I’ve been living vicariously through grainy phone pictures the last couple days.  Fortunately it’s staying lighter later but that doesn’t mean I’m necessarily getting out there daily.  I stopped by the other morning to drop a check off for one of the trades but mornings are still pitch black making it impossible to take in anything sensory of value. Today I did sneak out after work, postponing dinner a few extra minutes, to indulge my curiosity.  For I had seen nothing but grainy pictures of what was going on out there.

Waffling over the fireplace surround design continued to be a favored pastime and today was the last possible time to make a design decision.  The plan is to surround the Edge 60 with the same quartz that will be on the kitchen counters.  The quartz material will then “cascade” down onto the floor creating a quasi “hearth”, inset into the light maple hardwood flooring.  Surrounding all of that will be our cultured field stone.  Look, the finished product will either be really nice or look like a complete, over priced, train wreck.  Honestly I have no idea.  That pretty much goes for the entire project at this point.  All we can do is hope we made a few good decisions along the way.

Edge60 with its Studio faceplate in place. Surrounding the faceplate will be Silestone quartz from floor to about 5 or 6 inches above the faceplate. On the floor will be a panel of the Silestone as well. You can see where we left the wood flooring off. Overall about 48" wide. We shall see...

One annoying anomaly is there are reports that cold air is coming in below the fireplace.  I’ll have to investigate this weekend.  Additionally we’ll frame out the breezeway and porch columns, install an ironing board and other miscellaneous odds and ends.

Most of the light maple hardwood floor is installed, including the stair landings and hallways.  Speaking of stairs, the finished stairs are all installed.  Everything is wrapped up to protect the wood finish of the treads but they are remarkably beautiful from what I can tell.  The appear to be structurally sound and of proper design.  It’ll be weeks before they gain their full complement of safety rails and two-tone paint job (stain and white paint).  The stringers are 3 or 4 laminated layers of 3/4″ thick wood (poplar?).  Each floating tread is about 2.5 to 3 inch thick veneered maple.  Code requires there be no larger than a 4″ gap so a strip of wood is added to the underside of each tread.  This helps support the tread and minimizes the opening between treads.  Open treads are preferred because they allow better air flow from the basement to the second floor; helping with the air current that will help keep the house cool in the summer and warm in the winter.  They also happen to look really cool and drool worthy.  We’ll wrap them in berber carpet to soften the steps for little ones crawling up and down.  The open tread design should be okay safety wise.  I grew up with open treads and seemingly survived unscathed.

Stairs without their protective covering

Left stringer is one piece of 3/4" material. It will be beefed up with two more layers. Below, that open triangle will be enclosed with an MDF panel painted white.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The interior doors were delivered today too.  I didn’t think we had that many but a quick survey this evening revealed they are all over the place….seemingly multiplying behind tuned backs.  The style looks really nice, which is to say nice equates to a simple three panel “farmhouse” look.

 

C'mon baby light my fire. The doors arrived today.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The garage doors look remarkably better today.  They installed some more trim and weather-stripping to cover up the 2″ gaps that were present previously.  Looks like they’re slowly working their way around cupola with siding as well too.  As soon as that’s done, gutters can go on I suspect.

 

Light maple hardwood flooring going in in the Family Room and Kitchen

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hmmm…..reckon that’s it for today.  Doors and trim will start going in tomorrow.  We need to secure mirrors, the last of the lights and get cabinets delivered this week.  There’s some tile that needs to be finished downstairs and we’re struggling to get the glass tile for the Master bath shower. 

 

Finally, switching gears, check out this book that Linda Killian wrote.  It came out today.  It’s called “The Swing Vote: The Untapped Power of Independents”.  I was part of a focus group that Linda interviewed in Ohio.  It was interesting to participate and hear what other independent voters had to say.  I placed my order today via Amazon.com.  Check it out there or at your local book store.