Holy crap. Real Progress?

Yeah, you read that right. We got somewhere this week!!! It’s been a couple exasperating weeks without seeing much progress on the house, but things really did kick into high gear at the end of the week!

What’s done?

• The porch railings (sustainably harvested mahogany matching the decking) are 90% in place, lacking final lagging, caps and the last sections attaching to the bottom of the stairs.
• The slate is in place on the stoop, awaiting grout.
• The trim around the downstairs has received a couple more coats of poly and is pretty much complete. The master bedroom accent wall got it’s first coat of dark blue paint as well.
• The last pieces of the headband were installed and now just need some final tweaking. We need the beams to be wrapped and a bit more trim installed around the entryway as well.
• The fireplace is in place!!! The outside vents have been installed and now it’s just time for some wall repair.
• A new hearth was cut into the floor for a few reasons. It meets code for this super-hot fireplace, it looks a lot better than the prior, smaller hearth, and it’s big enough that the wood for the fireplace will fit on the slate rather than having to rest on the wood floor prior to being put on the fire.
• The maple floors have been sanded throughout the house and the first coat of finish is in place throughout 90% of the house. The only part left is the stairs and the green bedroom, because they had to wait for the stair install to complete on Friday…
• …and the staircase was completed on Friday! The stairs were built by Steve Eisnor & son of Eisnor Contracting of Charlton. They put together some great work and it was hugely frustrating to see the humidity-swollen stairs not quite fitting in place on Wed/Thurs! Luckily the humidity dropped out on Thursday and they got them installed successfully that afternoon. The newels were completed with the skirts and nosings on Friday.
• They’ll be back once the floors are completely finished to install the post caps, cherry railings and maple balusters. They did some great work on the posts – that’s maple with a cherry inlay – but they’ll have to touch up a couple spots as some of the newel post cherry was mangled during a final pass through their planer!
• The well pump is in place.
• The geothermal units are in place and 1/2 installed.

So what’s left?

• The floors are due to get another coat or two on Sunday.
• Cabinetry is due to be completed on Monday morning.
• Granite is due Mon afternoon.
• Site work/driveway is supposed to resume on Monday – this has been promised for quite a while though, so I’ll wait to see Dave Richards on site!
• Painting should resume and complete this coming week.
• Plumbing and electrical finishes are due to be installed on Tues/Wed.
• Appliances are to be dropped on Wed.

Geothermal completion? Tile backsplash in the kitchen and grout on the stoop? Front and back steps & patio concrete pad? Hopefully those items will fall right into place at the end of the week! Are we moving in next weekend? Or will ‘waiting for the occupancy permit’ be the last major hurdle?

Stay tuned!