Little Progress This Week

   We got to visit the house on another blue sky winter day while the flooring installers were working on the second floor.  Despite the clear skies the abundant sun does little to warm anything with temperatures in the single digits.  Night time temperatures are dipping into the negative territories, so this month will be a good test to see how energy efficient the house really is.   Not much work was completed this week, which is a little expected, but also a little confusing.  I saw trucks there every day this week, but can't figure out what was accomplished.  There was a little progress in the kitchen, but not as much as I expected.  Floors on the second floor progressed a little, but not as I would have thought possible after a few days of work.  None of the tile back splashes installed in previous weeks were grouted.  It's like we're reaching the limit of completeness, but will never reach it.  Hopefully thinks will pick up soon and we can really think about moving.

   The cold temperatures and nearly weekly snowfalls keep the snow packed hard on the driveway with no hope of thawing out.  I'm resigned to having a snow driveway this winter unless we get a little warm up because I don't think even a snow plow will be able to break through the hard pack ice and snow now.  Maybe if I can get some salt down, we could clear it a bit.  It's not slippery, but  would prefer if it wasn't there.  Two of the flooring installers were at the house when we arrived so at least there's evidence of effort, even if it is slower than I Would want.

   Behind the scenes, work is building up for the electricians.  There are a few other tasks for the electricians to complete but we were waiting on the hardware for the Coppersmith light that will be installed in the barrel vault at the front door.  The replacement for the broken sconce glass was also delivered so I think the electricians will be called back to complete the rest of these installations.  They still need to perform the final hookup of the Tesla charger in the garage and install a NEMA 14-50 plug.  IT seems like they don't like to come to the site unless there's a lot of work, so there should be enough for them to do now.

   Painters tape dot the walls as evidence that we're in the final stretch of building.  Either Mike, the painters, or both parties are placing small pieces of tape on every little blemish to they can be corrected.  Paint drips, dents in the walls and woodworking, missing paint, and cracks that need caulk top the list of things that need to be corrected.  I think this step will come before the final finishing of the floors, then we'll be all done.  We also brought our own roll of tape because Tanja is very particular about how things work and finds many more mistakes than I do.  It will take a few trips to mark everything, but it's an important step in the finishing process.  It's much better to get all the mistakes corrected at once when the painter is on site than to repair things we find later piece meal.

   The chimney on the hood was installed this week, covering the huge, unsightly pipe and all the wires connecting the remote blower to the hood controls.  Although it's not our first, or second, pick for a hood, I think it looks good enough for now and functions well.  The hood chimney had to be wide because the exhaust pipe was large and off centered.  This off centering made the wide pipe necessary and excluded many selections for our hood.  I think if we one day have enough money, we'll purchase our original choice vent-a-hood, and sell this one.

   The cabinet panel was installed on the front of the dishwasher, but the machine itself isn't permanently set into the space and can shift around.  This is probably done so we can get perfect alignment on the surrounding cabinet panels.  I think there's also supposed to be some hardware installed on the front of the panel so it matches the rest of the hardware, but it has yet to be installed.  The panel should be pretty easily removable so the hardware installation shouldn't be difficult.

   The packing material is starting to disappear from the cabinet installation.  This is the first time we're seeing the vertical pull out to the right of the dishwasher.  Since the dishwasher is in the space to the right of the kitchen sink, this places this vertical pull out just one cabinet away from the kitchen sink.  This pull out has one round storage area for spatulas and other tall cooking tools, and two black areas for knives.  There's also a shelf below, but most of the space is occupied by the knife block, so I'm not sure what we'll put there.  I wasn't sure what kind of knife arrangement would be in these things, but I'm pleasantly surprised by what's there.

    The "block" is actually filled with thick plastic bristles, for lack of a better description.  That allows you to put the knife in anywhere you want in the block.  They're packed tightly enough so the knives stay upright and since they're plastic, won't dull or damage the blade in any way.  The actual knife organization is up to you since the knives can go anywhere, but having two blocks will help keep the smaller knives away from the larger ones.

