We are back home in Seattle after spending the last week in Salt Lake City, Utah visiting Gary's family and getting in some good skiing too! We were not expecting much to go on with the remodel as Ideal Building were taking a much deserved break during the Christmas and New Years Holidays.

However, Robert from Ideal Building did surprise us with news on Friday that they were able to have the asphalt for our new driveway poured. So we were happy to come home to a smooth driveway after several weeks without. I know, why would someone be excited about a 'driveway'? But after the weather that we have had and the mighty canyons that emerged in the dirt driveway from the hurricane like rain and wind these past few weeks - it was a welcome sight.

Some interesting news is that the plumber also made a return visit this past week to install the fixtures in the kitchen and bathroom. However (yeah there is another 'However'), the drains that were ordered are not long enough to fit through the 2" counters and vessel sinks in our bathroom. Additionally the faucet and hot water dispenser in the kitchen also do not extend all the way through the counter - so we are now considering our options on how to get this fixed.

The rest of the post is devoted to my sister's husband David. A while ago we went a few days without a post and that was due to mostly electrical work being done which do not make for exciting posts. However after talking to my sister yesterday, I realized that this is just the kind of stuff that David likes to see.

So without further adieu...

With the new garage, we had to move our external meter and the break box to the new East wall of the garage. To do this, the electrician installed a new breaker box in the garage near the window on the Eastside.

Then they strung wires across the top of the new garage to the existing breaker box left our existing breaker box in the existing partial wall that separates the old garage and the new.

So our existing breaker box is like a conduit and it made things a lot easier (and cheaper) than having to move everything over to the new box. But right now, the breaker box looks pretty bad. We are waiting for everything to be switched over to the new breaker (possibly this week).

Work will start back up on the house on Wednesday, January 3rd - so you probably won't see another post until then.

Happy New Year!!!

Well, this is likely the last post of the year. The guys from Ideal Building have been doing their best to get the kitchen put back into working shape, but we aren't going to make it before the first of the year -- or at least before we leave for Salt Lake City on Friday. They will be taking off the same week we are in SLC and not doing any work, so what they do on Friday after we leave will be the last before we get back to work and so do they on Jan 3. There is a slim chance the electrical cut-over and the driveway paving will happen over X-mas week -- and if so, the contractors will come over and get it done, but otherwise they are taking a vacation week along with us.

The stone people from Paramatrix came back to drill the holes for the new faucet in the kitchen, attach the bar top, and drill the drain and faucet holes for the bathroom sinks.

As you can see here, the bar has a nice curve to it, a chisled edge, and is a black somewhat "unfinished" granite. We used this same stone on the kitchen window box and on the upstairs bath vanity. The brace is to hold it while the adhesive dries, and then Rob will mount some corbells for additional support underneath. He also got the backing on the bar attached so it has a more finished look as well.

The upstairs bath vanity now has a backsplash, as well as the holes for the two sinks -- which we are taking to calling dinasour eggs. The faucets will mount at 10am position on the left sink and 2pm on the right -- and you can see how they fit in this picture.

Finally, Rob spent a good chunk of Wed. under the house doing the vent for the stove's downdraft venting system, routing the vent pipe and finding an exit which he hid underneath the patio stairs. Some very nice work. The downdraft is activated by a button on the stove so that when you need it, it levitates and turns on, and when you don't need it, it slides down and is hidden. Here it is in the "up" position. The stove is not yet hooked up to the gas line so we can't use it yet.

There is still quite a bit of work to be done in the garage to get it finished, including sheet rock, electrical, door, door opener, cement finishing, final painting, along with all the electrical work, tiling the shower, all the plumbing, painting touch ups, moulding, kick plates inside. The legislative session starts on January 8 so Gary moves to Olympia, and we expect that this project won't get finally done until sometime in February, or later if we include the new fireplace and painting the dining room and formal living room. Looks like we'll be writing this blog for some time to come. This is almost turning into the old TV serries "Murphy Brown" with the permanent live in painter Eldon. We have our own Eldon's in Robert, Rob, Bill, and Travis -- and like Murphy, we like them a lot and don't mind that they keep working.

Happy holidays!

Quite a bit of stuff has happened on the outside of the house, however it doesn't really make for exciting pictures. We have had Comcast, Qwest and our inside connections guy, Pete Last here laying the lines for the house. We have all new lines leading into the house and boy do we love Pete Last. Pete cleaned up and neatened up the rats nest of cable and phone wires in the old garage attic, and installed miles of new cables, phone lines and jacks. Our garage attic is now as neat and tidy as a professional phone switching office. Pete is worth every cent, ask our friends Steve and Allan - they used him to install the wiring for their flatscreen television and sound system at their house and they were very happy with his service too.

