Granite

Finally found granite for the countertops and island. 2 slabs.

Walls

We passed the city inspections of the rough on Monday. Our structural engineer wanted one more tie down though (and the chance to send one more bill as well I suspect).

Anyway. Walls are going in finally. Sheetrock installation is extremely noisy and we're in for more serious dust when they start the mudding and sanding. Once that is done and dry, we have about a week of hardwood floor installation.

I also ordered tile for the bathroom this week. It will be a creamish color Halila limestone in 18x18 with 1x1 on the shower floor. There will also be a decorative border around the floor in tiny stone tiles that are more reddish and brown mosaic. For some reason, I forgot to take pictures at the tile store. Oh well, it should come in pretty quickly.




Skylight in closet. Still needs to be ordered and installed. Pretty sure the rain is done until like November now.

Jackson. He turned 11 this week.

More indoor shots

View from the new family room (french door is on the right) facing back into the kitchen.



Little wall here is part of the kitchen island.

All of the electrical rough in is done and the inspector approved yesterday.

This is where some big flatscreen TV who hasn't been purchased yet will live. Or maybe we'll just keep the black box wall mount thing and Santa will come.

This coming week should have the building inspection and the plumbing inspection. Once both of those are signed off on, the insulation can go up and the drywallers can come in and close walls. That will take a couple of weeks. After that, floors (another week) The cabinets should be here July 2.

Outside shots

Outside is mostly done. The deck looks small in this photo, but it's actually pretty large and will be able to fit a pretty big table.

View from the deck.

Backyard is full of construction materials.

Bathroom vanity

We couldn't find a pre-made vanity we liked anywhere that was the right size and right quality. So Ed designed this on paper (actually in Visio) and we found a Chinese wood shop in the city (Gao's Group) which made this for us. We'll be able to stash the razors and electric toothbrushes in the middle section. I found a granite remant from a fabricator and they will make us a top with a center undermounted sink.

Windows and doors

All of the windows from Marvin for the new addition have all been installed. Unfortunately, Marvin broke the transom on the door in transit. They are coming out to replace it.

We just got the 2 replacement windows for west side dining room window and bedroom window upstairs. David's crew will be putting them in on Monday. I think this is why the rainy season is lasting way longer than normal this year.

Lights, camera, action!

I got my little camera fixed so more pics!

Title 24 sure makes finding lights difficult. In CA, you must have 50% of your watts be high efficacy (read LED or Florescent) in the kitchen. After much research, I learned that this made people to crazy things like stick extra fluorescent above cabs or even to choose floruescent over their preferred LED because you get MORE watts with the FL just to get a couple of halogen pendants in. And then there are the folks that just change it after the inspector leaves. (We're not doing that). So we eventually settled on LED recessed (warm color) and LED undercab and one hanging incandescent or halogen over the eat on counter.

These are CREE LR6 title 24 compliant recessed lights (meaning the prongs, not screw in LEDs). Not cheap and I had to buy 18 of them (including the family room). They are dimmable though. I ordered them online from Polar-Ray (amazingly quick service!) and FedEx promptly left then on the front porch. Luckily, no one took them!

Oh, and since they are LED, they should last like 25 years. I won't be having to change them for a very long time!