Driveway Foundation and a Nearly Completed Gazebo

   Fall weather is finally kicking in with a couple of cold and rainy days .  Although all the leaves have yet to change and drop, the forest is starting to show signs of Autumn with some of the maples already bear.  I got a chance to visit the site and sit through a quick thunder storm, giving me the opportunity to check where the roof sheds water, and verify any remaining draining issues from the most recent grade change.  Progress was abound outside with the near completion of the flooring in the gazebo, further progress on the front and back steps, and the gravel base for the driveway.  The inside also saw significant progress with the completion of paint on the first floor, hardware planning, and more prep for the finished electrical install.

   The first 15 feet of the driveway is still the base sand, but past that, all the way up to the house has a new, thick layer of crushed gravel for the asphalt base.  One man with a dozer and a roller spread and compacted the entire driveway with another hauling in truckload after truckload of the gravel.  Gone is the low spot in front of the sign, so we no longer have to worry about deep puddles after the rain.  We got to see a little bit of the work in action during our hardware planning visit during the week.

   The gravel contains a mix of fine and large aggregate.  The pieces of large aggregate are not smooth, which I've read is what you're looking for.  The harder edges will create a stronger base since they're less likely to slide off each other.  The roller compacts the base enough to drive on without any sinking.

   A little farther up the driveway at the first bend.  We had some concerns about how low the driveway dipped down on the second curve, but it looks like a significant amount of base was added.  A few inches of asphalt will be added to the top of this, so we should be pretty high when it's completed.  We'll have to address how to taper the grade on the sides to combat erosion and premature wear.  You have to make sure to support the edges or you'll get crumbling should a vehicle drive too close to the shoulder.

   Approaching the house.  They moved the dumpster to the unfinished overflow parking area so the entire driveway could be paved.  It's getting pretty full anyways, so they'll probably need to haul it away soon.  There's not much construction work left in the house, so I'm not sure if they'll need to get another large dumpster or if a smaller one will suffice. 

There are three large white pipes spaced up the driveway that are currently sitting on the sides.  These should be placed perpendicularly under the driveway to act as a conduit, should we need to pass wires from one side to the other.  I'm not sure why they're not in the ground already, or if they'll be placed before the asphalt is poured.  The Sound Vision was supposed to coordinate with Great Oaks about requirements for the gate intercom, but I didn't see any new wires.  It's a pretty long distance for wireless so I don't think that's an option.

   Gravel was placed for the paved overflow parking spot but it looks a little small.  It's not meant to take up the whole space, but you should be able to fit two cars, diagonally from the driveway.  Maybe a work truck was in the way when they were laying the stone, and the footprint will be increased in the next week.

   Here's what the driveway looks like up at the house.  The pallets of blue stone need to be moved so the gravel can be placed and compacted here.  There is a bed to the left of the front steps, but the driveway should go all the way to the steps down.  That extra space is required to give us enough room to turn around our cars.

   Here are the machines doing all the work on the driveway.  I didn't get much chance to talk to the operator, but he's an older guy and manned both machines.  The dozer quickly spread the gravel and the roller compresses it.  I think the roller has some vibration functions or something to compact the gravel.  If it's just weight, then it does a great job since I had no issues with sinking driving my nearly 2 ton car up the driveway.

   A small gap was left next to the wall to define the driveway.  There will be a safety curb in the asphalt so cars don't easily drive off the wall.  There will also be a planting bed, grass near the boulder wall, and safety fence on top of the wall.  I'll miss being able to walk all the way up to the edge of the wall but the railing is a necessity and the bushes will hide the railing.

   The dimensions on the front steps were fixed and I'm told that the original subcontractors on the job were removed from service.  Maybe too many mistakes were being made, costing Great Oaks money.  It looks like they cut away the excess concrete in front and poured a bit more on the back to bring the lower landing to within specs.  The upper landing was demolished and shifted back to the correct dimensions.  Mike said they had enough footing below to stack the new landing riser on, so I'm not worried about structural integrity.  Cobble stone faces the risers and blue stone will cap the treads when completed.  If the weather holds out, I imagine they'll be able to finish this week.

   These pallets of blue stone are what's left of the material for the treads.  It's the same that's used on the lower landing and the back steps, but slightly more homogeneous in color compared to the gazebo stone.  They have to be moved before the driveway installer can complete his gravel compacting, but since the first asphalt base is scheduled for the 17th, They'll probably move it first thing on Monday.

