April 25

Thursday. Met Kenny on site at 9:15 am. Talked about life and then walked through the great room. The drywallers were there sanding their tape, prepping for first coat. I pointed out to Kenny the issue with the bottom of the drywall by Sandy’s office and the sliding window in the great room. He said it could be floated, and asked, mistakenly, Louis, the foreman running the show. He gave a blank look, but in Spanish, to me said it should be removed and a new piece shimmed in place to fix the issue. We determined that the issue was the framers didn’t evenly match the slider window frame, pushing out, the 4 vertical 2×4’s from the vertical wall. This caused the drywall to bulge/sink in when the drywall was fastened to the remainder of the width of the 4′ wall. Louis grabbed his powertool and removed the dry wall screws hoping that relieving pressure would let the drywall loosen up, nope that didn’t help. Cutting away a portion of the drywall, Kenny decided to brute force (hammer) the 2×4’s in to submission and that didn’t help. Louis began the fix. Dad and Doug watched out for me, again. I was at the right place, at the right time. With my limited Spanish, we got it done to my satisfaction. It helps to create some connection with the subs, everyone needs to get stroked!

The other issue, which I missed, is the niche for our dad’s flag memorial. Someone forgot the sheet over the arch, it is a passway/window to bedroom 1 walk in closet, if you can believe that! So, it will be drywalled over in 2 layers, 1 inside the arch, and the other on the outside, flush with everything else. I guess the fact that the wall was 2×4 instead of 2×6 or 2×8 limited the depth of our niche. It was our fault, that the niche came in too late. We have lost another 1/2 inch in depth because of the 2 layers of drywall. Not much can be place there now. We’ll see how that goes.

The plasterers were working on the outside, plastering the scratch coat (?) which will cure for 2 weeks before the final stucco goes on. We saw the stucco color and it should work out nicely.

A phone call with Lyndsee at 5p, to hash out the updated cabinet drawings, still without the WIC and the garage. This Jess is a busy guy and he’ll get to those next week, so he says in his latest email forwarded from Lyndsee. We are going back and forth – all the cabinets except the window boxes, have white melamine on the inside. We are proposing a wood-grain type of laminate in the master bath, kitchen and fireplace areas. We’ll see what that number looks like. I called Jordan earlier to clarify earlier a portion of Jess’s email about 3/8′ plywood boxes for drawers and expressed my displeasure at Ideal’s responsiveness and that we were shopping the WIC and garage to someone else. Funny, Lyndsee brought him into the phone call and … he suggested that they shop the WIC and garage to Closet Creations!

April 24

Wednesday. Made an appointment with Brett at CounterTop Source to see our 2 slabs. I wanted to verify the dimensions to push through my iteration #3 for the cuts of the 2 slabs. I think we can get the countertop and the mantle with slab #1 and the kitchen sink and master bath and bathroom 1 with slab#2. My numbers should work. Sandy also picked up some type 2 countertop material for samples to help determine the color of the various cabinets.

Met with Lyndsee at the design center at 3pm. Even though she dissuaded us from going to CounterTop Source, it was great to have those countertop samples.

We wrapped up the cabinet physical designs, minimal changes and we are ready to go for final design and cost.

We finished up the tile and LVP floor selections. The wall tile selections from the master bath are now unavailable. Lyndsee suggested some alternatives that did not do anything for us. I gave Lyndsee the sample photos of material we saw from MSI in LV and she will be able to proceed with that similar product. Why they and HB limit their selections for their clients to only HB products is beyond me. The master bath is worked out now. We modified bath 2 flooring to be a little less busy, it will look great. Bath 1 and the casita bath are also done. We picked matching cabinet colors as well. We will use walnut finishes for the kitchen, great room and master bath. We picked a green and blue for the laundry room, bath 1, bath 2, casita kitchen and bath cabinets.

Brent from Closet Factory did send his bid, but to my earthlink email address. We did get it squared away and it seems reasonable. This may be our solution if Ideal can’t/won’t get their act together.

April 23

Tuesday. Met with landscaper, Adam, from Desert Breeze Landscaping, in the afternoon. He has some great ideas, I think we should be happy. Raised beds, fruit trees, palms, firepit, gravel areas and the greenhouse incorporated into the design too.

In the morning, Sandy sent this email:

“Hi all,

Thanks for all of your feedback! The plan to pick out garage door colors on Wednesday is also what we wanted to accomplish.

We like what we see in the cabinets so far, but expected to see an update with the total costs/plans including the master WIC and garage. We don’t want to wait until the end of the build and Jesse’s email kind of sounded like that was the track they were heading down. It also looked like Jesse wouldn’t be able to meet the 2 week schedule to create the cabinets. Did we misunderstand? If we did not, when will they be able to complete/install the cabinets? Please know we want to make sure we are doing all we can to keep things on track. If Jesse needed feedback on paint colors for the cabinets, we could have gone into Home Depot/Lowes while out of town and come up with paint colors.

Buildertrend is showing the countertops being installed on May 10th, but we haven’t even met with them to pick out our Tier 2 quartz and decide on the best use of the two slabs we purchased. On Wednesday, can we also discuss scheduling a time to talk with Countertop Source.

We will be having to leave town again next Thursday, May 2, returning Tuesday, May 7, and want to ensure everything we need to decide upon has been completed. Please let us know what we can be working on between now and 3:00 p.m. Wednesday so we can keep this train moving forward!”

Tomorrow, April 24, Wednesday we hope to get answers to our questions. At 2pm, we are going to CounterTop Source to check on our slabs and see what we can find for the other tops that we need.

April 22

Monday. After sending the email, we waited from last night just to be sure we were polished, we received a cabinet update from the Ideal folks. Lyndsee received it on April 10 and we got it this morning, April 22. I asked “why the delay” and there was a wishy-washy reply. This again points to “too many cooks in the kitchen”. This is aggravating.

There is an issue with the east wall, by the slider, that has an “indented” problem. The solution is “bondo”. I am not thrilled.

I took photos, the 2 solar tubes are now installed.

We met with Brent from Closet Factory (Costco referral) to go another solution for the walk-in master closet and the garage workspace areas. He promised us to get a drawing/proposal/bid by our 3pm meeting with Lyndsee.

April 21

Sunday. We sent this email.

“Good evening folks. We need help. We think things are going to get fast and furious over the next couple of weeks and want to keep our side of the decision-making process on track.

To that, we ask for status on:

1. Garage doors, Spencer followed up with his revised bid and asked if we had decision on colors. I suggested we meet on site, he has color samples. Nothing materialized after that conversation. Not sure where we are though. We think the bid is fair.
2. Countertops and their layouts. We have 3 possible layouts for the 2 slabs, but need someone with more expertise to guide us.
3. Faucets and sinks for bath 1, bath 2 and casita. We are concerned that the faucet “length” and depth/width of bowls chosen may be a problem when setting the stems. We need to know if the chosen sinks don’t work, so that we can choose another design of bowl.
4. The catwalk from the attic access in the mechanical room to the “walk” over the great room. Kenny was going to work on it last week, as of yesterday (Saturday) it is not complete. I suggested numerous times that it would be better to attack this before the dry-wall, but that didn’t happen. It needs to get done and not ignored.
5. The design for the hardi-board on the 3 roof triangles and the pantry pop-out. We are going down this path without having a firm idea on the cost of the stone and hardi-board. Do we do raw hardi-board and paint or use the colorized cement board. The 2 previous one-page bids, $20k and $9k provided no details. Please provide details for this 3rd iteration.
6. The stucco color samples will be available soon? We want to get a last check on the color.
7. Cabinet costs with the office and garage incorporated in addition to the tweaks we made with the Ideal folks.
8. Status of whole house humidifier?
9. When do we need to pick out light fixtures/fans/switches?
10. Solar tube over bath 2, Jordan mentioned in a text that it will cost “a little” over the master bedroom unit. What are the prices for both tubes?

We want to be as responsive as possible to keep this build moving and are trying to stay ahead.”