Anyway, inside the house we have had some good things happen. First, we took down those darn pendelum lights that we giving us all those problems. Although we both loved the look of them - they were not worth the trouble, so we returned them and in their place are these new lights, which we actually like better. They are brushed nickel and they really work here as well -- they echo the outside garage and porch lights in style.

Additionally, Ideal Building worked to get the NEW new microwave installed into the cabinet and after all of it was done, it was realized that the outlet behind the microwave has no power!!! Gary and I tried to figure out what was what by flipping switches but to no avail. Apparently the outlet isn't hooked up to the circuit breaker box yet. So, we got an extension cord and were able to put the microwave in it's spot, and then simply plugged it in (for now) using a different outlet. However, you see what the cabinet wall looks like with everything in its place -- including the new 15 inch flat screen TV running off of one of Pete's new outlets!

Lastly, Rob from Ideal Building worked to get the new 5 burner gas stove top installed along with the pop up vent. The gas is not hooked up yet, but the stove top is in its place and it looks good too. The kitchen is coming together.

We are expeting that the Stone Guys will be out tomorrow and they will drill all the holes for the faucet and hot water dispenser in the kitchen and the faucets and drain holes for the Master Bathroom. I can't wait to see what it looks like once this is done.

What a difference a few days make!

By 12noon on Thursday, December 14th a powerful rain storm had entered Puget Sound and slammed us hard. I was in Everett training a class that morning and started my trek back to Seattle at 1pm. It took me WAY too long as the traffic was awful for two reasons. 1) The rain and 2) the Seahawks had a 5pm Primetime Thursday Night Football game at Qwest Field.

It was dark before I got home and the rain had been coming down for quite a few hours by now. The unpaved driveway was affected -- two large 'canyons' had been formed from the amount of water coming down. From the top of the drive a canyon cut through the graveled driveway to the eastside of the new garage and then cut North to Kim and Mark's yard. Sound Familiar? Yeah the grand canyon returned to rear its ugly head. But this time around it was joined by another canyon that ran perpendicular across the driveway. Note the first picture on the next post as you scroll down to see how the driveway SHOULD look, and compare it to this one.

Gary and I were out in the rain rerouting the path of the oncoming water to prevent any further 'damage' and it seemed to work... with the water.

By 12:30am, 68 mile winds arrived in Seattle and blasted the city hard. We were awakened by the sound of the wind and Abbey and Lucy jumping up on the bed as they were scared. We noticed the power was out and we could see the trees in the backyard bending almost sideways. With a flashlight in hand, we went to investigate. From what we could see, the howling winds were really ripping into the trees.

We finally made it back to sleep around 1:30am, but neither of us slept very well. Robert from Ideal Building called at 7am to see if we had power. Although it was pretty light out, we noticed that the clocks were off so we knew the power was still out. Robert let us know he didn't have power and it looks like Rob and Travis would not be doing any work today. So I got up and got ready for work as my office in Kent HAD power. After dropping the dogs off at Doggie Day Care, I made my way through the fallen trees that lined the streets to my office.

While I was at work, Gary spent most of the day cleaning the yard of debris. The Stone guys showed up late morning to install the countertops. We didn't think they would show, but sure enough they were there and they immediately got to work (without the benefit of power). By 1pm our power was back on, and the guys were still hard at work installing the counters.

As you can see from the pics, the counters look GREAT!! The 'tan brown' counter for the kitchen really pops against the cherry cabinets and once it is fully polished - it is going to be spectacular.


You can also see the contrasting stone that we are using for the window box above the sink. This is the same stone that we are using in our bathroom upstairs as well.

They were not able to put the raised bar counter in yet as the wall isn't ready yet to hold the weight of the counter, so they will come back for that. The Stone guys have to come back anyway to drill the holes for the fixtures and drains in both the kitchen and bathroom. But in this picture, you can see where the stove top will go and the partial wall where the raised bar is located. The counter for the bar is the same material that is used in the window box and in the bathroom.

Speaking of which, here is a picture of the bathroom vanity. We got the vessel sinks and I placed it on top of the new counter so we could get a picture of it. It looks great and I think we the stone pulls on the vanity cabinets this will look fantasitc when it is done. We have dubbed our bathroom "WoodStone" due to the use of materials here.

