I’ve been slacking a little bit lately. They’ve been here doing things in bits and pieces. They got the backsplash for the range in place. They cleaned. They got the microwave installed and did some additional electrical stuff (but of course, didn’t install the popup outlet because we’re still lacking a hole). And I haven’t been blogging any of that.
Because we just want them done!!!
This is just dragging on way too long and we’re both getting a bit worn out by the whole process. We just want them done and out of our house. The last two days they’ve made some progress by finishing tiling some additional backsplash. This was an extra.
We went from this.
To this.
After they got the backsplash on the other wall, Dena was looking around and decided she wanted it continued there in that little opening. So we did it. We’re pretty happy. We think it helps tie the whole room together a bit more.
Still a few more odds and ends and we still might not have the whole lien thing worked out yet. I’ll check on the status of that tomorrow. I think it’s taken care of but one more call to be sure.
Yep. Let’s see, last post was Day 74, this is Day 82. So in 8 days they were able to drill 2 holes.
Well, that’s not entirely accurate. In those intervening 8 days besides drilling 2 holes they did come back and repaint the kitchen (getting paint on the cabinets and trim in the process) and a cleaning crew came in and cleaned the entire kitchen and foyer. (Why have a cleaning crew come in to clean when there is still some pretty major work to be done? I don’t know.)
But still, progress has been painfully slow lately. We actually have neighbors coming up to us now.
Neighbor What are you having done?
Us The kitchen.
Neighbor That’s it!?!
Yes, we sheepishly admit, that’s it. I get there are delays in any project, but this is getting a bit ridiculous. It’s not like we’ve been asking for a bunch of last-minute changes. They just aren’t very good at scheduling things.
Oh well, the two holes are there to be filled by an air gap for the dishwasher and a switch for the disposal. A little push-button thingie right there in the surface of the countertop.
We’re also having a pop-up outlet installed in the middle of the island. This one in fact. It’ll be a round thing you push down on and it pops up and you got 2 outlets and 2 USB ports to plug things in. When done, push it back down and it’s out of the way. We liked that idea better than hanging cords off the side to plug things in. But, of course, when the guys were here drilling holes for the air gap and the switch, they couldn’t drill the hole for the outlet because they didn’t have the right drill bits with them. So, now they’ll have to come back some time next week and finish that up.
The electrician should be here next week as well to install the rest of the electrical stuff. (Except the pop-up outlet of course, he’ll probably have to come back later to finish that up.) Then that’ll just about wrap it up for major stuff. Then comes the dreaded punch-list. We get to go around and list all the things we see wrong that we want them to come fix (like finish installing the range for example) and then wait for them to come fix it. At this rate, we’re honestly wondering if we’ll have our kitchen done by Thanksgiving. Which we’d better cause we’ll be having our families over just like we do every year.
But in the meanwhile, we’ve actually started to use it all a little bit. Last Sunday we roasted a chicken in the oven.
See, when I was busy analyzing every aspect of kitchen ranges trying to pick out the one I wanted (no, I’m not obsessive about these things, just a bit picky) the Capital range was high on the list but it came with this rotisserie. My thought at that time was, “When are we ever going to use a rotisserie?” But, in the end I liked that one the most so we got it—even if I thought I’d never actually use that giant metal fork thingie.
Flash forward to last sunday and we say, “Hey, let’s roast a chicken!” So we do.
Comes with that massive metal rod which has a place way in the back corner for you to stick it. After, of course, you impaled your meat on it. Then you just turn it on and let the rotisserie magic happen (and put a pan underneath it otherwise you’ll have a huge mess all over the bottom of your oven).
Hour or so later and, damn, that came out looking good.
So we carved it up.
And ate it.
Those beans are from our garden. The bird was stuffed with lots and lots of herbs from our herb garden as well. We were both surprised at just how juicy and flavorful it was. We could actually taste all the fresh basil, oregano and thyme I stuffed in there. It was amazing.
So guess what, we’ll be using the rotisserie again. I’m glad we got it. Oooh, maybe I’ll rotisserie the turkey for Thanksgiving!