Lyndsee is home sick with baby stuff and she asked us to reschedule tomorrow’s 10am to another date. We picked Wednesday at 3pm and asked for answers to the above questions.

April 20.

Saturday. Drove to check up on the house. The lower patio is now plywood sheathed and the lath is attached. A couple of sheets were extra left-overs. We continue to move forward.

April 17

Wednesday. Left a text message with Kenny and Jordan on Monday about my pinched feed-line. They fixed it that day, we are good to go.

Stopped by in the late afternoon after the long trip to SoCal to attend my Aunt Donna’s funeral and the ferry trip of my ’82 Toyota pickup. The lathers are lathing and the drywallers and taping and mudding in the house. Lots of stuff happening, see the pics!

April 13

Saturday. Went to check on my antenna performance as the house get closed up due to the drywall. No longer do I have access to the feed point for my antenna. The drywall guys have effectively ‘pinched’ my ladder line in place. I left them a note to notch out somehow to free up the ladder line. Amazing lack of communication to the homeowner. I think I can tune the antenna with additional lengths of ladder line, I tried that out this morning and 20 and 10 meters were in good shape. 15 and 40 not so much, but the tuner should handle that OK.

The lath guys are there on a Saturday, plugging away. The head honcho needs the roofer to get the color of the metal panels and the coordination flashing before he (the lath guy) can finish up.

Sent the ‘team’ a text/email describing the potential issue with the sinks and the faucets everywhere but in the master bath. The undermount sink has the drain hole 5″ from below the faucet. The faucet length from end-to-end is 5 1/8″. With the undermount, how can you drill the mounting stem holes and still have everything line up. I am not sure and we may have to go back to the original sink, center-drain approach.

The left and right hand are NOT talking to each other.

April 12

Friday. Gave marching orders to sheet in the BBQ area below with OSB plywood. I will feel better for future stuff, TVs, pics … I think this should have been done as part of the build. I also think that the lower garage wall should be sheeted as well. I wasn’t explicit enough, I guess. I can deal with that wall.

April 11

Thursday. Lots of activity going on, drywall, lath, roofing. Last night, after the planning commission meeting, I stopped by and could not find the solar tube install. My catwalk isn’t in place either.

Had a meeting with Kenny and we worked through the items, the sleeve IS in for the master bath solar tube, how you get access to it from the ceiling is beyond me. There is no access, once the drywall is in place, to get there. Kenny will talk to the solar tube installer.

We talked at length about the catwalk. First, no can do, but we settled on a ‘solution’, he Kenny will figure something out to tie in from the attic access over the mech room to the catwalk over the great room. It would have been better to do that before the HVAC/electric/gas installs, but no …..

The lath team is there ready to go, Kenny had used the front facade plan that Lyndsee cooked up, our version 2 with hardy-board in areas that we wanted augmented.

I explained that the front facade cost is not worked out yet, Lyndsee is crunching those numbers. It’s cost should be less than the 20K original and more than the 9k 1/3 stone approach. We will incorporate hardy-board on the triangle peaks and on the arched pop-out window to the north of the front door. There were so many marks on the plywood that the lath guy asked me to walk him through the locations of the stone and stucco and hardyboard. The design should look good, and we have time to tweak the peak designs. We are proceeding with the lath/stucco/hardyboard for the lath installer team. No price, but he can keep moving.

The lath guys had question on the lower BBQ area, do they need plywood on the studs or just lay the drywall on the studs. Called Jordan, he said just apply over the studs, it is in a sheltered area after all. He will make sure that the message gets passed down to the troops.

Kenny is leaving to become a UHP officer and is awaiting his background check and date of his class.

Jordan is bummed, the rezoning to .25 acre for “Phase 3” was denied. Parcels shall remain at 0.5 acre. 20 people voted their ‘no’ vote on the re-zoning request, some folks in Phase 1, and the folks on Center and Old Church Rd as well. Troy really didn’t do himself any favors with the neighborhood. It was a 4-1 denial vote, the 1 approval is the head of the planning commission, a friend of the Lowe’s. Everyone is connected in small towns!

April 10

Wednesday. Met at 10am with Lyndsee and the Ideal cabinet maker guy at their shop. Walked through our ‘tweaks’ and the office and garage desk designs. We’ll see what the number is, gulp!

Still trying to get a handle on the a new front-of-house look. We like the hardyboard look and are trying to add it to the triangle pieces on the front.

Jordan brought over some samples of the roof metal panels, and we all picked the ‘bronze’ color.

April 9

Tuesday. Recieved the new plumbing bid, no sinks and the shower fixtures fixed with the Kayra fixtures. Each bath will have Haywood sink faucets and Kayra shower faucets. The new bid has Gerber generic sinks in it, so on the way home from TX, we stopped by MountainLand and asked them to show us these sinks. They opened up a box and it is a nice generic center-drain sink.

Tuesday night I looked into other sinks and found the Gerber Logan Square sink, an upgrade but not outrageously so, they look nicer and have a drain under the faucet. We asked that the bid be revised with the new Logan sinks and the original Blanco sinks (kitchen, prep, laundry, [stainless steel], casita kitchen, garage [fiberglass] added back in. The final cost is $11.7k, we got it all. We deleted any BBQ area sinks, because we really have no feel for that design, yet.

Jordan is after us to finalize the front of the house design. We are trying to incorporate JamesHardie as an accent color to the stucco and stone. Lyndsee gave us a bid to lower the stone to 1/3 for $9600.

Met the roofer, Gonzolo, on site. We stopped by after dinner (from MountainLand) and looked at the roof tile, Gonzolo made is sound like we have only one color of the “5687” Eagle Pond tile. Jordan is verifying that we do have the brown to grey variations. Gonzo also needs the color of the metal panels to get his colorized flashing for those panels in place.

April 4

Thursday. Insulation underway. The missing kitchen window has been installed. The “extra” window in the garage was the wrong size/broken/who knows.

Checked out the skyloop with the 913 4:1 balun, results are better with the Balun Designs types. I will try the 4116et next.

Drywall install begins next week. I reminded the folks that we will finish the catwalk from the great room to the mech room attic access and we will also add some plywood from the garage attic ladder to the center of the garage, following the ridgeline south. Also, we are going to remove the “wings” on the mudroom closet before drywall.

Plumbing fixtures are in final bid and we found the GE mini-fridge and Summit 18″ electric cooktop for the casita.

April 1

Monday. At 2pm, met with Spencer of Mike’s Zion security and Kenny to walk about the 8 security cameras. We have it all covered, I think. Kenny walked through the electrical with Sandy while I worked with Spencer.

• One camera in the southwest corner of the upper garage pointing northwest.
• One camera in the entry arch way (on the south wall) pointing in the foyer.
• Two cameras in the northwest corner of the house, one looking south and one looking northeast to the lower garage.
• One camera attached below the master bedroom deck, pointing northwest to the lower garage.
• One camera above the covered patio, on the northeast corner, pointing down to the backyard. It is on the edge of the patio deck, I can lean over to clean it.
• Two cameras on the upper garage southeast corner, at the top of the window level. One of them pointing west, along the side of the upper garage and one pointing northeast to the backyard. These can be cleaned with a 10′ ladder.

8 cameras in total.

4-way inspection tomorrow, according to Kenny. 4-way = framing, plumbing, electrical and HVAC. Kenny feels pretty good about the inspection.

March 30

Saturday. We went to the Easter Egg hunt at the Center Park in Toquerville. Lots of families were there and we met Jordan and Sierra and family there too.

Walked the house with Rosie and Tommy. Tommy’s opinion – the builders are doing a good job, nothing glaring missing. That is good news!

March 28

Thursday. Met with plumber Dan and Jordan to talk about the ejector for the lift-station. He confirmed my approach through the wall in the casita up to the sewer line in the southwest corner of the casita.

March 27

Wednesday. Recieved an email from Jordan regarding the Zion security and speaker bid. In the bid, there is NO alarm system. Mike, the guy across the street, took the security cameras as the security system. We had a 3-way call and we can upgrade to a security system with his outfit for a recurring $45/month fee. We’ll pass, I’ll transfer the Simplisafe to the new house.