It is now Saturday, December 16th and I am finishing up this blog before I take off to due some errands which include picking up the new microwave (did I mention that we had to take the old NEW microwave back to Albert Lee to get a faulty button fixed?). Anyway, I am getting a brand new one today. Then I will cross the street and pick up our new television for the TV room before doing some Christmas shopping. Tonight I have a performance with the BEARatones and then another concert with the chorus on Sunday.

We got back from Whistler on Tuesday afternoon -- but we've been unable to post to the blog because the cable Internet has been down because of weather and rotten cable. Gary was able to check some e-mail via a (gasp!) dial-up connection (how antiquated!)but it was way too slow to post anything on here. Fortunately Comcast came out and put in the new drop from the street, and Pete Last got the inside connection made so we have TV and Internet again (two days without! so very painful...hard to talk about..)

LOTS of progress! Most obvious was apparent when we drove up. The painters had put the first coat on the garage and it now blends in with the rest of the house. It looks especially attractive we think from the path our neighbors to the north Kim and Mark use to get to their mailbox.


Once we opened the garage door we noticed that the wall between the old and new garage had been removed, and the electrician had gotten a lot of wiring done (with still a lot to go as evident by the spaghetti of wires from the old circuit breaker box that will be junctioned there and then over to the new circuit breaker box over in the new garage. You can see how roomy and big the combined garages will be once it's all done. They still need to do some additional framing to pass inspection and then they'll sheetrock and paint inside.

On the inside of the house the electrician finished up the oven and hanging the pendant lights. This is the LAST AND ONLY picture of these lights you'll see -- we don't like them. It's not the look mind you -- we love the look, but the new "energy efficient" design requires a compact flourescent bulb.
This isn't the problem -- the problem is that no one stocks the light bulb in town, so they have to be special ordered (we did not know this when we bought them), AND the ballast that powers the CF bulbs is faulty on all three lights and they take FOREVER to warm up, IF they warm up at all. Therefore when you flip the switch maybe one light will flicker and then turn off. We flip the switch again and then maybe two lights will flicker and then turn off. A third time we may get one light on but the other two stay off. I feel like I am in front of a slot machine and each flick of the switch is like a pull on the machine. Eventually (usually 12 to 15 tries), all three lights will come to life (Jackpot). So down they'll come and we'll go shopping this weekend for pendelum lights with NORMAL Lightbulbs.

Meanwhile Rob has been busy getting started on the bathroom -- the shower pan is in and the plumbing moved, and he's got a good start on the tile backer board. You can see the new pan is shorter than the old one -- which means we get a "bench" in the shower now. The shower pan is black cast iron -- so none of the "flex" leak problems from the old plastic one. We picked up the new granite vessel sinks too -- they weigh a ton, literally carved out of solid rock. And the best news is that the countertops get delivered on Friday! This should really start to pull the kitchen together.

Finally, the painters got the new front door stained and we think it looks super!

A small army of workers descended on the house today -- at one point we had everyone from Ideal Building (Robert, Bill, Travis and Rob), along with the two painters and the two electricians. It made for a crowded morning. Gary tried to stay out of the way, but no doubt annoyed all of them by sticking his nose into everything -- the joy of working at home while the contractors are there. Bill, Robert, and Travis put down a layer of crushed rock and compacted it so that SOMEDAY soon it can be paved, while the electricians continued their complicated and massive job of rewiring the world. They also installed the oven in the kitchen which is starting to come together. The microwave, which has been, other than the coffee pot, our only source of cooking food, is now back at Albert Lee -- it's had a sticky latch and getting someone out to repair it was a nightmare so Gary took it back in today. It will eventually be installed in the cubby above the oven with a trim kit to match the oven and fill the space. With only a coffee pot, we had takeout Teriyaki for dinner. It's a good thing we are getting out of this mess Friday morning and heading up to Whistler for a few days of skiing.

Meanwhile Rob worked inside and installed our new front door and did some drywall work and patching. The painters primed the garage so they can paint it, and they'll stain the new front door on Friday. The door is really cool -- it's got an etched glass window with a mountain scene with pine trees. It will be stained to match the door trim and baseboards.

We leave for Whistler tomorrow morning around 10am, dropping the dogs off at the kennel and will be back late Tuesday -- anxious to see what progress has been made.

What a difference a day makes. Remember how I mentioned yesterday that Bill from Ideal Building was being 'very careful [sic] so as not to hit the pretty new garage, dig up the phone or cable or water mains)' when he was digging the trench? Well, Oops!

Today while continuing with the big driveway dig - Bill accidently hit the old water main and out comes Old Faithful. Well okay, this picture is NOT what it actually looked like but it was how Gary described it to me over the phone while I was at work. After I got home, I talked to Bill and they were so careful all the way up the driveway... until the old water main decided to take a sharp left turn. This was unexpected and it was too late before the big claw ripped it apart and sploosh goes the water.