So that’s the end of my story for today. Hope you’ll join me all next time on
There it is. I think we’re entering the final stretch. Electrician was here and he put in all the outlets, switches and ceiling lights. Makes a real difference. Looking almost done.
Here’s a closer-up shot of the actual lights over the island. Dena has a really good eye for that sort of thing. She picks well.
And we got flames too! Check this out. Six full burners of bright blue flames. Not sure I’ll ever cook six things at once, but you never know. Thanksgivings get mighty crowded around here sometimes.
Back Monday to paint, and tile, and fix the one pantry cabinet, and finish up some plumbing and finish up some electrical. Yeah, right. That’s the plan at least. Seems a bit unrealistic to me given how pokey this whole thing has been. But, we’ll see.
Until then, we may actually cook something on our new range this weekend. I’ll let you know if we do.
Heh, notice that little black spot on the wall next to the duct-work? That’s a hole in the wall. You may recall seeing previous pics where they had the duct coming out of the wall and the wire coming out next to it. When it was there I thought to myself, “Self, I’m not sure the hood duct work is gonna cover that up. Looks mighty far away.” But honestly, with all the times I’ve tried to warn them about things and they’ve brushed me off telling me not to worry about it, I just let it be. And see, they figured it out. They must have, cause it works!
You can’t hear it, but the fan’s running in that picture.
So that was nice to see. It’s always a bit of a surprise to see what’ll be different when I get home. Like I said previously, we aren’t really on schedule, but things are progressing. Next they’re gonna be in tomorrow to grout the backsplash. And no “I am Grout!” jokes this time.
Your basic off-white subway tile with a little strip of highlight. Those are a mix of glass and tile. Brings out the same sort of colors in the floor and walls and cabinets.
OK, so I’m getting a bit silly with the titles on these posts. Shoot me. Looks like they found another plumber cause he was here today and got some stuff hooked up.
Got the dishwasher hooked up (sort-of) and installed. There’s plumbing for it all there but there’s still no outlet to plug it in. Guess next step is electrical. To the right is our sink and faucet.
Didn’t realize when we bought it that it came with those grids to put on the bottom or that metal thingie to the left. Turns out that can completely span one of the sinks, front to back, and you can use it as a drying rack or dripping rack or something. Those are square rods and the whole thing turns out to be pretty sturdy. And then it rolls up into a little bundle. It’s pretty cool.
That was really it for today. Still have quite a bit to finish up: painting, tile, electrical. I’m sure it’ll get done but we’re getting pretty tired of this whole process. We just want it done.
Oh, one more thing, we did buy some stools today also to go around the eating end. The Madison Swivel stool from Amisco. The body is made of metal and will be a rubbed bronze like the handles. The seat will be a dark fabric and the back…well, the middle slat in the back is going to be wood colored the same as the cabinets. Except they don’t make that color so we ordered them unfinished. I’ll have to finish them myself once they come in. They’ll look good there.
Heh, so on the third, we got a notice in our mailbox of a certified letter waiting for us that required a signature. It said the sender was Grams & Associates. Well, that sounded interesting. So a quick DuckDuckGo search turns up David F. Grams & Associates, S.C. Attorneys at Law. They’re a law firm in Madison specializing in Trusts and Estates and Business Law. Got me interested. So of course, this is now a holiday so I have to wait to be able to go get the letter. Luckily for me, I usually work from home on Fridays so today I was able to run and pick it up. Here’s what it said.
For those who don’t want to zoom in it says in part:
The undersigned Subcontractor, having contracted with Property Revival LLC, performed, … plumbing work to improve your Property located at … and, as of the date of this Notice, is owed the sum of $725.00 for said work. If payment in full is not received within thirty (30) days … the Subcontractor intends to file a Claim for Lien on your Property.
Wonderful.
So me, being the smart-ass I am texts Jerry, the contractor.
Jim: Hey Jerry, got a problem with your plumber?
Jerry: uh, yeah…
I honestly have no idea what’s going on but I was assured he and his lawyers have the situation well in hand and I don’t have to worry about it. I’m actually not worried. I suspect these kind of spats happen all the time. But it is something to keep an eye on.
