Size really does matter....
March 15 - 18 -- To those of you who sent an e-mail asking what happened with the refrigerator...thanks for reading. The last few days have been such a wicked roller coaster ride that I literally was too exhausted by the end of the day to blog. But here is what has been going on.
Saturday, March 15th -- It is all about size and good news, bad news. The appliance guys showed up and could not have been nicer. They first decided to move the washer and dryer from the basement to the new laundry room. That was super easy, as these photos show.
Here they are disconnecting the washer, and here it comes through the kitchen
And around the corner leading to the laundry room
Where it eventually looks like this....lovely!
Next, they move the refrigerator that has been sitting in a box since it was delivered on December 23rd. While they carried it, my job was to guide the open doors through the doorway between the dining room and the kitchen, and it fit PERFECTLY through the doorway!!!
Then they had to take off the doors of the old refrigerator to take it to the basement where it will hold the future batches of home microbrew.
Even though the appliance guys left some tools, their order book, and the basement door off the hinges when they left, they did return to rehang the door and gather their stuff.
So far so good, until.......
March 16th -- This is a momentous day -- the first day in 10 months that I am actually doing laundry in my own house with my own washer and dryer instead of camping out at my dear friends' house to clean my clothes. Yes, when the first load went in, I was doing the happy dance!! The laundry room is really spectacular.
However, this is where size does matter after all....I kept looking at the refrigerator and it seemed off. In fact, the architect's plans included moving the doorway between the dining room and the kitchen to the south so that there would be a clear line of sight through the galley kitchen, yet the refrigerator, as shown below, extends out of the cabinet box by about 5" -- clearly, something is wrong here....bad news.
There was no problem with the installation. In the meantime, the contractor texted that he had emergency surgery and would be out of commission for a few days. So, I texted these photos to the architect and asked for his help. In the mean time, the contractor was back on his feet, stopped by and told me to contact the kitchen designer. I talked to the kitchen designer and that was not a pretty conversation. In the mean time, the architect made an appointment to stop by to help me get this resolved, but asked me to construct a timeline of my meetings with the kitchen designer. Sure enough, the timeline shows that I provided the kitchen designer with the specs for all of my appliances BEFORE the kitchen plans were finalized. Although I did sign off on the plans, it was AFTER the appliances dimensions were provided to the kitchen designer and BEFORE the appliances were purchased. From the perspective of my architect, the kitchen designer should have made sure that the cabinet was the appropriate size for the selected appliance. In other words, if the kitchen designer had told me that the refrigerator I selected was not going to fit the cabinet, I would have selected a different refrigerator. Similarly, the kitchen designer should have adjusted the size of the cabinet to fit the refrigerator I selected....more on this issue later, but this is bad news.
March 17th -- In the meantime, the carpenter custom-built new medicine cabinets for the master bathroom over the weekend and showed up on Monday to install them. The mirrored fronts will be installed later, and the custom mirrors are sitting on the vanity wrapped in brown paper. The medicine cabinets are even better than the ones that I had previously purchased.
So, the problem with the medicine cabinets from last week is resolved -- good news -- but there is still the refrigerator issue.
When the painter was cleaning out the drywall to make a patch on the wall opposite the second upstairs bathroom, he had to expose the furnace flue that travels from the furnace to the attic. When the flue was installed, the furnace buys did not have the luxury of access to this wall and so we discovered that they were not able to 100% seal the joints. So, it was good that this wall was opened because the furnace guys came back and sealed the joints so there would be 0% heat loss. Good news to get this resolved.
In the mean time, the painter worked on drywall over the weekend, sealing and taping the once "not-so-secret" passage way, which is now truly a wall in foyer and a wall in the closet in the guest suite, with a shelf and clothes bar.
There was more progress with the chest of drawers finished with painted fronts, knobs, and the the inside of the drawers with a finish coat.
The range hood is very cool, especially with the halogen lights on, and we are waiting to remove the protective cover over the stainless finish until the end. The six-burner range top is looking very cool, but we will install all the burner covers and grates until the end.
The speaker wires were connected to the center channel, below the flat panel TV mount, so eventually I will have a 5.1 surround sound system (4 speakers in the ceiling, the center channel, and I will add a subwoofer) that will be powered by an AV-digital receiver that will connect with the smart TV.
The library ladder has been stained to match the finish of the hardwood floors
The bookshelves and library ladder system could not have turned out better.
The finish carpenters continued to work on a lot of the finishing touches, such as installing the door hardware in the mudroom coat closet.
The dishwasher has been installed in the kitchen....however, the refrigerator is still sticking out of its cabinet box....that bad news.
March 18th -- A miracle...the plumber returned while I was out and installed the pot filler faucet...well, except that they sent two "set-screws" for the pot filler that were different sizes and the contractor had to go find two identical size set screws until the pot filler installation was complete, but here it is about 99% installed.
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