Railings and Trim

The trim team was here today on a Saturday, working hard. Here's some new photos!

The railings for the front porch look to be finished.

A view from the front porch.

And this is what the stairs are supposed to look like. Finally!

Upstairs railings.

More railings.

Even more railings. I'm hoping this long run gets more secure, it's still a wee bit wobbly though I'm not sure how they'd fix that.

From below. Just so you know, the newel posts look a little weird because they've elevated the bases.

And our lovely ceiling in the master bedroom, wood stripped off and awaiting new work.

The tile in the shower.

Tile Progress

Just a few new photos today. Looks like the tile guy is done with the bathroom floors, the shower and the kitchen backsplash. Lumber has arrived for the stairway so hopefully the trim team can get back to work.

New stair treads and the proper fat newel posts (in boxes).

Tile work complete on the shower there. The floor is pretty much done too but since it's black tile it's hard to make out in this shot.

How'd that photo get in there?

And here's the kitchen backsplash!

Flooring & Backfilling

It's been a while since we had anything worth showing but things seems to be moving again this week! We're still waiting on lumber delivery to finish the trim and stairway, but they're going ahead with some of the tile work, flooring and backfilling.

This isn't a very exciting shot because you can't see the vinyl that's been put down on that floor. They've covered it with brown paper to protect it. Oh well.

This is the small half bath near the great room. It has tile backer board installed.

The master bath. Backer board on the floors and walls of the shower (which they've also painted with some waterproof material). The tile you see stacked up goes in the shower area.

This stack is the tiles that go on the floors of the master bath and half bath. They are elongated black tiles.

We're having 7 truckfuls of dirt delivered to the house to help grade from the house to the level of the yard.

The back is already looking good!

As are the sides of the house. No more black tar visible on the bricks! Needs grass.

Re-Framing The Stairs

I haven't had a lot to report on lately because nothing much has been done after the trim team screwed up last week. But this past Monday we did have a team re-framing the stairway.

As you can see they've made the framing follow the shape so that the treads can extend out and be exposed.

Here's the bottom. I assume they'll still need to put some sheetrock in there and those treads are the old ones they cut, put back temporarily so the second floor remains accessible.

At this point I'm not sure what happens next. Obviously they'll need to deliver new treads and the correct newel posts and such. We're waiting to see.

Takin' It For Granite

Granite countertops are in! It's been a bit of a tough week so we're happy to see some great progress. Let's go right to the photos.

The kitchen island. It's even bigger than we thought it'd be.

They've covered the granite with plastic wrap, for its protection we assume.

We peeled back a little so we could see it in all its glory. This is a black granite with speckles in it. They call it "Uba Tuba'.

The kitchen sink has already been installed. I guess the granite guys do this, not the plumber. Obviously the plumber does the rest.

Um...looks like they missed this little area over here? Have to talk to the builder about that. There should be a countertop there.

It's hard to make out but this is a big cut out for the cook top.

This photo is to give you some scale. And also to show you how cold it is inside the house with no heat yet. We can tell the insulation is working because it holds in the cold air from overnight really really well.

The marble sink for the little bathroom next to the great room.

This is the master bath. Because someone wanted vessel sinks we couldn't stick with cultured marble, we had to upgrade to granite.

Cultured marble in the upstairs full bath.

And....Now We Have Demolition

No photos (yet), but for those on the edge of your seats (which is probably me and nobody else), our builder is here right now demolishing the stairwell.

We had a nice conversation where he told us we are right to tell him us our concerns. He shares them with us. He waved off the trim team until further notice because he needs to order new stair treads and other lumber. Apparently they also sent us the wrong newel posts and pickets.

He was scratching his head about how they were constructing the ceiling of the master bedroom and that will all be taken down and done right. He also was wondering what the hell they were thinking about the trim on the windows I took a photo of.

In short, he's on it. It'll set us behind a little bit of time but we'd rather it get done correctly, even if we have to live in our trailer a little longer.

Ok, stop that. It's not a trailer. It's a manufactured home. Dammit. This is Jaye's fault.

Houston, We Have A Problem

Every build will have problems that crop up. We knew this going in. The only problems we've had thus far have been things falling behind schedule due to weather, etc. But today we have our set of first actual screw-ups and evidence of shoddy work.

First up, this window trim. Now granted, these are weird windows. And at a distance it may look ok, but look a little bit closer...

See that center piece of trim? It's not trim at all. It's a piece of 1x4 that's just thrown up there. It looks awful, doesn't it? It hangs over the other pieces of trim which are actual...you know...trim.

Also, check out the gap between the upper trim and the actual window. That's a pretty large gap. How much caulk is it going to take to cover that hole and make this look right?

But let's move on to the real disaster. The stairway. Up until now we weren't sure what the plan was. They had some framing and fake walls and some 2x4s thrown up as temporary stair treads, but yesterday they finally made progress on the real stairs.

We'd seen the star treads in the garage sitting there all pretty, but here they are installed into the stairway. They actually cut the ends off and squeezed them between the walls.

