Blinded!

I knew when we moved in that we were going to need blinds in our windows.  Aaron’s room is on the front of the house, and I was surprised that he didn’t complain when he learned that he was going to be sleeping in there with no window coverings.  I didn’t know who to call for estimates and figured I’d probably be ordering wooden blinds online anyway.   Not having a clue what else might be important, my primary goal was to find blinds that would match the paint color of my window trim.  And so I Googled.

And Googled.

And Googled.

Then one Saturday after Mass we headed to our favorite pizza place for some fine dining and VOILA!!  Right there, across the street from our pizza parlor was a blind and drapery company.  Who knew???  (Just goes to show sometimes we only see what we’re looking for.)  I didn’t even bother calling anyone else.  Quite honestly, after living on this older end of town for the past 13 years, Dom and I are more than happy to patronize businesses who choose to stay over here rather than venture to the “newer” (and gawd-awful busier) side of Shreveport.  David Carroll’s Blinds and Draperies had us, quite literally, at hello.

I called them up and scheduled a visit for an estimate.  Mike, the store founder’s son, drove out to our house and measured all the windows, petted Mason and Mabel, and showed me four fans of color choices.  We went through the house holding the colors up in each window to make sure we got the closest match.  Turns out, it’s SPOT ON!!!

(Look, Mom! I even made my bed today!!)  And no, I haven’t decided what to put on the walls yet…

The blinds were installed in just under two hours.  We ended up only covering the windows across the front of the house, in the master bedroom, and in the upstairs bonus room… all for considerably less money than I was anticipating, which made me (in the words of Duck Dynasty) happy, happy, happy!

I omitted the option to put coverings on the living room windows, though I asked for a quote anyway.  I love the openness and light, and Mike agreed that it would be a shame to cover it up.  Maybe someday, but not yet…  We gotta leave one set of windows for Mabel’s nose prints!

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Rocky Horrors: Dammit, Granite! I Love You!!!

Tags

EPA, granite countertops, home building, radon

This post was originally intended for my other site, The Purpose Driven Mom, where I blog all about healthy living and such.  I decided to post it here too since it is all about Tha House. 😉

So, you all know we’re building a house, and we are just about ready to move in.  The floors are being laid, we have lights and heat, and it looks more and more like a home every day.  I am really pleased with all my countertops.  This island is my favorite part:

As the granite guys were finishing up the install and smoothing out my seams, my builder – honestly unaware of my commitment to healthy, chemical-free living – casually commented to me that granite emits a carcinogenic gas.

WHAAAAAAA???!!!!!!

I looked at all my beautiful granite, which comprises every single countertop in my entire home, and wondered how in the heck I could have missed that news.  Maybe because I never thought I’d be building a house and installing granite in the first place??

So, you KNOW I did some research, which included browsing through a 182-page document on foreign trade where I learned that Kazakhstan extended its ban on light oil imports until June of 2012 and Russia won’t allow pig imports because of some five-syllable disease potential.  But, back to my granite and that nasty radon scandal.   Turns out, most of this news came out in 2008, and there hasn’t been much ado about it since.  So what was all the hype, anyway?

Granite, being a naturally occurring material (stone) is going to naturally have some uranium, radon, etc in it.  As do sand, concrete, clay, bricks, and rocks.  As the radon is released, it can poison the air, and breathing it in excessive amounts could of course lead to cancer.

Do not think that I take this lightly. But I’m also not going to take one source’s word for it.  So I kept on digging, hoping to find anything written after 2008 that either proved or disproved all the accusations. Accusations, as it turns out, that can be traced back to people who have vested interest in companies that compete with granite countertop producers.  Go figure.  So where’s an honest mom to turn?

I found this guy who broke it down and linked to some non-partial parties and offered some mind easing solutions for those of us who have a tendency to go off the rails when faced with news like this, especially as it might affect our health and our children’s safety.  Basically, even though I have granite scattered throughout my home, I will face more danger from the radon in my brick and my foundation and my driveway than I will from my countertops.  The good news is that as the radon (which is minimal) is released from these earthy substances, it dissipates into the air around us, so if our overall air quality is good, then our worries are nil.  Granite that seems to produce the most radon and radiation comes from more exotic countries and usually is in the higher price ranges because of the cost of importing it. Additionally, the EPA suggests low-cost test kits for homeowners who are concerned about the radon exposure in granite countertops.

So while I will completely wig out about hormone replicators in beauty products and petroleum by-products in our foods, I’m not going to sweat my countertops so much.  My research and the lack of current arguments against granite pretty well convinces me that my bigger threats lie elsewhere, like that damn Halloween candy that just won’t go away.

Locked and Loaded

Tags

book cases, built-ins, cabinets, construction locks, doorknobs, home building

On the afternoon that the cabinets and built-ins were delivered, I was so excited.  I ran through the house, snapping pictures of all the woodwork propped against walls and laying on the floors.  I beamed with pride as I identified my living room mantle and the utility room cabinetry.  I skipped through the unfinished pieces and tried to imagine where everything was going to fit.

