buildin' a road...

Late yesterday afternoon-evening (like 4-7pm) our little bay looked like an episode from 'Mighty Machines'. They finally started the process of paving the roads, although from what we understand, this is just the rough grade, which will be followed by another grade, gravel and then pavement! All this will take us into next week sometime! The rough grade on it's own was quite the process... a dump of dirt, grading it, picking up the excess, measurments written on the markers (something surveyor-ish), shovels, bobcat, more grading, rolling, repeat... The main road will be used as the acess to all the smaller 'crescents, bays, places' etc and won't be done for at least another three weeks! Anyhoo - I'm off to see why my driveway guy hasn't returned...

hoovering up the excess

the parade of equipment

the grader...

cabinet craziness

Friday, August 14th was the big cabinet 'raising' day, so Thursday night Miles & I emptied all the uppers. The original plan was to raise everything but when I found out that the microwave didn't have to be raised, I decided to leave it be so that the corner cabinet could stay put, being that they need to be the same height...

BEFORE:

EMPTY:

AFTER:

The electricians will have to come back to fix the wiring, which is now too long but you can see when you look at the microwave that the undermount moldings are now higher up & SHOULD hopefully meet the gas inspection requirements... we also have wall touch ups to do as well since the walls were painted after the cabinets were installed - lotsa fun!

and the saga continues....

The gas inspector was by the other day and discovered that our undermount kitchen cabinet moldings are too close to the gas range and need to be cut back 6-8"... this will look absolutely retarded and I am sooo unimpressed that the cabinet shop didn't pick up on this. I guess the inspector got to them before I did and 'Amanda' left a message on my answering machine stating that she was aware of this change and that she had gone through my entire file and nowhere was it noted that we had a gas range, otherwise 'this could have been prevented' - REALLY... guess that answers that question! I am still ticked with the original person I met with though (he left & then we ended up with Amanda 1/2 way through) because I went in there on 'day one' with all the info needed and even as time went on, I took in measurements and specs of EVERYTHING, not to mention magazine photos etc. I knew what I wanted from the get-go and have been so disappointed with this corporation. Anyways, Amanda informed me that option number two was to raise all the uppers two inches and that should be the clearance we need to make the inspector happy. We also needed a bigger gas metre to accomodate everything that is in our house....

I've lined up a bunch of appt's for August 4th and 5th, so that should be a busy day in our household, with a constant revolving door...

Met a lady when we were camping, who is a contractor in Alberta and talk about knowledgeable! She knows her stuff and has convinced us to go with the acrylic stucco (not concrete), so hopefully we can contact our builder and make that change ASAP because we should be up on the 'stucco assembly line' pretty quick... might be able to get our dark olive green colour after all :)

railings yet to come...

'Phase Two' of our deck project is now completed!!! Just in time for a couple weekend BBQ's :) Many heads have turned as they drive by, being that it is a decent size and someone even stopped yesterday & asked John if he'd build a deck for him!

Ethan on the second level - there are three boards past the pillar and then it steps down to the next level (don't think you can see the difference from the photo)

The deck to date... there will be a phase three which will consist of a smaller level and stairs going down into the yard (we need to wait for the yard to be graded though and at least seven loads of 'dirt')

Abuela Darlene helping the boys make swords :) Uncle John helped them make airplanes the other day out of scrap lumber...

John finishing the edges

buildin' a deck

Our handy man/woman team has been here this week working on our deck. The wrap around porch was only completed on the front and side by the builder, so John & Darlene have framed in the back portion now and have started laying boards. It's starting to look like something and will be so nice to be able to place a BBQ back there, along with patio furniture etc. We are also doing a second level off of the covered porch, so it will be a nice functional deck when it's finished :) Stay tuned for the completed project!

a doorsy kinda week

Last week, we FINALLY got all the doors we've been waiting for:

Uppers, above the fridge - my original plan was to have a decorative shelf (open) and the inside was even stained the same colour as the exterior of the cabinets but all they did was a box & it looked blah... I had shown a magazine picture and described a molding etc to fancy it up a bit (before ordering) but it didn't happen - the joys of being passed on to a new sales person when your original person switches jobs! So - I just opted for doors in the end... looks better than before but frustrating that my original plan didn't pan out!

A PANTRY door - five months and one day after moving in! The colour isn't perfect & there's a couple flaws but enough is enough & I'm keeping it!

The office door - the original one they put in was solid, so this is the glass one we are supposed to have!

Master ensuite shower doors - we held off on these thinking that we had to pay for them but then found out the builder covered these ones! BONUS! My hubby had wanted something different originally but we found out that the studs needed to do it that way, were NOT there and without the proper bracing, everything would rip out - doors, tiles and all! Plus with having additional jets, we needed doors that wouldn't leak... works for me!

Exterior Excitement

If you look back a couple posts, you will see that we got our rock work done, in front of the garage & across the front window area. Miles always talked about wanting to do the side of the garage too (and join both areas together) because we have a corner lot & it would just look nice as far as curb appeal goes. We kept tossing around the idea but eventually opted not to do it because of the added expense. But then... there is a new crew in the area, doing some scratch coating & mostly rock masonary type work and we've talked to them a couple times. Miles asked for a quote and they gave us an amazing deal so... three days later they were here and continued our rock from the garage and up to the front door. Uniquely enough (if you can see it that way) they were here during Liam's 'construction' birthday party, so it was quite fitting! The party attendees had to meander their way through the garage and in through the back door!

My amazing landscaping and grass! Just kidding! Well - it is there, just not something I planted :)

Close to two weeks ago, our house got scratch coated and is now ready for stucco. In this picture you can still see the TYPAR plastic & wire at the top - I so don't miss that 'look' :)

Liam 'watching TV' as the boys jokingly called it - they loved watching the work crew! It wasn't long until Jackson pulled up a chair beside him!