There will be 3 speaker systems. The main living room system will be driven with the Yamaha receiver. The patio deck and garage are 2 separate systems, wired to their separate Sonos amps.

Met with Curtis, the #2 electrical guy. Starting at 11am or so, we had the 40 meter horizontal loop up in about 1/2 hour. It is a little long, resonant at 6.5 Mhz, but we’ll see if we can tweak that.

Lots of progress, the front door is hung, it is massive! The casita head A/C head unit has been relocated. The garage A/C set lines have also been relocated into the closet area.

Electrical wiring is all over the place. Curtis and I walked through the electrical. We relocated the garage door power outlets to the sides of the garage. We determined the wine fridge location, next to the dishwasher.

In the afternoon, met with the Sierra and Lyndsee and the Ideal cabinet team in Leeds. Lots of ideas discussed and we will await the first 2-d drawings to review. We hope to have a built-in for Sandy’s office and a 2-seat station in the garage.

The 75″ Samsung Frame TV showed up at our front door in Hurricane, along with the other free 65″ (Amazon deal).

March 25

Monday. Waking up in the middle of the night, I realized that we can move the head unit on the north wall of the casita off center and still have plenty of room for the TV in the NE corner. Sandy is OK with that and we measure it out.

We sent this text to Jordan and Kenny.

“So that we are all on the same page, we are going to move the mini-split head unit to the north wall. We are going to offset it 4 feet from the kitchenette wall. The head unit is about 43” in length and it will start at that 4 foot mark. This will make sure that the TV clears in the corner. Yes, the head unit will not be centered now, but that’s OK.”

We received a response that it will get worked.

We also received an email from Jordan regarding electrical “upgrades” from our walkthrough on Thursday. Another $3k, $480 of that just cat6 upgrade. I guess that is fair, it is about 30% above cat 5e in cost.

Jordan and I talked about the ejector line. He will talk to Dan the plumber and we’ll get an explanation. He told me that the ejector line could be below grade, it is not per the literature I have researched. The systems is a Zoeller P24x24 / 2V2D M803 and Alarm package. The ejector runs from the bottom of the tank through the lid. It is a “macerator” type pump, pretty cool.

March 24

Sunday. Before we went out to Colorado City, we stopped by to look at the sump-pump ejector setup. As far as I can tell, the ejector vertical line is not in place and there is no connection to the sewer line. The only way I can see a connection will be

March 23

Saturday. Walked the property with Janice and Brent. The pedestal has been installed for the water heater, the input/output lines will have to be extended to reach the top of the tank.

So far so good from Brent. He did ask the question about the ejector lift-station connection to the sewer line above on the first floor. I cannot see a connection, yet.

March 21

Thursday. Met Kenny and Jordan and Mike and the electrical crew on site at 10am. We walked through the electrical and Mike, (our neighbor) walked through the surround sound (TV and speakers [in the living room, upper garage and upper patio]), cameras, my loop antenna and other connections. We are doing Cat6 in lieu of Cat 5e, it should be a wire increase of about 30%. We’ll see how they cost it out.

We have a strategy for my coax runs through the garage. We are going with 2 2″ PVC runs. The 3″ approach didn’t provide enough room.

A question regarding the main water shutoff valve, the water heater location and shelf and drain …. discovered that Jordan was installing a tankless and we spec’d a traditional 50 gallon tank. We went back-and-forth. We will do a traditional tank.

We will move the casita evaporative head unit to the north wall. We will move the linesets for the main and the mini-split in the garage to more of the corner rather than where they are now.

Before I went walking through Firelight, two installers came to install the fireplace. It is the model 6510, as we spec’d it. They did remove the TV blocking though.

Met with Adam at Desert Breeze Landscaping at 4pm to talk about the back yard. We have no ideas, he does and we’ll see what comes of it.

March 20

Wednesday. Walked around in the afternoon, HVAC stuff is getting finalized but the raceway for the garage/casita mini-split and the main HVAC unit are in the middle of the wall, below the garage. The mini-split head in the casita is right above the bed as it faces north. I think Kenny and I talked about moving the head to the north wall, but I can’t find it in the redlines. Argh

The accordion kitchen window is in place, each panel is a little thicker than I’d like, but the affect is cool and Sandy likes it.

The only window missing install is the middle one in the living room, it is still in the garage.

The 2 doors that were on site, are now hung. The entrance to the house from the garage and the exit door from the lower garage are in place.

We received from Lyndzee the bid for the exterior stone work, it is over budget, she found it. The sketch shows stone work missing from the 2 vertical posts under the master bedroom. More $$, I’m sure.

The only thing we have gotten close on is the interior tile and LVP flooring.

We will walk through with the electrical guy and the home automation guy at 10 am.

We went to the showroom, talked with Mark and later received the final paper bid for the 14′ Ocean model. It is sorta what we remembered, about $37k. These folks will work with Jordan’s folks to build the vault for the half-sunken in approach. The spa needs a 220v, 60amp circuit.

June 15 for a completion date, we are planning on. Gotta keep the pressure on! Gotta talk to our neighbors and keep their interest up.

March 19

Tuesday. We received the Mountain Land plumbing bid and it is about $1.5k lower than Ferguson. They are still over budget and Jordan finally answered that line item 24, rough plumbing, has been used up. Line item 25, finish plumbing, for $6400, is way out of whack.

We have a come-to-Jesus meeting on Friday at 10am at HB. Jordan was not going to attend, but I asked that he does, he knows we are concerned. It is tough trying to hit a moving $$ target.

Jordan will have a completion date schedule at the meeting.

March 18

Monday. We asked the “team” for a completion date. Jordan promised an answer by close of business Wednesday. I am sure he thinks we are premature. He does schedules every Wednesday with his team.

March 17

Sunday. Weather didn’t cooperate Thursday or Friday, windy and rainy. Yesterday was better, no real wind. Went out today and the plumbing is still underway. Roofing tar paper and furring strips underway today. The Mexican guys are hard at work, getting their jobs done, no white guys around. Construction does have some interesting work ethics. We saw this before in Bullhead too.

There is water puddles in a few of the rooms, kinda disappointing, wonder how the plywood is fairing. I see some rust from nailing on the verticals where there are puddles.

Interesting, took some more drone video, when I thought I was shooting stills.

We need to nail down a completion date, something within 2 weeks would be OK for us. This should be an interesting exercise. We don’t want to lose prospective clients for our house!

March 13

Wednesday. Walked around with Kenny around 12:45. HVAC guys almost done (not on site anyway) and all but the casita and kitchen pass-through and adjacent windows have been installed. The north-facing window in the master is massive at 12′ long, but it looks great!

The roof is just about all waterproofed and ready for tile drop-off.

The plumber is on-site and he is doing his thing.

So-far, so good. It’s looking great.

March 10

Sunday. Took Sandy to walk around. We have the living room and master bedroom sliders installed. We are coming together.

Took some drone shots and video as well.

March 8

Friday. Both the master bedroom and living room sliders are installed, an 8′ and a 12′. It was really blowing today and the 12′ master bedroom north-facing window, when the winter wind blows, should be interesting.

If we swap the washer and dryer locations, everything will line up. The dryer is 29″ wide and the vent is centered at 14.5″, the washer is 28″ wide, per the Maytag install guides.

March 7

Thursday. I can’t do the math right, we are moving the outlet for Sandy’s sewing machine out another 20″ to the north. I laid out the room and she needs walking distance around the table and around her office desk.

While I was there yesterday in the afternoon (not in the morning), I noticed the dryer vent location was too close to the wall, we need to move the location of the vent and switch the washer and dryer locations, changes are underway.

We walked through the Boulder’s house that Jordan is building. It has a vacuum driven elevator in the house. We went to see the deck texture treatments that are the epoxy approach. We also saw the metal staircase and risers for design ideas. We also were able to see the Ideal cabinet-work that is used throughout the house and that we will have as our designer. They do nice, clean work.

