Final Electrical Inspection Passed

   After a brief thaw of 50F during the week with a good amount of rain, winter returned to freeze all the precipitation into a dangerous icy sheet.  The once cleared driveway is now a treacherous sheet of ice under a crunchy layer of snow.  Mike called someone out to plow the snow off, but it didn't look like they could penetrate the ice.  Temperatures are dipping down into the single digits at night and barely breaking double digits during the day so salt is useless.  Despite the ice and cold, progress continues in the house as we push towards the finale.  The first step of the final four steps has been completed, a passing final electrical inspection.  Next week will be the plumbing and HVAC final inspection.  After all the touch ups and installations are completed will be the final building inspection after which we'll obtain our COO and can move in.  It's getting real folks.

   Nothing is sweeter in the house building business than those lovely green stickers.  Previous rough inspection stickers were just put on the sliding door glass, but this one was placed on the EV charging panel.  There are three panels in the basement so I'm not sure why they decided to put it on that one, but I'm happy it's there.  The electricians got the EV charging circuits installed so I called DTE to have the PEV meter installed.  That will happen on the 22nd.

   Here are the two circuits in the EV panel.  The top double breaker is 80 amps and powers the dedicated Tesla wall charger.  The lower is a 50 amp circuit and is connected to the NEMA 14-50 socket in the garage.  It can be used to power a welder, or any other car charger.  The 80A on the Tesla charger means that with an expected 10% drop, I'll be getting 72A at the plug, which is exactly what my car can charge at outside of the Superchargers.  The 50A is similar to what I have currently and charges at 40A in my car.

   Here's the installed NEMA 14-50 socket in the garage.  There a local cutoff switch but it's not as convenient as a throw switch.  I won't be using this on a daily basis for charging, but we have the option to use it if we ever get a second electric vehicle.

   Here's the dedicated Tesla wall charger that I'll be primarily charging on.  I'll have to get some cable management installed since I won't always be using the full length of the charging cable unless I back into the garage.  With the circuit at 80A, I'll get 40 miles of charge per hour so my daily commute should charge in one and a half hours.  I did specify a 100A circuit and Mike confirmed that the wire installed can handle 100A so we'll have the electrician swap out the breaker for a higher amperage, which will net me about 45 miles per hour of charge.

   The singular dome light was installed above the rear garage door.  It had to be lower profile than the other LED shop lights because of the garage door clearance.  Looking from the ground, it doesn't seem like there would be an issue with ceiling clearance, but Mike said the LED shop lights installed around the rest of the garage couldn't fit in the space between the door and ceiling when it was open.  There's more than enough light, but the dome will help illuminate the space a little bit more.

   This metal vent was sitting on the board that's blocking the heat duct in the foyer.  The tile for the foyer has arrived so we should be expecting the tile installers to come in one more time to finish grouting the back splashes and install the foyer tile.  There's still some design decision needed in the foyer.  We're pretty sure we want the interface between the foyer and rotunda to match the curve of the rotunda, but Mike was trying to convince us to make the interface straight.  Straight makes some sense, since the transitions between the office and dining room to foyer is straight.  Unfortunately, there isn't a straight line across the rotunda, so the tiles will need to be cut to make the pattern square.  A curve will automatically take up that correction.  That will be decided this week.

   The electricians reinstalled the foyer sconces after finally getting them repaired from the manufacturer, and after replacing the glass that the painters broke.  Unfortunately, one of the sconces was returned without the chrome metal stem.  They also installed the hanging light in the barrel vault on the front porch, but I forgot to take a picture of that.  All the worry about the height of the light was for naught as we don't have any friends that would ever bump their heads on the light.

      The pucks in all the art alcoves are connected to the Control4 system and functioning.  We've had some issue with the installation of these pucks.  We were hoping that they could be installed more flush, or recessed into the box a bit.  We had to have the electricians adjust them because the installation hole was put on the front of the installation.  Also they're not perfectly flush against the box ceiling so they don't look great.  I'm hoping it will be fixable.