Maybe next remodeling project I’ll be my own general contractor and avoid all this crap.
Meanwhile, absolutely nothing has happened on the house. Plumbing issues aside, I’m sure the holidays messed up scheduling. We’re hopeful folks will be in next week to actually finish this up. We’re getting tired of this.
I’m lying here again. This all happened Friday, but we took off right after work to go see our son at UND where he’s off learning to become a commercial airline pilot. He really likes it there–well, not exactly likes it. He loves flying but could really do without the winters. So he likes to spend his summers up there taking flying classes so he can stay ahead in his program and fly lots. We miss him, but he’s off doing what he loves. That’s important.
Anyway, we left right after work and I didn’t have time to write all this up, so I’ll just back-date this and pretend like this was all posted last Friday. Back to the kitchen.
Apparently Dena got to hear a bunch of swearing in a foreign language on Friday. The countertops arrived and she got to watch a bunch of hulky, sweaty, swarthy guys with all their muscles rippling carry in this big, honkin’ slab of quartz.
And a couple smaller pieces, but those don’t count really. She says they were saying a bunch of things she didn’t recognize but she assumes were swear words. Apparently that stuff is heavy.
But they seemed to know what they were doing because the got them in place and they look pretty darn good.
No, that faucet’s not attached. I just stuck it there to see what it would look like.
We’re actually pretty happy the snafu of a couple of weeks ago happened–recall, the one where they told us they ran out of countertop material and as a result we wouldn’t get our counters for about a month? After hearing that, Dena went out and looked at some new stuff and picked out a different style that she thought she liked better. Turns out, she was right.
The new stuff has more of a brown tone to it with flecks of gold-ish rather than the more pure black with streaks of white. We really like how this blends with everything else we got going on in here. It’s coming along.
Today, (the real today, Monday) they came and finished up the trim. Looks real nice. That guy does a real nice job on the trim. The rest of this week is supposed to be some finish plumbing, painting (they’re gonna re-paint the walls), and then backsplash tiling. So I hope to have more posts as the week wears on.
Well, today was a busy day. After a couple of weeks of nothing and a bit of stress all of a sudden today the appliances were delivered, they started to put trim in place and we got the tree damage from the other week cleaned up.
First came the appliance guys. Well, actually they came second, but the trim guys got here before the trim so they were pretty much just standing around waiting. Then the appliance guys showed up so they get first billing. Besides, the title, “Appliances, Trim and Trees” has a nicer ring to it.
The appliances showed up. The first question they ask, “Are you ready for them to be installed?” My answer, “Nope.” Lemme explain.
See, we had this delay with the countertops, but I was told to schedule the appliance delivery for the 28th anyway. So I did. Well, as this week was approaching, I’m emailing them saying, “Are you sure they should be delivering the appliances?” My concern was the electrical and plumbing wasn’t done yet so they wouldn’t be able to plug in or hook up the waterline on the fridge. The range was OK, that already had a gas line and an outlet, but I was a wee-bit concerned about the fridge.
When I point this out to Property Revival, their response was, “Sure, that’s fine. Have them deliver and install it.”
Me says, “How are they going to hook them up?”
They say, “It’s fine, have them deliver and install it.”
Me says, “How are they going to hook them up?”
They say, “We told you before it’s fine, don’t worry about it.”
Finally on Tuesday we had a bit of a heart to heart and all of a sudden they’re saying, “Uh, hmm, we’ll get back to you on that.”
So they scrambled and were able to get the electrician to come out Wednesday and hook up the electrical, but the plumber couldn’t make it.
Forward to today and we decide to let them install them both without the waterline for the fridge. Property Revival will then have to pull it out, install the waterline, and then put it back. People.
Now that the fun story is over time for some appliance porn.
I finally got my fridge. I like that. That’s exactly how I was picturing this looking. And it works!
