ALL THE THINGS! (Part 2)

Alright, here we go on part 2...what else could have possibly been done the last 2 weeks? Well, hold on to your hat. Get this: Lights, Appliances, NEW STONE delivered and almost finished, Master tile floor and shower, kitchen backsplash, wood floors installed AND stained. Wait, what?? All of that? Yep. It's all here!

Where to begin...so last Sunday, I flew out to California for work through Wednesday (part of the reason for the blogging delay)...so I had to rely on Rob's phone pics to give me the play by play.
 
So Monday, the electrician came to install all of the lighting and wire all the switch plates and put in the double ovens and microwave in the kitchen. They are based out of Arlington, so they stayed until after 10:00 that night so they could just make the one trip. They even brought out a special extension cord that they could hook up to the electrical panel to check all the lights and outlets...so we got to see what it would look like with the lights on for the first time ever! Of course they can't run everything off that little cord, so they only powered up a few things at a time. Still really neat to see! 

Why yes, that is an outlet INSIDE the vanity drawer! No more hair appliances on the counter!

The new stone also showed up Monday! Looks SO much better than the last batch. So Tuesday the masons came back to put all of that up on the inside fireplace and the patio fireplace and started on the front too. They're almost all done now, all they have left is the verrrry top of the chimney and they have to build us a little mailbox out by the street. And they need to get their stuff out of the way so I can take better pics. :)

The tile guys also worked all week to get the master bathroom finished and put in the backsplash in the kitchen. It's awesome! 

The master floor tile we found at Floor and Decor, they have an awesome selection and finally after visiting probably 4 or 5 times, we found some we REALLY liked. Their little displays help to visualize it too. We found it in 2 different sizes and the installer put it in a pattern mixing them. It has a light stone look to it.

The master shower took quite some time to get right. Rob had a vision from a while ago of this shower we found on Houzz. It had what looked like mountains carved from stone on the bottom half and a lighter tile on the top. But we used tile for the bottom half though since we weren't sure how stones would hold up, but it still has the same effect.  The instructions were for it to look like it was carved out of a cave haha.The installer had Rob draw out a line of the "mountains" he wanted cut out of the dark tiles and said he could cut the tile along that line. They also put some small mosaic tiles on the floor and in the storage niche and travertine tiles on the ceiling and lining the outside. It was pretty intense...the guy spent A LOT of time in here and it turned out great!

Some guys want a man-cave, Rob wanted a shower cave.

So in order to get electricity (which is one of the last few steps before the certificate of occupancy), the power company told us they would provide everything EXCEPT the trench from the transformer to the house. (Even though they dug the trench from the back of the property up to the transformer and have the equipment and are fully capable). The trench has to be 3 ft deep and a min of 6" wide and the transformer is about 120-ish ft from the house. Home Depot said they had a machine that would do it so of course Rob will take any reason to rent big hole digging machinery. Last Sunday he got a trencher and went to work, but after several hours with that thing, it ended up not quite 3 ft deep and couldn't get close enough to the house and the transformer. Lame. So this weekend, he rented a backhoe to finish up that job. Now the power company can come hook us up any day! Keep in mind, everything that has been done so far has been with extension cords running from our temporary power pole...crazy!

And of course, I've saved the best news for last! Now that we have the stone fireplace in, the wood floor installers we were ready to get started!! They started Friday morning and had the whole thing floored by the end of the day! They came back yesterday and stained it all, then put a coat of polyurethane on it a few hours later. We are currently barricaded so we can't walk on it to get more/better pics of the office and the hallway but I have no doubts it's just as beautiful as the living room and master bedroom. I really want to put a million pics up of these floors...so consider this narrowed down. :) You just really need to see it from all the angles to get the character of this reclaimed wood. 

Annd another panorama comparison so you can see the difference a week makes!

 

So with the holiday tomorrow, and another coat of polyurethane going on the floors Tuesday, we won't be able to get anyone else in there until Thursday this week. But we're trying to get the security/low voltage guy in Thursday, HVAC sometime this week, and the trim guys and painters back to finish up all the trim and touch ups now that the wood floors are in. Getting so close now!