   The panel for the refrigerator was picked up from the store.  If you'll recall, the appliance company didn't deliver the panel when they made the initial delivery.  After some calls and searching, they found it at the warehouse and delivered it to the store for Mike's guys to pick up.  Now that it's in the house, it can be installed on the fridge and we can complete the appliance install.  I have a little concern about the suction power of the hood.  It doesn't feel as strong as I thought it would.  Although I can feel some cool air coming in at the baseboard from the make up air, the relay to open the baffle isn't installed yet, so the pipe isn't wide open.  Porter and Heckman say that the house is so tight, that turning on the hood vent fan will create a vacuum, which is why we're not getting full suction.  I'll test out that theory next time I'm out there by opening the door and turning on the fan.  They might  have the relay installed by then too, so I can test it out that way.

   Progress on the wood floor on the second floor has been slow.  I thought I saw them come a few times this week, but the only progress is to finish the rest of the rotunda walkway.  This section probably takes a bit more time to complete since they need to not only fit the double curve of the wall and railing, but fit the railing perfectly since there's no shoe molding to cover gaps.  Even still, I would have expected much more progress.  Mike said that he tries to push them, but it's a delicate balance right now.  There's more work than workers out there so they all have the option to take other jobs if they don't like the job they're on.  Crappy work ethic, but unfortunately true.  Also, they miscalculated and we needed to order more floor.  That came in, but it we need to order another 200 square feet since some of the delivered material is from a different dye lot.

   Here's a look towards the turret bedroom of the wood floor progress.  They pretty much terminated the hallway runs into the room, right at the threshold, but the courses will run into the room continuously.  It would have been a nice touch if they could have gotten a longer piece from the rotunda into the bedroom, but this is good enough.  As long as there's not a clean break at the door threshold, the floor should look continuous.

   Here's the transition of the wood floor in the rotunda to the laundry room.  No elevation change and no threshold.  This is what we wanted for the whole house and achieved it everywhere but the master bathroom.  This is covered perfectly with a closed door and there's no real crack between the two materials to speak of so it should be easy to clean.

   I found these two light fixtures in the garage, waiting to be installed.  The small dome light on the left is going to be mounted on the garage ceiling above the rear garage door.  There wasn't enough space between the garage door and ceiling to mount the LED shop lights so this will go in its place.  Even without it, there's enough light, but this will get rid of the minor dark spot a missing light will cause.  The one of the right is for the side of the garage and will illuminate the walk around porch when it's installed. 

   That's about it for this week.  I'm hoping next week will bring better progress, but there aren't many tasks left to complete.  We should be getting final electrical inspection this week with final HVAC to soon follow.  Hopefully the tile and flooring installations will progress so we can get done with the final touch ups and get the floor cleaned and waxed.  This feels like it's going to stretch to the end of January now so I'm hoping for a late February move.  The weather is forecast to be in the 50's this week so maybe we'll get some of the snow to melt off the driveway so I can clear it. 

Wood Floor Progress

    As I previously suspected, the progress updates from here on out probably won't be as spectacular, but they're still progress towards the finish.  It could also be due to the fact that we visited the site just a few days after the last visit earlier in the week and also that we're in the odd week between Christmas and New Years.  Despite the short work week, we're still seeing progress in the installation of the wood floors and finishing hardware installation.  We took the girls to the house this visit to get in some good snow play time and mock-live in the house.  Mike stopped by, on his birthday no less, to check up on the progress on the house and provide a timetable update.  All the work from here on out is pretty straight forward.  Electricians will be coming back this week to finish everything up and schedule the final electrical inspection.  HVAC and plumbing final inspection will be scheduled soon since all those installations are complete.  The shoe molding on the first floor is almost complete and will be installed on the second floor once the wood floor is completed.  Some hardware and tile is still expected to be delivered in the new year, which will need to be installed before the final wax/oil coat is applied to the floors.  Somewhere before that, we'll need to tag all the paint and wall touch ups.  It seems like the final touches will take a couple of weeks alone but we're almost there.