Yeah, it’s not totally in place yet. A little more story. See, turns out the range is a direct wired hookup, no plug, it has to be hard-wired in place and we have a plug there. Also, the gas line coming up from the floor sticks up too high so the plumber will have to shorten it. So the range isn’t exactly in place quite yet, but both of those things should be done tomorrow. Stay tuned.
And while all that was going on, the trim showed up and the trim guys got to work. I have to say, they do a really nice job. They put in the cabinets and now they’re finishing up the baseboard and door trim. We like it.
Professionals. Way better at mitered corners than I am.
And now on to the final topic of this post. Last week, we had some storms come through Janesville. Not officially a tornado, but as I was driving down one of the main streets to my house after work there was an awful lot of tree damage and crews out. I said to myself, “uh, oh.”
I got home and the front was fine, but one of the trees in back, not so much.
Bummer.
We were finally able to get Paul’s Tree Service to come out here and get it cleaned up for us. They did nice work.
And that’s the end of my grand adventure for the day! Pretty hectic first thing in the morning, but turned out well overall.
Well, today was a busy day. After a couple of weeks of nothing and a bit of stress all of a sudden today the appliances were delivered, they started to put trim in place and we got the tree damage from the other week cleaned up.
First came the appliance guys. Well, actually they came second, but the trim guys got here before the trim so they were pretty much just standing around waiting. Then the appliance guys showed up so they get first billing. Besides, the title, “Appliances, Trim and Trees” has a nicer ring to it.
The appliances showed up. The first question they ask, “Are you ready for them to be installed?” My answer, “Nope.” Lemme explain.
See, we had this delay with the countertops, but I was told to schedule the appliance delivery for the 28th anyway. So I did. Well, as this week was approaching, I’m emailing them saying, “Are you sure they should be delivering the appliances?” My concern was the electrical and plumbing wasn’t done yet so they wouldn’t be able to plug in or hook up the waterline on the fridge. The range was OK, that already had a gas line and an outlet, but I was a wee-bit concerned about the fridge.
When I point this out to Property Revival, their response was, “Sure, that’s fine. Have them deliver and install it.”
Me says, “How are they going to hook them up?”
They say, “It’s fine, have them deliver and install it.”
Me says, “How are they going to hook them up?”
They say, “We told you before it’s fine, don’t worry about it.”
Finally on Tuesday we had a bit of a heart to heart and all of a sudden they’re saying, “Uh, hmm, we’ll get back to you on that.”
So they scrambled and were able to get the electrician to come out Wednesday and hook up the electrical, but the plumber couldn’t make it.
Forward to today and we decide to let them install them both without the waterline for the fridge. Property Revival will then have to pull it out, install the waterline, and then put it back. People.
Now that the fun story is over time for some appliance porn.
I finally got my fridge. I like that. That’s exactly how I was picturing this looking. And it works!
Yeah, it’s not totally in place yet. A little more story. See, turns out the range is a direct wired hookup, no plug, it has to be hard-wired in place and we have a plug there. Also, the gas line coming up from the floor sticks up too high so the plumber will have to shorten it. So the range isn’t exactly in place quite yet, but both of those things should be done tomorrow. Stay tuned.
And while all that was going on, the trim showed up and the trim guys got to work. I have to say, they do a really nice job. They put in the cabinets and now they’re finishing up the baseboard and door trim. We like it.
Professionals. Way better at mitered corners than I am.
And now on to the final topic of this post. Last week, we had some storms come through Janesville. Not officially a tornado, but as I was driving down one of the main streets to my house after work there was an awful lot of tree damage and crews out. I said to myself, “uh, oh.”
I got home and the front was fine, but one of the trees in back, not so much.
Bummer.
We were finally able to get Paul’s Tree Service to come out here and get it cleaned up for us. They did nice work.
And that’s the end of my grand adventure for the day! Pretty hectic first thing in the morning, but turned out well overall.
Finished up putting handles on all things and re-did the island. I guess they think the countertops will be heavy.
Pretty slow day. I think now we won’t see much change for a while. The countertop guys are supposed to be in tomorrow to make templates so they can go make the countertops and then come put them on. I think there will be more trim work done in the meanwhile. I’ll keep you all updated as things go by.
