Merry Late Christmas

Michelle and I are enjoying a restful and relaxing winter holidays. While it is been cold, the surf has been big and unrideable for the last few days. I finally was able to go surfing this morning. The work on the house continues. Cesar and his team are completing some brick work around the backside of the house. The Ensenada garden is almost complete. We love the new steps by the back patio. Cesar Inc. railroad ties into the design to match the rest of the backyard. Michelle has been cooking wonderful dinners and I have been working on the backyard and the side of the house. I recently cleared out approximately 20 trash cans worth of plant material. We are looking forward to returning enjoying the remainder of the week gardening, working on projects around the house, and surfing.

Week 27

We have been busy during the last two week moving back into the house and getting things finished. I have been spending a lot of time on the AV system.

Michelle and I moved in all of our boxes and everything we need is back in the house. The entire project is almost complete. The electrical is finished and the plumbing is complete. The only things that need to be done are outside. We still need to finish the brick walkway, repaint the outside of the house, install a new fence, and finish the Ensenada patio. Otherwise we are moved in and happy. It is a wonderful place. We will try to continue posting news as it becomes available.

Week 25

A lot has happened during the last week. Each day almost five or six different guys have been here working on the house.

Enrique the electrician stopped by the house and installed all f the switches. I installed our hanging lights. They look awesome.

The heating system is up and running. We are enjoying nice warm temperatures inside the house! Nate the heating system reviewer is here to evaluate the system and verify it is up to code.

The bathroom is almost finished. We need to install some outlets, mount door pulls, and build a small cabinet for our towels. Other than that, it is completely functional and looks beautiful! We are now taking showers indoors.

We have moved into the bedroom. It is 100% complete. It is the first room in the house to be totally done.

The table we ordered came in and it looks awesome!

The crew is now working on the back patio and it should be complete within 2 days. I will send more photos later but we are very busy moving back into the house.

After spending six months outdoors I have forgotten how warm indoors can be. Sleeping in our bedroom is just like staying at Ponte, the winery in Temecula. It is beautiful and luxurious!

Week 24

We are starting to see the project wrap up now. Last week the team spent a few days on the outside of the house. They put new stucco on three of the four walls. Are original stucco was a cat face pattern and was the color Verde green. Fortunately we kept some of the original stucco from the original stucco project a few years ago. The team was able to match the color and now the house looks like it was never cut open.

Abraham was brought in to finish the floors. He finished staining the floors and applied two coats of lacquer. The floors look beautiful but we have to stay off of them for 3 more days.

After that, it is time to paint the remaining rooms in the house, install the floorboards, put the finishes on the plumbing, and install the electrical switches and outlets. We have selected the lights for the ceiling and we even found two special lights to be placed over the bed. These lights have a very narrow focus and will be perfect for reading by. The extra light switches and pieces for the AV system have all come in the mail. We are ready to roll.

Mario says our target date for moving in is Thanksgiving break. That's one week from today. We know the house will still be worked on after we move in. There is some work to do in the patio and around the side of the house, but we will be able to sleep indoors and take a shower inside of a building. We are so impressed with the quality of work!

Week 23

A lot of work has been completed on the floors and patios this week. The Abraham is the name of the floor specialist. He came in and sanded the floors to remove the old finish. He installed new  pieces of oak in the missing areas and sanded everything again to give it a consistent feel. Abraham provided us with three different samples of staying. We decided to go with a darker color called antique brown. The color is very similar to the cabinets. We think they will make a great match! 

Cesar and his team finished building the forms for the back and side patios. If you look at the back patio you will see they built a special box around the palm tree. It took a few days to create the forms and cut/bend/install the rebar. Much of the backfill used to fill in the extra space between the sides was construction demo left over from other portions of the house.

On Friday a cement truck visited our house and the team poured cement for the patios, the walkway, and the space where the back steps will eventually be. The back steps will be made from railroad ties so they will be installed later. On Saturday morning we had our first chance to stand in the kitchen with the doors open and look out towards the new back patio. We love how much space is available for us to eat, Lounge, sleep in the hammock, or whatever.

Eventually the patio will be covered in the same floor tile found in the kitchen and bathroom. We laid a couple of tiles down to see what it will eventually look  like.

Mario had Enrique the electrician install some lights in various rooms to give us a feel of what each temperature of bulb will look like. Our home will be lit with LED lights so we get to choose the color we want them to give out. We don't choose the brightness but this isn't a problem because every switch in the house is a dimmer. We chose a warm white light that gives the home a cozy feeling at night. 

We purchased special dimmer switches that can be controlled remotely. They can even talk to each other and work in pairs or groups. Each switch slowly dims the lights when you turn them off....and of course the speed at which they dim can be controlled. Definitely something to play with.

The hood over the stove has been installed. The hood pops out when you are cooking. The cabinet guy will install wood on the hood so it matches the cabinetry.

We are looking forward to starting to move in around Thanksgiving break.

Week 22

The appliances are installed and hooked up! The photo below shows the wine refrigerator and stove top. Both are functional! The stove top has a special feature that allows you to simmer on a low heat...the burners will turn themselves on and off in order to keep things from burning.

The refrigerator and freezer are in. Eventually they will have wood faces installed on them so they blend into the cabinets.

The dishwasher has been installed in the island. The dishwasher will have a face on it to help it blend into the cabinets as well.

 

The ovens are installed. The top oven has a rotisserie that got our neighbor Ryan excited. He wants to cook a couple of chickens in there asap!

The built-in cabinets are almost ready to go. The doors are in and the next step is to install the door glass and glass shelves. The glass shelves will help the cabinets glow at night.

The stove top vent has arrived and needs to be installed. You can see the bottom of it in the box below. The stove top will fold out for use when cooking, then collapse back in when it is not needed.

The bathroom, bedroom, and office walls have been painted swiss coffee. The floor guy is starting to piece in the missing sections of floor. Once installed, he will sand and refinish the oak floors using a slightly darker color stain.

Cesar and his team have started to build forms for the new back porch. This includes building a box around our existing palm tree. We are excited about having the palm "pop out" of the deck. I plan on hanging a hammock from our this tree.

We hope to be moving in over Thanksgiving break. We are very excited!