   Here's a few of the steps from the porch.  You can see the first few feet of the front porch is susceptible to rain but that's about it.  The rain was being blown around pretty hard so I'm happy with how little got on the deck.  The front door should be well protected from the elements.  The actual steps have been installed all the way up to the front porch with example blue stones placed where applicable.  I believe the pedestals that flank the steps will be capped in the same material.

   Hardwood door and bevel sent their installers one more time to fix the various issues we had with the exterior doors.  They sent a furniture repair person to address the unsightly plugs in the casement of the front door and we're satisfied with the results.  They're now flush with the casing and you might not be able to see if unless you were looking for them.  The front door closes easily now and all the binding on the door frame is gone.  It took a few tries and some heated conversation to get it to this point, but it was well worth the effort.  The thing we need to keep reminding ourselves is that this is our house and we're ultimately the client, so if we're not happy with something, we should speak up and not feel like we're imposing on the installers.  It's an odd thing to get used to since we're not usually the type of people to cause an inconvenience, but getting into the final stages, appearance is everything so it's worth it to be annoying.

   Moving inside, nearly the entire first floor is done with painting.  There were one or two places that still required paint, but for the most part everything is done on the first floor.  Here's the gray that went into the dining room walls.  It's Sherwin Williams "Mindful Gray" () in a flat finish.  It's has a little more earth tone in it compared to the other grays in the house, and I think it will pick up on the brown of the floor more.  We were also considering this for the exterior, but decided to go with the more green "Earl Gray".  The detail on the ceiling is painted in a satin and the rest is in flat, so even though they're the same "Snowbound White" color, they look different from the sheen.  I love the effect and can't wait to get our final dining room table and lights in here.

   I was wondering what these things were last week and speculated that they were used as a baseline for leveling the floors.  Turns out they're for monitoring the moisture content of the house and floor for the wood floor installation.  There's normally a concern with the amount of moisture in the air and, in our case, the floor since in a newer house, the concrete would be curing and releasing some moisture.  The paint drying process also adds humidity to the air and there needs to be a certain level of humidity reached before the floors can be brought to the house for final location acclimation. Once it's decided that the ambient humidity is good, they'll bring in the wood floors and let them sit for a few days to reach parity with the house.  This ensures the installation will be tight and not experience expansion or contraction due to a difference between the moisture content in the wood and air.  I thought this effect would be lessened with engineered floors, but it's still enough of a consideration to go through this procedure.

   I think the only room that received final paint on the second floor is the rotunda, since it share the same color as the rotunda below as well as the greatroom, foyer, and kitchen.  The masking remains on the tin ceiling, but can probably be removed and the stain still needs to be applied to the railing and stairs, but I'm not sure if that will happen before or after the wood floor is installed.  The section above the stairs still needs to be painted, but that will probably be finished this week.  The paint is peculiar because it looks much darker when it's next to the primed wall, but once it's all painted, appears lighter.  I was a little worried about the color at first, but now that I see whole wall sections painted, it looks great.

   The entire greatroom painting is completed and all the masking is removed.  The back wall paneling got the "Snowbound white" in satin, along with the coffer beams and trim throughout the house.  The ceiling is a "Nebulous white" in flat and the walls are "Passive Gray" in flat.  The nebulous is the second grayest in its series and the Passive is the whitest gray, so they're very close in color.  The nebulous coffers make the snowbound beams pop just a little bit without being too in your face, but it keeps the ceiling lighter than the walls, offering a more airy feeling.  Looking back a half year, I would have never imagined the final product to look this spectacular.

      Here's another shot of the greatroom ceiling.  The scaffolding will remain in the house until the lights are installed this week.  We're getting LED retrofits in all the recessed lights made by TCP.  It's part of their designer elite series with a 3000k CRI, which is a slightly yellow/white light.  Not as yellow as a standard incandescent bulb, but not as white as a fluorescent tube.  We'll see if the 6 cans we have up there are enough to light the room.

   Most of the masking remains in place on the fireplace column but should be able to be removed soon.  The TV back plate still needs to be painted, but that will probably be a brush job.  A bank draw was made to pay the Sound Vision for the initial equipment purchase so we should start to see some of the sound systems rolling in.  Lighting circuits will be installed by the electricians, under the guidance of a Sound Vision installer but primary equipment installation isn't scheduled to start until later this month.

