Not much of a midweek update with respect to pictures, but enough has happened in the planning and information front, I thought it warranted a small update post.
We had a meeting with Margaret and Mike at the site to do a final walk through of the stud rough in and go over some of the finishing details around the house with some trim carpenters. It's a good thing we were all there together because there were a few design items that needed to be ironed out and we added a few more change items to the walls. Tanja and Margaret decided that the sliding door in the kitchen, while standard height, looked too low compared to all the other openings in the house.
I kind of agreed, but let it pass in my head since it's just a door wall and there's a good amount of light anyways. Since Margaret and Tanja were there, I wasn't the one that had to break it to Mike that there needed to be a change here, so we're on the hunt for something to use as a transom window up there. Mike called Pro Brothers to get a quote on a clear transom to fill the space but we're also on the hunt for a reclaimed leaded glass window.
Other change items were mostly things we needed to figure out to make the implementation work. We decided that we had to lower the ceiling height of the powder room to accommodate the bathroom venting.
Here's the shot of the pantry with the powder room beyond. We already lowered the height of the ceiling in the pantry to hide the vent pipe, but we were still undecided what to do in the powder room. We could have tried to fit a wall mounted bathroom vent there, but that's the vanity wall so it would have been an eyesore. Margaret has plans to hang a small chandelier in there and wanted to make sure we still had the height for it. Since the ceiling only comes down eight inches to finish, we're still above eight feet to the ceiling. With a smaller room here and no immediate frame of reference, I don't think anyone will really notice the height difference.
I don't have any pictures of it, but we had a long discussion with some trim carpenters about how we want the interior of the windows, baseboards, and ceilings trimmed out. We decided to go with a two piece shaker design to keep the lines clean and simple. A belt will have to go around the rotunda where the second floor was poured since some of the pour extends past the stud walls, but it will be a nice feature, and allow us a natural stopping point for paneling on the walls going up the stairs. Headers will also be added to the butlers pantry walk through so we can get a good place to terminate all the crown molding in the kitchen and dining room.
The plumbers will be coming through this week so we had to make some quick decisions to get them rolling.
We had to finalize where the out door faucets will be. Although we've broached the subject in the past, we never put pen to paper to figure out where we needed them. Although we're going to have in ground irrigation for all the landscaping, the perimeter of the house is extensive and the terrain is varied, so if you need to hand spray water somewhere, you can't get away with a couple of faucets and long hoses. I think the four locations marked in pink are good locations for hose bibs. We'll try to get one installed on the front porch so we can wash our cars in the driveway and hand water any flowers in that area. One on the basement level under the wrap around porch will handle any hand watering on the left side of the house. One near the storage space under the rear porch will be good for washing off anything we'll be storing there, and one in the odd space between the back porch and garage will be great for watering the garden and back yard. I'm not sure how we'll get water out to the pool equipment room. Maybe that will be something run at a later date since it might also supply the pool water top off.
We have to nail down which toilets were installing so the plumbers can figure out where to cut through the floors. We're pretty committed to Toto toilets and online review are very positive for their performance. Here are the two we've narrowed it down to.
Eco Soirée
Carlyle II
There are a few features were requiring for the toilets. Apron sides so we don't have an exposed trap way that needs to be cleaned. ADA or Universal height and an elongated bowl are good comfort features. Toto has a tornado flush that eliminates the rim from the bowl so you don't have to scrub up under the rim; much easier to clean. Dual flush would be nice. but not a deal breaker. I don't think we're doing anything different with the toilet in the powder room.
A good bit of news this week from the sewer installers. I think I mentioned before that they found a sewer tap under the manhole cover on the far side of our neighbors driveway. We got permission from the neighbor to cut through his driveway so we could trench in our sewer line instead of having to tear up the street and curb. Turns out that someone had the foresight to actually install a sewer line to our property, so there's already a line, nine feet down, that runs under the driveway to our property. Looks like we won't have to tear up the driveway, but we'll still need to replace the grass for the hole needed for the hook up. This saves us tons of money and time. Finally something goes our way!
So that's it for now. We have a meeting with Mike at the stone supplier to confirm that we're good with the look of the stone. We'll also tag on a meeting afterwards to go over the final numbers for the bank so we can get the bank money rolling again. That will be a fun process to repeat. I'm excited to see the progress the plumbers make this week.
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