Lighting installation

Once we got all of our lights, it took another 2 weeks before they were installed.  First week of February - the electrician had a newborn son (dragon child!) so he took a week off understandably.  The second week of February we were down in the San Diego and Orange County area.  So finally, our schedules synced for the third week.

These lights took a really long time to install!  I felt badly for the electrician because he had to put on each individual bauble and crystal.  (Took him 3 solid days to put it all together.)  But here's the end result!

Family room

Bubble chandelier

Dining and living rooms

Aftermath of empty boxes

You know how nicer hotels like Marriot or Westin do not give you free wi-fi like the more affordable hotels like Days Inn or Travelodge?  It's the same with lighting!  The more affordable lights supply light bulbs whereas the pricier ones do not.  And the pricier ones don't include spare parts either.  The bubbles chandelier arrived with a cracked "bubble" and the living room flushmount arrived with 2 defective crystals.  I'm not waiting 3 more months for the replacements.  More likely than not, no one will notice the missing parts.  :p

Lighting: finally!

By the end of January, we finally got all of our lighting.  Yes, some of the lights really did take 3 months to get in.  (The lighting industry is ridiculous!)

Also, got our exterior locks re-keyed.  Our original key was something that could be easily picked by an amateur (i.e., my DH) with a set of lock picks.  So we asked the locksmith to create something a little more "fancy" to make it harder to pick.  [Our little girl was totally enamored with him.  She wanted to watch him work and would giggle to get his attention - such a flirt!]

Staycation ends

From the duration of my in-laws visit, DH and I were effectively on vacation.  We did very little if at all regarding the house.  My mother-in-law did a lot of cooking since my father-in-law is on a low sodium diet.  Grandparents would take our baby out to the park so that DH and I could have some down time sans kid.

It was so nice to be lazy.  :)

Christmas dinner was a bit hectic since it was a) the first time we were hosting a real dinner and b) the first time we were hosting Christmas dinner.  We had my family over as well.  Kind of cramped around our little dining table but it all worked out.  Got to use our wedding china - which has never been used until now.  Bought placemats and a tablecloth for the occasion.  Baby got a new play kitchen from my in-laws so she was super excited about that.  After dinner, she wanted to cook for both grandmas.  Then she had a lot of fun with the box the play kitchen came in.  :p

Loose ends

Ever since move-in day, we've been unpacking and getting the place ready for my in-laws to visit for Christmas.  DH took almost a whole week off of work to help out.  If he hadn't, I would not have been even close to ready for any visitors.  Even my parents pitched in and took our baby away for one Sunday so we could unpack without interruptions.

The week after we moved in, the crew was back to tie up loose ends.  We also had the alarm company for a day to install alarm components to the new part of the house.  The heating/cooling guy had to come by and fix the zones - the zone in the den was controlling the zone for all the other bedrooms.  The shower door guy came back to fix the shower door situation.  A more specialized electrician came to do wiring for cable, ethernet, and TV wiring.  (This guy has yet to finish the job.)

The carpet guy came by to take a look at what to do about the huge gap between the doors and the floor - he suggested using a reducer.  Of course, since he was already paid in full, he told me that the contractor should do it, not him.  *sigh*

I ended up fixing our toilet in the master bathroom.  The buttons were not correctly aligned and the flush was really weak.  Since the workers had never dealt with Inax nor were their English great, I called the company to get help on the situation.  They sent me diagrams and instructions to fix both problems.  Thankfully, it was easy to re-align the buttons.  And that actually solved the weak flush problem too!  yay!

