August 3-7
Monday: Painters worked on bonus room, master bathroom, hall closet, pantry, back stair well and various touch ups. They also had to respray (after “floating” some filler to cover the chips) the family room cabinet doors.
Electricians were here most of the day – distracted at first by finding the lost socket!
Over the weekend I was looking at the family room wall – lots of stuff had been piled against it for a long time – and realized we had only one electrical socket, not the two we had originally. I couldn’t believe that one had removed on purpose (and in fact there is code requiring sockets every 6 feet) and the electrician remembered that work as he’d moved that socket multiple times and had to do the final install right before the drywall was hung (look for the wires held by red plastic staples on the left wall). None of the workers were at all surprised the drywall hangers had just covered it up…
The lead carpenter cut a hole in the (faux) wainscoting – one more little painting touch up to do, but we now have the socket back. Somehow I think it shouldn’t have been me that noticed this (and I’m also surprised that I took a picture of the drywalled wall and didn’t register then that something was missing…).
Electricians worked on running the Cat 6a cables through the attic, down to the rooms and to the network closet. They lay it all out on the floor first and then label and take up to the attic to install.
Vent hood and cooktop were installed but not turned on. The microwave couldn’t be installed because the socket box put at the back of its hole in the island was 1/4″ too big. Lots of discussions about how best to deal with this and the electrician was going to try and get a smaller box.
Tuesday: Microwave installed – smaller socket box both inside and out produced the 1/4″ necessary. Vent hood power is on and it does move air but the electrician didn’t think it was moving the 715 cfm it should be. Lots of testing and discussions about what might be wrong. Electrician thinks the issue is that Zephyr’s pressure switch (which comes as part of the makeup damper kit) is needed. Westhill got something ostensibly equivalent, not the Zephyr part.
The ramp sink for the master bathroom is 3 weeks away (the fabricator was changing tooling and the sink didn’t get finished beforehand). Plan B is to have the backsplashes (kitchen & half bath) installed now so we can do glass templating for everything except the master bathroom mirror over the sink. It’s important to get the shower in the master working so the work on the heated floor in the kids’ bathroom can happen. Shower needs glass walls and a door…
Wednesday: Cleaning out bonus room and family room preparing for carpet installation on Thursday. Cork floor refinish Wednesday afternoon morning – nothing happens when you think it will!
Finish fitting bench seating in kitchen – the lift-up part of lid for the side adjacent to the kitchen cabinets is still at KCN Cabinets.
Family room contents into kitchen. Cabinet doors are back on but have chips (I assume newly flaked off paint from being handled). Even if these get touched up, what does this mean for the robustness of the paint over time?
Thursday: Carpet stretch in the master bedroom to put back what was rolled up to install the duct for the kitchen vent hood – way back in week 11 . Couldn’t use power stretcher because there’s stuff under the bed that wasn’t worth moving. Put an extra run of tack strip and “kicked” it into place. New carpet install in the bonus room, back stairs and family room.
Discussed paint issues on family room cabinet doors with project manager. He was able to scrape paint off the top of one of the cabinets where it had chipped with his fingernail. By comparison, the paint on the kitchen cabinets, one of which got a ding when they were installing things, can’t be scraped further. Not sure what the issue is with the paint or method of painting for the family room cabinets, but it’s not right. I asked if we could just have KCN cabinets strip and spray them (and not worry about any match issues). Westhill will handle this as a warranty issue, specifics TBD.
Network jacks in 10 downstairs locations are hooked up to the switch. We are live and life is much faster on the wire.
Friday: Helper to move things back after carpet install and after installing plastic or paper runners to protect carpet in preparation for the hardwood floors to get their final coat on Monday.
Surprise visit from Steve at Reliable Flooring to install the tile baseboard in the master bathroom around the shower exit.