We are a day or two away from the living space of the house being done. Progress feels agonizingly slow. But you talk to others building houses here and we are all in the same boat. Demand for skilled workers exceeds the supply.
The painting crew has been spending a lot of time here. It seems they send in the second string initially to do the painting. Three nights ago we were dismayed at the painting job being done. Then the first string came in the next day to touch up…so much better!
Right now the main living area, my sewing room and the guest bedroom are all done.
The finished great room. The fireplace facade still needs gray stacked stone.Kitchen and dining area to the left. I am still using the loaner induction cooktop. Mine will be here at the end of the month.
The master suite, laundry room, powder room, the husband’s shop and the garages are all in need of paint attention.
The master bathroom is complete except for the aforementioned painting touch-ups.The builder got me a granite countertop for the pantry. Lots of storage here.
Outside…there is still a lot to do, especially since they have been concentrating on the completion of the inside. We do have the concrete pads at the front and back of the garage. And there is now a concrete approach at the driveway.
A few days ago, the painting crew put the gray paint on the architectural “eyebrows” on the house. The two front pillars will get gray stacked stone.
Then it rained, unexpected in May!
We had a beautiful sunset just as the thunderstorm was moving in.
And after the rain….
After the storm, we knew exactly where some work need to be done to keep water out. This is at the rear of the RV garage.
Moving In
Yesterday we started moving in where we could. We purchased some stools to sit at the kitchen counter. I found some of our dishes. Etc, etc, etc. This is going to be a slow process, we aren’t as young as we used to be!
We purchased some counter height stools for the kitchen island.I made it a point to find the recliners and TV in the pile of stuff in the garage. I’ve missed my recliner! I also dug out the living room rug. I ordered an 8′ x 10′ pad to go under the 8′ x 10′ rug. What did Home Depot ship me? A 12′ x 15′ pad. Grrrrr. Now I have to find scissors to cut it down to size.
Attic Lift
And finally, the husband’s long awaited attic lift is installed! He accomplished that task yesterday morning. It is going to make getting supplies to his shop so much easier. This 40 second video shows it in action.
It’s time to wrap this post up. The painters should be here again soon to finish up inside. Fingers crossed they finish today!
Before we start, let me urge you to make sure you scroll all the way to the end to see what James’s latest toy is! Now onward….
It’s been two weeks since we moved our worldly possessions to the Southwest and stacked it all in the RV garage. And that is where our stuff still is…in the RV garage. There has been some progress on the house, but it feels like two steps forward and one step back.
The backsplash in the kitchen got installed. It looks great!
The granite company came out and cut the hole for the induction cook top.
Yeah…about that induction cook top. The appliance company was loading the truck with our goods the night before it was to be delivered. Someone DROPPED our induction cook top that we had ordered last October. The glass shattered. No more cook top.
The appliance store sent over a loaner cook top. But look…it doesn’t fit! The cabinetry below needs to be trimmed some. I’m told that the cabinet would have had to be trimmed no matter what cook top was installed. I’m betting the replacement cook top arrives before we are moved in. Why bother with the loaner? Because we want to pass inspection if we do get moved in before May 19th (the date for the new cook top to arrive).
Then it was garage door opener day. Woohoo! I had bought the network router for the new house already (of course I had!) and scrambled to get it set up. By the time the installer was done installing three garage door openers, I had the WiFi portion of the house network up and running and we were able to pair the garage door openers with the apps on our phones. They don’t call me Geeky for nothing!
Of course, the installer had to bring his own lift to reach where the openers go for the RV garage doors. And he has to work around our stuff draped with plastic.
Let’s not forget HVAC day! Our whole house heat pump and master bedroom mini-split (to make the bedroom cooler than the rest of the house) needed to get up to the roof. Stand back and watch.
A crane showed up and within minutes the items were on the roof. Unfortunately, it was discovered the wires for power for the mini-split didn’t get run up to the roof. Grrrr. More on that later.
Another day was tap-into-the-gas-line day.
