Meeting The Blind Man

The scaffolding's gone so there's a nice view of the side of the house

So much going on, so little time. The blind man in question is Gary McWherter from McWherter Window Coverings, who's a rep for Hunter Douglas blinds. He came to the house today to measure the sliding doors for some lovely fabric Nantucket shades, which will undoubtedly be way beyond my frankly non-existent budget.

The LockDry aluminum decking is now half finished

I worked out yesterday that the house is 85% finished, and we're still on track to complete everything by mid-February. The siding is 99.5% done with only a couple of pieces of trim still to add, and quite a considerable amount of touching-up to make everything look as beautiful as it should.

The dining room windows, in all their considerable glory

The clean-up crew did a good yesterday, removing all of the rubbish and extra building materials from the site, and the scaffolding has gone from the east side of the house, finally revealing the full impact of the very-adjacent Cypress tree.

A new view, even for me - from the next door neighbor's house

The mud men have done an excellent all round job on the drywall, which is essentially finished save for a couple of minor details, and they have left in their wake an almighty mess of thick white powder and dollops of plaster across every inch of the house: a mess which I am endeavoring to clean up with my own limited time and resources.

Hector and Alejandro have turned their attention from Kynar steel to LockDry aluminum decking, which will remain another partially finished project since we ran out of decking materials and I had to order extra pieces from the Alabama factory this afternoon.

We've been waiting for weeks for PG&E to send us their trenching plan, and that finally showed up this afternoon, which means we can begin digging the trench that will carry gas, electric, cable and telephone service next week. At the same time we have the go-ahead from the North Coast Water Authority to dig the water trench, which needs to be located five feet from the PG&E trench because apparently they don't play nicely together.

The deck is gradually taking shape

Tomorrow morning Kenny the Excavator is due back on site to begin heaving the backfill dirt into place - an enthralling prospect as, when he's finished, the landscape will, at long last, be graded and ready to accept some drought-tolerant native plant life.

Also scheduled for the morning is Day One of Painting The Minnie House, a most important and momentous project entrusted to the reputedly fine folks at Pacifica's own Pugliese Painting. Their first task will be to use Prep Coat on the upstairs walls, which is "a ready-mix base coat for drywall that, when applied over a properly finished drywall installation, provides a surface uniform in texture and ready for decoration." In short, it will give us a better, smoother surface for painting in lieu of spending another small fortune on a level 5 drywall finish. At the same time they will also be priming the basement and garage, with the first coat of paint to come next week.

Exciting times ahead!