One Aging Geek

Wednesday, July 19, 2006

Semi weekly house update

Been a busy few days at the geek household.

The cabinets went in last Saturday, they look gorgeous. While the cabinet installers did an entire kitchen installation I managed to fit and install the three base cabinets in the library.

Getting the kitchen cabinets in let us move the wine chiller into it's cubby (sans countertop still). Discovered that I had bunged up the back end of the chiller in the process of moving it out of the kitchen. I must have slid it off the tile and caught the whole weight on the shell instead of the feet. Cosmetic only and it will be concealed but annoying.

With the cabinets in, it was time to move all the downstairs furniture onto the tile floor (foyer, kitchen and breakfast area) so that the areas that are getting wood were clear for the installers. That involved some creative stacking. Some stuff had to go upstairs or into the garage. The plasma TV and digital cable box/DVR are offline for the duration. Man, there are a lot of commercials in TV programs!

Monday morning I escaped for a short business trip to Nashville. Total WOFTAM but getting out of the chaos had a certain appeal. I'm back now. While I was gone, Mrs. Geek dealt with details with the wood installer. Two rooms, the library and dining room have the wood installed but no trim. They also made a start on the big living room. Schedule is for all the wood and trim to be done by Friday.

Except, that is, the library. The wood and threshold will be done but no shoe molding. I couldn't match the baseboard to go across in front of the built in cabinets so I ripped it all out. New baseboards will be a DIY project. The wood guy included a hand stained cherry shoe molding in his quote so he'll leave me pieces for that room to install myself. Mrs. Geek wants crown molding in that room, too, so one big molding project is in my future.

Also in the last few days, Mrs. Geek slaved away doing the faux plaster texture and painting in the powder room. I haven't seen the results of that because we can't cross the partially installed wood floor.

Other stuff done: new dishwasher arrived and is hooked up to water supply but, since there is no sink or disposal, that's as far as it goes for now. New microwave is installed and usable. The old gas range went off to a new home courtesy of the microwave installer. I don't really care if he took it to the local flea market and sold it. We were going to push it to the curb for the sin of being the wrong color. So anything that keeps it out of a landfill is a plus for me.

Turns out the granite place released our slabs but didn't actually sell them. Our stone and tile guy came by to make measurements Monday. He took the new sink with him so the sink-shaped hole in the granite will match the sink. Probably a couple of weeks to fabricate the countertops out of the granite.

Then there will be lots of shimming and fitting to get the countertops installed. Part of the pony wall that separates the kitchen from the breakfast area was built right at the height of the cabinets. But we raised the cabinets a fraction of an inch by tiling the entire floor first and putting the cabinets on top of the tile (instead of them in on bare concrete and tiling around them). So the pony wall will have to be built up a bit. And of course it wasn't exactly level to begin with.

Probably some time this weekend we can actually start moving what furniture we have (the things that aren't at the upholstery shop) into the living room and dining room. Set up the hutch and unpack it. Kind of like moving into the house all over again.

Aside from the libary project, I also have to move the kitchen phone outlet. I keep trying to forget that. Got to get that done prior to the backsplash install!

Seems like we're only a couple of weeks or so from having all of the rooms in the house back in a usable state. If not exactly ready for the "grand opening". Still lots of painting. And the powder room to get back in working order. And the garage to deal with.