later.

Day 132 : The porch is almost done

Work continued yesterday, even on a rainy Saturday. The result is an almost finished deck railing (with only a few boards and the cables are missing) as well as porch. We'll only need a few more of those shake siding planks in the gable and a coat of oil on the cedar and fir wood. Oh, and the ceiling fan with light. But that all seems like minor items now. We're getting close...

Here are a few photos that I took today (Sunday) with my wide angle lens for a change:

Day 130 : Kitchen progress

Work continued on the porch, deck railing, interior doors and trim as well as kitchen installation. Here is just a quick update on the kitchen status. For those of you who knew the "old" (renovated) kitchen... there are really only few differences. Why change a design that we really liked?

Day 128 : A very busy day...

We had a big day today. I counted at least 12 cars at the site when we visited around noon time. There may have been more... it seemed like an extremely busy place with people almost stepping on each other's toes.

But let's start from scratch: The kitchen cabinets and bathroom vanities had been delivered yesterday. By noon today, the first wall cabinets have been installed already.

Then we had one crew painting doors and another one installing all the trim (baseboards, door frames) and the wide hardwood window sills. Here is an example of the window sills:

Next was the flooring team that was wrapping up the floor installation in the basement with bamboo and then continuing with the floor tiles in the master bath.

The electricians were back as well and started installing outlets, lights and switches. However, I found them installing the wrong type of devices. Half a day's work needs to be redone tomorrow when they bring the Decora type switches we specified... It was again an oversight or miscommunication on their side, but it only shows that you really have to watch every single step.

And last but not least: The framing crew was also back, completing the cedar pergola and starting on the deck railing system:

On the porch side, the EzeBreeze windows were installed in part today and one section on the inside got finished with fir tongue and groove boards. All of the sudden, this room has a completely different character. Hard to describe with photos, but I believe this will be one of our favorite places to hang out, not just in the middle of summer.

Today may have been the last really warm day of the season with temps around 80F. We are entering a rainy phase over the next few days, so keep your fingers crossed that at least some work on the outside can continue.

Day 126 : Tiles, hardwood flooring, pellet stove

I wrote about the tiling problem in the bathroom. Luckily, the problem has been corrected in the meantime. Here are the two versions (all black before and with the proper wall tiles after). The second version looks much nicer, doesn't it?

We learned that the kitchen cabinets will be delivered tomorrow, so the hardwood floor in the main living area had to be installed today (tiling work is still not completed). At the same time, the pellet stove has been delivered: