Cabin Update

A lot going on up there, but not much change from the outside. As of yesterday, we have most of the windows and doors. Nothing for the basement yet. Our builder didn't order for the basement when he ordered for the main floor, even though we asked him to go ahead and do so. We are a bit aggravated with him now. Also, even though we communicated through phone call, voice mail and email several times that we wanted oil-rubbed bronze finish for the door hardware, he ordered satin nickel. For bronze doors. Even someone with absolutely no design sense would not think that a satin nickel lock set would look good on a bronze door.

And yeah, I realize how whiny that sounds - there are children starving in the world and I'm bitching about the color of my door hardware - but we told the guy a brazillion times what we wanted. So now we have to wait for him to reorder the right finish.

We also still have no deck stairs. We've been going back and forth for over a month between our 2 co-builders and no one seems to want to do it. Without deck stairs, we can't get up there to work or camp out in the interior because we are limited to what we can carry up an extension ladder, which isn't much. We've decided to go with all tile on the main floor instead of hardwood, but because it's not at ground level, a lot of prep work needs to be done to stabilize the subfloor so the tile doesn't shift and crack. Steve and I are going to put down all the hardiboard and thinset, then get our local tile guy Chris to actually lay the tile. That's something we could be working on right now, if only we had stairs to get the material up there. Yesterday when we went up, a contractor was there finishing up the doors/windows, so we made a deal with him to do our stairs on the side, but he can't get to them until late next week as he is committed to a job in Beech Mountain for a few days. He also had a good suggestion about where to put the stairs that we hadn't thought of, and it will actually work much better than what we had in mind.

On a positive note, the electrician has us all wired and ready for fixtures, the plumbing rough is complete for the basement, and the PEX for the radiant floor heat has been laid out in the basement and the slab is ready to be poured. We decided to add a concrete pad in front of the french doors on the ground level and we may screen that area in down the road. Hopefully we can catch up to the mason today or tomorrow so he can go ahead and plan for the additional concrete.
The doors are really heavy and well made. They are solid wood with an aluminum cladding on the exterior surfaces to protect the wood.