2008_05_06 The Truck Incident and Polyurethane Perils

There will be no pictures in this post and that's a shame if there ever was one! I have no one to blame but myself. So, let's just get that out in the open right now. I blame myself ... for not having pictures that is.

Let it be known that I do not blame myself for the birth of "The Truck Incident" since it was not my fault.

The Truck Incident -

I have always told the people at Lowe's that when it came time for the kitchen and bathroom cabinets to be delivered that they needed to get there via only one route due to the steep, 180 degree curves in all the other routes. In fact, I have been very adamant about it even though every time I'd mention it again they would tell me that it was the KraftMaid Cabinet Company that actually was responsible for the transportation and they would not take the directions until an hour before the driver was supposed to actually deliver the cabinets.

That never made sense to me, but all I could do was to try to give them the information. So, I made sure they had my cell phone number so they could reach me even if I was on the road.

Another thing to know is that I made sure that they knew that some 18 wheelers were capable of making it down to the house from the paved road and some could not so if theirs would not then they would need to either bring it in a box truck (short truck rather than an 18-wheeler) or prepare to rent either one of them or a flatbed trailer once they determined that the truck they brought couldn't get the cabinets down to the house.

You should know that the cabinets were made in Virginia and shipped to Atlanta where they are then delivered by drivers from the Atlanta area. KraftMaid assured Lowe's that they were prepared to arrange for whatever transportation methods they needed to use and they were to deliver the cabinets on Wednesday 5/7th. The Lowe's representative was to come to the house on Thursday (the day I'm writing this) to check them to make sure that none were damaged in shipment.

Well, on Wednesday May 6th at about 12:30 pm I got a call from the driver asking whether it would be OK if they delivered the cabinets that afternoon at 2:00 or 2:30 instead of the next morning. I told them it would be OK and I asked them where the driver was coming from (Birmingham) and asked if I could give them the directions on how to get there since they had always refused them before. He said the driver would call me when he was an hour away from the location.

I know you may be wondering how he could really know when he was an hour away if he didn't know the directions and our property address isn't on any map or GPS, it's a very rural location, so how would he know whether it was 5 minutes from the town or 25 minutes. However, that's not the reason for the story today so it's just one of those things that made me a little bit leery of the accuracy and reliability of their normal procedures.

Anyway, I left to go to the house in time to get there early. I got a phone call while I was on the Interstate saying that they wanted directions. I asked where they were and they told me. I gave them very explicit directions about the only way for them to get their truck to the house. I mean very detailed including how many tenths of a mile from one turn to another along the way.

They were about 45 minutes from the house at that point and I happened to be about a couple of miles from where they were and would be slightly ahead of them on the same Interstate. I suggested that I just get off the Interstate where they needed to exit and wait for them on the highway in front of a particular hamburger place and when they got there I would lead them up to the house. The guy taking the directions asked the driver and he was told that all they wanted were the directions. They didn't want me to lead them up there.

I told them that was OK, but if they needed further help to just call me. Since I didn't need to go the way they needed to go I had about 10 minutes or more to kill so I went into town to get our mail from the Post Office. Then I started toward the house the way that I almost always go in my Jeep since it's shorter although it has lots of turns and about 6 very sharp 180 degree turns that are also very steep roads in the turns.

I had gone up the first 3 or 4 turns when I rounded a corner and there to my amazement was an idiot in an 18-wheeler who was jack-knifed on the next turn. The truck rear tires were completely up in the air and he could get no traction at all. Then I realized that the idiot's truck said KRAFTMAID CABINETS on the side of the truck!!! This was no normal idiot. This was a world-class idiot who had been given specific directions on the only way to get his truck to my house and had somehow decided to go the way I don't even suggest to people in cars!

I got out and walked up toward the truck. There was a guy standing on the side of the ditch just looking at the mess. My first words to him were, "What in the HELL are you doing trying to go up this road?". He just pointed toward the cab of the truck and said, "He thought this would be a better way." You remember don't you that the driver is from the Atlanta area? It's not like he knows the roads here and knew that he could make it up that road based on vast experience driving up it in the past.

