I installed the new range last night. It wasn't a big deal. It was as simple as attaching the power cord (basically, tightening 6 screws) plugging it in, and sliding it back into place.
It's pretty nice, actually. The oven heats up faster than the old one. I turned the oven on to about 425 degrees for a half hour last night, just to burn off the initial smell. Ovens are stinky when you first use them. I don't know exactly what it is that stinks so much, but it'll be nice to have that gone.
My son didn't want eggs this morning, or I would have actually cooked on the new cooktop. I'm going to have to find a good recipe and bake something tonight. I'm off to foodnetwork.com to see what I can find!
Of course, if anyone reading this has a favorite recipe, please post it in a comment. Maybe I'll break in the new oven with YOUR recipe!
The final inspection has happened. I don't know if it passed or not, but I have to reason to think it wouldn't.
Today, the drywall guy was there repairing holes and dings. He put a lot of quality time into the stairway, just like we thought he would. The trim people will be back to fix dings in the trim. The painters will be back to touch up everything that needs paint work. The electricians will be back to install a switch for the garbage disposal (oops) and put in the dimmer that I paid for...
According to the project manager, everything will be done within the next couple of weeks. That means that we'll be watching movies on the big screen... er... big WALL by mid april! Woohoo!!
Wow.
I'm getting SO excited!
Mostly, it will be nice to have the basement back again. We'll probably ding the walls a bit when moving stuff back down to storage. But then I don't have to wait for someone else to come fix it. I'll be doing it myself!
They've started on the carpet! The carpet pad is in everywhere except for the stairs. The carpet has been rough-cut in the large rooms. It's (fortunately) not as brown as we remembered it. It's actually very nice.
This MUST mean that they're getting close to done. What else could there be left to do?
We also found out that the radiant heating system warms the floor in different places upstairs. That's going to be nice in the winter!
Hopefully, they'll be done ahead of schedule. I'm getting antsy. I'm REALLY looking forward to hooking up the sound system and watching movies.
They were installed, installed, installed, installed, installed, installed, installed, and installed!
MY SPEAKERS WERE INSTALLED!
Yes, I'm all excited about that. I am SUCH a geek!
The center speaker, the main speakers, and all the surround speakers are made by Proficient Audio Systems. The subwoofer is made by OEM systems. They're all imbedded in the walls and ceiling.
The one problem: The subwoofer isn't powered. Oops! My receiver only has a pre-amplified output. So if I hooked it up as-is, it wouldn't work very well.
Today, I ordered an amplifier to drive it with.
Now I REALLY can't wait for the basement to be done so I can hook the whole system up. I'm SUCH a geek! But I already said that, didn't I.
The finish electrical is done. We have outlets, we have switches, and we have lights. It's nice to be able to just turn on a light when we want to see downstairs.
The cabinets are also installed. We weren't expecting the insides of the cabinets to be white and to have moveable shelves in them. That's the one thing so far about upscale downstairs that has seemed cheap, but it's not our primary kitchen, so we're not too upset about it.
Today, they're installing the counter tops and the tub surround. By the end of the week, finish plumbing should be completed, including finishing the radiant heating system so it actually works. Hardware (doorknobs, etc) should be done by the end of the week as well.
That means that only the carpet and speaker system remains. After that, there will be a nice long punchlist. But it's coming together very quickly!
Yes, it was a moment of panic last night when I turned on the only light in the basement. There is a single light bulb in the stairwell, and I was shocked when I turned it on last night.
YELLOW!!!
The painters had used the wrong color of paint. We were going to have to deal with days more of the paint smell.
ARGH!!!!!!
But then I looked at the light bulb. It was COVERED with paint, which was causing the light coming out of the bulb to be yellow. I changed the light bulb, and the panic subsided.
The paint is dry. I opened all of the windows in the basement for a while this morning to air the place out. It's looking good!
The smell DID keep me up the other night. The paint smell kept waking me up over and over. It stunk. Last night, we slept with a window cracked open. It was chilly, but it kept the fumes from building up.
Last night, after rehearsal, I went downstairs to take a look. It was an interesting sight.
All of the doors were standing up. They stood them up to paint them. How do you stand doors up? Well, they stood them up on scrap pieces of trim. The doors were arranged kind of like this:
/ \ /
And scrap pieces of trim were nailed between the doors at the top to keep them standing up.
The doors were all painted. The trim was all painted. It appeared that all of the shelves were painted. The walls and ceiling were still the color of primer. So today, I'm assuming that they will hang the doors, mask everything, and paint the walls and ceiling. And then they should be done.
There were a couple of places where paint had dripped or run down the doors. I'll have to watch that closely when we get to creating a punchlist.
The bad news is that tonight, we probably have to sleep with the window slightly open again. Hopefully, the painting will be done today and this will be the LAST night.
The other crazy thing - the painters are using a propane forced air heater down there. HELLO?? Those things pump out carbon monoxide! They're not supposed to be used in enclosed spaces. I understand that it has to be warm in order for the paint to dry properly, but this is a little ridiculous.
I'm not complaining though. These painters are hard workers. Of all the people that have worked in the basement so far, they have worked the longest days, arriving just after 7 in the morning and working until about 7 in the evening. It's tedious, smelly, messy work. But from what I've seen so far, they're doing a really good job.
The whole house stinks like paint. I'm glad I'm not a painter. This smell would drive me absolutely crazy.
Not that this is a bad thing... It means that things are progressing. And the sooner they're done painting, the sooner the stink will go away. And the sooner they're done with painting, the sooner they'll get to the finish electrical and we can turn on the lights down there. And the sooner they do that, the sooner they can put in the cabinets and cupboards and counters and sinks and tub surrounds and... Well, you get the picture.
I'm going to sleep. Hopefully, the smell won't keep waking me up.
It's still moving along quickly. Since I last wrote about it, they finished the drywall, they mudded, they taped, and they textured. The texture was sprayed on only this morning. Unfortunately, they had to deliver the doors AFTER the texture was sprayed on. The problem: The french doors were quite large, so they, of course, dinged the stairway up a little bit while delivering. But there's still a hole in the drywall (left by the electricians) that needs to be patched. So they're going to be spending some quality time there in the stairway anyway, so they can touch up the problems that were created today.
The vinyl flooring was put down in the storage rooms today as well. Tomorrow and the next day, the tile guy will be laying tile. Friday and Monday, they're going to hang the doors and put up all the trim. Apparently, they're going to build the shelves in the storage room as well, because all of that wood was delivered too.
After that's all done, the painters will come and paint. Then they can do stuff like bathroom and kitchen cabinets and get going on finish electrical.