But not to worry, even though we were without water for a while, It was repaired and backfilled before the end of the day. We never have to worry about Ideal Building as they are very committed to service and providing top quality across the board.

Another milestone was reached today. The new window in our kitchen was cut out and installed and boy does it look great! Gary snapped this picture from outside after Rob finished the job. Like all the windows in the new garage, this window is trimmed and will be painted to match the rest of the trim on the house. After the house is done, the guys at Ideal Building will also trim the other east facing windows so we have a uniform look from the street.

From inside, Gary snapped this great picture of Bill working outside on the backhoe through the new window in our kitchen (before "old faithful erupted). This window opens out and provides a lot of sunlight into the new kitchen. This also provides us with a much needed view of our front yard from the 1st floor which we have never had.


Lastly, this may sound insignificant, but our new fridge was placed into it's permanent location and is now ready to be stocked with food! Since November 12th our old fridge has lived in the breezeway between the house and the garage and we are sure tired of having to go outside to get anything from there. While the old fridge is still there (until the wall between the old and new garage is taken down), we will at least have a fridge in the house! Now we need to get the oven and microwave in and our new wall of appliances will be done.
Tomorrow, Bill says that our new door will be installed. The electrician will be back one more time to finish up all the electrical inside and out. If we are lucky, we will get the gravel poured on the newly graded driveway before we leave for the weekend for Whistler. If that happens, we might just have a paved driveway by the time we return.

What a mess!

Bill, Travis and Rob dug up our driveway today to prepare for the new water main, and moving the utilities as well as regrading for the approach to the new garage. Gary could have skipped the gym by staying and helping Travis lift blocks of broken asphalt and taking them to the dumpster.



Once the drive was clear, Bill (very carefully so as not to hit the pretty new garage, dig up the phone or cable or water mains) dug a two foot wide, three foot deep trench for the new electrical and phone/cable conduit. Because of City of Seattle inspection times we have an open trench now until they can come and decide the trence is OK. Then they will back-fill and grade and we'll all cross our fingers that the weather stays nice enough for them to pave. Otherwise we'll have a muddy dirty driveway for a while.

Meanwhile the electricans were working on this now somewhat major electrical project, which now includes redoing the entire hot-tub circuit since apparently according to the city our existing circuit doesn't meet code (it's what happens when you do it yourself). So now we are without a hot tub for a while until they can conduit and rewire all that too! They also got a good start on wiring up the new kitchen and moving some fixtures that were not properly aligned with the new cabinets. With any luck we'll switch over to the new circuit boxes later this week, but we are having our doubts... However we won't be here as we'll be leaving for Whistler for a few days of skiing on Friday!

It's been a week since we've posted -- and very busy at work for both of us, and with the snow and ice storm, not a lot of time for the contractors to do their stuff. Because of the weather they were not able to dig up the driveway as planned so that will be done this week. However as you can see they did get a good start on the inside trim and baseboards -- which we are having done to match the raw/light stain pine we did upstairs. They've done a great job, but it looks like now we'll need to replace the back sliding glass door since it's got a seal leak! Yikes.


The appliances all got delivered and we love the new fridge. It's going to look great in the empty slot on the cabinets, along with the oven and microwave, and Gary spent the day taking off tape and stickers from inside the fridge from shipping. Right now it's plugged into an extension cord since the electrician still needs to wire the outlet for it, but it beats our "white trash" fridge on the front porch/breezeway that I just know the neighbors have been loving! And it's great fun going out side in 25 degree weather to get a drink or snack!

The stone people, well not 'STONE PEOPLE' or 'people made of stone', but people who work for the company that will be cutting out stone slab for our counter -- anyway THEY were at the house on Friday and created a template for the kitchen counters and the master bath vanity. It will take about 2 weeks to get the slab ready for installation, and until then we have to work around installed cabinets with no tops.

I wonder if we should move stuff back in yet to the bathroom? Probably not.

The most visible work was on the outside -- where Travis and Rob got all the siding up on the garage! Tony wants to leave it unpainted and have the rest of the house stripped to match! It does look (and smell) really nice, and they guys from Ideal gave us the back square window which even cranks open, so we are going to have one premium garage.

The large white box in front is the long-lost shower pan too, which arrived this week. Someday soon they'll start tiling and putting the bath back together too.
For those that do not live next door to us and only read the blog, this is probably the last picture of our driveway that you will see before it is torn up and re-graded.