   A few pieces of walnut quarter round is being stored in the great room.  I think these will be used for the shoe molding around the kitchen island and butlers pantry cabinets so they match the cabinet materials.  There isn't a lot and those are the only two areas where walnut cabinets touch the floor.  Distinctive designs is hard at work installing the remaining shoe molding around the house.

   The wood vents were installed on the first floor in all the floor vent locations.  We've had these stashed away somewhere, but they were in the raw wood form.  Now they're stained to match the wood floor color and secured in place.  The first floor is the only level with in-floor vents since the second floor and basement have in ceiling ducts.  The vents don't seem to impede the air flow much and they're not closeable, which isn't a good idea anyways.

   The remainder of the hardware has finally been delivered to the house so we'll finally get the full hardware implementation.  We were missing handles in the master bathroom, guest bathroom, and some in the kitchen.  These are the handles being installed in the guest bathroom.  I couldn't remember what handles we chose for this room, but the probable reason why they were delayed was because we wanted the two-tone look to match the floor tile.  They're a clean and simple handle, and will look nice in this bathroom.

   The stainless steel panels were finally installed on the fridge and freezer columns this week.  They're still protected with a black sheet of plastic, but cut outs were made to fit the handles and other access points.  One of the panels arrived damaged, but since the installers that Mike hired to set the appliances are Wolf/Viking certified installers, they could quickly obtain a replacement and warranty their installation.  I'm not sure if it's up to us to remove the film or if Mike will remove it when there's no more risk of damage.  I wouldn't mind removing all the film.  The fridge and freezer are currently operational, but turned off.  I haven't tried running the filtered water but I'm assuming both the water and icemaker are hooked up properly.

   The electricians finished installing the wall receptacle plates in the kitchen.  We went with a white plate that was devoid of any face screws for a cleaner look.  We have sockets installed at a good interval so we shouldn't have any issue with power.  We considered installing power strip under cabinet things, but decided against them.  They may seem convenient because you can install power where ever you want and aesthetically they get rid of the plates on the walls, but we didn't like the idea of having to bend down to look under the cabinet just to plug something in.  We're not planning on having anything permanent plugged in and sitting on the counter top so the number of plugs we have installed should be just fine for us.

   To be installed next week, the air switch for the garbage disposal is sitting near the sink.  PMP stone is supposed to come back this week to drill the hole this switch will be installed in.  It's an air switch because pressing the button pushes air in a tube connected to the electrical controller for the garbage disposal.  I'm not sure why this needs to be an air switch, but I suspect it has to do with electrical switches in the surface of a wet location.

   Other electrical installations were completed in the kitchen.  This plug was installed at the end of the kitchen island, closest to the sink.  The microwave drawer in the island is the only thing that will be plugged into this and it's fairly inaccessible and not convenient to plug anything else into.  I'll have to take a look at the breaker panel in the basement to see if this is also tied into the island receptacle on the other side of the island and I suspect they are.  A microwave doesn't pull enough current to warrant it's own breaker.

  Now that the microwave drawer plug is installed, the microwave drawer finally has power.  We've never had a drawer style microwave so it will be interesting to see if it's more or less convenient to put things in from above rather than take them out from the front.  The drawer opening and closing is powered, actuated with a touch surface press.  All buttons are on the front, so there is a small element of bending over a bit to read the buttons but the timer is pretty clearly visible from the standing position.  We don't generally use all the built in cooking features in our current microwave, so I'm not sure how useful these features will be in the new one.  There's no turntable in drawer units, and generally there isn't a need for it.  In counter top microwaves, the magnetron is located in the side of the microwave and the normal wavelength for the microwave is about 5 inches.  That means that across a standard plate, the amount of energy imparted varies within 5 inch increments, which is why you can have hot and cold spots in dish cooked in a microwave.  A turntable will rotate the dish moving the food in and out of these varying locations, allowing the energy to be imparted more evenly.  The magnetron in drawer style microwaves is located in the top, pointing down.  This means that, unless the food you're heating is greater than 5 inches deep, you'll get a fairly consistent heating across the width of the dish, and more variation from top to bottom.  Since food on a dish is relatively thin, there's less variation in temperature across the cross section.  Sorry for the science deviation.  The drawer opens fully in about 3-4 seconds which seems slow enough to not spill soup.  I think it will be pretty convenient.