This road is intimidating to even those who live on the mountain and have to use it to drive to work in Birmingham or elsewhere down in the valley. Yet, a driver in an 18-wheeler decided it was a "better way" after being told there was only one way to get his truck up there.

The driver got out of the cab of the truck and walked back toward where the other guy and I were standing. I told him "You're an idiot!" I wish I had remembered to tell him that he needed a sign (an idiot sign), but I didn't think of humor at the time. I did ask him what his plan was. He said that he didn't have a plan since he'd tried everything he knew to try. I asked him what he was thinking going that way. He said, "Well, I managed to get up 3 or 4 turns just fine before I got stuck." I said, "Yeah, and you got stuck on this one and it's not nearly as bad as the ones up above you either because they are sharper turns and steeper than the one you didn't make."

At that point I was so mad at him that I didn't even want to be in his presence so I told him that I was going to have to turn around and drive back down the mountain (since no one could get past him going up the mountain or coming down) and go to my property the way I had told him to go and I would wait for him to call to tell me whether he was going to be able to deliver the cabinets that day or if it would be the next day. I then left him there to deal with it since it was his problem.

It was at this point that I should have remembered that I had the camera with me and for that I am at fault. The pictures would have been SPECTACULAR! But, alas, I was so mad that I didn't even think of it until hours afterward. Now, back to the story.

When I got up to the top of the mountain the other way I stopped at a convenience store to buy me some little donuts and a Yoohoo drink to try to calm myself down since I was still mad enough to bite the heads off of nails.

The cashier asked me how I was doing and I told him that I was getting some comfort food to relax because I was so mad at a truck driver I could spit. The guy behind me then said, "Are you talking about the guy stuck on Walker Gap Road?". I told him he was right and he told me that he and his grandson had just tried to get down the mountain that way and had to come back up because of that idiot!

I went to the house and waited with the builder to see what would happen. Eventually I got a call from the driver to tell me that he had eventually managed to locate some boulders (they were actually just a couple of feet in size) and a large board from the ditch and finally they got them under a wheel enough to get some traction so he could get the truck backed down from the place he was stuck. They then went back the way they came and were driving up to the house the way I had told them to go!

He found the house without any further trouble and (dare-devil that he was) did elect to back his truck down the hill and up to where the back end of his truck was about level with the end of the part of the driveway that turns into the house. He and his brother-in-law then unloaded 55 boxes of cabinet parts and put them in the basement awaiting the Lowe's people to check them for damage before they are then moved up into the kitchen and bath to be installed after the hardwood flooring is done.

The two guys were very nice and pleasant people (even idiots can be nice idiots) and I gave them a tour of the house before they had to leave. He had told me that he had been delivering cabinets for 13 years. On the way back out to their truck I asked the driver if he had learned anything from this experience. He said, "Yes, when the home owner gives you directions and tells you that is the only way to get the truck there, listen to him." So, I guess he learned a valuable lesson.

The man that Lowe's sent up there today to check the boxes for damaged cabinets was the next step in the process. Guess what, 2 of the pieces were damaged and will have to have replacements manufactured in Virginia and the process will have to be repeated! I hope they send the same driver from Atlanta because I don't think I'd have to "educate" him again on what roads he needs to take!

The man today didn't know how long replacing the 2 damaged pieces will take. One of them is a large piece and the other is just a board that is 12 inches long and about 7 feet long. He said that the woman at Lowe's would have to check on that and let us know.

I think (but I'm not positive) that both of the pieces that are damaged are pieces that go up above the counter level so perhaps they can go ahead and install the bottom cabinets so that the people who have to come out and make a template for the granite countertop can still stay on schedule and the upper cabinets that have to be replaced can be installed later. At least that is my hope. We'll talk with the woman at Lowe's tomorrow to see if I'm correct about where the damaged pieces go and how long it will take to have another adventure with another truck.

Polyurethane Perils -

I just used the above description because I like the alliteration and maybe you'll read it to see what it's about so I'll get on with it.