   There has been some discussion about how we should handle the transition between the foyer tile entry and the wood rotunda.  Mike and Margaret are pushing for the transition to be straight.  It makes a little sense since the transition between the study, dining room, and foyer are also straight.  Wood floor has been installed up to the straight edge transition.  The only issue I have with this is that the two wall corner points aren't the same distance to the front of the house.  This will be adjusted by starting the tile install at the rotunda and making up the difference at the door.  The other option is to make the transition between the two curved, following the radius of the rotunda.  I'm not sure if this would equalize the tile issue, but we kind of like this idea because it preserves the unique roundness of the rotunda.  The foyer tile is expected to be delivered the first week of January, which works in well with the timing of the final inspections.

   Distinctive Designs has set up in the study as a cutting station for the installation of the shoe molding.  They were set up near the great room, but it's probably easier to keep the dust to one room.  They placed a protective pad under the saw horses to protect the floor.  A piece is being wedged between the two air returns to impart the curve necessary for the rotunda pieces.  Looking around the house, I think the rotunda is the last part of the first floor to be completed.

   Most of the rotunda shoe molding is already in place with just the largest piece needing installation.  The shoe molding seems to be going on pretty quickly with the painting being done in the basement.  The final touch up painting will be performed by different painting crew that performed the initial painting.  I'm not sure if the the first painters were booked or if Mike likes someone else for the finishing work.

   We're still waiting for the front panels to be installed on the fridge, freezer, and dishwasher, but there still a little more progress in the kitchen since the last update.  The chimney for the hood will be installed this week, but most of the hardware on the cabinets is in place.  It's the same hardware as used in the butlers pantry, with knobs on the doors and handles on the drawers.  They offer great utility without distracting too much from the rest of the kitchen.

   There are a few different size handles installed, depending on the size of the drawer it's installed on.  We did chose to use two handles on the corner drawers because there's no real way to install only one.  The garbage pull out on the right of the picture has a knob on it which is consistent with the knobs on the other door panels, but is mounted in the center top.

   The knobs on all the cabinet doors have been installed, but I don't think the final adjustments have been performed.  I didn't go through and open/close every door yet but there are some that are a bit too tight for good functionality.  We only installed one knob on the corner cabinet hinged door to avoid confusion about which knob to grab.  We got quotes on the glass for the cabinet inserts, so we'll need to finalize those details and order them as soon as possible.

   The installation of the wood floor has moved into the rotunda on the second floor now with the master bedroom, rotunda landing, and second bedroom being completed.  They almost got up to the elevator rough and should be able to complete this pretty quickly.  Accuracy is needed on the railing side since there's no shoe molding to hide gaps.  The transition from the floor to the top of the stair landing is perfectly flush and once stained, should be indistinguishable from each other.

   Here's a closer look at how the wood floor meets up to the inner rotunda railing.  I think the wood floor will get a bit darker when the final oil and wax finish is applied as the color is very closely matched elsewhere.  These boards also might be a little lighter in color than the other pieces.  Dust quickly accumulates even on these new pieces so a through cleaning will be needed before the final application.

   The closet has been finished in the second bedroom since the last update.  I'm tempted to bring a cordless vacuum and start cleaning up the dust in some of these rooms, but it will probably just get dirty again.  I'm interested in how they'll clean the floors before waxing them.  There's a special soap for washing the wood floors every time you want to rewax so maybe they'll just use that product.  Maybe I can be on site when they perform the work so I can do it myself in the future.

   The flooring installers have completed the wood floor in the master bedroom.  There's still a transition piece that will need to be installed and stained between the wood floor and the master bathroom tile.  As expected, the installation in here was pretty quick after they established the common center line with the rest of the house.  The short curved wall to the right of the door probably took the longest for the installers to work through, but once that was established, the rest is a standard installation.