   The bottom hinge plates of the swinging pantry doors were masked and painted.  There was a can of black paint in the pantry that was probably used on the hinges that were previously silver.  I'm fine with this addition and wouldn't have been offended by either color.  It would have been easier to paint the hinge plates before installing them, but it was some kind of last minute design decision.

   An unexpected design change again.  The electricians replaced the LED puck lights that were installed in the upper butlers pantry cabinets with the LED under cabinet strip lights installed in other locations.  I'm not sure why these were changed, but we're not sure we like how it looks.  There might have been some voltage issues that prevented it from lighting properly, but we were not notified about the change.  They're installed in a very visible location in the middle of the cabinet and while they provide good, even light, they're kind of distracting.  I think a better implementation might have been closer to the doors so you don't see the light, and maybe make it shine back into the cabinet for more indirect lighting.  I'll have to see what we can change.

   Moving upstairs, Distinctive Designs has started installing the shoe molding on the wood floor.  They've already finished the installation in the master bedroom and have plenty of pre-painted molding the basement ready to install.  There's less to install on the second floor since we don't have a space above the great room, so installation of this should happen quickly, if the wood floor installers can every finish.  There was no progress on the wood floor installation this week and they still have the turret bedroom left to finish.  Apparently, after needed to order 300 square feet more of flooring, much of the delivery was ordered from the wrong dye lot and had to be returned.  I'm not sure who's error it was, but I'm hoping it will be resolved quickly and we can get past this bottle neck.

   The triangular piece of tempered glass railing was also delivered and installed this week, completing the railing installation everywhere around the house.  This piece was previously measured or cut incorrectly and had to be replaced.  I'm happy with the outcome here and really glad we spent the extra money to get glass railing on the master balcony.  The view is so much better with glass, especially since it will allow better view from the seated position, which I plan on being in for the majority of my time on the balcony.

   Here's the piece of wood that will be used for a flooring transition between the master bedroom and bathroom.  It's wider than the piece used between the master bathroom and closet, which allows for a nicer foot feel.  It will be stained to match the floor and won't be covered by the door when it's closed.  I'm okay with this implementation and the difference between the closet and bedroom doesn't bother me.

   Waiting installation is the replacement shower heads for the second floor bathrooms.  We replaced the square shower heads after trying them out because they're too much like a rain shower with a low flow and we wanted something with a a higher stream.  The plumber will be back this week to install four shower heads on the second floor.  I don't think there's anything else left for them to do in the house so we're all set for the plumbing inspection.

   A minor note, the switch plate in the master closet was installed, but still needs to be painted to color match to the walls.  It looked like this location was going to be too tight to fit a plate, but they either installed a narrower plate or the install was better fitting than expected because there it is.

   The washer and dryer were hooked up and set in place last week.  There was some water in the washer, so it looks like they run through a cycle to test the connections.  I didn't run the machines, but I did power them up and play with the controls.  They look like they're going to be nice machines and are easy to use.  One snag, the latch on the dryer pedestal is broken and needs to be swapped out.  They open with a push and the broken one isn't latching at all.  Mike would have preferred a new latch, but Witbeck is sending a whole pedestal as a replacement.  It's probably easier to send a whole unit then to order a single part.

   The backsplash tile for the turret bathroom has finally arrived and is waiting to be installed.  We have a meeting on Thursday with Castro, the tile installer, to go over the foyer tile layout so I'm assuming that's when they'll be in to install this tile and grout the other backsplashes.  Mike had to actually go online and hunt this tile down since they discontinued it.  The sheets will probably be cut in half for the actual backsplash height and will be topped with a frosted pencil glass tile.  When this and the foyer gets installed, we'll be done with all the tile installation.

