America was busy celebrating Memorial Day this week. Everyone seemed to be off to the beach or the mountains (especially as many schools have now closed for the summer vacation), or follow up on the vast number of advertisements for Memorial Day sales and bargains to be had. We don’t need to go far for our version of a picnic (onto the back deck and fire up the Big Green Egg barbeque), so we stayed at home and relaxed with one day when we didn’t need to chase up on building matters. Builder Bill decided to take the week off and go down to his Florida holiday home. So, to keep the build moving forwards smoothly, we spent more time than usual on the site. And we did see a fair amount of progress, though not entirely due to his absence.
On the Build site
Milan and his framing crew were present most of the week working on the decks at the back of the house. The big deck complete, but they ran out of ipe wood before the smaller deck, which will be the covered porch, was completed. The garage doors have been installed and were sealed with a special preservative (not very well, I fear – we will be having strong words with Builder Bill on his return). Inside the house, Tom and WC have been hanging doors and fitting skirting boards and architrave around the windows and door. They are concentrating on the upper floor at present as next week the reclaimed flooring (only for the upper floor) is due for delivery and fitting next week.
I am sure that you have been as overwhelmed by the repetition of the brick supply problem as we have. Without bricks and no more stonework to be undertaken for now, our bricklayer and his brother have moved onto another job for the meanwhile. However, we had a cheering call from Zack who owns the bricks. He had found a trucking company who were not afraid of the mountain roads and were willing to shift all the bricks in two journeys almost immediately. There was a small snag, they were more expensive than the first company (but a lot cheaper than Fedex Freight who let us down so badly last week). We said yes in very loud voices, and the bricks arrived safely on Tuesday and Wednesday. That first delivery of 16 pallets made a wonderful birthday present for me, and was the biggest one that I have ever received (though it’s not up to much when compared to what Queen Victoria gave to the Kaiser of Germany [for those not up on African history, that was Mount Kilimanjaro]). But since the bricklayer was occupied elsewhere there wasn’t that much progress on that front this week.
We have also been busy sourcing materials – this week it was tiles. The sitting room in the rental home is more and more like a speciality store with boxes of ceiling fans, door handles and locks, all sorts of lighting, thermostats and all the other things which Lisa has acquired at a knock-down price thanks to the internet.
The financial control and planning work have also been progressing apace. I have gone through the latest spend with a fine tooth comb to ensure that we don’t have any nasty shocks looming. Together we have drawn up a list of 32 individual mini-projects needed to carry the build through the next month or so and draw us closer to our hoped-for moving date of mid-August.
Fingers remain crossed hard!
xxx
x
This weekend, we will be off to Atlanta for a wedding on Saturday, and then the rest of the weekend with Dieter and Karen. And after that ensuring things are orderly in time for our first visitor from England the following week.