   Distinctive designs installed a small piece of metal on both sides of the fireplace up under the overhang.  We considered using stone on the underside, but it didn't work out well, so we opted for a piece of powder coated metal.  It's not something you would normally see unless you're sitting on the ground, but it's important to have since it's only cement board underneath.  Powder coating should be able to withstand the heat of the fireplace, better than paint but I'll have to monitor this.

   I can't remember if this is new or not, but there are electrical plugs in many places on the first floor.  I don't think they're hooked up to main power yet and they might have already been installed since before paint, but masked off, so I missed the install.  These are interesting because they have an internal safety feature that prevents accidental electrocution.  If you look closely, you'll see that the plugs are actually blocked by a piece of plastic.  It slides out of the way when two prongs are inserted or something, but prevents a single object from entering the receptacle. We should see more of these being installed around the house this week now that the final electrical phase is moving in.

   They finished painting the basement stairwell in the same Passive white color as the rotunda.  It's a nice finishing touch to an otherwise unfinished space.  These lighting sconces that will be installed in the stairwell are unfortunately back ordered until December since they're so new, so we'll have to wait until then to get them installed.

   The guest room on the first floor has its final paint of Sherwin Williams "City Loft" in flat.  This and the adjoining bathroom are the only rooms getting this color in the entire house.  The City Loft is a much lighter gray than the rotunda and kitchen and when combined with the three windows in this room, keep the space feeling clean and light.

   The City Loft works especially well in the guest bathroom, that hints at a Victorian design with the patterned tile floor and wainscoting subway tile.  It's enough color to differentiate from the white tile and wood trim, but not strong enough to darken the room.  Keeping the first floor rooms light is important since we have a large porch overhang on every first floor window.  Lighter paint colors and cabinets help achieve that.

   Our meeting mid-week with Margaret and Mike bore fruit in the form of a count and plan to implement all cabinet hardware throughout the house as well as towel racks, toilet paper rolls, and accessory hooks in necessary rooms.  We met the previous week at our local hardware distributor, and picked out the styles we wanted in each room so this meeting was to record a count and finalize the sizes.  The kitchen was by far the most complicated room so we marked each door with the appropriate size hardware so there would be no question what goes where.  Another finish marked off the list!

   The mudroom is finally getting its unveiling now that the room is painted in its "Repose Gray".   For some reason, the gray stained locker has a green tinge in this picture so maybe I should perform a white balance in every room before I take pictures.  It also might be form the exterior lighting of the mudroom door, which is also unmasked.  The mudroom bathroom, which is much too dark to photograph without artificial lights, is the same color as the tile also carries directly in.  All we need are finished electrical and door knobs and this room is complete.

   Although most of the second floor still needs to be painted, they did make their way into the spare bedroom, painted in the same Repose Gray as the mudroom and office.  The natural lighting in this room is better than the mirrored one below it on the first floor and will be reserved for a future kids room.  Floors and finished electrical is all that's needed in this room now.

   The adjoining bathroom is a little less traditional than the guest bathroom, and replaces the zero threshold shower with a tub/shower.  The hardware in here will be more masculine but the towel hardware will be the same as the other non-master bathrooms.  We probably won't have shower doors for move in, and opt for shower curtains to help with child bathing.

   Another fix performed by Hardwood Door and Bevel is to the master balcony door hardware.  When they last left it, the two door handles weren't aligned to each other and the dummy handle on the right was missing the top screw.  I'm not sure what was involved in the correction, but they're not even and the screw is in place.  As a note, you can tell the level of installation when the screws are all indexed in the same orientation.  Good electricians like to align the flathead plate screws either all horizontal or all vertical and it means something when you pay special attention to the small details.  I'll probably index these myself since that detail wasn't done.

   The laundry room hasn't been painted yet, but it's prepped for paint, which will be happening this week.  The laundry surround will also get painted the same color as the cabinets so it will be nice to see the final product in this room, which was the first room in the house to actually have walls.  The electrical lighting control panel should see some changes too this coming week with the installation of the finished lighting.  Big changes coming!

   Moving back outside, the gazebo and back porch stone is near completion.  Almost all the stone has been set although mortar needs to be filled.  I think we're looking at one more week until the stone is finished, then the carpenters will have to come back to complete the columns.  Hopefully the weather will hold out to get some paint on the pillars.  Then we need rails and the back porch will be complete!