   Here's the bed area of the master bedroom with the completed wood floors.  There's a small stack of wood flooring being stored in here for the rest of the installation, but the installers are using the turret bedroom as the workstation from now on since it's the only place left in the house without installed wood floors.  Since the installation is newer in here, there are fewer footprints and less dust, so the color is very close to what the final color will be.  The wax/oil finish will keep the matte appearance and will have to be maintained periodically.

   Here's an angle of the master bedroom from the bed area looking towards the balcony door and rotunda door.  We're still working out the details of the TV installation and will probably just use the 37" we currently have in our master bedroom for this space.  We'll be bringing our bed to the new house but currently have a dresser with a media hutch on top we'll have to see if we can reuse.  It's holding clothes, which should all be able to go in the master closet, so the extra storage won't be necessary.  There should be enough space to put it on the dividing wall if we want.  Our nightstands will also be making the trip to the new house and will flank the bed, placed under each of the side windows.

   Hardware installation has begun in the master bathroom.  The large 10' handle have been installed on the larger drawers and tower cabinet doors, but we're still waiting for the 8" handles to be delivered.  We're probably going to get two more 10" handles to install on the dummy drawer fronts under the sink, but because of the way the drawers were installed, it will be difficult.  Those drawers were initially fully functioning drawers until we decided that we wanted an under mount sink.  Rather than removing the front from the drawer, the drawer itself was cut to fit the sink, then made immobile.  Now there's not enough room to install the handle screws so something else will need to be done.

   Here's a closer look at the handles installed in the horizontal orientation on the drawers.  The drawers under the sink are "U" shaped to accommodate the sink drain plumbing the drawers on either side are full length.  The handles are deep enough to drape a wash cloth on if we wanted to, but we have hooks on the wall for stuff like that.  There's definitely more storage than we currently use so it will be interesting to see how these get filled as we live in the house.

   Here's a close up of the same handles in the vertical orientation.  It's nice that they can be oriented in both directions so we didn't have to pick out different hardware for the tower cabinet doors.  We'll have to be a little careful about opening these doors since they're close to the wall and towel hooks, but it's not like we'll be throwing these doors open with wild abandon.

   The door handle was installed in the master closet storage door as well.  I think all the interior doors have door handles installed now, but the handle on the garage entry door is missing the deadbolt.  We'll need to pick out door stops for nearly all the doors around the house and we're not sure if we'll use a floor stop, a springy thing, or a solid thing. 
   That's about it for this week.  We should be seeing more wood floor installation next week as well as grouting of all the tile backsplashes.  We're still waiting for delivery on the turret bathroom backsplash tile as well as the foyer tile, which should be coming soon.  The fridge and freezer panels should be installed soon as well as the dishwasher panel.  Not much else left to complete now.

Appliances Installed. Tile nearing completion. Wood Floors Moving Forward

   We're in single digit temperatures this week with a surprise Christmas snow dumping of 6 inches. While it's not as much as other places around the country, it's enough to appreciate the installers drudging through the un-cleared driveway to push for the final installations.  This week saw progress with the tile installations, wood floors, and lighting/Control 4 installations.  All the rooms are now individually controllable by the light switches, but it will still take a final tweaking to get everything fully functioning.  All the final plumbing is now installed and functioning, but we're swapping out the shower heads in the second floor shower.  They just don't spray as well as we wanted and seem to be more of a rain shower than sprayer.  There aren't a lot of tasks left, but there's a good amount of man-hours ahead of us before we can call it our own.

   I lugged my little single stage snow blower out to the house this visit to try to remove as much snow as I could.  Mike is trying to find a local to clear the snow from the driveway, which is good since there's some compacted snow and ice I can't chew through with my blower.  I did clear the snow from the motor coach.  It didn't take a ton of time and it was fun blowing the snow off the wall into the woods.  I'll probably need a better solution when we move in, so I see a large two stage in my future.  Distinctive designs was on site installing shoe molding on the first floor and the wood floor installers were working on the second floor.