This is the crew that digs a hole and taps into the gas line at the street. Another crew puts in the meter (at the street!!!) and connects it to the gas line going to the house. But where’s the gas line going to the house? Turns out no one had reached out to the plumber to put the gas line in. Grrrr. Two steps forward, one step back…again.
Last Friday was a big day. The rest of the appliances, the front door, AND the electricians arrived! Yup, “It’s Electric.”
The front door with the large panes of glass and the side lights really open the room up and allow you to see the Organ Mountains. I love it!I happened to be in the house early one morning and the sunlight was just streaming in!
By the end of the day, I had a washer installed with power (dryer is installed, but no power to it yet) and I had power in my sewing room.
So, come Saturday, I ran my first load of wash, our RV rugs were filthy. I don’t have hot water yet (still no gas to the water heater) or a water softener (supply chain issues). But I can do a cold water wash…and I did!
What a beautiful sight! A washing machine in action. No more laundromats for me!
This washing machine is almost identical to the one we bought six years ago. But now the appliances talk to your home network. Here’s one more app on my phone…47 minutes until my rugs are clean.
Being it was the weekend and we sincerely doubted anybody would be working on the house (which turned out to be true), I decided to set up, temporarily, in my sewing room. Oh my! It felt almost normal to be able to spread out while quilting.
I grabbed the folding table from the RV and found my ironing board and sewing chair in our “stuff”. I was all set. Sewing with a view! What a wonderful Saturday and Sunday. Unfortunately, I had to take it all down Sunday night.
Today the electricians showed back up. At the end of the day today, we have some lights that work!
We finally got to turn on the light over the kitchen island for the first time. Still loving it!Our outside lights have been installed. We picked ones that shine down only. There is enough light pollution sullying our nighttime skies, we didn’t want to add to it.
But there was a lot of this going on too. Have I mentioned two steps forward, one step back?
There seems to be an interference here. Light fixture needs to be moved. And now we have a hole in our master bathroom wall. I think this is part of the effort to get a wire up to the roof to power the mini-split. How about these new holes in the corner ceiling of the laundry room. Again, it’s related to that wire needed at the roof. The poor drywallers have to come back AGAIN!
But all in all, it’s starting to look like there is a light at the end of the tunnel….at least as it pertains to getting us out of the RV and into the house. The list of post-move-in-things to be done is still long. The shop lift, shop flooring, driveway, landscaping, outside painting. Don’t ask what the target date is, we have blown by it already.
The house is looking good with the scaffolding removed. The garage doors, front door, and eyebrow soffits still need to be painted gray. Also the pillars are going to get black stacked stone.Lots of landscaping needed. That may wait until the fall. You can see the RV’s nose sticking out on the left hand side. Parked there, we now have full hookups! Electric, water and sewer. That’s something.
Let’s talk weather toys…
James here. Since we have the house network up and running, I got to bring my new weather station online. I chose to get the WeatherFlow Tempest station (https://weatherflow.com/tempest-home-weather-system/). They have a large network of installed stations and the design has no moving parts and is wireless and solar powered.
I installed the unit on a post in our backyard. Unfortunately the southwest is known for having lots of caliche (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caliche). It is a type of soil/rock that is like a poor grade of concrete. To dig the post hole I had to use my hammer drill and a masonry bit to break up the caliche, then take a shovel to break up the big chunks, then using a soup can duct taped to a long stick I scooped the soil out of the hole. Long slow process.
The end result is the station is on the pole and running.
The pole at the back of our yard with the weather station on top.
Besides providing the data to me it also reports it to WeatherFlow. Each user can elect to make the information public or private over the internet. I have elected to make it public, so anytime you want to know the weather in our back yard you can use this link to get right to my station (https://tempestwx.com/station/100246/). Or you can bring up a map showing all the stations in the world, zoom in to Las Cruces, and select the station named “East of A Mountain”.
When you bring up my station using the above link you will see this display.
If you click on the top block that displays the temperature etc. you will see this list.
If you click on any element in the list it will bring up a graph of that element, for instance temperature.
So check out our weather and enjoy. The display is the default that comes with the station. We will be checking into other (hopefully more informational) displays. So stay tuned, we may have an update in the future.