   The section coming out of the mudroom turned out really well.  There was a slight slope in the concrete to shed water, and they lessened it a bit but couldn't completely remove it, which is fine.  You don't feel it when walking and it's only visible if you get down low.  Since the mudroom door was finally unmasked, I took the opportunity to try out the new porch, walking in and out of the house multiple times.  I think we made the right decisions with accessibility to the outside as the house feels very livable.

   This area in the gazebo is the last section that needs to be set before mortaring can begin.  After the mortar is set, Old Country Stone is done on our house (for now).  We might contract them to install our gate pillars at the end of the driveway when the time comes, since they did such a great job on the rest of the house.  We'll need to figure out what gates we want before we can spec the pillars, so there's some work to be done before we implement that.  OCS should be able to make short work of this section early in the week and hopefully finish with mortaring before the weekend.  If the mortar work on the house is any indication, they're pretty quick with the work so I'm hopeful to be looking at a finished gazebo this weekend.  Maybe I'll light a celebratory fire in the fireplace.

   Progress on the back steps continued with the removal of the erroneously placed blue stone and the installation of the stair structure.  They used a solid cinder block for these stairs as opposed to the standard hollow and concrete filled up front.  All that's left is the cobble stone facade on the risers and side, the blue stone treads, and all the mortar work.  I'm hoping this will be done this week too and we'll be done with our Great Oaks installations for this year. 

   Here's a close up of the back steps.  Some cobble and blue stone was placed to indicate which material goes where although these cobbles will probably have to be replaced with the corner cut cobbles.  The treads will be the same kind of bluestone as the landing. which will offer a smooth walking finish.  I love that we have access to the backyard that doesn't involve going through the kitchen.  Between the kitchen slider and the mudroom door, I can't decide which will be the primary access, but imagine it will be conditional.  This will be great for the kids and their friends, when they want to come in to use the bathroom or grab a quick snack.

   One more detail that will need to be installed before OCS is done is drilling some weep holes through the gazebo bench.  Should any water make its way into the gazebo, it will need to either evaporate or drain.  Since the bench occupies almost half of the perimeter, there should be some holes for the water to drain out of.  The likely hood of excessive water is low, but I could see an instance when we power wash or something.

  The gazebo is really starting to shape up and once the pillars are completed will be an amazing space.  There's plenty of room and shelter from the elements, and I'm imagining many cool nights by a fire.  Now that the weather is turning cooler, I'm really itching to try out the fireplace.  There's plenty of firewood harvested from our own felled trees to last us a long time. 

   One more shot of the entire gazebo space.  We're expecting to have some kind of outdoor dining table towards the back of the gazebo with a few chairs to place around the fireplace.  Overflow fireplace seating can be on the benches or from the dining table.  I think we sized the gazebo to accommodate an 8 person rectangular table, although it might be outside of the octagonal footprint.  Since the porch is eight feet deep, we still shouldn't have issues with traffic bottlenecks.

   That's about it for this week.  Next week should see some major installations in the form of finished lighting, an asphalt driveway, completed exterior stonework, finished painting, and maybe the delivery of the wood floors.  Still don't know what the time table is on the finished plumbing, but considering we'll be waiting until the 27th for our stone counter tops from PMP stone, I don't think it will wrap up until after their installation.  With only two more weeks left in the month, I think this build will push into November before we can get our certificate of occupancy.  Hopefully the snow will hold off just long enough for us to move in, but you can never rely on Michigan weather.

Gazebo Progress (Finally!)

   Maybe one more summer-like weekend left in this year with temperatures in the mid 70s with a perfect sunny day.  Light breezes kept us cool as we sunned ourselves and watched the wildlife from the comfort of our gazebo.  We're getting so close to the finish, we're starting to imagine and idyllic life here.  Sure it won't be all relaxing and there will still be tons of work after we move in, but we took the chance to forget all of our current and future concerns and just enjoy the day.
   This week saw progress on multiple fronts, both inside and out with painting, plumbing, tile, and wood floor prep on the former and finishing stonework and the final construction grade on the exterior.  Tasks left are being checked off every week but there's still lots to finish before we can file for the COO.  Hopefully we'll really be able to see it completed this month.

   Not much change on the front of the house since the grade is where it's supposed to be at for the installation of the driveway.  Great Oaks has acknowledged that the front steps were installed incorrectly and said the subcontractors that performed the work will need to return to fix it.  When they do that, I don't know, but the stair project is really stretching on longer than I anticipated.  We've had really good success with most aspects of the Great Oaks installed items and the subcontractors they got for the front concrete wall worked out well, but the installers for the front and back steps have been trouble.

