Week 32: 4th Down on the One-Yard LIne



This photo shows the cured concrete apron and drain grate installed in front of the garage.  We anticipate this making a huge difference in keeping water out of the garage during the occasional rains we have here in Bellingham.



This photo of the new laundry room shows the elevator door on the left, newly installed cabinets on the walls, and the washer and dryer in place, although not yet fully installed.  We have taken pleasure in recycling wherever we can.  The base and upper cabinets on the right wall and the upper cabinet on the far wall were all in the mud room of the pre-remodel house.  We are using them again here in the laundry room.  The base cabinet on the far wall is one of the base cabinets that used to be in the kitchen of the pre-remodel house.  The freestanding cabinet in the front of the photo is a base cabinet that Susan and Chris built and gave to us when they remodeled their house.  At the end of the project, this cabinet will move upstairs to the pantry, where we will use it  to store pots and pans.



This is the basement room adjacent to the laundry.  This photo shows some of the Berkeley possessions we're storing here pending our ability to occupy the entire house.



This photo shows the rehabilitated crawl space in the old furnace room.  Bellingham Bay Builders installed several new footings in this space to help support the second stories of the house.  When they were done, they raked and graded the earth and covered it with thick vinyl.  It's nicer space than it's ever been before and will make it much easier for the BP when he makes his biannual crawl through this space to open or close the foundation vents.



This photo shows the fully wired media panel.  The panel contains coaxial cables and ethernet cables for television and internet service to a total of ten locations in eight different rooms.  At any particular time, we will only be using two or three locations, but if and when the need arises to change any locations, we have plenty of choices.  The panel also contains cabling for landline telephone service to the elevator and four other locations in the house.



It's hard to believe, but we really are very close to being finished, and we find ourselves shifting gears from big picture issues to checking minute details to make sure everything is complete and working correctly.  In this photo, the BP is checking off items on our nine-page punchlist.



Every time we think most of the debris is gone from the yard, Dylan brings in another trailer and manages to fill it.  This is the beginning of the eighth month of construction, and during that time, a whole lot of debris accumulates!



Shelves and clothes-hanging poles have been installed in the closets.  This photo shows the poles on three walls in the master closet.  This is the largest closet that the BP and the BB have ever enjoyed in their entire married life.



This not very good photograph shows other details going on--in this case, a 48" grab bar has been installed inside the shower; on the left outside wall, a double towel rack has been installed; and in the upper right of the photo, you can see a robe hook that's been installed.



This photo shows one of two 36" grab bars that are being installed in the toilet area, and also the tissue holder that's been installed.  The BB and the BP purchased all of the bathroom accessories online; the good news was, they found exactly what they wanted; the surprising news has been that it's taken eight weeks for most of them to arrive, and there are two towel racks that haven't turned up yet.



The work table in the BB's office has now been fully completed.  Our granddaughter, Maya, has advised us that the cubbyhole is not a good place to store things; it's a much better place to rest your head when you're tired and even crawl into if you feel like hiding.



Sue and her family are visiting the BB's office.  The BB, Sue, and Chris pose for a photo taken by Maya with her very own camera.  Zoe elected not to be in the photo and preferred to study the recessed light in the ceiling.



Late last week, the state elevator inspector gave his final approval for the elevator, and all elevator finishes were completed except the oak floor, which was the task of Matthew, who has handled the new and refinished oak floors throughout the house.  This week Matthew installed the oak floor in the elevator cab, and this photo shows the now fully finished cab.



Sue and her family were the first official guests to ride in the elevator.  In this photo, Zoe pushed the elevator call button.



Here, Sue and her family enter the elevator for their first ride.  Zoe's inclination was to push all of the buttons, but fortunately she was only tall enough to ring the alarm and push "1", which took all of us to the basement. 
After viewing the basement, Maya pushed the higher buttons to take us to the second floor.



One of the delightful surprises when we engaged Eric Fulbright to build our kitchen cabinets was his idea of adding wainscoting on the north kitchen wall where fireplace brick used to be.  The wainscoting was Eric's design and included Craftsman touches that you can see in this photo at the top of the wainscoting.  We had planned from the beginning of the project to remodel the mantel in the living room but had initially planned a simple painted mantel.  Eric suggested that he could make us a nicer mantel out of the same quarter sawn oak he'd used for the kitchen cabinets, and he could build into it similar Craftsman touches borrowed from the wainscoting design.  The next photo will show you the result.



This is the new living room mantel designed and built by Eric Fulbright.



It is a big thrill to see a staircase that the BP and the BB designed from the LJ Smith catalog actually take shape in the house.  In this photo you see Tom, who, with his partner, Derek, are stair building experts and have been brought in by Bellingham Bay Builders to construct our staircase. 



This is another view of the staircase.  The upper part of the photo also provides glimpses of the ceiling grids and the new wall sconce at the stairway landing.  This blog will be taking a holiday hiatus while we return to California for Christmas.  We anticipate one or two more blog installments in early January.  Stay tuned.  In the meantime, we hope you enjoy wonderful holidays.

Week 31: 3rd Down on the 2-Yard Line





The week began with a pouring of the concrete ramp for the exterior elevator door and the drainage apron in front of the garage.  In this photo, Dylan and Mike finish the concrete ramp outside the elevator door.

The concrete apron in front of the garage was extended to include this pad that anchors the fence posts at the west end of our rear fence.  In the past, settling of the ground in this area had caused our previous posts to list.  This concrete pad should keep everything upright.



This is the concrete apron in front of the garage.  Next week's blog will include a photo of the finished apron, which includes a drainage grate running across the face of the garage.  The grate is connected to our tightline drainage pipe and carries water from the apron out through our drainage system to the street in front of our house.



