We continue to work on the cabinets for the kitchen and the bathroom.  We also finished up all the ‘safety’ features that are required to get a ‘partial occupancy’ sign off from the building inspector.  Since we have this sign off, we cut out a portion of the master bedroom wall to make a passage way between the old house and the new construction.  It is very convenient to be able to stay inside the house when going to the second floor.

This picture shows the guest bathroom with vessel sink and glass countertop.  The hole for the drain pipe was about 1/4 of an inch too small, so Pop drilled it out with a hole saw for glass.  It was very nerve-wracking to be drilling the hole.  One mistake and the countertop could be ruined.  But he successfully widened the hole.  Notice how close the washer is to the countertop?  Tight fit.

The flash really picks up the dust in the area.  I am removing a window to make a passage way from old to new.

Here is the new kitchen with 1/2 of the granite countertops in place.  The microwave does excellent popcorn.

Lucy is jumping for joy that we have moved the bedrooms up stairs.

Pop has been working like a madman to assemble the cabinets.  Here are some pictures from last week of the progress.

Soon to come : pictures that include the rough tops and sink!

Can you see something wonderful in the picture below?  I can.

If you look closely, you will see that the shop vac is plugged directly into the wall. That’s right. We have power upstairs. Edison was onsite on Friday, 10 Oct 2008, to switch the electrical service from overhead to underground. When they did this the new meter box was energized and power was on!. The Edison planner was sooo happy to close out this project. He made his first site visit in September of 2006. I wonder if having the project open for so long affected his ‘stats’. I took great pleasure in rolling up the extension cords that have served so faithfully. Good riddance!

We have begun to do the furnishings of the new areas. Max and I assembled two bookshelves for the loft and hung a shelf in the powder room. Also, I cleaned the glass doors upstairs. It took almost 2 hours to clean the six glass doors, inside and out. I was doing the work in the late afternoon when the sun was streaming through those windows, so I was aware of every little streak. This cleaning was mostly to get all the grime off. I’ll shine the windows later.

I have been very miserly with my vacation days this year, saving them up for house project work.  This past weekend we did double duty on Friday and Saturday.  Pop, Kevin and I worked long hours both days to put down nearly 1500 sq. ft. of finished flooring. 

Kevin stayed over Friday night.  He slept in the newly (almost) completed loft.  He wasn’t even grumpy on Saturday. 

First we finished up the guest suite floors so that the painters could work in there on Saturday.  I’m not sure what the speckles are in the pictures.  Truly, we were not working in a snow storm.  The air didn’t seem that dusty…

Then we moved over to the master bedroom.  You can see that the painters have been working.

We finished the master bedroom, including the closet at about 6 pm on Saturday.  Thanks to Kevin for staying extra late to finish up some tricky flooring in the closets.

This is the entrance into the master bathroom.