WEEK 32: Still Here!


Last week brought us about 3" of rain in one day. Arizona has this weather pattern referred to as Monsoon Season, typically from June through September, which to me seems to be an oxymoron given how incredibly dry the place is. At any rate, we occasionally get rainstorms in the summer, and this last week brought a huge one that dumped for a day. 

In Texas, a good rainstorm will dump 3" in a couple of hours, and is no big deal. Here, it is a big deal because there is granite rock hiding 6-12 inches beneath the dirt, and water has nowhere to go in terms of absorption. So everyone gets a 'pool' somewhere whether they want one or not, and you learn not to tempt fate with a flash flood warning.

But, I digress...  

The internal work on the house has continued on a steady pace with most of the activity centered on installing the ceramic floor tiles, which comprise about 75% of the house (guest rooms and den/study are carpeted). In theory, ceramic tile makes for a cooler home in the warmer months, so I'm told. It also doesn't scratch like wood (last house) and is fairly simple to maintain. Just don't drop glass on it! 

Great Room/Living Room (leading to Master Bedroom)



The tile grout will be a lighter color than the tile (no grout in these pics yet).

Dining Room


Kitchen Area (Open concept design)


Kitchen Pantry Area


The lighter colored wood areas are drawers, doors, etc. that haven't been delivered yet, so no, this isn't a multi-colored design effect. We've tried to design in as many pull-out drawers as possible, instead of just cabinets, since we are getting incredibly lazy in our old age and don't feel like crawling into cabinets to retrieve stuff. You'll get there soon too!

For simplicity, and to make the tile flow better, the Kitchen, Living Room, Pantry, Master Bedroom, Study and Hallway are the same tile. Everything else is a different tile style, or carpet. You will have to ask Jan on what her design concept was based on, since I'm just the check writer.

I'm not sure whether this video will actually play in real time once the blog is posted, but I'll give it a shot anyway. If not, I'll do some further research on how to make it work.


Driveway

Low and behold, they finally got around to pouring the driveway this last week. The centerline and edges will all be in pavers, leading up to the front entryway and front door. The stacks in front of the driveway are all pavers for the walkways.


Pool

As you can see, the pool has about 6"-8" of water from the rainstorm last week. The plumbing has been partially completed, and now we are waiting 😤 for the electricians to do their work before it can be rebarred in preparation for the shotcrete gunite to be applied.


Front View (after the rain)


That's it for this week. See y'all soon!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

WEEK 46: Cement Me This, Tile Me That!

Image
AS IS TYPICAL , we are building this house army style - 'hurry up and wait'!  Just when we start to see progress at the beginning of the week, the subs disappear by mid-week, not to be seen again until the following week.  Backyard Having said that, we are seeing some major progress on the BBQ and seating area that will be at the end of the Ramada covering. Phoenix has this funky law that says you can't have a BBQ area up against a property line wall, so we have a 4' space behind the wall for trellis plants. (Later) We were originally going to hide the pool equipment there, but opted for the side yard instead. Pool Tile work also got started on the pool this week. We were initially told to pick two tile patterns because of the tile shortage, so we weren't sure which one would show up. Thankfully, Jan's first choice arrived, and they started laying the water line. The tile in the pic below will go all of the way up to the travertine coping line above the scupper.
Read more

WEEK 51: Where's The Mover?

Image
We finally closed escrow!   We are now the proud owners of another home. Unfortunately, not all of the work is done yet, but I'll explain later. Can y'all believe we got 3.5" of rain here last week? Crazy! Basically, everything is technically done, however, we still have a substantial punchiest consisting of some additional painting (inside and out), cabinet touch-ups, pool tile and scupper cleanup, additional plants that have to be purchased by the landscaper, and a fountain installation. We expect all of this to be completed in the next couple of weeks. In the interim, I have subs contracted to do work that I didn't want the builder to do such as fan and mirror installation, complete interior color repaint, living room beams, rock and floating shelves, and garage cabinet installation. That should take us to the middle of the month when furniture starts arriving. So we still have a bit of the journey left to complete.... Backyard Activity As you can see, the pool is f
Read more

WEEK 7: Hallelujah...Hallelujah...(sing along)

Image
This week we are finally seeing some movement after a series of plumbing and forming inspections. It seems like this is going to be a constant activity each week. Here is where we left you last week: In somewhat of a surprise, after missing a few days because of family friends visiting us, and a short trip to scenic Sedona, we returned to find that most of the post-tensioning wiring and rebar had been installed while we were gone. BTW, if you've never had an opportunity to visit Sedona, it is a 'must do' on your bucket list. Incredible environmental landscape and some decent wine, to boot! A "gotta do" trip! In this picture, the red cable is the post-tensioning wire which will be tightened to a specific load level once the concrete is poured as a foundation slab. The outside footers, which aren't clearly visible, are about 12" deep, so this foundation won't be going anywhere soon. We were generally impressed with how straight and precise the cabling i
Read more