PHASE 5: Week 35 - Rejected, Delayed and Dinged!

Week of January 25th - This has been such a frustrating week: 1) Our electricians put a "ding" in our brand new refrigerator, hitting the island when they were moving it forward to check a connection; 2) Our electrical inspection was delayed a couple of days then we were rejected! We did find out that it is a very minor issue having to do with the location and number of light bulbs in our guest and office closets that will be fixed easily next week; 3) Our HVAC guy finally showed up, but our bill increased by over $800 because of complications regarding the blower connection for our cook top downdraft. Our HVACV guy had never done one exactly like ours and had to have a $350 part made for it, then had to drill through concrete fill in our foundation to route it to the outside of the house. He also hooked up our fireplace vent, venting it through the foundation. Our electrician had originally agreed to do all of this (and we thought it was included in his bid), then said it was more of an HVAC function; 4) Our plumbers accidentally shook loose some of the new tile work around our master bathroom tub when they were installing the faucets (which they should have installed before the tile work was done), so that will have to be fixed next week; 5) We forgot to order some flexible tubing that is needed for the master bath faucets, so have to buy those over the weekend. MY HUSBAND IS VERY FRUSTRATED. HE KEEPS SAYING HE WANTS EVERYBODY TO GET DONE AND GET OUT BEFORE THEY DO ANY MORE DAMANGE! It makes me think of that awful TV ad slogan: "This is my money and I want it now!" We could change it to "This is my house and I want it now!"

On the bright side (S), we are buying some new furniture, always a fun thing! I finally found a vanity chair for my master bath as well as two counter stools for the island. Today I am taking my husband to Murfreesboro to show him the furniture my mother and I picked out two weeks ago so he can pay for it (ha). Seriously, I think he will like it, but we'll see. We picked out a leather couch, matching recliner, a coordinating upholstered chair, and dining room chairs, all at better prices than I have seen anywhere else (Ashley Furniture). Tomorrow morning will find us sowing 750 pounds and over $400 worth of fertilizer that finally came in. I had to make a 3 hour round trip drive yesterday to pick it up in Cleveland, TN! By for now! Enjoy the Superbowl!

PHASE FIVE: Week 34 - Let There Be Light!

Week of January 18th - We can hardly believe that the end is drawing near! The plumbing, electric, & HVAC are in process and our granite counter tops are now in. Our beautiful "Mystery" granite and sinks were installed by Rocky Top Marble & Granite & they did a beautiful job. We didn't have enough left of our two slabs to do the master bathroom tub surround and back splash, so will be having those done next week in the same tile as that on the bathroom floor. Our electrician/plumber, Jeff Thomas, has also had his crew very busy*****All of our faucets, plumbing and appliances are in, as well as our light fixtures. As of today we actually have temporary electricity inside the house (not via extension cord from a temporary meter outside of the house) and it was a thrill to see our lights all turned on. We think our lighting is simply perfect for us!!! *****Have I mentioned that our outlet covers were made by an electrical company Norman found out of state? They are made of carved pine (then stained to match our logs by yours truly) to fit round logs and look much better than the regular outlet covers. I'll have to take a picture for you. *****The big holdup now is our HVAC guy, who has been behind because of the cold weather, but he is supposed to come at the beginning of next week. Our electrician is waiting for him to install the downdraft and blower for our cook top so he can do that wiring. He also has to install the fresh air outlet for the fireplace. Both of these items require pipe that goes under the house then outside through the foundation. Once all of that is done, we can have our state electrical inspection and actually have heat in the house! Norman is getting very, very tired of running to Monteagle every day to spend $20 a day for the two kerosene heaters we have to keep running 23/7*****Once we have the electrical inspection and the tile done, the building inspector can come and, assuming we pass muster, will give us an OK and a certificate of occupancy. We can then actually move in, even though our mortgage won't finalize until after a final appraisal. Before we move in, however, it may take us several days to tidy up. Our log walls all have to be washed, along with our windows and floors, and touch-up painting and staining done. Our mortgage company sent out our home inspector (a very nice guy named John) for what we hope will be the last visit and draw. Other Items to be done sooner or later, before or after closing: 1) Closet & Pantry Shelving & Hanging Towel Rods, Toilet Tissue Holders, etc: Norman and I will be working on that this weekend; 2) landscaping - soil fertilizer application: I had to special order this (Greensand, it is called, comes from the sea) and have to pick it up in Cleveland when I find time for the 3 hour round trip drive 3) Hot Tub: We simply haven't had time to spend a day putting it together. It may not happen until after we move in; 4) Dog Fence: Ditto. We did decide on a design and our interior finishing guys, Sam & Skip, have agreed to handle some or all of this for us (more on that later); 5) Driveway Finishing: This may not occur until Spring. We need to have three stumps ground out of our new turnaround drive, the driveway leveled out where there are holes left by ze big trucks and machines, and several more loads of gravel plus crusher run to finish it all out; 6) Walkways: we will be having a 4' wide path made of stone from our turnaround to our front door. We will be contracting with A1 Building Supply masons to do this (for a good price), but the weather has first been too rainy, now too frozen to do it, so hopefully this will happen within a few weeks; 7) Rugs & furnishings: we have bought our great room rug and picked out our dining room rug and are very happy with our choices. In a week or so we are going to Murfreesboro where my Mother & I found some great choices and great prices (Ashley Furniture) in terms of couches, chairs, and bar stools. I am hoping my hubby will like what we found and agree to order everything we need from that one place! Of course, we will still need items like bathroom towels and rugs, etc.***So when, you ask, are we moving in? We told our landlord we will be renting through February, so my best guess is....