   Well, that's about it for this week.  Next week should see more Control4 programming, hopefully more wood floor installation, most likely more progress on the shoe molding and touch ups around the house, and probably more tile installation.   If we pass the final HVAC and plumbing inspections schedule for this week, the last inspection to be performed will be the final building inspection and we can finally get a COO and move in!  Just because we have a COO doesn't mean all the touch ups and floor finishing will be completed, so we'll have to wait for that to be completed, but at least there's no more red tape to cut before the house is ours.  It won't be long now!

Two Week Mega Update

   Well due to a well needed vacation, the last update was two weeks ago and there has been progress all over the house, some visible and some not.  There was tons to look at and even more to be excited about as we push towards the August deadline.  The biggest mover is the finished interior woodworking with nearly all the door, window, baseboard, and crown molding in and lots of progress on the more decorative elements.  Tile installation began again and a huge delivery made it into the house.  Exterior rough carpentry leaped ahead, completing all the arches on the front porch and slamming out many of the pillars in the gazebo.  Exterior solid stain was applied to all the cedar shingle, but the trim remains unpainted, probably waiting for the completion of the porch pillars, which is fine because the gable pediment is on site, but needs to be installed.  Fill sand for the front of the house was dropped and awaits distribution, but it's a huge step forward on the outside.

   Let's start off this update with a few exterior shots since the exterior painters applied a coat of solid exterior stain to the cedar siding.  Depending on the light and viewing angle, the color ranges from a light gray to gray-green, but the official color is Sherwin-Williams Earl Gray.  Judging by the slight inclusions into the trim, it looks like it was applied with a sprayer and the coverage looks complete, despite the cracks and crags in the shingle.

   Here's the house from the front.  The color still appears a light gray in this picture, but in person, it's a little darker.  Definitely more gray than the taupe gray initially sprayed on the trim.  Even without the trim painted white, the white vinyl of the windows really pop against the gray.  The white painted trim will enhance that visual.  The same dumpster was present and nearing capacity, but is lasting longer than the last because all of the woodworking cut-offs are being burned rather than thrown away.  There was an odd plastic mailbox in there, but I'm not sure if it was from one of Mikes other builds or if we had some local visitors.  Nothing was caught on the security cam.


   A closer look at the paint under the front porch offers a better representation of the paint color, which looks closer to gray/green here.  The color variation in these pictures probably have to do with the automatic white balancing my camera does, but I didn't take a reference white before snapping these.  I'll try to remember to do it next time.

   Gracing the front yard is what looks like a truck load of fill sand in several large piles.  From the tracks on the driveway, it looks like an excavator drove in the buckets from the street.  Also, I've never seen a truck dump double rows of dirt like this, especially in the tight quarters we have here.  Of course, I could be completely wrong, because, what do I know about dumping dirt?  Each pile is about 5' tall, and I think this might at least be a good start to filling the deficit we have in this space.

   A shot of the painted back shows how the Earl Gray looks different at different angles.  The color on the greatroom exterior looks like a blueish gray while the same color on the back of the garage looks more green/gray.  However you see it we're really satisfied with it and can't wait to see it pop against the white painted trim.  I think once the porch posts are completed, we'll see the white go up and hopefully at that time, we can get the dragon up on the turret.

  This shot of the back of the house makes the color looks more green/gray; almost a sage.  Again, it might be because of the white balance picking up the color on the roof shingles.  You can see the porch posts in various stages of finish.  More on this later.  I'll have to make sure they paint that white vent PVC pipe when they're up there painting the trim.  I saw a rattle can of paint at one of the big box stores especially for this purpose but I'm not sure if it's formulated any differently for PVC vs. the standard paint, but it did come in a few colors.

   While there wasn't any progress on the front porch floor, all of the front porch arches are completed and ready for the post wrap.  It was a huge effort and they pulled it off really well.  We're really happy with how these arches came out and I think every time we look at it, we'll remember the effort involved with pulling it off.

   One of the posts on the front deck was mocked up with the full wrap to get our confirmation, which we happily gave.  The wrap is made from MDO, which is like MDF, but with a water resistant binder, which makes it much more weather resistant than MDF, which swells and breaks down in the presence of even the smallest amount of water.  The cove trim pieces are either pine or oak, and everything will be painted with the same exterior white used on the rest of the trim, offering some level of weather resistance.

