THE GREEN IS GONE!

Howdy Y'all!

We have finally reached the point where all of the exterior stone has now consumed the green backer-board, and the exterior stone work is complete! Big milestone! The only evidence of 'green' left is in the front where the fountain will go. Jan and I, and the builder, are working on an appropriate design to keep the fountain simple, but noticeable as a front feature. More on that in a later post when we have figured it out.

This has been another week of little things getting accomplished, and we are down to the 'inches' level rather than seeing dramatic changes in the house. The only major stonework items left of consequence are the outdoor BBQ stone, the interior foyer/great room wall, and the partition around the air conditioning and pool equipment. The stone masons can then leave after having been on site since early December. I'll miss them, but my Spanish has improved from basic hand gestures to real sentences!

The front entrance is almost done!

South 40!

A clean patio view.

Waiting for the outdoor BBQ kitchen stonework.

Patio view of the pool area and back pasture.

The monastic patio view.

Side view of the front area.

In addition, we have seen the return of the trim carpenters working to finalize items in the house that required the cabinets to be set first. After the carpenters are finished, the painters will return to finish cabinet work, repaint some walls,  repaint the outside trims after the stonework, and the general touch-up that that will be needed.

Finishing out the cabinet and floor trims.

View from the Great Room (sorry about the rain spots on the lens).

Lighting and chandeliers are delivered!

Our never ending challenge is to collect as much rainwater in the tank as soon as possible. Have you heard the old saying that "He who dies with the most toys, wins"? Well, around here it is "He who dies with the most rainwater, wins"! To that end, we moved ever closer yesterday with the installation of all of the gutters on the house. The next step is getting the downspouts in and connected to the main collection pipe, and then we are home free!

Gutters!!

And, of course, installation work continues on the most important room in the house - the Wine Room! We're finally getting to see the setup, and understanding better how we are going to organize vintages, varietals, wineries, etc. Lots to do, but we do need to get the wine here soon!

Back wall view.

Left wall view.

But Wait, There's More!

We were driving down the street the other day and happened on two of the bulls squaring off on either side of the fence. Of course, when we stopped, the bulls decided that we were more interesting and decided to give us the hard stare.

Getting ready to tango.

We ended up being more interesting.

That's all for now. See ya later!

- Jan and John - 

MAKIN' PROGRESS

Howdy Y'all!

Aside from the SXSW activities in Austin this week, the other excitement is the progress being made on the house. Taken as a whole, we have started to see more activity as pieces of the process are being completed. We don't yet have a firm enough feel for the exact week of completion, but I think we are at least down to the identity of the final month! God and the Saints willing, we might be inside of 60 days at this point.

The longest project underway has been the stonework, but we can see the light at the end of the tunnel, and it isn't a train. The masons have almost completed the entire patio area, and as of this writing, only have a small portion of the detached garage to complete, set the outdoor fireplace stone mantle, and finish the hearth stone seating area. They have been at the house so long we feel as if we should be inviting them to the next Boutsikaris family event!

Starting the side arch stonework.

Adding the top course of ridge stone over the template.

The next big step in completing the patio arch was to install the arched steel lentil. This provides the support structure that will allow the stone to reach the roof over the broad arch. This is necessary since the ridge stone cannot support itself across this wide a span, and we certainly don't want everyone wearing hardhats when they visit us.

Steel lentil installation. Will be coated or painted the same color as the patio ceiling. 

Finishing the fireplace above the roofline.

Finished fireplace minus the top cap. 

Completed patio area.

Fully completed rear patio area overlooking the pool.

The next critical area of importance has been to get the cabinet bottoms installed, and set, so that the Granite Guys can develop templates for the granite cuts. While they tape measure 2-3X, the Granite Guys still need to make a physical template of the cabinet tops to ensure there is no confusion when cutting the stone. Granite is fairly expensive, and generally a one-of-a kind slab, so no one wants to make a critical mistake and ruin something that can't be found again easily.

Setting the main kitchen island cabinet and eating bar. These will end up being antiqued.

Lower master bathroom cabinets (Jan's side). 

Uppers installed in master bathroom (John's side - much smaller!).

Utility room cabinets (washer and dryer).

Renaldo (Granite Guy) measuring and creating the granite cabinet top templates.

We are also very close to getting power to the house this week (yes!). The initial line was set today, but the project manager measured incorrectly and they were about 100 feet short. Since high powered electrical lines cannot be spliced, that means running all new lines from the power panel to the house (about 300 feet). Anyone need 191 feet of electrical wire? You can get it cheap from the builder.

Wiring the main garage sub-panel. 