Several new appliances arrived this week.  The refrigerator was the first to arrive--that is, most of it.  The handle on the freezer door was broken and is being replaced in the next couple of days.  Otherwise, the refrigerator works great.  The few of you that are of our same generation will appreciate the fact that this is the first refrigerator that we've ever owned that includes the ice and water dispensing mechanism.  We feel absolutely on the cutting edge of kitchen technology.



This photo shows the new vanity countertop and water faucets for our upstairs bathroom vanity.  As you can see, in the right of the photo, a stack of drying doors prevents a photo of the entire vanity.



The tile installer began installing the tile for our kitchen backsplash.  This is a close-up of a portion of the backsplash tile--a pretty porcelain tile that we found at a Portland tile and marble manufacturer.  The good news was, we loved the tile; the bad news is, that between the time we decided on our tile design and the time we were ready to order the tile, the manufacturer discontinued all but a few parts of this particular line.  Our tile subcontractor managed to put together a similar design using some tiles that were different from the original plus some of the discontinued tiles that she located in the manufacturer's warehouse.  When the backsplash is completed, we will include a photo showing the entire installation in one of our later blogs.

On Monday of this week we were in Berkeley loading this truck with those remaining furnishings in our Berkeley house that we'd earmarked for Bellingham.  On Thursday morning, the truck arrived in Bellingham at 8 a.m.  The driver, Tim, was the crew chief in Berkeley.  He drove alone to Seattle, where he picked up his twin kids, Ryan and Jackie, and the three of them formed the offloading crew.  All three of them were fantastic and made very quick work unloading our possessions and delivering them to the various designated areas that had been cleared for this purpose.  The moving company is Moovers' Inc. (yes, two "o's").  The company was founded about 15 years ago by alumni of the Delancey Street program.  The same wonderful work ethic and spirit that characterized our experience with Delancey St. in moving us from Berkeley to Davis also characterized our experience with Tim and his crew.

The BP apologizes for this blurry photo, but we had to show a shot of Tim and Ryan carrying our prized dining room table across the backyard to the house.



On Thursday the elevator was not completely finished but was sufficiently operational that we could use it to transport heavy items to various parts of the house.  In this photo, Tim loads our dining room table onto the elevator while Ryan looks on.

This photo shows part of the space on the second floor that we cleared to receive some of the Berkeley furnishings and boxes.  The space in this photo is in the library.



We also stacked quite a bit of stuff in the master bedroom.  The other area that we used to store Berkeley stuff was the basement.  We kept the first floor entirely open because the painters had crews working furously to complete the painting of the trim throughout the first floor.



We're putting wainscoting in the dining room to match the wainscoting in this adjacent room that used to be the BB's office but now will be the pantry/playroom.  This photo shows a portion of the wainscoting in the pantry/playroom, which will be painted Graystone.

Our ceiling light fixtures in the living room were removed so that the painters could paint the 9-lite grids that have been attached to the ceiling around each light fixture.  This photo shows one of the two grids.



This photo shows how the crown molding and ceiling box grids look after being painted.  We are very pleased with the result.



Ditto



A big treat for us this week was that the existing downstairs bathroom was finally painted the new color we'd decided upon.  The color is "Tranquility."  It is a huge improvement over what was there before. 



Another exciting development this week was that the stair builders, Tom and Derek, arrived and began constructing the staircase.  The BP and the BB designed the staircase, using standard kit parts manufactured by LJ Smith Stair Systems.  The wood is white oak and looks sensational in the room.  The LJ Smith materials are beautiful and very well engineered.  Nevertheless, some fine carpentry is required to tailor the kit parts to the specific dimensions of our staircase, and Tom and Derek are wonderful at this.  In this photo, Derek is consulting the plans for the staircase design.



The stair builders bring their own tools and equipment.  In this photo, Tom is making a fine cut on one of the stair risers.



This photo shows the staircase as viewed from the first landing looking up to the second floor.  While we would be quite happy leaving the oak treads and risers fully exposed, we have decided, for long-term safety reasons, to install a carpet runner down the center of the staircase.  We will be using the same carpet material that was used to carpet the second floor.



And perhaps the most exciting development of all was that the elevator was completed and the state inspector signed off on our permit.  One initial hurdle to passing the state inspection was that the city electrical inspector had to sign off on the electrical sub panel installed in the elevator machine room.  The electrical inspector initially objected to the placement of the sub panel based on what everyone else concluded was a misunderstanding of the code.  We marshalled a response team, consisting of the electrical subcontractor and the elevator contractor and demonstrated that the placement of the sub panel was perfectly proper.  The electrical inspector reconsidered and concurred with the response team, provided that a cautionary sign be posted on the control panel (see next photo).  With that, the electrical inspector put his green tag on the sub panel, which is what the state inspector wanted to see before proceeding with the state inspection.



This is the finished elevator machine room with the new yellow caution sign required by the electrical inspector.



This is not the local telephone exchange.  It is the inside of the elevator control panel.  Looking inside the panel makes us appreciate that every time the elevator button is pressed, there is a lot of stuff going on here in the control panel.



Our elevator contractor, Marty McKinney, came back on Saturday to put the finishing touches on the elevator installation.  He had been accompanied by his older son, J.D. during the installation of the elevator.  On this final visit, he brought along his younger son, Trenton, who helped carry some tools and vacuum the elevator cab.



We now have a finished, fully inspected, and fully operational elevator.  The BB gets ready to take a ride.



The buttons in the elevator will take some getting used to.  The numbers on the buttons correspond to the number of stops the elevator makes.  The numbering starts in the basement.  So "1" is the basement; "2" is the exterior ground level door; "3" is the first floor of the house, and "4" is the second floor of the house.  It may take a while before we stop pushing the wrong buttons.