   Old Country Stone was on site to finish the front porch stone work.  After the deck installers went through, they had to remove the secondary flashing that was installed in order to get the Azek boards in place next to the house.  The mortar was supposed to be installed on top of this flashing but it didn't work out so OCS just mortared the joint right down to the deck board.  This should be okay since we're using Azek, which won't rot, and shouldn't be affected too much by movement.  OCS got most of the front porch finished off, with just the back corner near the great room exterior door to complete.

   One thing that Great Oaks completed that I missed in the past weeks is the completion of the front wall.  They chipped off the stone overhang on the right side of the steps so it no longer impinged on the walkway.  Now I think the front wall is finally done.  The part near the house was repaired earlier so it's level.  The bottom step are reversed to hide the chip, and now with this change, I think the wall is perfect.  Now all we have to do is remove all the weeds and get some plants in there.

   Speaking of the front wall, Mike got the side of the house graded to final grade.  When we finally get topsoil and seed here, some of it will need to be scraped away to keep grade with the door and sewer pump, but this is what we're getting now for move in.  You can't even see it now, but the top of the grinder pump tank is flush with the ground and all associated pipes are buried.  The lower walk out has a step down which is good since there will eventually be a paver patio there.  It rained hard the night before and this area is pretty much dry where as before, we would have a good amount of standing water.  Since the drain pipe from the form-a-drain on the basement corner has gone missing, we also used to see some water infiltration in the mechanical room.  There was no water down there this time so I'm hoping the grading fixed that too.  If not, I'll need to dig to gain access to the drainage and put a new pipe in, which will not be fun.

   One thing we were worried about with the addition of the fill dirt is that the stone posts would be look funny after losing some height to the ground.  Now that the fill is in place, I think it looks fine.  We'll probably need to get that small stand of maple trees root aerated as soon as possible since the root system was most likely compacted with all the heavy machinery running over it.  There was also a good amount of land cleared to the left of those trees, which is in the plans, but we'll have to figure out where the planting beds are supposed to be so we're not needlessly filling the area with soil and seed.  We'll also need to solidify any changes to the landscaping plans the placement of the grinder pump made when it comes time for irrigation installation.

   Here's a look at the grinder pump cover with the fill dirt in place.  It didn't seem like the PVC pipe was attached to anything and I don't recall any attachments on that side.  I think both the PVC and rake are being used as a visual warning to not drive over the cover.  The proposed path from the retaining wall steps to the patio at the walk out would have run really close, if not directly over, this location so there definitely will need to be some kind of reconfiguration of the landscaping here.  If I get another nice day, I should take some aerial shots to see how the landscaping plan is lining up with the implementation.

   Here's a shot of the fill from the basement side walkout.  Considering the grinder pump cover was at least a foot above the previous grade, there was a significant amount of fill dirt added to this area.  Remarkably, it's all very solid, even after the heavy rain from the night before.  There was some wet dirt at the porch overhang edge in front of the side walk out, but that can be expected since we have the rain diversion system under the deck in this area.  Once we connect the gutter to this system, the area should stay a bit dryer.  Except for the patio, the planting plans call for a bed to be under most of the porch.  It doesn't account for a back up generator, which will need to be installed in this location.  We should probably also allow for access to the meters and generator.

   Mike drilled through the wall so I pushed the coaxial cable from inside the house to the box outside and hooked it up to the orange coaxial coming from the Spectrum pedestal.  The connection was tested by the install technician so even though we don't have anything to connect to, we have an internet connection.  The hole will need to be sealed on both sides of the wall and the cable box is currently just on a spike.  I would like to attach it to the wall so I might head out some time with my masonry bits and find a good place to mount it.  The line from the pedestal remains exposed except for the section where the grade was corrected.  Now that we have a connection to the box, I can bury the rest of it near the house.

   The back yard got a second round of grading, pushing the rear most border out a bit and clearing up or pushing out some of the rubble and weeds.  Since the large bulldozers weren't at the house, this is probably final grade.   The yard is currently weed free since it was all tilled under and I'm not sure if there's anything I can do to keep it this way before we get soil and seed in.  I'm not sure if I should do anything to preserve this since they'll probably just come in again to scrape the lot before dumping top soil.