Conduit for the main house power running to the main power panel.

Another critical area of completion is the stone tile work in the bathrooms. We seem to have stealth Tile Guys who show up at unexpected hours in the dead of night, do some work, and disappear again. Unfortunately, we've had some do-overs in this area and it is frustrating not to be onsite together to make sure the work is correct before we find something we aren't happy about. As a result, we badger the designer and the project manager instead. Oh well!

Almost finished main bathroom shower (back wall).

Completed master bathroom front shower wall.

The Cantera stone columns for the wall between the foyer and the Great Room were delivered and installed last week. Unfortunately, Jan found some flaws in the stone caps and bases that the builder is replacing sometime this next week. Otherwise, they should look pretty good, and a complement to the stone that will be on both sides of the wall above.

Cantera columns under Foyer wall.

Jan has ben getting a lot of support on her design decisions from all of our friends. 

Jan and Cindy (BFF ranch neighbor) going over design choices.

Well, that's all for now. See ya later!

- Jan and John - 

SEATING THE CABINET

Howdy Y'All!

We've had another week of weather trying to decide if it wants to be cold, wet or warm. We were told that Texas winters are basically warm, but this winter has been sort of a bust in that regard. However, I guess we shouldn't complain given the winter our eastern brethren are experiencing! (They're all moving to Florida soon.)

Back at the ranch, things are kinda moseying along. We've also had some 'do overs' after discovering a couple of small issues that needed to be corrected. To make a long story short, we had to add another layer of sheetrock to one side of the main fireplace wall to even out the misalignment of the fireplace insert. No big deal, but it just means a repaint and delay in the faux treatment that Jan is putting on that wall. Both sides are now even, and looks the way it should.

Re-facing the left side of the fireplace wall.

If you remember from the last post, our Faux Lady, Shelley, was off and running with the Dining Room ceiling. Unfortunately, about halfway through she noticed that the ceiling wasn't 'skinned' in the manner she had specified, and 'ribs' of plaster were showing through; re-enter the Sheetrock Guys to re-float and apply a proper skin coat to the groin vault ceiling. This establishes the right base so that Shelley can apply the various coats of color to achieve a cathedral ceiling look that Jan wants. 

Re-plastering the DR ceiling as a base coat (again!).

This week also marked the beginning of the installation of all of the cabinets in the house. Once these are installed, the painters will come in to do the final finish work, and at that point the Granite Guys come out to measure for all of the granite tops that we have selected slabs for. Once that is finished, the Cabinet Guys will return to do all of the fine tuning of each of the cabinets, doors, shelving, and drawers. We're told that things start to move pretty quickly from this point on. We'll see. At any rate, cabinet installation is an 'enabler' for lots of other things to happen quickly.

Lower Kitchen and cooktop cabinets.

Oven, refrigerator and coffee bar Kitchen cabinets.

Center island in main kitchen.

Corbels for main kitchen island.

Larger view of the complete kitchen.

First phase of the Prep Kitchen installation (different color).

Second phase of Prep Kitchen installation.

The picture below is the third phase of the process. What remains now is for our Faux Lady, Shelley, to antique and glaze the 'white' cabinets.

One side of the Master Bathroom cabinet install (Jan's).

Moving outside again, the eternal rock program continues. Somehow I think we have created an entitlement program for the Stone Guys. Thankfully, we can all see the light at the end of the tunnel as they are literally starting to round the corner (sorry for the pun) on this job.

The big parts of the patio are completed, and now the focus is to finish the detail work as soon as possible (like yesterday). We have to make sure that they balance speed with continued quality.

Great Room and Breakfast Area exterior view.

Finally rocking the fireplace exterior!

Completed arch walkway to the Office and Master Bedroom.

Mendocino feeling very good about his work!

Patio fireplace minus the hearth and mantle.

This week also marked the beginning of the electrical work to get power to the house from our main panel. Time to fire up lights, air conditioning and heating compressors, wine room compressor (yes!!), and be able to test appliances. This will also allow us to power the water pumps to bring water into the house. Of course, we first have to have water in the tank to make that happen :-).

220' power line trench from the power panel to the main house.

The Cement Guys are also readying the Motor Court to pour the first part of the driveway next week. 

Leveling and compacting the fill dirt in the Motor Court.

But Wait, There's More!

This last weekend we had the chance to visit the San Antonio Rodeo with our ranch neighbors, but lest we bore you with a bunch of pics, here's one from the calf herding event. 

Two by two calf herding. 

And, for those of you that enjoy the grape, here's one for you. (The Texas and California readers will get this.)

That's all for now. See ya later!

- Jan and John -