The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly – April Edition

Lead Photo: Shawn and Joe from Krause Media Solutions running cables to where electric shades will be.

A few folks have asked if we haven’t had a lot more problems than have been mentioned on here. A couple of folks referenced a famous thread on Houzz of someone who’s had problem after problem with their builder.

Well, we’ve had issues but I’m not sure how problematic they are. I’ve mentioned two; casement windows that are crank instead of push out, and HVAC ducts taking a chunk out of the formerly symmetrical dining room. I think with any build process there are gobs of issues but with a good builder they get resolved and so in the end are not really issues. And in one recent case, as Bob reminded me, I was over-thinking things. We’re thankful to have people like Bob and Lynn and Rick on this project.

What’s important is how it all works out in the end. When it’s all said and done and we’ve lived here for a while, are we happy with the result?

So, to recent build stuff…

My wife grins and says; “nothing’s happened”. She’s just really not in to the wires, pipes, ducts and other stuff that’s been going in the walls and will soon be buried by insulation and drywall.

We’re still not fully ‘dried in’ so when it rains (or snow melts) we get a good bit of water in. We need the weather to warm up so Dan can finish some stone work so that the roofers can finish the roof so that we can be dry inside long enough to know that there are no moisture issues and so move forward with insulation and sheetrock. This water is from a window that’s not yet been installed but hopefully will soon.

Looking up through where the stairwell will be in to the shop/studio loft over the detached garage. 

I’ve been taking a lot of shots of the south facing roof to assure myself that we’ll have plenty of sun for the Tesla Solor Tile Roof that will be on here.

The bikeway in front of our place. I’ve been able to ride without studs for about two weeks!

 

Paint decision round III. We finally made a decision of dark grey (I believe the one closest to the door). The blue will be for the shutters. Thanks to TJ, Marita, Scott, Bob, Lynn and Rick for their assistance in this.

The drone comes in handy to see what’s going on in places that we can’t more easily get to. Both of these chimney’s need their stone complete so that the roofers can do their thing and we can dry out. Here you can see a couple of places where water is likely coming in.

A potential issue. Traditionally the wood trim butts up against the stone, not like this where the stone is butting up against the trim. Still working on a solution to this one.

Our driveway has been quite icy. 

Wire for AV stuff.

My sweetie liked this floor and thought it’d look nice for our wine/root cellar. I agree.

Shawn talking about what wire is what. Yep, fortunately he knows.

A problem that we have in Minnesota is the snow melts but the ground is still frozen and then as the ground thaws we get a lot of mud. I know of three people who’ve gotten stuck here the past week.

Pulling wire for the electric shades.

This wire for security sensors is really small. And they were still able to write on it.