   In addition to completing the mortar work on the front porch, OCS also made a lot of progress on the gazebo stone.   The border stone was added to the edge of the concrete deck and has yet to be mortared.  Also visible here is the stones for the seats.  They had to cut into the pillars a bit to fit the stone so hopefully Mike the carpenter won't be too annoyed that he has to redo the corners before they can be painted.  There was already trim work that needed to be completed, but it's unfortunate they couldn't just remove the whole corner piece, rather than cutting a section of it off.

   Here's a bigger look at the progress of the edge stone install with a peek at some of the blue stone decking.  I think the transition between the round cobbles to the stacked stone is a good one, combining the color of the cobble with the shape of the stacked.  The blue stone lip over hangs the stone below be an inch so water should run off it nicely.

   The area around the back porch has become a hive of activity with material staging, cutting, and storage.  The blue stone comes in a few different cut sizes and are further refined to fit the space before installation.  The installers working for Great Oaks is also in the same space, constructing the back steps so we actually have two stone teams on site working in the same area.  This could be good since the step installers need to coordinate the height of the landing with the OCS stone installers.

   Here's the progress on the back landing and back step area.  There will be a blue stone patio mortared onto the concrete pad connecting the rear garage walk out to the back porch steps.  All the blue stone you see here is already mortared in place which may lead the more eagle eyed of you to a question as it did for me.  Where are the steps?  I contacted Bob Porter of Great Oaks who questioned the same thing and will be making a visit to the site on Monday to confirm correct installation.  There's no reason to waste material under the steps, and I don't think the integrity of the steps will be as sound if they're not installed directly on the concrete pad.  I never got to look at the pouring of this pad, so I don't even know if the proper depth footing was poured, let alone tying it into the existing structure as indicated by the plans.  Hopefully Bob can sort this all out since we're already on a tight schedule.

   Here's another angle of the back step landing.  The plans have the landing 6 feet from the porch and two steps to be constructed at a height of 6 inches per step.  The original survey has the porch to landing drop of about a foot and a half, but this currently looks more like 2 feet, which is problematic.  If we have to add more steps, then that will push out the distance of the steps on the landing, which should have four feet from the edge of the steps to the grass.  I haven't taken a tape measure to the height because I've been trusting that Great Oaks will implement it properly, but maybe I should intervene more since mistakes are being made.  The width of the slab looks correct if you figure that each of those stones is about a foot wide.  Hopefully we'll be able to get two steps in there or we'll be looking at requiring a railing for inspection.


   Here's progress on the gazebo blue stone, as installed by OCS.  Most of the stone near the kitchen walk out is in place and mortared with only cut pieces needed near the barbecue.  They could install quickly against the house since the cobble stone was spaced off the concrete an appropriate amount for the blue stone installation.  Most of the rest of the gazebo is already laid out, recognizable by the change in height of the stone.  The installed portion extends in front of the seating towards the fireplace.


   Here's what the main space of the gazebo looks like with the installed part on the left and the laid out, but not mortared part on the right.  There's still a good amount of work to do for the general installation and there's a bit of an art to fitting these pieces.  The stone is natural and while it comes cut in exact dimensions, there's no preplanned pattern so pieces need to be laid out and checked for aesthetics.  There's a slight blue and brown variation in the stones which ties in the colors found in the round cobbles on the wall.  The border stone runs a much more uniform blue/gray color and is already installed on the entire perimeter of the porch.

   Here's the side of the porch near the mudroom door.  There are some complications on this side because the concrete wasn't poured as level as the rest of the porch.  Mike said there's a height increase as you move towards the mudroom door of about a half inch, so they're trying to make up the height difference using thinner stones or less mud.  I think that as long as it doesn't exceed the threshold of the door, a half inch drop from the door will be okay and help shed water.  There's enough variation in the stone itself to visually absorb that difference.  You can see the installed border stone, which is good so the step installers have a final height to calculate to.

   The seats are a single piece of blue stone from front to back and have a smoother finish than the floor stone.  They're also uniform in color with this blue/gray.  All the seats have been installed and we're thrilled with the results. The surface is smoother than the floor stone and having such large pieces makes it look much more like a bench than a low wall.  Although the railing will block 1/3 of the seat, there's still enough room for sitting and maybe lying down on your side.  It would have been nice if we had the full width of the seat but the railing is necessary for safety.

