In our last post we showed you the below-belly-band siding that was all painted. Here it is installed:
The exterior is pretty much buttoned up for the winter. We’ll have to wait for the ground to thaw to finish the siding and build a deck and fence.
Inside, Austyn Schmidt, known as one of the best mudding / taping / wall-finishers in town, has finished our top two floors. Muddy tape, more mud, more mud, a little sanding, a coat of primer and a coat of finish for the “lids” and shabam we’ve got our canvas.
Laura’s been settling the colors out over the last few weeks and tonight she got to put the first coat on the kitchen. The kitchen color is called “caliente”. The unpainted parts in the pic below will be covered by cabinets. This weekend we’ll be trying to get the rest of the house interior painted (if you want to join the fun, drop me a line).
The last few weeks have been a whirlwind of activity. Does this mean we’re on schedule? No. But it does mean that we’re not grossly over schedule as seems to have been the case all too often over the last year and a half. So, by only being off schedule we’re feeling pretty good. 😉
We hoped we’d be in by the end of January, but now we’re looking at end of February as a realistic occupancy date. I sent the insurance company a list of tasks that got delayed along the way, and they concurred construction in Southeast Alaska is notoriously slow (and that we still have a boatload of stuff to do).
So, we’ve had a whirlwind holiday season, to match the whirlwind year. But we still made time to have fun. On Christmas Eve we had a picnic at the house:
While enjoying some holiday cheer as a family we also moved the house along at a respectable clip. As I mentioned the walls are taped and prepped for paint. The basement is sheetrocked. The kitchen cabinets are delivered. The flooring (marmoleum for the baths and engineered “wood” for the living room, kitchen, and bedrooms) is on the boat (yes pretty much everything we buy comes via barge). Appliances are all arrived in Juneau and Sears is eager for us to get them out of their warehouse. Clawfoot tub has made it to town and will be delivered to the house in a few days along with seven interior doors.
The plywood sheet and trusty ole combination padlock serving as a front door is replaced with an actual front door. I installed a fancy doorknob of Laura’s selection. It even locks with a key!
But that’s not all, for we also accomplished a milestone we’ve been chasing for months on top of months on top of months.
Our Old Years Resolution was to get this particular task done and sent off before the end of 2010. In between Christmas and New Years we put our noses to the LCD and hammered out the final details. Why this took us so long, I don’t know. There’s a strange psychology (eg: easy procrastination) around making a list of all belongings destroyed in the fire. And after working all day at one job, then working on the house for a few hours into the evening, the last thing we want to do is come home and type out more of the dreaded list.
But that’s exactly what we did and on New Year’s Eve, around 10PM, we sent the rest of our Contents List to Allstate. Now the ball is in their court. They’ll take a while to enter all the items into their depreciation estimation software and then in a couple/few months we’ll find out what they think all our possessions were worth.
Next up? Cabinets install, painting, flooring, boiler installation, mud/tape the basement, and then all the fixtures and a myriad of finish work details. We’re getting close!
Rebuilding The Pink House 