March 6

Wednesday. Walked the house with Jordan and Kenny at 8am. Worked through the covered deck heater system, we’ll plumb in a gas line in the middle of the deck and fabricate a gas heater/fireplace.

The microwave is moving to the pantry and the 2 walls forming the entrance to the pantry are being removed, to make room for the hidden pantry fabrication per the cabinet-maker. He has walked through the floorplan and has begun laying out his approaches.

I will meet with the neighbor, he does the fancy audio stuff in the mechanical room.

March 5

Tuesday. HVAC folks on site and humming away. Walked the electrical with Kenny, we think we have everything laid out correctly. Filters for the HVAC are horizontal slide-outs in the mechanical room, very nice!

Draw #6 came in, primarily for the framers, about $45k for their portion.

March 4

Monday. Broken molar too all my attention! Great dental system we have here. My facial pain was NOT due to sinus, but due to the crack in the tooth. Dental implant screw implated while I was in twilight sleep!

Friday. Walked the house with my cousin Mark. The fireplace framing is in place, the niche for the dad’s flag memorial is in and the framers left the place very clean. The catwalk is in place and the attic stairway access has been moved from the middle of the garage to above the entrance way. It all looks good.

We are waiting on the estimate for the extension of the master and covered patio as a wrap-around. The extension cost came in at $10k, we will pass!

February 29

Thursday. We were called by Kenny to see if we could meet on Friday, tomorrow to walk through the locations we wanted for TV placements throughout. We could not because we were on our way to LV to get the Acura radar sensor repaired. So … we drove by and walked room by room. I quickly designed a sketch for the placement in the bedroom 1 hallway and walked it through with the framer Allister.

I pointed out in the walkthrough that the location of the attic access stairway was in the middle of the garage rather than where I had given them the location, over the entry to the garage from the mechanical room.

February 27

Tuesday. Went to see progress and walked around to Firelight. Sheeting is almost complete and the master deck is still not in place, but getting closer.

When I was done exploring down at Firelight, I met Kenny on site and the architects Greg and Jackson. They were walking through their design and talking with the framers about lessons-learned. I bent their ear about the pantry size and the increase in the master bedroom.

We will move to horizontal in-the-wall faucets for the master bedroom. Mentioned that to Kenny and also mentioned a cat-walk throughout the raised center portion of the great room.

Next week, we should have the HVAC, plumbers and electricians on site. I want to meet with them.

February 26

Monday. Met with Lindzee to pick out the molding door trim and baseboard casing. We settled for the beveled stuff we saw at one of the homes during the Parade of Homes. We started on a door core discussion and ended upgrading interior doors to solid core and some bathroom-type doors to the existing bid (sandwich type). The upcharge for all doors was about $1k or about $600 for those essential. I like the feel of the solid door, there is more substance.

We talked about the master bedroom faucets being in the wall rather than on the sink itself.

We have a follow-on meeting next Monday at 9:30 am at Ferguson to pick out plumbing and sinks and other fixtures.

February 24

Saturday. Took the drone to fly around. Sheeting should start soon!

February 22

Thursday. Continued progress on the roof trusses. It is looking like a house now, very impressive and imposing. Great crew of framers!

February 21

Wednesday. Fireplace discussion went back and forth for a bit. We settled on the Fireplace Xtrordinaire 6015 with the traditional log set. We sketched out the hearth and the mantle, hearth at 16″ high (from floor) by 16″ deep and the mantel (non combustible) at about 54″. There is a space of about 10″ top and bottom of the fireplace itself, 10″ from the hearth and 10″ from the bottom of the mantel. $9500, ouch.

Per BuilderTrend, roof trusses continued. The rain didn’t return until late in the afternoon. I didn’t get to see the progress.

February 20

Tuesday. Met with Kenny on site, Sandy got to meet him for the first time.

Roof truss install has begun this morning. Looking good and should be complete by Friday! Sandy shot some video of the fork lift moving trusses on site.

We went through our comments/ideas/wishes with Kenny.

1. Coat closet will stay as framed, we will not hang the doors.
2. The width of walk-in pantry will stay is is.
3. Solar tube locations and how many in line item #46 budget of $1000 will be decided after the roof ply is on.
4. The south window in casita if possible will cause a 4-5 week delay, because of the special order. Wall to Wall is investigating the cost for engineering, window ordering and demo/install.
5. Recessed wall niche/nook/alcove for flag display in hallway to bedroom 1 can easily be done. Niche dimensions of 36″ wide by 60″ tall.
6. To the best of their ability, the kitchen island location and new size will be ‘pinned’ by the location of the prep sink and water. There is not a lot of wiggle room, we’ll see. We are resizing from 4′ x 12′ to 5′ x 10′.

Talked with Kenny and then with Brandin Prisbrey, the HVAC guy. Kenny has no experience with heat pumps. Brandin convinced me to go with a traditional HVAC system, I have nixed the heat pump approach. Best to work with someone who is comfortable and capable with their HVAC expertise.

February 19

Monday. Drove over to CounterTop Source to see and verify our Blue Imperial quartzsite. We had an appointment set up with Brett, by the Dwelling Design team for 11am to view them. The folks were going to separate the 2 slabs and we could see the bookmatch. Nope, no Brett and the slabs were buried behind some other recent deliveries. We did verify the SKUs as being number E and H. We are good!

What goes on with CounterTop Source is another question, entirely.

February 18

Sunday. Took Sandy over to walk through the house. The walk-in closet for the master bedroom is huge, she should have all the space that she needs. I needed her to see the kitchen pantry, smaller than we thought, about 5.75′ x 14.5′. We are wondering if we can increase the width.

Now that we have walked through the build, we have comments/ideas/wishes.

1. Mod the coat closet, eliminate doors.
2. Increase width of walk-in pantry, if possible.
3. Solar tube locations and how many in line item #46 budget of $1000.
4. Add a south window in casita if possible.
5. Add a recessed wall niche/nook/alcove for flag display in hallway to bedroom 1. Niche dimensions of 36″ wide by 60″ tall.
6. Kitchen island location and new size. We are resizing from 4′ x 12′ to 5′ x 10′. Is there enough play to recenter the new island dimensions given the prep sink is by the kitchen sink now.

February 17

Saturday. Went and took photos of the house layout now that we can see vertical walls. The rooms are all layed out now. Uploade the photos to SmuMug and labelled them by room location.

February 16

Friday. Quick progress, all vertical walls are up. Monday for the roof trusses, this is an amazing team. Mre photos tomorrow, we can sorta walk through each room now.

February 15

Thursday. Received a bid from Dixie FP regarding the linear Fireplace Xtrodinaire 60″ fireplace, $9k! After much mashing of teeth, we find ourselves with possible budget overages.

After a conference call with Chris at Dixie FP, the proposal that the Dwelling Design team presented on Tuesday is not viable because of code requirements. So … we are back to either a Heat and Glo 8000 series or a linear design. Someone is going to give us options to make this work. The Heat and Glo, all tricked out, is still cheaper than the linear. Go figure.

Provided a quick sketch for a upper garage aluminum ladder access to the attic. It is a Louisville model AA2210 or equivalent. It requires a 22.5″ x 58″ rough in opening.

February 14

Wednesday. Work continues, see the photos, Allister and his team are moving. The casita is a little dark, see the photos, the office/bedroom overhand really limit the light. The east facing slider and vertical skylights and the bathroom window, are the only light sources. Maybe we need a window on the south side.

February 13

Tuesday. Progress! Met Allister and his team, he is anxious to continue moving. Met at 9:30 with Kenny to walk through my coax cable pass throughs from the upper garage to the lower floor. We can make it work and Allister agreed that it is a no-brainer. Kenny mentioned

I mentioned to Kenny the vertical beams on the master bedroom vs the other 3 remaining beams. We need to wrap the 2 beams to appear as similar dimensions. We are wrapping the columns 1/3 way up with stone.