MOVE IN DAY GUESSTIMATE: Weekend of February 21st

PHASE FOUR Weeks 29, 30, 31, 32,33

Weeks of Dec. 15th, 21st, 28th, Jan 4th & 11th - PICTURES: If you click on these they will enlarge & you can see a lot of detail. As you can see our grass (actually sweet peas & oats) are coming in & most of the interior work is now finished. Wow, have I been bad about keeping up with this blog or what? The holidays, company before, during & after, and get togethers with friends along with the ongoing log home work kept us so busy we could hardly see straight! Except for a day or two off for Xmas & New Year's Day, our "guys" worked straight through the holidays as did we. Here's what was done: 1) Drywall painting - all done, but it needed a second coat so we paid the guys a couple of hundred dollars to do that (not bad, huh?); 2) Floor tile - all finished except for the final sealing & looking good; 3) Hardwood Flooring - the guys complained that our wood was NOT #1 select grade and was harder to put down that it should have been, but it looks gorgeous. They used #30 roofing felt under it to moisture proof it and cut down on squeaks, etc. We had enough left over from our roofing to handle it except for one roll (about $30); 4) Trim - This is now almost finished & has been the most time consuming thing so far. It is a lot trickier to trim out round logs than drywall plus the guys had to clear coat stain it first. We have stained the interior logs a light honey for some contrast, leaving the trim natural and clear coating it; 5) Cabinets finished & installed (they are natural hickory) & the workmanship is simply wonderful!). All of our appliances have been delivered and are sitting in the dining room area waiting to be installed; 6) Doors & door knobs - all hung now & Norman and I finished sealing (clear coat) the interior doors this past weekend; 7) Crawl space door built & hung. Issues: Our front & mudroom doors should have been completed finished before hung as now the temporary doors won't fit and we will probably have to hang plastic or put up cardboard to cover the doorways so the doors can be brought inside where it is warm enough to varnish them. Also, we still don't have any heat other than kerosene heaters, which has become very expensive. Our electrician was a no-show last week and we are waiting on him to handle this. We got permission from our county building inspector to go ahead and get the heat turned on without a final inspection, as we have to keep the house warm because of the wood (and because the weather is now occasionally below freezing!). When do we move in? We are behind schedule about a month and THINK all will be done in a week or so. Our granite subs came by last week to measure & should be cutting our granite today. We ordered special made wooden outlet covers because of the round logs & they should be here this week. We will be tiling the area above our kitchen cabinets, but that could be done later as it is not under our mortgage. Ditto the hot tub, which is sitting in our rental house waiting for the weekend we have time to assemble it. We have been unable to stain any of the porch rails & spindles because of the rainy, cold weather, so this may also happen after we move in. After the granite & final trim is done, as well as the final electrical & plumbing hookups, we will then have to wait on the state electrical inspector, building inspector, mortgage inspector, and appraiser before we can even set a closing date, so it looks like it will probably be February before we move in.