   Here's a close up of the cove trim piece in the column panels.  Amazingly, it's slightly thinner than the MDO, which provides one more shadow line that might be obscured with paint.  Finishing nails and glue were used for assembly and I'm expecting the whole thing to be caulked before painting.

   The gazebo posts are getting the same wrap design as the front of the house, with most of them being completed.  The nice thing about this design is that they can install the main body of the wrap, the panels and corners, then wait for the finished surface to be installed before installing the bottom trim piece.  This allows for adjustability and customizability with respect to the finished surface, in this case the granite counter top of the barbecue space.

   Every post in the gazebo has some level of completion, mostly with the main panels and corners, just awaiting the top and bottom trims.  It really beefs up the posts and changes the entire feel of the space.  You can see an incomplete post panel sitting on the barbecue, and the internal spacers needed to attach the wrap to the 4x4 post.

   Here's the other side of the gazebo with all the posts wrapped.  The bluestone floor on the gazebo will be installed right up against the wrap and the final bottom trim piece will sit on top of the bluestone, offering a tight fit.  The panels are wide enough to accommodate a good width for the top rail, where needed.  We're still working out what kind of railing will go on back here.  Ideally, we would have a glass panel rail similar to what we're having on the master balcony, but I'm not sure it's currently in the budget.  While the final grade will remove the requirement for a rail on this side of the gazebo, we might want one to keep with continuity.

   While we're talking about the back porch, the quarter round trim above the mudroom exterior door was adjusted and I think this is the best it's going to get.  The quarter round was trimmed to match the curve of the door.  Doing it this way preserves the arch of the door trim and still allows some space for caulk to be applied between the trim and quater round.  Since the master balcony door is being remade due to incorrect delivery size, we requested that it be shortened about an inch so we would avoid this issue up there.

   Little improvements elsewhere include this piece of trim, that has been missing for a while when Mike was still trying to figure out how to fix the little issues around the house.  The overhang here was also replaced since it was warping a bit.  There were other overhang areas around the house that Mike wanted to correct, but I didn't think to look for them this time.  I'll take a look this weekend to see if they were also replaced, since many of them were in inconvenient places.

   We also requested that this piece of trim be added to tie in the trim at the ceiling drop down on the back porch.  It will all be painted white, and it didn't look right to our eyes to just terminate the trims without the vertical piece.  It's an awesome feeling to know that you're being listened to and things you only mention once are remembered and implemented when appropriate.

    Moving inside, progress was seen on the finished woodworking on the first floor since the second floor is completed.  All enclosed rooms had completed door and baseboard molding and crown where applicable.  Here's what the arched study door looks like fully trimmed out.  The baseboard in the foyer and rotunda are still pending but the study, dining room, guest bedroom and kitchen area have theirs installed.

   The study itself is being used to house the material used for the paneling in the greatroom and rotunda, and the post wraps for the front porch.  There's a good amount of MDF/MDO in here so I think this is everything needed to complete all the fancy finished woodworking throughout the house.  Week after week, the focus of the trim work gets smaller and smaller and I expect we'll see the end of the finished woodworking within the next week.

   Here's what the crown and baseboard molding looks like in the study.  Just like the rooms upstairs, the baseboard is curved on the curved section of wall.  While every room doesn't have crown molding, we can decide if we want to add it some time at a later date.  It's not too difficult to put up as long as there isn't a curved wall in the room.

   There's still a good amount of building material in the dining room, but it wasn't in the way since Distinctive Designs installed the crown and baseboard in here too.  There will be some ceiling detail exclusive to this room as well and we approved the design for it over vacation so after all the regular trim is done, the only areas left for finished woodworking will be the rotunda, dining room, and greatroom, which is nearly finished.

