House Project: Cabinets Going In!

I spoke to my builder this morning. He confirmed that except for some touch-up work in the master bedroom and my office, the interior painting is done. The cabinet installers were in today, and may be done tomorrow. We are working on details of counters (the vendor where my wife carefully picked selections seems to have lost the information) and backsplashes for the jetted tub and kitchen sink. These are the sort of details where I don't have an opinion--even a weak one. I just let my wife call the shots on color and shapes, since she has much better taste than I do.

We are still looking for a solution for how to surround the tub--and yet still have access to the pump, in the unlikely event that it ever needs repair or maintenance. Oddly enough, the makers of this jetted tub haven't a clue about access--they say that just about everyone just tiles it all over, on the assumption that it will never require maintenance. This seems unlikely to me, but then again, I'm one of those guys who uses screws or hex head bolts, not nails. One possibility is to use greenboard (the water resistant form of wallboard) with tiles mounted on it, and then a wooden trim piece at the corner that uses two screws to mount the trim piece--and the trim piece holds in the greenboard-mounted-tile surround panel.

We still have not received an estimate for the sprinklers. The only guy my builder could find wanted about $3900 for what is really a tiny lawn area. The sprinkler guy that we used at our current house seems to have a much less exorbitant notion of the value of his time, and he did a good job, so we are having him come take a look as well.

There's definitely need for more road mix, both to even out some areas where water is collecting, and to enlarge the area in front of the house where people will park. (Since we have effectively no friends in Boise (we've only lived here about four years), this is a source of considerable humor between the builder and me--the enormous parking lot that may never get used!)

I also heard from the appliance store--somehow I managed to ask them to spec a GE Profile front-loading washer (saves water, generally cleans the clothes more thoroughly) and a GE Profile top-loading dryer (didn't know they made them). We straightened that out quick enough.

Last house project entry.