PHASE FOUR Week 28 - Tile Trouble

Week of December 8th - The drywall was finished and floor tiling begun. All went well until my husband noticed that spacers were not used and the tile in the master bathroom looked terrible. The squares weren't lined up and the spaces between the tiles vary in width from thick to thin! The guys were trying to match it up with the walls, which have discovered are out of square, in some places by an inch or more. Luckily we caught it in time, spent two hours Thursday night pulling it off, scraping off mud, and scraping and smoothing the floor. We had planned on putting up Xmas tree lights and decorations on our two-week old tree - we've been so busy with this house that we haven't had the time or the inclination - but such is life when you contract out your own home. We DO like our crew, but have found that we need to be there several times a day to make sure things are done our way and to make sure they have everything they need***We have decided on the colors for our walls and will be painting the drywall ourselves this weekend. One of the guys, Joe, is going to help, a relief to me as I was worried about standing on scaffolds in the master bedroom and bath (18 foot walls!). We chose cheerful earth tones, "Meadow" green for the mud room, Alabaster (very cheerful yellow-beige) for the guest bedroom, a very pretty color whose name I've forgotten (sort of a Cinnamon-clay color) for the office and guest bathroom, and Seafoam (a gorgeous green) for the master bedroom and bath. We looked at hundreds of colors, purchased 7 samples, painted them on scrap drywall, then took them out to the house to see how they looked with the logs and tile. Luckily Norman and I have almost identical taste and agreed 100% on the colors.

PHASE FOUR Week 27 Landscaping & Drywall

Week of Dec 1st - ***Our landscaping was finished last week and our lawn is covered with straw. Our river rock was also delivered and looks nice underneath the deck. I spent almost an entire day raking the front yard prior to planting the seed due to all the leaves that had fallen. It snowed two days after we planted and I took a pretty picture of the house covered in snow, but accidentally deleted it! Anyway, the snow is mostly gone now, leaving very soggy, messy yard. ****Most of our dry wall has now been put up and the "mudding" will begin today. I've learned that it takes three coats of "mud" and that we will need to keep our kerosene heater running 24-7 so the mud will dry properly. (As we speak it is 19 degrees outside.) ****We've ordered our tile and next week the flooring should begin. Our cabinet maker came out this week for final measurements and said the cabinets should be ready in about three weeks.

PHASE FOUR Weeks 25 & 26 - Color Our House Honey

Weeks of November 19th & 24th - The weather is turning colder and rainy, which has delayed the exterior rail staining and landscaping, but the interior logs have been sanded and cleaned. Since the days seem to be growing shorter and colder rapidly, we are now using a powerful diesel heater supplied by our crew, and lights we purchased. Our crew wanted us to see if we could get more power into the house and we could for $500-$600 more, so we had to decline. The main issue is that everyone has to stop working a bit early and that power tools don't work as well. *****Norman and I spent the last two weekends cleaning the guest bedroom side of the house and caulking the entire house. For those of you who don't know, cracks in logs are normal, but I'm not too crazy about them and we filled in most of them, especially the bigger cracks. ***Our crew is staining the interior of the house this week and it looks great. We are applying one coat of stain and two coats of acrylic topcoat, so it should have a beautiful satin finish.. The ceilings and trim will be a natural pine color, a nice contrast, and will also have two coats.***Our landscaping rocks for under the prow deck have been delivered and should be laid out today. I was a bit disappointed in the color (a bit too reddish for my taste), but they will blend in alright.