   There's a surprising amount of height added with the installation of the blue stone.  Not only is there about an inch and a half of stone thickness, but it looks like there's also another inch and a half of mortar so we're gaining almost three inches of height on the floor.  This thickness of mortar is necessary for a couple of reasons.  The stone itself has varying thickness from piece to piece so the mortar absorbs that difference so the surface remains flat.  Also, the entire gazebo floor isn't perfectly level.  Rather than leveling the concrete, it's easier to add thickness to the mortar so the entire floor remains level.  The installed pieces feel super solid and this floor will last as long as the house itself, probably forever.

   The Sound Vision completed a stage of work last week, capping off wires and securing cable bundles on the interior.  They terminated most of the exterior wires with RJ-45 connectors to connect to cameras and wireless access points.  We're just waiting on an already submitted bank draw so they can purchase the rest of the equipment for installation.

   Moving inside, Nick and his painters have finished with all the trim and begun cutting in on the walls with the final wall color.  In the study, they reinstalled the built in cabinet doors and taped off the painted moldings in prep for wall painting.  There isn't any color on the walls in this room, but it's present in lots of other places in the house.  Nothing full wall yet, but they'll probably get to that this week.

   The wood floor installers have been through the house prepping for their installation.  Of course, the concrete isn't level everywhere so they had to make some corrections, applying a leveling compound to low spots.  I didn't see evidence of any grinding so at least we don't have any high spots.  Leveling compound was found in almost every room of the house, so there was a good amount of correction performed.

   I'm not sure what's under the tape, but I'm pretty sure it's related to the floor leveling.  It seems like a spacer or reference point for the leveling of the floor.  I found two of these on the first floor and none on the second floor, but I'm not sure if they got to leveling the second floor.  There was one in the study and one in the kitchen area.  They might have a device that sits on this reference point and a remote unit they take around the house that references off this point to determine where the floor is off.

   Another small change is that all the wood covering the HVAC ducts on the first floor have been removed in prep for the wood floor install.  This is the first time we've seen the ducts since Mike came on the project so it's a good indication of how far we've come.  Once we start to see the wood floor, we'll know we're really in the final stretch because Mike is super protective about those and won't install them until he knows the majority of the work is completed.

   I think the front niche in the foyer has some of the most complete wall paint applied, even though it's just cut in around the molding.  The color is a Sherwin-Williams color called Passive Gray in a flat finish.  The same color will be applied in the foyer, great room, kitchen, and second floor rotunda.  It's a bit darker than I remember, but I think it will really make all the white molding pop.

   Here's the other niche in the foyer showing the Mindful Gray and the cut in.  All the moldings are taped off to make painting quicker but the ceiling is just cut in by hand, which is the correct way to do it.  If you try to tape off the ceiling, you'll definitely get a straight line, but it's difficult to line up the tape with the actual corner, so it's easier to see where the color deviates from the corner.  I think the ceiling is already painted in the final Snowbound White but my eyes can't tell the difference between the primer white and the Snowbound.  I haven't seen paint cans labeled with the Snowbound but I usually paint the ceiling first.  Pros probably have a better way to do it so we'll find out how far along we are.

   The Mindful Gray was also cut in, in the basement stairwell, which isn't on the paint worksheet, but I think this is an obvious choice.  Paint will really darken up the house and natural light has always been my concern in the rotunda area, so I'm hoping it won't be too dark.  I think the only deficiency in our house plan is that the rotunda will tend to be darker since it's in the middle of the house without windows of it's own.  House designers usually try to make a house two rooms deep so every room has access to natural light.  The rotunda is relying on light from the foyer and the greatroom, so we'll probably have the lights on more in this room, which is fine since we have an awesome chandelier hanging in the rotunda.

   The final paint color is being applied to the coffers in the greatroom ceiling.  The satin Snowbound white has been applied to the coffer beams so the coffers get their flat Nebulous White color which is a touch grayer than the Snowbound.  The coffers closer to the fireplace appear darker than those near the window and I'm not sure if it's because of the light or if window coffers haven't been painted yet.  The scaffold is still set up, so they're still at work, and it looked like there were missed spots in the windows coffers so I think they still have a coat or two to put on.  Although both are labeled white, there's a subtle difference between the colors.  You can see the difference, but it almost makes you wonder if you're seeing shadows or if it's painted differently.

   The rear left and right speakers were also installed in the great room but the rest of the greatroom system has yet to be installed.  There's a bit of dust on the cones, but the taping seems adequate to protect the speaker elements.  There will be color matched grills applied to hide the speaker itself so it shouldn't stand out too much in the end.  Once more of the system in installed, I'll provide more details on the hardware.