   The holes left by relocated sconces were patched and painted so it's like they were always in the right place.  Unfortunately, one of the painters broke the glass shades, so we had to order another one before these can finally be installed.  One step forwards, half step back.

   The electricians and The Sound Vision coordinated to get nearly all the lights functioning and programmed.  The individual switches for each room control the rooms lights, dimming them on and off.  The dimming can be interrupted with a second button press so we have lighting control from the plates.  All the other buttons on the plates aren't programmed yet and will be functional after we decide what we want to do with them.  They can be used to control other lights in the house, set lighting scenes, or control music volume.

   Winter is here, or at least it's now lit.  Lighting was finally connected to the dining room so the recessed and Hubbardton Forge Winter is now functioning.  The frame of the light illuminates with LEDs to make the geometric shapes look like they're falling out of some kind of dimensional portal.  The light hangs at about eye level and even while sitting, the lights don't glare too much in your eyes.  The light is mostly for ambiance lighting, but it does shine down to where the future table will be.

   Here's a close up of the geometric shapes.  They have a sand blasted finish, so they don't reflect much light, but surface does illuminate a bit against the LED lights.  We didn't get to see what this looks like without any natural light in the room, so we don't know how much it illuminates the room on its own.  I don't expect much light from it, but it will make a good mood light.

   The Comet 21 installation was also completed this week with the hanging of the metal/crystal leaves.  All the LED lights were installed and all but one of the LEDs were functioning.  I'm not sure if it wasn't installed properly or if the bulb itself was faulty.  We're really happy with how the light looks and it's installed at the perfect height.  From the entry way, we can still see the second floor fireplace and the bottom of the light.

   We had the light hang within the boundaries of the rotunda railing and second floor.  I was a little concerned with the width of the light and how much of the rotunda space it would fill, but there's still plenty of air space around the light fixture so it doesn't feel closed off.  The Comet 21 is the perfect light for the space.  When we first saw it, I pointed it out on a lark since it seemed so outrageous and over the top, but I'm glad we selected it.

   You get a better view of the light as you climb the stairs, getting to eye level about halfway up the stairs.  You can still see the skeleton a bit, but the leaves mask the shape a bit.  It's kind roughly diamond shaped. and provides a good amount of light.  We illuminated it alone right before we left.  It provides enough light to see where you're going, but isn't excessively bright.  The leaves cast reflections and diffraction around the rotunda which was an unexpected effect.

  A last look from below.  I'm not sure if you can spot the light that is out but it's in there somewhere.  There are a few leaves that stick out more than others and Tanja will want them normalized, but I like the slightly unorganized look.  I didn't center myself but the light is centered in the tin ceiling.

   The hood, fridge/freezer, and dishwasher was installed this week.  The remaining tile above the hood was installed, so the lower hood could be installed, but we're still waiting for the chimney to be installed to hide the vent pipe.  The halogen lights in the hood are functioning as well as the blower.  I turned both on.  The blower didn't seem excessively loud and it didn't seem overpowering, for all the effort we went through with the make up air.  The built in lights are bright but I might swap them out with LEDs some day.  We discovered that the fridge panel wasn't delivered with the initial shipment so we need to swing by the store to pick it up before we can finalize the fridge and freezer.  The cabinet panel supplied by Omega isn't fitting the Miele dishwasher well so Mike contacted Cobblestone Cabinets for a solution.  The mounting points on the Miele didn't line up well with the wood of the cabinet face so it wouldn't attach well.

   Both of the island pendants were brought to the final height.  I might switch out these LED bulbs with something a bit brighter, but the lights are otherwise functioning well.  We're having some issue with the loss of adhesion on the crystal strips that line the inside of the sphere.  I don't know if it's a fault of the fixture itself or if there was some issue with the installation.   Every time we visit the house, we need to press the adhesive strip back into place.  We could probably add a bit of glue to fix the problem, but we'll only do that after we've exhausted all our other options.