   The powder coated tin ceiling was installed on the second floor rotunda.  The diameter of the circle matches the opening of the rotunda to the second floor.  We always suspected that the chandelier box was off centered in this space since it didn't line up with the front door or fireplace and they confirmed it during the installation of the tin ceiling.  It's now properly centered and lands dead in the middle of a square of tin.  We were hoping for a more silver look since this looks pretty dark so we'll see if they can buff some of the powder coating off to give some shine to the higher parts.  I'm not sure if it's possible to do mechanically or labor wise, but it doesn't hurt to ask.

   Two large stacks of boxes are currently sitting near the rotunda next to the fireplace.  They were delivered last week and contain the tile for the fireplace column.  It's from a company called "Island Stone" and the shipping cost was pretty substantial.  The tile installer will be in this week to start so maybe by the next update, I'll have some progress to post.

   More boxes of the fireplace tile sit nearby, completing the shipment.  Since the tile is not only a stacked stone, but also vary in depth, it will need to be installed around the entire fireplace column in a layered manner rather than a face at a time.  The stone wraps around the corners, so coordination between the faces is necessary.

   Here's the label for the stone for posterity. They come in come kind of sheet or strip, and contain 10 pieces per box at 35lbs total.  53 boxes means 1,855 lbs of stone going up on the fireplace.  That's nearly a ton of stone over the footprint of 4x8 feet.  Good thing this sits on concrete that in return sits right above a steel beam with two posts that tie it to a concrete footing.  This is probably the heaviest thing in the house.

   Here's a poor example of what the stone looks like.  The material color is true, but this isn't a good example of the varying thickness of the material.  In the samples we saw, the thickness varies to what you see here, to two times as thick and they taper up to the thickness in a single piece so it gives the visual effect of bump outs or arches rather than sharp stacked stones.  Careful application will be required to pull off this effect.

   The greatroom saw a lot of change since the last update with the near completion of the paneling in the back half of the room.  As shown, it encompasses all the windows into a single paneled unit, rather than having each window with individual trim.  We need to start to think about interior paint since the house will be prepped for that stage in about two weeks, but I'm not sure what will happen here.  The same paneling effect will be applied to the rotunda, and if it all follows the trim scheme, it will be painted white but a higher sheen than the walls.  I really like how this turned out.  If this were a more formal house, you would see dark wood stained panels, but since we're leaning more modern, we're going for a more monotone look.

   Each panel is inset with this trim piece.  I'm not sure what the profile is called, but it's kind of a corner bead, or at least a bead where the corner would be.  Inset a bit from the panel frame, it provides three shadow lines in one piece, emphasizing depth, but keeping a clean look.  I'm pleased with this design since it adds detail, but it's not too busy or presumptuous.

   The rear speakers are inset into the walls, but Distinctive Designs framed them out within the panel, which looks amazing.  Even with the speakers being near flush with the wall, they would still be obvious so why hide the fact they're there?  The corner bead still needs to be applied here, so I'm excited to see it applied to that curve.  The speaker grills will be painted the same color as the paneling but this detail will highlight their presence.

   Here's a little closer look at how the panels act as the window trim, and how they integrate down into the standard baseboard trim that's used in the rest of the house.  While every electrical receptacle isn't centered in the window, they're at least symmetrical across the room.  One of them lands in the little square.  The sill piece is continuous across all the windows and stands proud of the panel casing.

   At the top, there's the coffer beam, a bit of crown molding, then the paneling.  I didn't expect the crown, but it really ties in the coffer to the panels.  This would look really stately if it was in walnut.  I hope the detail isn't lost in the paint.

   The crown terminates on a return at the end of the paneling space.  The arch top windows are just trimmed in a thick arch frame without a panel.  This visually separates the greatroom into two seating areas a bit, and we're planning on trying to define two sitting spaces, or at least a "fireplace side" and a "window side".  Rotating seats may be involved.


   The wood backer for the TV mount was attached above the fireplace in preparation for the stone install.  We were trying to decide if we wanted a metal plate back there, since using a Mantle Mount  would make it visible when pulled down, but decided against it since we couldn't justify the cost vs usage.  Having a formal plate back there is good enough and the number of times it would be visible just doesn't justify the expense of having a plate fabricated.  At least there's something as a place holder should we ever want to replace it with something fancier.