I need access to the attic and stumbled on adding a attic ladder like I have here on Sky Mountain. I think I need to get those specs and provide them so that the framers can add them as the ceiling gets framed up.

Met at 11am with the design team at Dixie Fireplace. We concluded the linear is the solution, we can add the hearth and a mantel-type “shelf” if we pop out the fireplace area a bit. There are photos that we are looking at to get ideas. Both sides of the fireplace will have cabinets/storage/shelves. The team came up with a solution that incorporates a 60″, 5 foot linear. It has to be that length to make the room/shelving/TV area work out. Now we wait on prices. The Heat and Glo models are most expensive, we may have to cut costs with other lines.

Went to the Dixie Convention Center where southwest Utah and Utah DOT were presenting master plans/concepts for southwest Utah’s growth. Each city was represented as well, I went to see where Toquerville is at and what information they were providing. The bypass is continuing and hopes to be open by August for traffic. It will, at that time, still be owned by the city. The transition to the state will take more time and any feeder street tie-ins will depend on need. Traffic studies will be required and it sounds like any developer interested in adding a connector may incur some cost. Hopefully, this will take a while for an Old Church connector.

February 12

Monday. Got “team” marching orders from Jordan to provide the rough fireplace dimensions for the framers. We supplied the Heat and Glow 8000CLX specs last week or so. But, he needs more detail. We want a hearth and a mantel and a TV. Looking at the specs for the fireplace, it is 37″ in height, a hearth at 16″ high and a mantel. The math doesn’t work and the mantel and TV end up too high. The answer for the distance from the top of a fireplace to the mantel depends on combustible/non-combustible materials. In either case, the height of the fireplace is working against us.

We talked and decided maybe we get the hearth OR the mantel, but not both. Neither of us wants the fireplace on the floor, like what we presently have. On the internet, I get all kinds of answers.

Left a call to Dixie Fireplace and asked the design team to do the same. We will meet tomorrow at Dixie at 11am to come up with a solution. Maybe we need to move to a linear fireplace, low-boy in my book.

Wandered over to Custom Fireplace in old industrial while Sandy was getting a facial at Massage Envy. Amy gave me some ideas regarding a linear, she had examples of non-combustible mantels. I think we are stuck with a linear.

February 11

Sunday. Wandered over after breakfast and got to see vertical stuff happening! The lower garage and the casita are fully underway. The casita looks a little small, but we’ll see as the build progresses. Weather should be good this week so we are looking forward to more progress!

February 7

Wednesday. We had a 10am design team meeting. Good progress, we picked out the carpets, and tile/design for all bathrooms and the laundry room.

Had a 1:15 meet-and-greet with the new ‘superintendent’, Kenny. Cody moved on to family in SLC, so Jordan found a new guy. We talked about the framing progress, being hampered by rain now. May 2024 seems iffy to me for a move-in for planning purposes.

I am still leaning on a heat pump instead of a traditional HVAC. We talked about the cabinets, we will explore garage cabinets too. We will have a 5 ton and a 3 ton AC unit for the main house. The specs from the HVAC guy have a 2.5 ton mini-split for the upper garage and a separate 1 ton for the casita. I added another 1 ton for the lower garage.

The deck floor trusses will hold the exterior tiles for the 3 decks. We may want to epoxy grout the master bedroom. The other 2 decks are under overhangs, so they are not as exposed to the elements and regular grout will suffice.

The under island counter cabinets can be differing depths because of the 5′ width of the island. Shorter depth on the outside, bar-stool area, and longer depth on the cooking side of the island.

We explored the vertical garage door Liftmaster approach as well. I like the Liftmaster 98022. These specs can handle an 18′ wide door and lift 850 pounds.

For the fireplace, we are going to go with the Heat & Glow 8000CLX in New Bronze, Chateau Forge front and Stratford brick designs. The brochure has all the specs.

Let’s hope we stay in budget!

February 5

Monday. We are up in Rohnert Park visiting the grandkids. We get a text from Sierra that the slabs are in Countertop Source, the SKUs F and G, we assume. In earlier texting, we asked the design team if they could stop by and check out the color scheme out. Sierra emails us photos, they are NOT F and G. She sent the photos and did not mention that they were the wrong ones, let us find out, I guess. Everybody begins pointing the finger. We had sent, on January 18, the SKUs of F and G. They forwarded those to Countertop Source or MSI. We did not receive the slabs we ordered. No one can explain what happened. The slabs shipped to CS came from Anaheim, California, why – unexplained.

We arrived late in LV, and Sandy had hedged our bet, so we had a room at South Point. Bummed, again, we decided to take a trip Tuesday, to see if F and G were still in LV. Monday night, we scheduled a 5-way conference call with all involved at MSI LV at 10:00 am MST (9 am in LV, we had time for breakfast). We were hoping that F/G were still there, nope, they were gone. MSI/Dan in SLC said they had eyes on Blue Louis in the OC, but a different bundle, yet similar (yeah, sure). The remaining A, B, and C slabs in LV all had cracks in them, below the wispy lady. So … we shopped around and found an Azul Imperial quartzite, from Brazil that was beautiful and could work. We settled on slabs E and H, mentioned that to the design team who said that MSI would work with us on the price, making it a push with the Blue Louis. They have been ordered and on hold to be shipped to Countertop Source.

January 30

Tuesday. The lower garage floor has been poured! I guess the rebar was laid down over the weekend or yesterday. A 3′ or so pathway connecting the casita to the garage was poured as well. Hopefully, we can go vertical soon, hoping the weather cooperates toward the end of the week! I wonder how many yards were used?

January 26

Friday. Drove with Brent and Janice to Zion to find condors in the wild. We stopped by to see the pony wall for the lower garage. It was poured yesterday and the rest of the footings were poured today. Hopefully next week, we finish the lower garage slab and get some wood vertical!

January 25

Thursday. Met with the design team at 1:30 down at their facility. Strolled through their materials for the house floorings and bathroom floorings. Many choices, but we have a good start. We also looked at the external stucco colors and are moving forward with those selections. Another meeting next week sometime.

January 23

Tuesday. Walked the build with Jordan this morning. It is drizzly, slowing down the vertical wall lower garage process by the Bang Bros. In hindsight, we could have done the verticals earlier when the casita was poured, but I think a scheduling conflict precluded that, oh well. The process is proceeding, but a little behind schedule, I think. Hard to see what the schedule is though on the buildtrend app.

We have an appointment with the designers on Thursday to pick out flooring materials.

January 20

Saturday. Contractors working on the lower garage, prepping for the vertical stem walls that will be poured next week. Additional lumber, including trusses are now on site, spreading to lot 206!

Not sure why the lower garage couldn’t have been prepped at the same time as the upper garage or even earlier, when the casita was being layed out. A mystery to me, I think we could have sped up the process, maybe there is a man-power shortage with the subcontractors?

January 18

Thursday. Jordan texted us that the purchase order stuff is underway. We understand the slabs will be held by Countertop Source.

Left the Silverton about 6:15 am and arrived at St. Thomas Aquinas about 10:45 am, the Rosary was in progress. Mass was at 11am, followed by the burial at Calvary Catholic cemetery. Lunch in Pasadena with the family. It was nice to catch up.

We were on the road by 4:45 and Google told us 2:30 for arrival in Barstow, pretty close, we arrived just after 7pm. It was a long day.

January 17

Wednesday. We travelled to LA for my aunt Dora’s funeral tomorrow. On the way, we stopped at MSI in LV, talked to Mike (again) and … low and behold, slabs F and G were on the floor. Asked to see them bookmarked and slabs D and E as well. We chose the originals F and G.

We called Jordan from the car and told him to begin the hold process. He said he would get right on it. Texted the group and I think, we all breathed a sigh of relief.

January 16

Tuesday. More confusion today. We asked for the address of the Blue Louis, but I looked up MSI in the OC and found it myself. It was verified by Sierra. We plan to make Thursday work and drive down after the funeral. It is sort of next to Disneyland and Angel Stadium. Jordan was all bent out of shape after a quick 1pm call. I enforced the fact that we are trying not to meddle, but no one is our advocate. We lost 2 slabs in Las Vegas and we are not sure what is locked down in Orange County.