Now maybe you think that looks great, or is starting to at least. But I want to show you the photo off their website of the actual house we've purchased. Keep in mind our house is reversed so the stairway goes in the other direction.

See the difference? Now you may be thinking, "Ok, that just means you didn't upgrade to the fancy stairway! Suck it up and take what you get!" Oh, but nooooo. Here's the upgrade line direct from our contract:

Open Tread with Square Balusters and Carpet Runner

This selection will replace the included half wall stairway with a handrail, square balusters and boxed newel post(s). The handrail will be painted or stained with the square balusters and boxed newel post(s). (choice of oak poplar or painted). The stair tread ends are exposed on both sides with an included centered carpet runner.

Sports fans, that upgrade cost north of $7,500. Here's another photo of what they've built thus far:

Now it looks like they delivered the right lumber. Those were nice stair treads before they ruined them and we've got a ton of nice pickets and oak handrails and balusters and newel posts in boxes. 

 We've contacted the builder and he says they'll make it right. But I'm wondering at this point where this got so messed up. Didn't someone have a plan here? My guess is this will set us back a chunk of time while they have to remove the side walls and figure out how to do it correctly. Not to mention those expensive stair treads are now useless because they cut the ends off. Not my problem except they'll need to have new ones delivered.

Is this trim team just making stuff up as they go along? Or did they get incomplete instructions? Did they just read 'build a stairway' and start winging it?

If you can sense that I'm upset by all of this, you would be correct. I'm sure they'll make it right, but this never should have gotten this far and I shouldn't be the one pointing out that they're screwing up, thats our builder's job.

One final photo and this one is (kinda) positive. This is the master bedroom ceiling. They had been tacking up bead board and you may have seen it in previous photos. But now they have the blocking up there as well and it looks nicer.

But hey, look closer. Here's the previous shot from the last blog entry:

Well look at that, the boards are now turned 90 degrees! That means they took all of that bead board down, installed the blocking and cut the bead board to fit between the blocking, which is how it's supposed to look. And it does look nice (it'll be painted white eventually like a ceiling). Except we thought they'd just glue the blocks on top of the bead board, but now it's clear someone screwed up. Now there are slight gaps between the boards and the blocking up there (no cut is perfect), so now I have to point that out and ask if there's a plan to caulk those gaps or something.

Put this all together and I've lost a lot of faith in this trim team that's supposed to be making our house look nice. I've now got to watch everything with hawk-like eyes to see if they've screwed anything else up. Not a good feeling.

So there we go. A fairly negative blog post and the first real chinks in the armor. I'll keep y'all updated as this drama unfolds!

A Few Changes

For those who keep hitting refresh and then complaining that there's no new photos (you know who you are), we have a few new photos for you today. We're sorry there's not more but the trim guys haven't been putting in the hours. They blew off last Friday and this past Monday, and have our builder beside himself with anger since he expected all the trim to be done by today and had to push off the painting team.

They've built a stairway in the garage. This is important because certain people with short legs had issues with the height of the first step of the stairway to the front porch. Now she can use this instead.

They've replaced the temporary supports on the back porch with the final ones and started adding newel posts for the railing.

And in the master bedroom they're tacking up bead board on the ceiling for the finished look. It will be painted white in the end. The bead board is just to give it a cool effect, I guess. It came with the cathedral ceiling upgrade.

Hopefully they'll keep working this week and we'll have more to show soon.

Interior Doors & Trim

Just a few photos today. The trim guys were here all day yesterday hanging doors and putting in baseboard and casing around the windows.

A drab white door against a drab white and grey wall. So exciting!

I swear my camera is in color. These are the windows on the second floor of the foyer, looking all happy in their new trim.

And here's the front doors and windows with base trim and casing installed. There's a gap underneath presumably for carpet/laminate.

And a closet door.

And windows in the bedroom. Good god this house needs some color. Paint would be nice.

And they installed the attic access pull down stairway so that we can get up to the air handler. And when I say 'we', I mean the guys that need to get that air handler to work. I hope I never have to go up there myself.

Cabinets Are Up!

Yesterday was cabinet day. There was a team in the house installing the kitchen cabinets and the bathroom vanities. A few things to note before you view the photos...these photos were taken at about 7am, so you can see the morning light in the house. Also, most of the cabinets are still covered with fine dust from the sanding of the mud.

All the trim showed up and is in the garage for now. We expect the trim team today and then the people to measure for the granite countertops on Friday.

Here's our interior doors! Lots and lots of them.

And this is our trim. Not very exciting on the ground, is it. There are stair treads in there, so we're also hoping the trim team assembles the final stairway and railings for the second floor.

Here's the overall shot of the kitchen cabinets!

This is a closer view of the front of the kitchen island. The brackets you see will support the overhang of the granite where people can sit and eat.

Closer view of the cabinets.

This set of cabinets will house the refrigerator on the right there, and the double oven in that center column. I think they'll have to widen the opening once the oven comes.

The other side of the kitchen island, showing some storage, the place for the sink and the dishwasher.

This is the vanity for the master bath. We're not quite sure what the yellow cord is for yet.

This is the vanity for the guest bath. See if you can spot what's missing...