Guest House Construction: Part 28

Guest House Construction: Part 28

Electric:

We had a great week.  I didn't think we would, but that's because everyone was predicting a monsoon.  The crews took advantage of the dry days and got a lot done, nothing more welcomed than the big electric transfer.  This had been discussed ad nauseum for months.  Everything was scheduled for Monday and I was told to plan for the worst.  The issue was that we had to coordinate between our electricians, Texas New Mexico Power (TNMP) who owns the lines and the meter, and our city which has to inspect the work before you can complete it.  I was told all sorts of things:  "You could be without power to your main house for up to three days."  You're going to have to cut down a bunch of trees."  "Your service provider will cut off your power until they come out and look at the work."

In the end, it was all done on Monday by about 3:00pm.  Everyone worked together extremely well.  Our electricians were great and TNMP sent three different crews out in a timely fashion to expedite the process.  Even the city inspector came within 30 minutes of being called.  We now have power from the underground main to our main house with a 400 amp meter.  All we have to do now is run the power from here to the guest house, but we do that ourselves and don't have to wait on anyone else.

 
To that end, our builder cut the driveway out for the conduit.  A crew should come out and run the underground conduit to the guest house this coming week and then.....BOOM - power! (Hopefully not a literal boom).  Our driveway was already pretty rough, but this made it impassable after about four inches of rain we got one night.  It's a mess!

Paint:

Also this week the painters came back.  They worked on the outside of the house and porch.  They spent the entire first day caulking.

They'd already painted most of the guest house (as well as our main house) but had to do the trim on this dormer.  

The majority of their time was spent on the new porch and patio extension.  At Branelle's request we painted the posts the same khaki color we used on the house.  I'm not sure about it.  It might look great, but I don't think we'll know until the patio is refinished.  Worst case it shouldn't take long to paint them white if we decide to go that route.

The painters also finished up the inside of the garage.  This is big because now the electricians can put the light fixtures in.  The painters are now basically done until we're just about finished, when they will come back to touch up everything.  

Water:

Another big step on the utilities front was getting the water line run.  It was a long run.  You have to dig the trench and then run the line and wait for an inspection before you cover it back up.  

It was all completed this week and we now have running water.  That opened the door for the plumbers to come in and get started.

Plumbing:

Saturday was an extremely busy day around here.  The plumbers, painters, and tile guys were all here all day long.  The plumbers had to fix a leak inside one of the walls, but the rest of the day was just installing fixtures and lines.

They didn't completely finish, but got most things hooked up.  We now have working faucets....

....and toilets!  Since the tile guys had gotten the floors down the toilets were able to be installed.

Tile:

The tile guys continue to make slow progress.  We had been having some trouble picking backsplash for the kitchen.  We'd tried some fancy tile options but nothing was getting a consensus.  I walked out to the guest house one night last week and my brother, sister-in-law, and mother were playing with pieces of the travertine that we used for the front porch.  I didn't really love it to be honest but I didn't have any better suggestions and we have a ton of the stuff left over.

I talked to the tile guys and they said they could cut it into brick pieces and try to use the darker tiles.  I decided it was better than having to go back to the tile store so I let them get to it.  I actually think it looks good.

They also finally finished up the flooring by installing the master bath tile.

The row-a-day shower was also finished up.  They still need to grout everything, but it's coming along.

Misc:

From time to time I become an errand boy.  I usually do everything ASAP because I don't want to hold up progress.  My builder said "we need toilets", so rather than wait for someone else and risk not having them when the plumber shows up we just ran out and bought them.

We had purchased appliances quite some time ago but hadn't had them delivered because we weren't ready for them.  When the plumber showed up on Saturday Nel and I ran out and picked everything up so they could install them. Other than the garbage disposal nothing actually got put in, but they're at the house and ready now.

Branelle and Samantha had started a project to repaint her little playhouse. The progress had been slow going to this point if I'm being honest.  When the painters were working on the patio, I asked them if they could give the whole thing a nice coat of primer inside and out.  They kindly obliged and in five minutes the thing is ready for a finish coat.  Pink and blue to come.