The painters (who were to be there today to start putting the sanding sealer on the interior walls before the polyurethane coat) turned out to be the "painter" as opposed to the "painters" since his helper failed to make the trip today! Then the one painter ended up leaving at 1:15 because he "ran out of product" meaning (I think) that he ran out of the sanding sealer.

The job was supposed to take 2 days. I'd estimate that he managed to get through with maybe 20 percent of the first coat today and I don't think he did any of the downstairs or any of the great room ceiling. In fact, I think that he actually only did the large bedroom upstairs and part of (or maybe all of) the loft. If that is right then even with help tomorrow they'll never get through with the first coat tomorrow so that means another day lost in getting the inside walls done.

Also, since the builder and the painter decided that the initial plan (to use 2 coats of a water-based polyurethane instead of the sanding sealer and then an oil-based polyurethane) was not the best way to do it there will be bad fumes in the house for several days after they finish the polyurethane and that might delay when the guys can get back in to start on the hardwood flooring next week.

The decision to use the sanding sealer and oil-based polyurethane was based on several factors. Those include the fact that the water-based polyurethane is very thick making it harder to spray on, it is used more appropriately on flooring than walls, it would have cost $1,200 more, and (perhaps more influential in causing the change) the builder said that he could not locate anyone who actually had enough of it in stock to do the job and if it were ordered it would take a long time to get here.

With all those factors involved it sounds like a reasonable choice to make. Hey, just the $1,200 savings alone would make me consider it. I did ask the painter which type he would put on his house and he said that it would definitely be the oil-based type even though it does smell for the first few days.

Now we just have to see how it all plays out in terms of scheduling and whether the events of the last couple of days hold us up!

2008_05_05 Trim around windows, upstairs bath, walls, leveling fireplace wall

This is a picture to try to show the window trim that's been put on recently. It's too dark, but I thought the trees looked nice so here it is anyway.


This is a close-up of where two walls meet before any trim goes over them. So, you can see how the siding boards fit together with the one on the bottom going up under and behind the front part of the board to the top.


Brandon, Steve, and Roberto are all working together to check and adjust the support posts and beams to make sure that the wall behind the fireplace was level before putting on the upstairs siding boards. They had some difficulty doing this and had to keep making slight alterations in 3 or 4 different places. Time ran out on them and they had to go home at 5:30 since it takes them about 2 hours to get home. So, they were going to work some more on it today.


Just about all the walls are done now and except for the trim it's about ready for the painters to come and do their thing on 5/08 and 5/09 when they put a couple of coats of latex polyurethane on the inside walls.


They now have the walls on in the master bathroom where the double sink vanity will go.

Of all times to miss taking pictures Tuesday, May 6th was the one I missed that I wish I'd got. I'll tell you why in the next post. It had to do with kitchen and bathroom cabinets.

2008_05_02 Walls going up inside, rooms filling up at home

What you're looking at below is the bedroom fireplace from across the room where the bed will be. The fireplace in the bedroom will be the same as the one in the great room except that it will be smaller in size.

We plan to have mantels for both that are timbers and we're hoping for ones that are about 4 inches thick. We have managed to keep them from being so deep from the wall outward by having the rock that goes up to the ceiling stick out close to a foot from the back wall. That allows the mantel to be less than the 30 inches or so that it would have to be otherwise to go out over the firebox and then another 6 inches or so past the edge of the firebox.

It may still end up being 16 to 20 inches wide, but that isn't quite as massive as 30. If the wall were to have been 30 inches behind the front edge of the mantel in order to make sure that the bottom of the TV screen would not be hidden from view by anyone who might be sitting on the end of the sofas closest to the TV (in the great room) or someone sitting on the end of the bed (in the bedroom) we would need to put it higher up on the wall than we might want to in order to provide the proper viewing angle.


Now, with the wall moving the TV outward and with the mount in the great room also putting it 4 or 5 more inches out from the wall and the one in the bedroom an inch or two, the TVs will end up being over a foot closer to the front of the mantel. I believe that this will minimize the viewing angle. If we ever still need to move the one in the great room out farther it can be moved out 21 or 22 inches from the wall where it's mounted.