   The faucet was replaced since the previously installed one had a slight tilt to it.  We were skeptical that replacing the faucet would fix the tilt, but it appears to have been corrected.  The faucet was also hooked up to water and power.  It uses power since it has touch control capabilities.  You turn the faucet on to the volume and temperature you want then touch anywhere on the fixture to turn it on and off.  There's a small LED at the base of the fixture that turns on when they touch function is operational and the water is running.  It changes from blue to purple to red depending on the temperature of the water.  It works really well and should be helpful on a daily basis.  The faucet has a pull down hose and sprayer that covers the entire sink.  I didn't take a picture of the drain, but it's a little different that what I was expecting.  You can see the strainer/stopper in the picture.  The drain and garbage disposal doesn't have the normal rubber baffle installed, although it came with the garbage disposal.  I think you're supposed to used the strainer/stopper during normal sink operation and lift it out when you want to put larger items down the disposal.  As far as I can tell it's not a batch disposal so I'm not sure why it's installed this way.

  Here's a look at the fridge and freezer installed.  As mentioned, we still need to install the stainless steel panels.  Other options were to have cabinet panels made to cover the front exterior, but we like the look of the stainless steel panels more.   The freezer on the left is a 24" unit and the fridge on the right is a 32" unit.  They each have their own compressor and water filter.

   Here they are opened up.  The door hinges allow for about 95 degree opening.  They don't slow close, but they air sealing doesn't really allow for the doors to slam shut either.  The upper door shelves on the fridge and all the door shelves in the freezer are adjustable.  The door shelves aren't deep enough to fit a gallon of milk, but they can fit a half gallon.  The lower door shelves on the fridge door aren't moveable and only really fit a can or condiment bottles.  They're not full depth units and are fairly shallow compared to even other counter depth units.  I'm not sure what's in the back that takes up so much space, but the full columns should make up for the lack of depth.  There's a handy pull out card that shows which foods to place in which drawers.  There's supposed to be an air filtering system that removes the ethylene gas produced by ripening foods so that the other foods will last longer.  The shelves are adjustable but don't have a fancy adjustment system found on other fridges.  We do have refrigerated water but the dispenser is inside the fridge unit on the inside left.  There's also an ice maker and storage bin in the freezer.  The energy start sticker in the units adds up to just over $100 of annual operating cost, so they're definitely efficient.  It seems like Subzero eschews fancy features in place for reliability.  I hope their philosophy holds true.

   The Miele dishwasher was installed and powered on, but waiting for the front panel to be installed.  All the control are on the top edge of the door so there's nothing visible from the exterior.  I did play around with a neat feature on this model, knock to open.  While we'll have hardware on the cabinet face, you can knock on the front of this unit and an arm will push open the door for you to further open.  This arm also pops open the door after a wash cycle to vent the steam and facilitate in drying.  The door is a little stiff and the springs will need to be adjusted.

   There are three levels of racks in this dishwasher.  The top rack is used for flat cutlery washing.  The center of the top rack can be lowered a bit to accommodate larger knives and cooking implements.  This rack removes the need for a cutlery basket, allowing for more space for dishes and glasses.  The second level is slightly height adjustable and should be used for medium sized plates and cups.  The lower rack is sized for large plates and pots.  Multiple internal LED lights slowly illuminate as you open the door providing good light to the interior.  We didn't run it yet, so I'm not sure what the noise level is like, but I'm expecting it to be as quiet as our current Bosch.

   A box of cabinet hardware is waiting on the kitchen island, waiting to be installed.  These will probably go on this week as the hardware in the rest of the house is already installed.  We're just waiting for the kitchen, master bathroom, and guest room for final hardware installation.

