Tuesday, May 01, 2007
Green, Green Grass
The Great Room, with the dining room table and some of the furniture we have purchased. Now we get to furnish the whole house, such fun!
The kitchen cabinets, from The Home Depot, in Massachusetts, fit perfectly in the space they occupy. This kitchen set-up is almost identical to our the kitchen in our Harwich home.
The Final Electrical Hookup
This means two things; the first is that before they hook up the power to your house, you must acquire a Certificate of Occupancy (CO) from the Building Department. We passed the inspections and we are cleared to move in - we needed their permission - and we got it!
The second thing is that our exhorbitant electric electric rate is going down. Seems the only way they can entice people to get their CO - and legally inhabit their house - is to charge them a higher rate for the power until they get it done!
I couldn't resist the sailboat. I took the photo from the gallery, the rock pile is topped by what looks like half a cracked egg shell, now a natural stone birdbath. We pulled the stone from the rubble of the excavation; assembled the pile with the bowl facing skyward.
Our home, as it looks from the front yard, the Papaya trees in the foregraoud are grown from seeds the workers dispersed while eating their papayas for lunch.
Friday, March 23, 2007
Concrete Dust is History
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
Saturday, March 17, 2007
Masking Tape Marauders
With the first coat of stain applied, we begin the waiting period before we can recoat.
Notice the kitchen appliances are gone? We had to remove them and store them for this period of time. The refrigerator is plugged into the kitchen outlet (20 amp circuit) but the frige itself is in the blue bedroom.
Great Room Floor
Our cat's view of these proceedings is a little different than our own; I am sure he thinks we are batty!
We did the areas behind and under the appliances first, that way we can re-arm the kitchen sooner. Working in the kitchenn when it looks like this is very discouraging, especially with the refrigerator in the South bedroom! Here you can see that we masked off the areas we didn't want to stain, once the first squares are sealed and finished, we will strip off the plastic and tape from them for transfer to the squares we just completed. Don't worry, we are confused, too.
Once the kitchen was done, we turned our attention to the rest of the room. The combo set up, with the vacuum cleaner, the scoring tool and the scoring guide are set up here, ready for action!
Grade the Driveway
Sunday, March 11, 2007
Saturday, March 03, 2007
The Back Hall & Laundry
In this sequence of photos you can see the process of having the floor grinded (ground?), stained, scored, washed, sealed, and, finally, grouted.
The first two images are of the back hall & laundry area, prior to the work of the grinding tool. Notice the waves in the floor surface? That is how the last guys left the floor, unfinished, mostly because it was the end of the day.
These photos can be enlarged sometimes to full screen (yours) by clicking on the image, try it!
The next shots here are taken after the staining and scoring has been done, what needs doin' now is the wash off of the slightly acidic stain residue. I use a baking soda and water solution for this process. After this is done, the floor can be sealed for posterity.. If washing these floors is the least fun, sealing them is the most rewarding by far of all the processes, or maybe it's the grouting. I can't decide.....