We finally received the updated bid from CounterTop Source. It has the requested changes we made on last week’s group telephone call. $42.5K. We may be able to make the island work with just 1 slab.

THEN, we get a text that Blue Louis is located in LAS VEGAS! Can you believe how idiotic these folks sound now? As I mentioned in a text, Wack-A-Mole and a cluster****. The team did not like that. We have Blue Louis in Las Vegas, we will stop by and check it out (as before) and see what they have. Hopefully, we don’t have to drive down to the OC after my Aunt Dora’s funeral.

Instead of picking up the phone, we get the “too many cooks in the kitchen” lecture. These folks just like to text and email and they just go-with-the-flow. They keep saying this is 4 months too early, yet we keep losing slabs. Go figure!

We’ll see what tomorrow and Thursday brings. This really shouldn’t be that hard.

January 15

Monday. Rebar and concrete in place for the upper garage. Not sure why the lower wasn’t poured but oh well. We have progress.

January 12

Friday. Text message from Sierra that the photos received of the Blue Louis (yesterday) are of slabs in the OC in California! Too many cooks who do not know what is going on OR are following up on our behalf. That is unfortunate and annoying. We are trying to find the address and an introduction, if required, to see the slabs next Thursday, after Aunt Dora’s funeral. We’ll see. I am losing faith in the design team.

Slab concrete poured this morning. Asked the concrete guy lead at it took 40 cubic yards, 4 trucks. He mentioned we needed it all. At noon, they were finishing/surfacing. Jordan mentioned that there was an additive added to speed the curing in the below freezing temperatures we’ve had in the evenings. At noon, the temperature was in the high 30’s and the cement had already set on the surface at least (to walk on). If required, the concrete can be tarp-ed over, we’ll see.

Lumber drop on site as well. The pallets take up all of lot 205, to our south. Progress there.

January 11

Thursday. We received the photos of 2 slabs of Blue Lousi. I did an A/B comparison and I can’t see the difference in our earlier photos and the 2 they sent today. Weird. They look identical.

January 9

Tuesday. No word from the Design team on the countertop stuff. Went back and forth via texts, finally got the revised bid from Countertop Source. It was IDENTICAL ($54k?)to the one that Brett sent us privately early in December! Sandy and I are not happy. The photos we requested are still not available and we are worried that slabs H and I of the Blue Louis may fall off our “reserve”. Scheduled a come-to-Jesus phone call meeting for 11am to resolve and voice our displeasure with this process.

Before the call, received an updated bid from Countertop Source with the correct changes that we had talked about, the price is now $42k, we are getting closer. Why the design team is not reviewing stuff is frustrating. The phone call with all involved at 11am walked through the latest bid. I pointed out a few ‘errors’ that are being worked in another revised bid.

Based on our visit to the senior Wall family house, we are bidding this with 2 approaches, only one slab of Blue Louis (dimensions about 10×6.4′) purchased for the island and a 2-slab approach, where we use the other for nice accents throughout the house, like maybe a hearth addition. We may not need a 14×4′ island. We think Jordan is frustrated as well and he would like HB to bid this effort, so we’ll see where we go.

We are going to attend my Aunt Dora’s funeral next Thursday. We will stop by MSI in Las Vegas to put eyes on slabs H and I Wednesday afternoon. We asked for them to be displayed as bookmatched.

January 8

Monday. Too cold to pour slab cement, I bet. Jordan confirmed that. I think the weather is not cooperating, and we’ll pour next week.

January 5

Friday. Took a quick trip to Jordan’s folks house to measure their island space. We think that we can make one slab work. The dimensions of the slabs in Las Vegas are 122×79″ and Wall island is 114.5×63″. Sandy is ok with maximizing the single slab for her island. She could end up with about a 10×6.25′ slab if she wanted.

January 4

Thursday. Took a trip to see progress. Inspection of the plumbing has passed, per Jordan. Rebar in place on the main floor and the casita. The lower garage and upper garage still have rebar to do. I think we are a little behind. NO wood drop, per the schedule, either.

A SNAFU about the Blue Louis quartzite at MSI in Las Vegas. I think someone on the Dwelling Designs/CounterTop Source dropped the ball. We called MSI in Las Vegas, who refered us to MSI Salt Lake who informed us that the slabs on hold (they never were, apparently) have been spoken for. We options on 2 remaining slabs (H and I). I am not happy. Not sure why the design team and the granite folks have such a tough time. Sandy even asked Lyndzee, and she passed on the problem to Brett at CounterTop Source.

December 30 – Happy New 2024!

Saturday. Took Mark (my cousin) and Toni and Jeanie and John to walk the property. It was good to have Mark’s opinion on how things are going. I still struggle as to how to explain the effect of the enlarged master bedroom and its impingement on the accordian window in the covered patio. I’ll figure it out.

December 26

Tuesday. Took Tommy, Douglas and Rosie to walk the property. The sump pump/lift-station is now in and connected to the casita. I think the next week or so will be a little slow due to the holiday week.

December 21-22

Thursday-Friday. As I walked around the build on Thursday, I forgot any sink in the upper garage and wondered if the water heater will handle the casita, or it’s a separate system. Maybe I need Prevagen, Jordan wrote back on Friday that the plumbing is planned for the upper garage and the water heater will handle the entire house.

December 19

Tuesday. We wandered over to CounterTop Source off of old Telegraph Rd. Lots of selections and somehow there is a relationship between them (Brett) and Dwelling Design. I emailed Brett the countertop plans and he will cost them out with the 2 choices from MSI. MSI has the 2 choices on hold until December 29. It was well worth the trip to CounterTop Source!

Texted the ‘team’ that we are eliminating the washer/dryer in the master bedroom walk-in closet. It is not our style.

December 18 – Week 11

Monday. Had a call from Cody about plumbing questions. We will move the lift-station/sump pump from under the covered patio to the corner of the casita and the upper garage. We will build some type of structure to cover and provide some type of weather protection. The theory being that the station being below the deck might have “wafts” coming up, not an ideal situation for the covered patio area.

With the requirement of the lower garage RV sewer hookup, that aggravated the grey/black water flow to the lift station. Given that lower garage is now 2 feet lower, it would require the station to be buried even deeper to keep the poop flowing down hill. We (I) decided to eliminate the RV sewer hookup. It will be re-located to somewhere on the south-west corner of the upper garage, in theory, someone could dump by backing up the driveway. Maybe we will just eliminate it.

Dinner with Brent and Janice after a quick tour of the house. They asked about our countertop search. They mentioned that they sourced their materials from CounterTop Source off of Old Telegraph Rd. It is worth a trip, we think! We had dinner at Stagecoach and the waitress bill-sorting out was a small nightmare!

Took a few photos as well of the rough plumbing layouts. Plenty of fluorescent paint marking out the trenches for the rough plumbing.

December 16

Saturday. We went back to MSI to look at the 2 stone choices, Mike was very accommodating.

December 15

Friday. Off to Las Vegas, MSI for a lead on Blue Bahia, $118 sqft. They have slabs, so off we go. We are going to hit Granite Expo on the way into town too. Lyndsee also has that lead, but that material is in CA and she hasn’t returned that information.

Beautiful Blue Bahia at MSI, it really is striking. We also saw Blue Louise, a quartzite, while Blue Bahia is granite. Granite Expo was around the corner and it too, had Blue Bahia, but it was not in the same league.

Videos of the build are uploaded. Now we can see the outline of the upper floor clearly. The cement framers arrived on site about 10am to finish up the framing. It is looking like a floor plan.

Spent the night at the Silverton Resort, the free room at South Point was a no-go, there was some HUGE event going on. The Silverton is nicely remodeled, it may be our new go-to place!