   The remaining tile was installed at the top of the hood location and the lower part of the hood itself was installed.  We still need to install the chimney section of the hood before we can call it complete, but it's a big step to have all the backsplash tile installed and mortared.  The cooktop still doesn't turn on yet but since there's no gas smell nor any lighter clicking, I think both need to be turned on before it's operational. 

The pot filler was also installed but I didn't have the guts to try it out since I didn't have anything to catch the water in.  I think the pot filler will occasionally be nice to have around for when we sous vide or cook a big pot of corn, but don't see using it for normal pot filling.

   Here's a shot of something I didn't get last time.  The kitchen backsplash tile doesn't have anything to terminate against on this side of the kitchen so a pencil tile was needed as a termination.  We couldn't go straight down from the edge of the cabinet because it would have placed the tile through the switch.  Luckily we had the option to install the pencil molding tile at the edge of the counter top, which should provide enough space for the switch plate.

   The backsplash tile in the mudroom bathroom has been installed but still needs grout.  The tile is a clear glass mosaic topped by a thin clear glass tile.  It matches the colors of the rest of the mudroom and provides a clean appearance.  We're also replacing the faucet in this room.  We love the faucet itself, but when combined with this sink, a longer neck is needed since the distance from the mounting hole to the sink is more than that of the other rooms.  This faucet would need a longer neck or stronger spray, but it has a standard neck and laminar spray pattern.  The water falls too close to the back of the sink, so we're replacing it with something that has a longer neck.

   Lights have been installed in the garage.  The garage doors came with lights that can be tied to the operation of the doors, but we opted for these LED worklights.  They provide a ton of light for the entire garage and will do well to serve us, even in the cold.  Normal fluorescent tubes have trouble lighting in the cold, but since these are basically strip LEDs in a tube form factor, we don't really have to worry about temperature.  Since these are in the garage, we had the code requirement for no ceiling penetrations, which lead to surface mount only.  Recent advances in LED technologies make these a great alternative to the old shop lights.

   A little progress on the installation of the Tesla Wall Charger, but it's not hooked up yet.  The electrician needs to get a security torx bit to open the unit to hook up all the wires.  There's also a breaker box around the corner but no NEMA 14-50 installed yet.  After these are installed, we can call DTE to install the EV charging meter.

   The correct parts for the Hubbardton Forge Theta were finally delivered and installed so the light could be lowered to it's proper location.  They sent us some extension parts, but in the wrong color so we needed to return them and wait for the correct parts to come in.  After we finally got them, the electricians got to work installing the pieces.  The Theta sits about level with the Comet 21, sitting in between the railing and the floor.  It's still high enough to not impinge upon where the TV will be mounted so everything will be lined up perfectly.

   The recessed sconce that wasn't working last time is now functional so all the lights in the greatroom are now hooked up and working.  We didn't stick around until dark to see how well everything is illuminated, so we've done it in the past.  The overhead lights provide a good amount of light and we plan on having table lamps for more directed lights near seating areas.

   The shoe molding is going in quickly, already finished in the great room.  The nail holes will need to be filled and maybe some touch up paint applied.  The pieces are being painted in the basement and have been prepped for the past week.  There are still a good number of pieces left in the basement, ready to be installed on the second floor when all the wood floor is finally installed up there.

   All the floor has been installed in the second bedroom upstairs and the installers were finishing off the closet.  This is the first room on the second floor to have completed wood floors, with the master bedroom probably being second.  From there, they'll move onto the rotunda and finally the turret bedroom.

   The backsplash tile in the second bedroom is also installed.  It's similar to the mudroom bathroom tiles, but they're not transparent glass and the molding tile is black instead of clear.  Like the other rooms, it still needs to be grouted, but after that, this bathroom will be completed.

   The hardware for the second bedroom bathroom was delivered and installed before we could even see them off the doors.  We only needed three knobs in this room since there was only two drawers and one door.

