penultimate

most of may was spent "moving in" to the house!  the cleaning crew set up bedroom three for me to sleep and bathe, and cleaned up the kitchen so i could cook.  my seventeen days and nights were confined to these two spaces.  it was fun but difficult at times.  the air bed failed after three days, sawdust in everything, blah blah..

   

   
  every day followed a slow roll that started around 7:30am, then picked up speed to a busy peak around 10-11am with many trades working in parallel.  the general contractor was on vacation for most of may, so i found myself filling his shoes best i could.

 

 

mishel shipped tons of stuff from amazon that needed to be unpacked and put away, but because of unfinished painting, certain areas were still off-limits.  by the time i left, i was able to access most areas as painting was mostly done with the exception of mud room base boards, guest beds, backing on the re-done shelving and some exterior areas.

 the electrician and i had a few days of intense work on the dimmers, getting them to work at all, then work in a certain way.  apparently, we are "state of the art" so there were some gotchas, but we worked through them.  i'm replacing the kitchen pendants & hall sconces as they are not LED-compatible, though we thought they were.  the garage fixtures went up, as did the MBR sconces and all ceiling fans. 

tile is complete, with exception of the front entry.  i had to order more slate to cover the additional areas of the porte cochere column bases, exterior shower and exterior vertical strip under the entry-hall fleetwoods.  i'm happy with all tile work and am surprised how well the master bath came out, as that space was the most difficult for me to visualize.

from master shower

Steve working on front entry

copper three ways

 the remaining driveway was poured after i left, only a few days ago.  i intend not to drive on it when i arrive thursday, though it should be cured fully while i'm there this month.  concrete crew also poured the walkway from the garage to the rear entry, and the footings and CMU for the crawl-space entry area.

landscaping was a big push during may.  so big it threw me over budget.  the upside is it looks fantastic, even without any grass or mature trees.  boulders against the lanai at each bedroom act as steps to the yard.  grass will be sprayed via hydraseed this week.  this will minimize the red-dirt dust being kicked up and into the house.