Decisions, decisions …

December 13

Wednesday. Dropped by Carpets Plus after the oncologist appointment. They have a new indoor showroom. Michelangelo and Copper Tiffany have promise. They have porcelain and it runs about $2000 a slab or about $36 sqft. The stuff we like, we are concluding is not cheap!

December 12

Tuesday. Per my request, met with Jordan and Cody on site to work though a few questions.

• We may have a solution to running coax down from the garage to the ground floor. It will pass through the wall between the south wall of the casita and head east to the ground level. We may be able to pass 2 conduit pipes downward in this approach.
• We will use boulders as retention for the slopes on the north and south (driveway) side of the property. There will be no wall on the south side until we end up with a neighbor.
• Fencing on the rear of the property can butt up against the water district easement. I mentioned again, the gabion wall style.
• We will stub out for the greenhouse, swim-spa and RV pad electric, water and sewer as required.
• We didn’t have to use much extra fill. All the fill we had on the lower section went to the backfill. Some fill, from our neighbor, was required to replace that and level the bottom level.
• We discussed the redesign on the lower garage. It will shrink to about 22.5 feet in depth, so that the vertical wall does not interfere with the accordian sink window in the main covered patio area.
• There will be NO shutoff valves in either driveway. They will be situated in the landscaping on the top and should have none on the lower garage.
• Driveway cement will be poured after the house is framed out. Cleaner and less stress all the way around. We can add concrete at that point.
• The condensor, generator and mini-split (for the garage) will be located on the front-south side of the upper garage.
• The lift-system for the casita will be below the covered patio, sort of hidden below a grate on the cement floor.
• A May xx 2024 completion date is still within reach!

I think we are all on the same page.

December 11

Monday. Met with Lyndsee at her office. We went over the stone tile vertical selection, we are scaling back to 1/3 up the front verticals, like wainscotting. Picked out doors and door handle fixtures, worked through a rough plumbing draft for Jordan. It will be ported over to BuilderTrend for his review and implementations and questions.

There is a lead on Blue Bahia, but her early comment about shipping it here has been wrinkled with the a dollar amount charge as a down payment. Bummer. The stone is in California somewhere, she is finding our where it is. Maybe Rosie or Douglas can make a trip to check it out, we’ll see.

Drove over to Zion Stone Gallery and worked with Cynthia. She showed us several promising stones, including 2 porcelains. She emailed back later with a lead on Blue Bahia, we’ll see where that goes.

December 5

Tuesday. Nothing happening on site. The lower level is now graded and the heavy equipment is gone. I think it is time for rough plumbing. I did not see any stamp of ground compaction, maybe that is the hang-up.

I was able to get Sierra to show me one of her houses listed on West Field. I happen to find it with Zillow. It has a 2nd story deck with an interesting finish (as shown in the photos). It is the cement finish Jordan’s sub does. I don’t like the look. The deck creaks, not impressed. Interestingly, the house was built as a spec by the framers that work for Jordan, some Dan guy. Not impressed with the craftsmanship. He “supposedly” uses the same subs that Jordan utilizes, gulp. I’m not sure why the design folks didn’t suggest we look at the deck as an example of the stamped concrete look.

If we don’t follow up, nothing get pushed forward with these interior design folks. I asked Sierra about the progress on the blue bahia stone. She pawned that status off to her partner. I also asked what the next step was. We should be meeting soon to discuss the stone coverage on the verticals.

December 4

Monday. Great pathology news from Nisha, still waiting on Dr. Lewis. Kinda odd if you ask me. We have Dr. Lewis on Thursday.

December 1

Friday. Had discussion with Jordan regarding the final truss designs. We are going to have to inset the lower garage’s south wall about 2 feet north. If we don’t, then the kitchen windows (especially the accordian over the sink) don’t line up and we don’t have the room to shift them. This causes the lower garage to lose about 2-3 feet of depth. The new revised engineering drawings show that the depth of the garage should be about 22′, consistent with the depth of our present house. It should work, a little disappointed but we gain more master bedroom space with 3 complete and separate decks. It should be a clean design.

With this new extension of the south master bedroom wall, the roof pitch of the master remains at 8/12, just like the rest of the house. Both Jordan and I were concerned that the pitch might rise above the main house ridge line, but it turns out not to be an issue. The trusses are just larger and there is still room to clear (be below) the main north-south ridge.

The soffit and fascia design, originally at 2 feet will be reduced to 16 inches, consistent with the look of Troy’s house that we are using as our original house design point-of-departure.

November 30

Thursday. Cody’s status on Buildertrend stated that the back-fill is complete. I ran over to see … and we are about 90% completed. It looks pretty darn good. I think the upper garage should be deep enough! Not much left over fill is remaining down below. We wonder how much extra fill was required, outside that of the left over from the excavation and the lower level. I think rough-in plumbing is next after FINAL compaction.

November 28-29

Tuesday and Wednesday. Quick trips to view the progress. Carol came out on Monday to help Sandy out and we drove over to share the build. Wednesday, I went over, met up with Cory who was checking things out as well. Looking at the photos, as the grading continues, we may just about have enough fill dirt from the property. On Wednesday, the grading folks were moving the fill dirt from below and transferring it to the top. We are looking good.

Finally, the roof tile bid from the guys up north doubled the roofing material from $37k to $75k. We will pass on their product, beautiful as it is. It seems that the design team just answers 1 question at a time, there was no discussion of cost ranges for the upgrade. They don’t seem to think out of the box, it’s a little aggravating for me.

November 27

Monday. Draw #2 request came in to the tune of $64,900. It all makes sense and we poured 189 lineal feet of vertical concrete wall. $31,400 of that was vertical wall cost. Some of it is 12′ x 10″, some 12′ x 8″ (around the lower garage) and most is 10′ x 8″ for the main portion.

November 25

Saturday. We wandered over in the afternoon just to take a drive. Backfill is underway. French drains are being laid as the bottom of the walls on the inside ad backfilling has progressed! A compactor and scoop are down in the inside area of the foundation and a large bucket sits on the ground, street level.

November 20-21

Monday-Tuesday. No progress, “too windy”. Sandy returned from surgery, all good so far, time for recuperation. As Drs Lewis and Klomp predicted, it was about a 4.5 hour surgery. They are an amazing team.

November 17

Friday. We met with Lindsey and Sierra at Pacific Supply in St. George. We went over the stone trim, stucco and roof tile selections. We drove by the selections/swatches on houses that Lindsey found for us. None of them really worked. Blue Bahia has been located in Salt Lake and/or California and we are pursuing cost/color/availabilty, we’ll see where that leads. We think we picked Country Ledgestone Sevilla for the stone trim and #5687 (textured) for the roof tiles (see the SmugMug gallery).

November 15

Wednesday. The waterproofing process was done today. I showed up around 9 am with no activity, when I returned in the early afternoon, the spray-on roof tar was coating all the vertical wall. It is a little runny, but I assume it sets over time.

The discussion continued with Jordan about moving the south wall of the master bedroom. He thinks the engineer will give it a green light. We still await the final input from the engineer.

Backfill and compaction begin on Monday now.

November 14

Tuesday. I percolated on Mark’s ideas of moving the south wall of the master bedroom. This would align both the lower garage and the master to be one continuous wall eliminating the livable space below the master over the deck. With this new approach, the wrap-around portion of the deck disappears but adds 4′ to the master bedroom, it becomes 21.5 x 17 rather than 17.5 x17. The decks become segmented, 3 in total that are NOT connected. We lose about 90 sqft of deck space, but gain the option of adding a french door from the master to the covered patio area, that might be nice. I floated this idea in the afternoon to Jordan, he too sees some benefits from this approach, the stacked garage/bedroom eliminates the steel beam that is required in the present approach. The beam handles the load of the master bedroom being offset from the lower garage. We will touch base tomorrow.

If we use a tile or cement/epoxy decking instead of the Trex, we gain more lower patio space. This is a separate issue, but the deck trusses are presently sized to handle the load of the tile approach so we have some flexibility, we don’t need to decide yet what direction to choose.

