Lessons learned

Things have been moving along.  The windows were switched (it turns out that only one is wrong, the on over the garage and one in the garage were reversed) and the plumbing has been roughed in.  Friday, we met with the electrician and decided where all the lights would go.  During that meeting, I realized I have probably spent too much time picking out tile and not enough time thinking about other things.  Like, where exactly our light switches would go.  Since we designed this house, (and not someone who, you know gets PAID to do this) there are several places where things may not make sense.  Like the fact that we have a pillar RIGHT beside our front door, just to the left. So, our door has to open to the right.  Which would be fine, except, now the light switch has to go behind the door.  Poor planning.  I mean, I would have NEVER thought of that.  So, much of the conversation with the electrician went, "Well, what do you think?"  And then I would agree with whatever he said.  Because, he's been doing this for much longer.  And he was working on Saturday.  (I'm finding that more people do that than I thought – maybe it's the economy.)  

Friday, they also finished putting on the roof shingles and began installing the HVAC.  We picked a dark brown roof color.  And we are using ridge vents instead of "whirly birds."  They are more energy efficient and look much nicer.

The electrician says that he thinks he can have all the electric roughed in by Tuesday or Wednesday.  It looks like we are still on target to have drywall up before the end of this year.  

We had planned to stain the concrete over the Christmas holiday then protect them (depending on when the drywall will be done).  Today, we set up some test spots and ran into a bit of trouble.  The floors aren't as nice as we had hoped.  They are scratched, there are a few places they have been written on, and you can see some of the swirl marks from where it was smoothed.  Hmmm.  So, now, we are back to the budget trying to determine if we can squeeze out another 5K for bamboo floors.  Which, I really hope we can.  We had planned on doing hardwood later (like in a few years) to help lower our total cost now.  

We also have a small problem in the kitchen.  The island wont be as long as we thought.  Instead of 11' 8", it's probably going to be more like 10'10" which probably isn't as devastating as it sounds to me.  Basically, we designed the kitchen on paper.  And once we got the walls up, we realized that what we had designed at Lowe's based off what we had dictated to our architect didn't leave a walkway between the island and the refrigerator.  So, to make the walk bigger, we have to scoot the island.  But, the pipes are already set for the sink.  The only option is to move the dishwasher to the left instead of the right and to put a smaller cabinet where the dishwasher was supposed to go.  Again, not awful, just not great.  But, with each little hurdle, we learn.  Which will be great if we ever decide to do this again.  And that of course will be determined when everything is over.