Step 36 - Miscellaneous Interior & Exterior Details

The exterior of the house is nearly complete. At this point, a lot of details are getting finished both inside and outside the house.

I did a bunch more sanding of 4x4's for a trellis over the kitchen door on the back side of the house. Board and batten siding was also replaced there.

Mark and Al installed French doors on the office. They also installed craftsman style trim around the windows and doors.

Al shingled the post that holds up the trellis over the front walkway.

Al installed the railing for the garage loft.

Les installed the lanterns on either side of the garage door. Sheila and I installed the house numbers.

The house is really looking finished on the outside, but there is still work to be done on the inside.

Step 35 - The Laundry Room

It has long been Sheila's dream to have a laundry room to call her own, and now she has one. The construction details are very similar to a bathroom. Water resistant drywall (greenboard) is used on the bottom half of the walls. There are hot and cold water supply lines and a sewer drain line. As you can see, the color scheme is heavy on the white with black as an accent. The cabinets are from Ikea which was inexpensive and fit perfectly with the color scheme. To the right of the washer/dryer is a broom closet. The tile was done by John Etchells. The counter top is coming from Home Depot. Not shown is nice window and door trim by Mark and Al. I did the caulking and painting.

Step 34 - Finishing the Fireplace

Turning to the interior of the house, we tackled the slate and tile for the fireplace. This is John Etchells' specialty. We bought several pieces of irregular slab slate in Obsidian Black from Modern Builder in San Marcos. John cut them to fit the hearth and the surround for the firebox opening. He grouted the slate with black grout to give a uniform appearance, so it looks like one solid piece even though it is put together from several pieces. When the slate was complete, he laid out the green tiles (from Encinitas Tile) and the yellow insets (from International Tile in Solana Beach) on the floor to make sure the pattern was right. Then he applied tiles and grouted them with a terra cotta color grout. There was a lot of cutting and fitting involved, and John did a great job. Mark Stanfield is now working on the oak mantel/shelf above the tiles.

Step 33 - Garage Door

I don't have a lot of pictures for this step because it is so straightforward. We bought the garage door from John Brannon of Garage Doors West who also did the installation. The door is manufactured by Wayne Dalton. They have a lot of different styles to choose from. Ours is the Providence style with 12 windows. It is a steel door that has the appearance of wood but is not as heavy and easier to maintain. We got a Liftmaster motor. I think we're going to paint it but we'll deal with that later. It's really exciting to have a garage door, even if we can't drive into the garage yet.

Step 32 - Undergrounding the electrical line, part 2

I picked up a nasty computer malware somewhere in the ether and it has prevented me from posting anything to the blog for several weeks. It's fixed now, but so much has happened on the house that I don't know what to talk about next. I guess I will pick up with the completion of the electrical undergrounding. It's pretty mundane but it will maintain the order of steps that I have been trying to follow.

A contractor working for SDG&E came on the appointed day, equipped for everything. Using their cherry-picker, they pulled the new electrical line through the conduit and connected it to our new panel. Next they disconnected and removed the old line from the pole to the house. Finally, they installed a new "smart" meter and energized the new system.

Les Wannamaker took it from there. He installed all the circuit breakers and labelled them. Then he completed the installation of all the light fixtures, switches and outlets in the house. We are now electrically complete and up to date.