PHASE FOUR: Weeks 22, 23 & 24 - Interior Work

Weeks of October 27th, Nov 3rd & Nov 10th - Wow, hard to believe that three weeks have gone by. Norman has been ill for most of that time, probably with the flu, missing two weeks of work. He did rev up enough to play a gig for the TPAC (Tennessee Psychological Association) annual convention in Nashville on November 7th. Our friend Eva, who has a beautiful voice, played with him and they sounded great despite the fact that he was a bit flaky what with the heavy cough & decongestant meds! We had hopes of doing all of our interior staining, but have ditched that idea along with our goal of moving in by Christmas. Here's why: Although we are not "old," we have both past age 50 a good while back and don't bounce back the way we once did! We have put so much pressure on ourselves to do much of the work ourselves and to get it done quickly that it is probably a factor in Norman's getting sick, and neither of us had been sleeping well. We have done very well so far in staying on budget, but we have decided that spending a bit extra for labor and finishing is well worth it. Both of us feel good about this decision, are sleeping better, and are now back to being excited rather than stressed about our home. It may be January or February before we move in, but that's OK. I read somewhere that it takes the average log home "owner-builder" 11 months to complete a log home, and it will take us 6-8 months, so we are still ahead of the game!
Here are highlights for the past three weeks:
****All of our fixed windows are now installed.
****While I was finishing up our tongue and groove sealing on our prow deck, I got attacked by hordes of ladybugs! No kidding, there were thousands of them flocking around and on me and in the stain, to the point where I had to move everything inside. I'm told this is an annual event around here!
****The exterior staining is done except for the deck railings and spindles and looks great! We had a moment of panic this weekend when it snowed and we saw white streaks and spots all over our stain! A call to our stain company put our minds at ease, though, after they explained it is something called the "blushing effect" that will go away as the weather warms up. It appeared because it actually takes up to three weeks for the stain to "cure" and very cold weather can cause temporary spots.
****We have decided to stain the interior logs a light honey, leaving the ceiling and trim work natural pine. After seeing the ceilings up and the vast expanses of light pine everywhere, it began to bother us that our floors and cabinets are also very light (natural hickory) in color and we decided we needed a contrast. The light honey color complements the exterior dark honey and is really just a shade or two darker than the natural pine color. (If anyone is interested, go to the Permachink website and look up the color.) .
****Gutters are installed - a brown color that looks good with the colors of the roof and stonework.
****Front and mudroom doors (mahogany) are trimmed out and delivered. They will be stained a "chestnut brown" shade which goes with the gutters, roof and stonework (and the knots in the logs!) Norman and I will be staining them this weekend (Nov 22nd).
****We went ahead and finished our attic after all (except for heat and air) and love it! We had some leftover log siding, so put that in the gable sides and put tongue and groove in the ceiling. The attic floor and ceiling are both insulated with R-30 so we can bring a small heater or AC unit upstairs if we need to, but it should stay fairly cool in the summer and warm in the winter. We then had 4' knee walls built with very cute doors (sort of cross-buck style) made for the openings which will give us storage space on two sides 6' deep and about 18' long. We will probably floor it with carpet (later). Norman is going to use this as his music room, so he is thrilled about that! It will be about 13' x 18' or about 250 square feet!
****We got a great bid/offer by our "mountain man," Ronnie, to do a lot of clearing and landscaping in the woods around our home, so took him up on it and it looks great! It is now much more open and improves our view of rock outcroppings to the East and Jump Off Ridge to the South. As far as the landscaping around our house to the tree line, Charles Thomas' crew began "dressing up" the land (final backfilling and leveling) and seed sowing this week (November 17th). A couple of weeks ago he and our electrician set up our permanent electric meter on a post about 60' from the house, as Norman didn't want it stuck on the front of the house. We are going to paint it and landscape around it (disguise it as a bird feeder or something - ha!)
****All of our tongue & groove ceilings are done and look amazing. Our insulation is done. We really went all out with the insulation, putting R-30 in all ceilings, R-19 in almost all of our walls and closets, and R13 in the gabled areas with siding (because R-19 wouldn't fit). We have noticed, as has our crew, how much warmer it is in the house, even in cold weather, because of this, and how very quiet! I was startled to hear that very few people in this are use R-30, using R-19 instead. We would have actually preferred R-38, but our cathedral ceilings are not built to accommodate that (a design change we would probably have made if we had known better!).
Projections/Next Projects: The guys (Sam Thornley and his crew of two, brother Joe and friend Skip) are currently preparing the great room and master bedroom/bathroom side of the house for staining and sealing, sanding and cleaning the logs. We are doing the other side of the house ourselves to save money (and because we don't have to climb scaffolds to do it!). They are also doing a bit of trim work. Following that, they will be doing more trim work, laying tile, hanging drywall, hanging and trimming out our doors (after Norman and I stain and seal them), then laying our wood floors. After the floors go down our cabinets and granite will be installed, then our electrican/plumber/HVAC guys will connect everything for the final inspection. We think we will be done with all before the end of the year (S).