The view below shows the profile of the fireplace in the bedroom. You can see that this one is different from the great room one in a significant way. The great room hearth is a bench type one that is a foot or so high and wide. However, in the bedroom we are going to have the hearth be a rock or tile that will be flush with the hardwood flooring.

That way there will be enough room at the end of the bed (we're going to buy a king sized bed) for a wheelchair to roll between the bed and the fireplace in order to get to the screened porch when she wants to do that without having the hearth end up being an obstruction. No, we haven't picked out the hearth material yet. We're still trying to pick out the rock for the fireplaces!

The upstairs bathroom walls are pretty close to being done now. The pipes and the rough-in parts for the shower are in the section that is walled-in at the far end of the room. The wall at the end of the jetted tub near the camera hasn't been finished yet.

The picture below is of the west upstairs bedroom now that the walls are done except for the trim pieces.

This is an important view angle below. My plan for the house from the beginning has been to be able (if need be) to stand at the kitchen sink and still see the TV in the great room. I know, it's a bizarre goal, but here's the evidence that it worked! I took this standing where the middle will be when standing in front of the sink. Success! OK, that wasn't the ONLY plan, but this was one that I have tinkered with since day one when I drew the rooms on a sheet of graph paper. I'm shallow, but I deal with it.

Below are just the boxes of door hardware that we're storing in the apartment till we can put it on doors. We have exterior doors in, but can't put the door hardware on until we paint the doors. We have interior door stuff but no interior doors yet.

This is our spare bedroom that has everything from bathroom vanities, 5 ceiling fans, all the faucets, shower parts, bathtub fillers, and lots of other stuff. We'll start moving stuff to the house once the inside ceilings and walls are finished and the hardwood floors are put in. Linda, this is for you so you'll know what we have to move before you come in June.

2008_04_29 Fireplace, boxes of Bolivian Rosewood

Here is the frame for the fireplace in the great room. Note the little box in the lower left corner of the picture. That is a built-in box where all the cables for DirecTV, DVRs, DVDs, and VCR come up from the basement to go to the various pieces of equipment and then back into the wall and come out behind the TV above the fireplace. The top part of this is set back from where the front edge of the fireplace will be but away from the wall. So, the hearth is at one position, the fireplace at another (and the mantel will stick out a few inches past it), then the section with the TV above the mantel will be a foot or so farther back. The rock on the fireplace will go all the way to the ceiling.



Here is one of 3 large stacks of boxes of Bolivian Rosewood flooring presently awaiting installation. There is a total of 11,500 pounds of it so this is probably between 3,000 and 4,000 lbs of it stacked in the loft. It gives me some degree of assurance that the loft's not likely to cave in should we put some heavy furniture up there!

You can see below the view of the fireplace construction from the loft area. It's easier to see how far the hearth, firebox, mantel area, and area above the fireplace where the TV will be mounted are away from the wall.

The supports for the mantel are all 4 x 8s so it's substantial to say the least! There also are going to be more large vertical pieces put in between the studs where the TV will be mounted. When Steve measured the TV mount it became clear that the 4 x 8s there now aren't wide enough from top to bottom due to the size of the mount.

The mount I bought is really overkill since it will allow a 150 lb TV to tilt, swivel, and, if necessary, to be pulled out 22 inches away from the wall should it need to be adjusted due glare, to allow it to be seen from the loft (if I should want to watch it while working on the computer that will be in the corner up there), or, more realistically, to access any of the wires or cables behind it without having to take it down! I would not be able to do that myself so I am keeping the mount even though a less substantial one would have been adequate for most viewing purposes.

The picture below shows just a few pieces of the Bolivian Rosewood flooring out of the box. It is 5 inches wide and random lengths. It is a full 3/4 of an inch thick and prefinished at the factory. It's hard to tell the color from this photo, but it's pretty close to what you see. It's quite heavy and very, very hard since it's much harder than oak. One source showed the hardness to be 141 percent as hard as red oak (which is the wood that most hardwood providers seem to compare other woods to when trying to give you an indication of how hard it is).