As you live the house, there are things that you discover that need to be tweaked or fixed.  Here's a list of what we've found:

• leak underneath the prep sink



• locking mechanism for the sliding door needed to be installed



• draft underneath the exterior door of the master bedroom



• manufacturing label still on one skylight needed to be removed



• cold/hot water in the powder room were reversed



• remove any remaining tree protection




• bring back our green ladder that they thought was theirs



• move down the door that separates front and back of the house so that the door aligns better with the floor (huge gap underneath otherwise which prevents the door from being an effective sound barrier)



• install clothing rods and shelving for master closet



• swap light switches for the master bathroom to be more intuitive to use



• fix the broken latch on one window of the dining room



• fix the crooked drain step on the left sink of the master bathroom



• fix the original light switch for the patio exterior lights



• washing machine not working properly - ask the crew to check the water connections

Our to do's:

• buy house numbers to replace those that the workers threw away



• re-key exterior doors so they all use the same key

Still pending:

• doorbell ringer - thrown away and not replaced



• put up the side gate



• have interior door locks inspected by a locksmith



• install remaining lights - not all have come in yet




• get glass mirrors for ours and kids' bathrooms

Moving Day!

Note:  If your SO is in charge of hiring the movers, make sure that they confirm the date and time with the movers before the actual day of moving.

That morning, we waited around hoping that the movers had not forgotten about us.  Thankfully, they did show up.  Big sigh of relief!

The crew of three were pretty efficient using dollies and all around good techniques for moving heavy items.  About late lunch time, they were finished moving everything into their van.  We had gone out to lunch while they were finishing up the packing because our nanny was in the house.  When the movers went to lunch, we transported our fragile items to our new home.

We had planned for the baby to take her nap in the rental home and that I would come back to pick up the nanny and the baby after the baby woke up.  The baby was a bit scared of the moving process because she saw a lot of things being taken away.  In order to quell any anxiety, I kept reassuring her that we were all moving into our new home together.  Made it a point to get to the rental home before she woke up from her nap - it wouldn't be like the she went to sleep and her parents disappeared.

We hadn't completely set up her room that night in the new house so she and I ended up sleeping on the ol' futon together.  Not great for me - she rotated 180 degrees in her sleep which involved kicking me a few times.  *sigh*  But we're moving her into a big kid bed so we'll all sleep undisturbed in the future.

Countdown to move in day

Dec 6 (Tue):  A more specialized electrician came out to take care of our ethernet, tv, and cable wiring.  Also, the day our window shades got installed.

Dec 7 (Wed):  Our dismantled sleeper sofa was delivered and re-assembled in the afternoon.  Deep cleaning of our home begins in the late afternoon and continues until early evening.  We moved some of our fragile items such as wine glasses and vases into the house.

Dec 8 (Thurs):  Lots of packing!!  Thankfully, packing wasn't too bad this time around because a lot of our items were still packed up from the initial move into our rental home.  When you haven't seen something in 6 months, it makes you wonder whether you really needed to it.  Needless to say, did a bit of purging when packing this time.  Things of slight sentimental value were tossed.

Great news:  We passed the final inspection on the first try!  :)  I didn't think we'd pass until after we moved back into our home.  Yay!!!!!

Our GC said that it was the easiest final inspection he's ever been through.  He usually puts up a few obvious "mistakes" for the inspectors to catch but this guy didn't catch them.  The city obviously wants this house project to finish up quickly.  hehehe.  After the inspection, our GC went around and fixed up all the mistakes he purposely created.  haha!

Undercabinet lighting

So my undercabinet LEDs arrived.  Brought them over for the workers to install just to find out that they couldn't do it because of the voltage difference.  *sigh*

LEDs are low voltage and they had wired the undercabinet lighting for regular or fluorescent lights.  Apparently fluorescents are also low voltage but they have their own adapters.  The LED lights I bought also had their own adapter but they would take up an outlet and wouldn't be directly connected to the wiring (thus, less pretty).

Ended up going to Home Depot with the GC to pick up fluorescent lights.  That's what I was actually trying to avoid because I don't care for fluorescent lighting.  Good thing is that you can't see them in the kitchen.  yay!

Now I have two extra LED light bars...not sure what to do with them yet, but I'll find a place to use them.  I'd rather keep them than pay a restocking fee.