   These pre-made corners of MDF or MDO are sitting in the greatroom and I think they're for the columns.  I don't see anything like these corners on the paneling so it's a safe bet to assume their purpose.  There are still most of the columns on the front porch in addition to the post below the front porch to wrap, so there's still quire a bit of work to complete.

   Distinctive Designs also completed our gable pediments for the gable above the laundry room window, and the end of the garage.  These things are amazing.  Made of solid yellow pine, complete with weep holes to shed water, they'll be painted on the ground and installed thereafter.  I'm really impressed with the solid craftsmanship of these things and I think it would have been near impossible to find from another source at the same price.

   Here's a close up of the gable pediments to highlight their quality.  We've spent a lot of money on a lot of things for this house and I have to say that this is one of the best deals we've gotten so far.  Mike from Distinctive Designs wanted to make them out of solid wood to avoid any issues with weather.  I'll get some more time to measure the dimensions, but I think they're 1.5 to 2 inches thick on the curves and more on the frame.  I submitted a 3d model to him and he made these two to the specific dimensions of our house.  Amazing craftsmanship.

   The door trim is going up around the greatroom exterior door.  We still need to take delivery of the master balcony and front door to finish out all the trim work, so hopefully those will come through soon.  I can't wait to finally have all the doors in the house complete.

   The kitchen island cabinets got a layer of protection due to all the traffic that will be coming through for the paint, tile, and floor soon.  Counter tops have been measured and the numbers are coming in there so I'm hoping we're not over budget.  I'm not sure if counters or floors will go in first but either way, it will be a huge step forward towards a finished home.

   A small shelf was put on the bottom half of the french door to the mudroom but we had some issue with opening the door.  The shelf butts up against the door trim so it can't sit flat to the wall.  The top half can, but the bottom can not.  I'm wondering if we should cut a symmetrical notch on the shelf to bypass the trim or if this opening angle is okay.

   After a few iterations, Mike had these garage entry stairs created.  He tried having the stairs come straight off the door without a landing but it impinged too much upon the traffic pattern from the rear garage entry door.  He thinks that a landing is more comfortable even if we have to deal with the 90 degree turn.  I'll let it sit for a bit and see how it feels.

   The garage storage has a straight landing since it's farther away from the rear garage entry door.  It's unfortunate we can't get the symmetry of the two stairs, but having this one turn 90 degrees didn't allow for at least 36" between the two stairs.  Another alternative is to have one set of stairs that lead up to to a catwalk between the two doors.  It would go out into the garage as much as this staircase does, but will reduce the number of stairs.

   The garage entry door has its trim installed and there's a simple baseboard molding going around the garage walls.  No profile on top, just a squared off primed piece of wood to hide the bottom edge of the drywall.  Functional and clean.

   Moving upstairs, Omar the tile installer installed the subway tile in the second bedroom bathroom.  A simple installation with a clean design.  It still needs to be grouted, but he made quick work of this bathroom.

   He added two radius shelves in here since the back wall is on the exterior and we couldn't add an in wall shelf like we have in the other bathroom.  It might have been able to go on the back wall, but I think there's too many wires and pipes going through there.  These shelves should work well.

   The tile baseboard is just cut tile without a bullnose profile.  I think the tops will be grouted or painted to hide the tile edge, but this is a functional finish that doesn't break the bank.  The tiles line up perfectly with the floor tile, a feature lost in our current house.  The grain runs the same direction as well.  These are the hallmarks of a quality installer; attention to detail.

   A hidden progress point is that we finally have insulation in the attic space.  There's an R-30 batt covered with blow in to provide R-45 in the attic space.  They're finishing up insulating the attic space above the garage today, completing the insulation in all spaces.  Milestone passed.

   Well that's it for this week.  There's a short week until the next update, but I'm sure I'll have some incremental progress.  We're in the middle of figuring out the final budgets for the next steps so we can glide in to a smooth finish, but it's these times that really test our limits.  The end isn't in sight yet, but it's just over the horizon. 8 more weeks!