The House Project: Stone Cutters, Thermostat

I went up there Wednesday to deliver another of lighting fixtures, and there were enough trucks up there that I could delude myself that the house might be done soon!

These guys were up to measure the counters for the Silestone:


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Here they are measuring the countertops.


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My wife and I goofed on our measures of the kitchen--so instead of about $7000 for these beautiful granite-like counters, it is closer to $7800. If that seems like a lot--even the cheap laminate comes to close to $3000 to do everything--and these counters serve a very important purpose. When the time comes to sell the place, the wife of the potential buyer will walk in, see the view, see these absolutely gorgeous counters--and before you know it, she'll be insisting that a million dollars is perfectly reasonable. If you visit the Silestone web site , click on the Amarillo Palmira (that's the kitchen color), the Absolute Green (bathrooms 2 and 3), and the Kona Beige (that's the master bathroom). Three weeks to deliver, cut, and install these tops.

These guys were up to get the cooktop and water heater operational--but there seemed to be some miscommunication with the plumber, who was supposed to install the water heater--and the cooktop hadn't arrived yet.


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As usual, I was hassling my builder about the type of thermostat I wanted--one that would not just be programmable by the day and hour, but one that would know to transition from heater to air conditioning and back again. Our current house has a very sophisticated thermostat that has such a small display that I can't quite read it--and it still requires you to manually select either HEAT or COOL. The idea that the weather might change enough in a day to require automatic change seems a bit much, I guess. But this is Idaho, and that happens!

Anyway, the heating and cooling guy found a thermostat that does this automatic switchover, and has a nice big display.


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It occurred me that since this replaced an antiquity from the 1950s, I should go ahead and program it to drop down to 45 degrees at night, and not warm up until about 10:00 AM, when the workers arrive. My builder tells me that even if it below freezing outside, the heater only takes about 15 minutes to get the whole house toasty--even with a lot of doorknob holes still letting in the cold.

Adding to the complexity of all this was that we hadn't considered (or at least, hadn't communicated) to the vendor of sinks that we would want undermounted sinks. This adds some cost, of course, but it also meant that our sink vendor would be at least four weeks getting us the sinks we needed--in the color Bone. Much excitement, many calls, but the plumber seems to have found a more immediate source.

I really want to get this done--both for reasons of locking in interest rates, and because I want to move Big Bertha up there for deep sky observing. It has been so crisp, cold, and clear these last few nights--and Big Bertha a place where she can go for the deep sky objects.

Last house project entry.