   This is the paint that's being used for our interior walls.  From what I've read online, it's a good budget paint that used by many professional painters for it's coverage and price point, so I'm okay with it.  I'm not sure if a more expensive paint works better, or what a better or more expensive paint can provide that this can't so as long as the final appearance is good, I'm happy.  I think prices on this paint range between 14 and 22 dollars per gallon for contractor pricing which puts it in the middle range of cost.  I've seen varying opinions on the quality online ranging from "apartment paint" to "contractor grade", so it's definitely the highest quality paint.  We'll see how it does on durability and longevity.

   Porter and Heckman has installed all the vent covers on the second floor so I think their installation is complete.  I believe the floor installers are supplying the first floor vents since they're flush mounted in to the wood floor.  Since all the second floor vents are in the ceiling, there's no reason to wait to install the vents covers up there.  They're all painted the standard white now, so I'm not sure if they're color matched to the ceiling, but in the turret room, they're not.  We're still trying to decide if we want them color matched or just keep them white.

   The masking was removed from the master bathroom so we can finally get a look at what the floor looks like with the grout installed.  It feels great underfoot and the white grout disappears into the tile.  Tanja is still bothered by the repeated tile pattern in the middle of the floor, and it bugs me a little but I think we're going to have to live with it.  I'm not sure why they didn't spot it before, and while we could request to to be replaced, it might be more trouble than it's worth.  I can't wait to feel the in-floor heating.

   The ceiling in the turret room was painted but I don't have the name of the color right now.  It's some shade of purple and the walls will be a shade of pink, not what you see near the door.  Both colors are subtle but obvious if that's possible.  You can just make out the return vent in the ceiling, painted white so it doesn't match.  We'll ask Margaret's opinion on if we should keep it that way or get it painted to match.

   The tile installers finally installed the shower niche in the turret bathroom and grouted most of the shower/tub walls.  There's still some grouting needed in the niche, but that shouldn't take too long.  The shelf material matches the counter top.  I think the tile seam is in the middle of the niche, but it looks off center because of the shadow.  This and the master bathroom are the only two bathrooms with built-in niches, the rest using built-in corner shelves.  The counter top material is man-made and should provide an easy, non-porous surface which is important in a wet location.

   A little more progress in the basement with the final plumbing connections.  A small blue pressure tank was added to the water system so it maintains pressure.  It's connected to the water input line to the desuperheater.  When it's pressurized with air, the internal air bladder will compress when the incoming water pressure is high and expand when it's low so the house water pressure will remain constant.  It looks like all the pipes are attached between the two heaters now so it's much easier to see how the water will flow.  You can trace the cold water pipe into the desuperheater, which outputs directly into the primary water heater.  The output of the primary water heater runs to the rest of the house.  The other copper pipe is for the hot water circulation loop, which feeds the water back into the hot water tank, bypassing the desuperheater.  There are shutoff valves everywhere so the labor to swap equipment is reduced when the time comes.

   The primary cold water line is running down to the incoming water main, but it's not yet connected.  There's a hose attached to the temporary spigot that runs outside, but I'm not sure what it's there for.  This last connection is all that's needed before we have water running in the house but I don't know if they wait to install it until after all the finished plumbing is in place or if they prefer to have water running in the house to test the faucets as they go in.  In any case, water is on the cusp of being finished.

   Another piece of the puzzle that fell into place this week is the installation of our hot water circulation pump.  I was under the impression that the hot water circulation pump would be something that you switch on so you can cycle the water on demand, but this is the pump that was installed, and it's pretty fancy.  Rather than flipping a switch in the bathroom or setting a timer at the pump, this unit has a temperature sensor that's placed on the hot water supply pipe leading to the rest of the house.  It measures the drop in temperature when hot water is being used and automatically records the time, learning when the peak hot water usage times are and creating a circulation program based on that information.  I'll have to read the manual more to determine if it's possible to turn it on, on demand for those odd times someone needs quick hot water out of the normal schedule, but this should conserve water for us 90% of the time.
 
   That's about it for this week.  We have a meeting later in the week for a walk-through with Margaret to determine towel bar placement around the house.  I'm expecting painting to wrap up this week so we might see some wood floor soon.  Progress should continue on the gazebo and steps.  Mike said final electrical is scheduled for the 17th and Great Oaks is starting prep on the driveway, so we need the Sound Vision to coordinate with both of them for their final installations.  First week down in our last month with three weeks to go!  It seems like it will be a tight finish.