Tile selection

One tile store that we find ourselves going back to again and again is Porcelanosa. I'm usually not a modern gal preferring more of the traditional look, but I start to question myself when I step into their tile showroom. It's just mind-blowing!

Anyway, so our GC made an appointment for me with his tile designer (Scott at Towne Tile) on Friday Aug 12 morning 10am. I brought inspiration photos on which to base certain bathrooms. It took us a few hours but we (ok, mainly he) came up with some pretty good designs. He drew out each bathroom and sent me home with samples.

So the coolest thing is that I found a 30% off coupon for Porcelanosa through one of those mailers you tend to throw away. Well, I went to Porcelanosa and got a quote for the tile we wanted and then went back to the tile designer so he could match the pricing. He said that it was an awesome price and that we saved a few hundred dollars with that coupon. Score! ^_^

After a couple more trips to the tile store and some redesigning, we finalized the tile selection on Wed Aug 24.


Kids bathroom inspiration


Master bathroom inspiration

Dry wall

Today, dry wall installation begins.

They were supposed to deliver the dry wall in the morning but ended up delaying the delivery until afternoon. Our GC was pissed since he had to send his dry wall crew home in the morning. The delayed delivery cost him about half a day of work. Plus, he had to pay the crew for half-day for a couple hours of work.

It's tough being a general contractor!

Insulation

Check out the insulation installation! The different grades of insulation have different colors. The grey one is thicker than the pink one. They ran out of the pink one by the time they got to our bedroom so they used the grey one too.

They had installed it yesterday but our GC warned us not to go to the house when insulation was being installed. He said we would need 3 showers afterwards if we did.


Family room


Master bedroom

Inspections passed!

Two inspections passed in one day!! woohoo!

Rough plumbing and electrical (for the new part of the house)
Kitchen footing (for the old part of the house)

Tomorrow is insulation.

Another run-in with the city

So power to the house had been disconnected by Aug 3 to upgrade the electric box and connect all the new wiring.

For the next few business days, our GC called the city everyday to ask them to reconnect the power. They would send someone out but the power would not be reconnected. So finally, our GC told us what was going on so we stepped in to figure it out. (Sometimes the city responds better to owners than contractors.)

Finally, my DH tracked down the actual utility worker that had dropped by our home. He reported that the "cap on the weatherhead was broken". We relayed that back to the GC who fixed it promptly.

Our GC was pretty annoyed at the situation because as he said, it was "a $9 5-minute job" that had kept his crew from working for 5 days - he lost $7500 for this. And he pretty much pointed out that since we had passed our inspection and had paid the city utility for the changes, nothing was broken before asking the power to be reconnected. Plus, he showed me the broken weatherhead that was brand new when installed.

Fishy stuff...city workers can really frustrate me!!!

Back to the city - change order

We finally got the structural engineering calculations to submit to the city. This is for the front portion of the home: we are removing the walls around the kitchen to open up the space.

The planning office opens at 8am so I was there at 7:30am waiting. First in line! :)

The sad thing is that, of course, it was the slowest day they've ever experienced in recent memory. There was no line after us first early birds!! So amazing! At one point, I was the only one sitting there being helped. (See below.)

Empty chairs!

The awesome thing was that they approved our change order in one hour(!!!).

Our GC was super happy when I came over with the approved plans. He had been waiting and waiting for the work to begin so he could parallel process both parts of the house.

Backdoor

There's a door from our bedroom to the backyard. We needed to pick that door.

On the day we chose our shower system, we also visited Home Depot to pick out that door. Really wasn't much to choose from so we just selected one with a window in the top half. We took a picture of it and showed our GC. He wasn't too thrilled about the choice. So he told us about this one that he had just installed in his own home that has built-in mini-blinds. We trusted him and told him to just pick that up instead. :p

Here it is!

Sorry, backlit.


Technical stuff

Bathtub

Picked out a Home Depot tub for the kids bathroom.

The most important feature was tub height. The tub in our rental home is a little over 13" in height and makes it easier on our backs to give the baby a bath in the tub. So the Kohler Villager was the best option with a height of 14", not to mention its nice affordable price tag. :)

It is a cast iron tub (316 lbs!) so I had to OK it with the GC in case the subfloor wouldn't hold it up. I think he might've been a little offended that I actually asked him that. :p