   They're a stainless steel metal with a silver carbon fiber inlay.  We planned a little more of a masculine look for this bathroom as opposed to the more feminine appearance of the turret bedroom.  If plans work out for us, we'll have an occupant for this room that will fit the appearance.

   The metal backsplash tile in the laundry room that was installed last week has now been mortared.  Once we get the machines set, this room will be completed.  This room was the first to have the floor installed and will probably be the first completed.  We're planning on installing a craft table in here, so in a sense, it won't be completed for move in, but it will be the first finalized within the scope of the build.

   The grout is a gray color that compliments the steel tile well.  All the grout is a sanded grout, which adds strength and durability to the compound.  I guess there's not much to say about this besides that I like how this turned out.  This tile selection was always a favorites of Tanja's and it's nice that we got to incorporate it into the house.

   The panel to the upstairs Control4 switches was attached so they must be done with the physical installation of the system.  There's still a little more programming needed to get all the lighting circuits on line, but most of the house if functional.  After we move in, I might paint this panel white to match the walls, so it's not so obvious.  There's also one space that's not occupied by a controller, so I'm hoping there's a blank we can insert into the panel.  I'm planning on installing some rigid hanging bars in front of this for drying clothes.  As long as the clothes aren't dripping wet, I'm not worried about water infiltration.

   Here's the progress on the wood floor in the master bedroom.  They took the section that came from outside the room and expanded it to go around the dividing wall, then filled in the portion on the bed side of the wall, seen here.  You can see the light brown glue they trowel onto the floor before setting each piece of flooring.  They'll work towards the wall in both directions until this room is completed.

   The in-wall faucets were installed in the master bathroom and are fully functional.  All we need for this room is the hardware and medicine cabinets.  The under cabinet light is still having some issues that The Sound Vision needs to work out so their operation is a little spotty right now.  I haven't seen or felt the in floor heating yet and the panel that controls them, located in the water closet, doesn't seem to be powered so I'm not sure what the status of that system is.

   Here's a closer look at the Dornbracht faucet.  It flows well into the sink and the controls are easy to use; left and right for hot and cold respectively and tilt forward for volume control.  I think Tanja is going to make me re-index the temperature control to the 12 o'clock position every time I'm done using so it looks nice and pristine every time.

   The thresholds for the master shower were also installed.  It's the same material as the counter top, window sill, and shower bench.  We did notice something odd about the installation that I've already made Mike aware of.  The outside of the sill has returns on both sides, but the inside here doesn't have one, being replaced with a blob of thinset.  I think something wrong happened with the installation and it's all on the tile installers.  The thresholds came to us as a single piece and I think the tile installers needed to cut some out to fit the wall and form the returns.

   Here's the other entry into the shower with the return intact.  Either they accidentally cut the one side off and couldn't epoxy it back into place or it broke off and they didn't think we would notice the discrepancy.  As I said, Mike is aware of the issue and will bring it up with the tile installers.

   The bench supports were also installed in the master shower and all the grout in the bottle nooks have been applied.  Other than swapping out the anemic shower heads, this shower is completed.  We're happy with how the bench turned out and the angled supports should make cleaning the tile a bit easier.  We entertained the idea of a trough shower drain, but decided it added too much cleaning complexity for very little aesthetic payoff.

   Not much change in the basement since the EV charger is still being installed.  The panel for the first floor Control4 lighting system has been installed so I think they're finished with the physical install for the first floor systems.  All the programming can be performed remotely so even when we want functionality expansion, we don't need to be home to do it.

   That's about it for this week.  I'll get one more visit before the new year, but the update will probably be finished in the new year.  We're expecting more flooring and tile completion, as well as more shoe molding installed.  There's really not much else to complete so the updates will be pretty repetitive from now on.  We're still hoping for a COO in a couple of weeks and maybe starting the moving process at the end of the month.  Tanja is predicting at least February for moving and I'm starting to trust her timing judgement.  Hopefully she'll be right this time too.