2008_04_17 Windows, Garage Door, Water pipes buried

This entry shows a lot of different things taken on 04/17th.

Below is a view from the master bedroom window looking toward the southwest down the mountain, but you can't see far now from there since the leaves have started coming back in the week or so before this was taken.



You can see in this one how the upstairs bedrooms have siding on both sides of the walls. There isn't any insulation between them here since it's an inside wall and isn't one that we chose to insulate for soundproofing purposes.


You can see in the next one how the motor to the jetted tub upstairs is framed so that the 2 x 4's are wide enough to allow access to the motor should it need to be repaired or replaced. The end of the tub will have a wall that is the side of a cabinet for linens, etc that sticks out as far as the tub (which is 44 inches I think) and which will have a removable piece in it that will serve as a door providing access to this motor. The cabinet will be pretty deep, but we figure that it's better to have more space than less.

The basement picture below shows (to the left) the correct garage door, the missing middle exit door (that has been boarded up for now till the door comes), the garage door in the background which is a temporary door so that we can lock the place up while they replace it with a new one like the one that was damaged in shipment, and one of the two garage door opener motors.

Here is the path of destruction that was created when the water pipes had to be buried to get to the house from the bottom of the hill where the pipes from the water meter stop. The plumber used a machine that ended up cutting or pushing over trees and brush in a path that was probably 10 feet wide! I couldn't be there that day so I didn't see it, but I believe that Patton would have been proud to have such a machine from the way it blazed a trail through the woods. I took pictures of the entire path, but it took about 7 or 8 to follow the entire "road" from the starting point to the back of the house where the water goes into the house.

From the outside this is a view of the "correct" garage door. They are going to be what I'd call chocolate brown although there may be a name that the garage door place gives them that's not as descriptive!


Here between the two garage doors is an example of the outside electrical outlets that are on all sides of the house outside. They are also in a chocolate brown color. I'm holding this one open so you can see the wonderful stuff inside! Aren't you thrilled?


How good are your eyes? Can you see the little white square that's up on the wall close to the center of this picture? It is the outside cover of the exhaust fan that's in the upstairs bathroom. We'll need to get it painted brown later so that it doesn't stick out so much.

2008_04_08 Kathy and Rose in the house

Here you see Kathy and Rose looking at the siding in the west upstairs bedroom .



I think that this is a good picture of Kathy. Still in the same bedroom where we were giving Rose a tour on 04/08/08.

Kathy is sitting on the edge of the jetted tub in the upstairs bathroom.

This picture is too dark to see Rose, but here she is in the upstairs east bedroom showing us where she bumped her head the last time she went to the house by herself and was looking around upstairs!

2008_04_07 Plumbing, Upstairs AC method, electrical boxes

I think that Omar (not shown here) did the electrical in this box with Steve's supervision, but below Donato (the spelling may be off) is on the left and Roberto is on the right.



Steve is shown below working on the other electrical box. He'll be glad that I took a picture of him when he was actually doing some physical work as opposed to overseeing the work!

Here is the wall between the laundry room and kitchen with the electrical and plumbing for washer, dryer, refrigerator, lights, air exhaust vent for dryer, water lines going up into the 2nd floor bathroom, etc. There's a lot going on in that little wall!

Below you can see the stuff going on in the wall of the foyer bathroom. On the right you can see the exhaust fan and the ductwork for it and on the left are the things related to the air conditioning upstairs. The black pipes I believe are things like the coolant going up to the units upstairs and I believe the white is for the the condensation to escape from upstairs to the basement and out. The really bright light is the door to the outside from the laundry room!

2008_04_02 Log Siding inside, plumbing

The walls upstairs will be 12 inch log siding that is 7/8 of an inch thick. Steve's crew has some of it, but not enough yet to finish, but they have started upstairs in the west bedroom.

Below you can see the siding on the right while looking toward the storage area in the low part of the roof.




Just a quick look below at the plumbing that is under the kitchen sink. Again, the red is hot water and the blue is the cold water.