The Builder and the Beasts

The next morning, I was showing the photos to my mother on my phone.  There was a photo of one of my living room bookcases propped on its side.  It was then that I first noticed a vertical support beam down the center of my bookcase.

“Hold on a minute!  That’s not supposed to be there!  It’s not that way on my plans!  That middle bar is going to disrupt the flow of my shelves!!!!”  I flung my massive sheets of house plans across mom’s kitchen table as I sought to prove myself right.  “See?!!!!  No center bar.  They messed up!  I gotta call Dominick!!”  In my panicky state of mind, and on my itty-bitty phone, it actually looked like I would have all of twelve inches on either side of the center bar to display my bookshelf items.  And twelve or so inches simply was not gonna do!!!

I decided it was best not to call Dominick and tell him my dilemma, since I was already determined to drive out to the site and size it all up again.  That way, I could show him exactly what I didn’t like about my bookshelves.  And, with a small moment of clarity, I also knew that my builder is too much like me.  Had I called him and said, “I’ll be there in 30 to talk about that center beam on the bookcase,” he would have stewed and worried until I arrived, at which point we would have both been so frazzled that we would have been absolutely no good to each other.  Instead, I dropped Vic off at school and headed south to my new home site unannounced.

When I walked in, Dominick was tied up with one of the trim carpenters, so I marched on over to the bookcases and proceeded to size them up.  Dominick later would tell me that he saw the look on my face and immediately said, “Oh, Jesus, help me through this one!”  My mom remarked that, “At least he knew who to go to!”

While sizing up my bookcases, I chastised myself for worrying.  I stood there, eyeball to wood beam, looking at the edge of one of my bookcases which easily stood five feet off the ground with the whole unit laying on its side.  On. Its. Side!!!! Each shelf on the sides of the center beam was about 2½ feet wide.  So much for my piddly little twelve inches theory.  In fact, the bookcases are so wide that they HAVE to have the center beam for support.  Once Dominick explained all that to me, I was okay, but I had unintentionally scared him well enough.  I believe we call that, “my bad.”  😉

My builder got me back the next week.  We were watching the stucco crew install my front porch columns when Dominick asked how I liked my doorknob.  I eagerly looked at the front door and thought I spied something [cough, sputter] gold.  He said, “Oh, come over here.  You can see it better on this door.” We walked into the house and he led me to the back door where my fears were confirmed as I laid eyes on yet another plain, round, brass doorknob.  I stared at it in disbelief, thinking that it was so unlike my builder to not let me pick something so prominently seen.  I tried to be genteel about it as I stammered my inquiry: “Ohhh.  Um…are they all going to be, you know, gold??”

He couldn’t hold it in any longer…he doubled over with laughter and staggered a few steps as he explained the concept of construction locks to me.  (For those of you who are clueless like me, construction locks are temporary doorknobs that are installed once any remotely-movable items of value are added to the home.  They are removed when the permanent, pretty knobs are ready to be installed.)  The best part was when he said, “I KNEW you would have that reaction!!!  I could have bet money on it!!!!”

And then I threw my head back and yelled, “Oh, thank GOD those are not my doorknobs!!!”

Here’s a little kitchen preview while we wait for the painters to come in and stain all these cabinets that I can’t reach.

The kitchen view from last week

Rockin’!!

Tags

ceilings, drywall, sheetrock, walls

Sheet-rockin’, that is! This is what today has produced:

And this….

And this…

There is still a lot of sheet rock left to go, but almost all of my ceilings are in.  We were blown away by all the progress when we arrived this afternoon.  Next up: brick, baby!!

Progress Update

It takes me a while to get updates prepared, but I must be on a roll, because I have more pictures from today AND time to upload them!  So here is what things are looking like right now (minus the sun shining…it’s late as I write this!)

First, brick was delivered yesterday.  This is “Southern Antique.”  I picked it because of the neutral coloring, but the name makes me happy too.

Second, sheetrock was delivered today.  A whole bunch of sheetrock! Three rooms are full of it.

And my patio ceiling installation was finished.  We had run out of boards and had to buy more.  The painter will be back to stain the remainder of the ceiling later.

The pad for my front steps was poured today.  Dom informed me tonight that Lady, my in-laws’ dog, put her paws in the cement.  So the pad has puppy prints.  🙂

The windows on the front of the house were framed today.  Shutters and paint to follow the stucco later.

We now have running water.  And the plumbing inspector came by today and gave our pipes the seal of approval.  Yes, that’s hot and cold outdoor faucets.  So Mabel and Mason can take baths year-round! (For those of you who are new to my blog, Mabel and Mason are our dogs.  Don’t call CPS on me, please!)

And finally, the work of our own hands, we have fence posts lining the back of the property.  Running boards and pickets come next.  That is, after we recover from this part of the job.

So there we are – two and a half months in and a whole lotta progress to note.  Onward!!