November 9

Thursday. The walls were stripped yesterday and are drying in the wind! Looking at the photos, the foundations are massive and the 8″ thick walls and re-bar are all built to hold back the back-fill that will take place. Big boy stuff!

Cody mentioned in the BuilderTrend app that the waterproofing will take place next Wednesday, so the walls will have cured for over a week.

Sample work from Jordan’s guy is not coming, not sure why. We can’t even get sample material for stone siding either, I’m starting to question the Dwelling Design effort. We’ll see.

I talked with my cousin Mark about the Trex and the issue over the south side of the garage. It is livable space and must stay sound and waterproof. He may have convinced me to finish the deck, sheet it in hardiboard and tile the deck with wood-like stuff. A compromise that works, we use pre-manufactured joist trusses for the covered patio, we can finish off the underside, adding canned lights and ceiling fans. The issues of exposure to the environment with the Trex gets eliminated. I will explore tomorrow outdoor tile that looks like wood for the deck treatments.

November 7

Tuesday. These guys are fast. I arrived about 1pm and all the walls were poured. I missed the pumper pumping, oh well. These are pretty massive walls and the outline of the retaining wall is now visible. We will need some fill dirt, but I don’t think too much! Yesterday’s estimate of 70 cubic yards of cement is about accurate, according to one of the worker bees. Now we wait a week or so before the walls can get waterproofed and back-filling can begin.

November 6

Monday. Walls going up, rebar in place and hopefully we pour the verticals tomorrow. Another 70 cu yards estimated on this pour!

Issues with the Trex deck are surfacing. Jordan is concerned about the integrity of the deck and moisture intrusion. We are exploring options. We want Trex Transcend in Havana Gold. There is a RainEscape deck drainage system worth exploring too. Jordan is to send us links from his “deck” guy so that we can look as some of their work. I’m kinda bummed about this turn of events.

November 1

Wednesday. Big day, concrete pouring. Interstate Rock starting pouring the footings about 7am. I didn’t arrive until 7:20 and they were well underway. They worked under the lights until the sun came up. I stayed around until about 9:15 am.

(8) 10 cubic-yard mixers of concrete were ordered. The first 4 were queued up. The last 4 trickled in, but it all got done. I stopped by with Sandy about 11:30am and they were all done. The pumper itself was pretty impressive as well. The guys were on top of it all and it looks pretty good. The retaining walls are beginning to take shape now. See the SmugMug photos and videos for more.

October 30

Monday. Drove over to the site to check on progress. Horizontal and vertical rebar bending and placement underway. City inspection for tomorrow and soon to pour some concrete!

We had a 1pm appointment with Dwelling Designs to go over the exterior materials. Lots of good ideas, they will find some more samples for us to look at and then we’ll decide. Lots of ideas percolating, just have to stay within the budget. DD will check with Ludowici Roofing to see if that stuff is even feasible within our budget. Their lead time is about 22 weeks.

October 28

Saturday. We went and met Brent and Janice as the Dixie Home Show. Lots of good ideas, new roof tiles and discussions about the St. George area heat pumps vs traditional furnace/AC systems.

Ludowici Roofing, Jack Vicory, 801-599-6116, jack@buildingenvelopespecialties.com

Jordan Calaway, manager at Dash Heating and Air. 435-677-7709, jordan@dashvac.com

Nathan Capps, 435-922-8530, nathancapps.cls@gmail.com, Custom Lighting Solutions with Gemstone Lights.

I found the epoxy grout online, it is CEG-Lite.

October 26

Thursday. We had an early morning phone call from the bank, David Douglas. He too was now confused and we went over the original 10/12 invoice and the revised uploaded October 25 10/12 invoice line-by-line. He is going to re-adjust the draw to the $32k amount. We verified the amount later in the day at the $32k.

We are learning this Built system and for the next draw, we will have a meeting with Jordan, go over his invoice numbers BEFORE he submits those into Built. We will all be on the same page that way!

Drove to the site in the afternoon to check out the rebar with Sandy. We are moving, hopefully next week for footing inspection (Tueday) and concrete pour (Wednesday?).

October 25

Wednesday. 1st draw is ready in Built from ZipMortage. Had a meeting with Jordan and went over the draw numbers. The builder usually inputs his invoice numbers into Built and we, the homeowners approve the draw. Invoice #92 generated on 10/12 was input into Built by Jordan. The invoice was revised this morning and we thought that amount would be reflected in the draw request. Going round-and-round and we ended up approving the initial draw ($37K vs 32K) with an ‘understanding’ of a credit to be carried forward. I am confused though, the numbers should reflect the revised draw.

Met with the Dwelling Design team down by the architect’s place on Dixie Dr. We ran late from Jordan’s meeting and started from 10 am to 11am. We understand their process, paid the first 25% and explored a few of our ‘looks’. Next meeting is Monday at 1pm.

October 24

Tuesday. Met with Cody on site. Footings almost completed, some still on the north side of the lower garage to excavate and compact. Inspection ordered for compaction, then rebar to be laid, then concrete pour for the footings. Probably next week before we see any concrete being poured. We are moving along, this is a big project, check out the SmugMug drone photos and video!

October 23

Monday. Construction loan closed, finally, with Zions Bank. Sandy jumped through quite a few hoops to get us here. It was a frustrating process but did get done the week Laura Frandsen projected it would be.

Now, they have us onboard with the Zip Mortgage “Built” web app. It controls and safeguards the homeowner and builder as we, the owners, approve draws in the build process. We both created our own logins and are now trying to reconcile the statements and first $40k request for draw from the 2 bills that we have received from Jordan. After talking to our assigned Built construction loan liason, David Douglas, we have a meeting Wednesday with Jordan to understand and reconcile the 2 bids and approve the draw!

Footings inspection has been ordered by Jordan and we should see rebar and concrete soon. The photos for today on SmugMug are posted, but I’m not sure what I am looking at!

October 18

Wednesday. Electronic water meter installed and set to zero. Excavator back to work excavation more of the upper slope to provide an 8′ distance for the retaining wall footings. The operator mentioned that someone last week mis-calculated the required distance. The footings folks I think, stopped by ready to work and found the insufficient distances, so the excavator had to come back. Interesting information you pick up when talking to the worker bees directly. Just like the Bullhead house build!

October 17

Tuesday. A $300 water meter/connection fee was applied for and paid online to the city of Toquerville. Jordan mentioned it should be hooked up today. Footings to begin today as well.

October 16

Monday. Appointment with door and window guy, Kaden at LP Building Supplies at 9am. We went through the windows room-by-room and are using Milguard Tuscany (vinyl) for the windows and Washington (a separate manufacturer) for the 3 sliders and kitchen accordian pass-thru (in aluminum). All are almond/tan in color with no grids.

We went down at 3:00 p.m. and met Mike at Urban Iron Door, down in St. George for the front door. We picked out an arched front door in size 6′ wide by 9′ tall, it includes detachable screens and 6 panels of woodgrain (finish) glass. This works as the entry ceilings are 12′ high. It should be an impressive impression. Our $5000 entry door budget was exceeded, we spent $6750, ouch.

October 12

Thursday. Walked the grading with Sandy, we are done for now.

October 11

Wednesday. Met with Cody at 2 pm to walk through the excavation work. For now, the excavation is completed, footings and retaining walls are the next step. Excavation will return to do the back-fill. The lower garage area is rough graded and soil compaction tests were completed, there are a couple of photos on SmugMug. The footing guys have been called and maybe we’ll start next week with that phase. We wait now for the next few days.

October 10

Tuesday. Met Cody, the project manager on site. Cody is Jordan’s uncle. Cody’s sister is married to Jordan’s dad, Troy! Cody explained the excavation progress to me. Some serious dirt is moving.

October 9

Monday. The build on lot 207 in the Parkside development, phase 2, begins. We have our own porta-potty and the excavators are on site today. Jordan is off on a conference and we were to meet Cody at 8am, his number 2, but we ran late and showed up around 8:45. He had already left. Instead, we met the excavator layout guys, Wyatt and Destri, working on laying out the house.