End of the week.

It was a busy week in housebuilding land. The color was the biggest thing. Other than that we went to Sears and bought a house full of appliances. I'm so glad that's done with. Virtually nothing was in stock- which is good in our case. I think it'll be about 6 or so weeks to get stuff. No rush.

The drop ceiling in our bathroom looks greatSo does the bathtub

Here's Ramen, the tile guy, concreting the upstairs lanai. He's making a slant so that water will drain towards the center, should it get really wet in there.

Final top coat on the house. I think it's growing on me...

And hard to see here, but the fascia looks really good with the beams

more colors

Still freaking out, I went out to the site this am to look at the house colors AGAIN.

The painters and the carpenters all like it. It's pretty. The pictures are just the primed surfaces, not the real paint- which has a little more sheen and depth.
Tom the painter called them power colors. OK. works for me. We're going to live in a yellow and purple house!

On the "courtyard" we're looking at doing some paint effects to give it a little more depth. Samples are forthcoming.

phew.

Colors, oh my

I have a backlog of posts to post, with tons of pictures in the camera..... but those will have to wait.

GB and I have really been putting off the color decision for the exterior of the house. It just sounded too.... BIG! So we put it off and put it off, and in that time made a million decisions about flooring, tile, fixtures, cabinets, appliances (not done yet) and other things. It's been a busy 2008 so far!

So when it came to the actual time to pick colors (and believe me, Gene has been mentioning it to us for a while), we were so burnt out that we made our color decision rather quickly.

The painters were there right away, applying primer that's been tinted with the paint colors.

Behold...

and closer up

a little bright, no?? bold? exciting? not blah??

we freaked out a little over it. We wanted the yellow to look like the cedar (doesn't). And the purple fascia was to "match" the purple beams.
Now anyone who knows me knows that purple has been my favorite color since I was a wee girl. But I figured that I could always use purple as an accent in the house- like pillows or something.

And then I worried about the gutters that will be right on that fascia.... do gutters come in a matching purple (of course not!).

So after a night of hemming and hawing... discussing, arguing (a teeny bit), GB telling me that I could do whatever I wanted (he's very busy with his movie.... just had Gary Rizzo from Skywalker Sound sign on to strangeframe!!!!!), and a long winded message to Gene, we went to bed.

Of course Gene called us early. If we were going to change the color, we pretty much needed to tell them now. Painters were there at the site and ready to go.
I talked to Tom, the painter. He was really nice and basically complimented us on our color choices. He said that people are so boring usually in their color choices, and ours were so bold! BUT.... he said we could change our minds. They've bought the paint, but haven't applied it yet.
After MORE talk with GB (where GB was trying to bow out of the decision), I called back Tom and told him to leave it.

So.... a yellow and purple house we will live in. A dream come true???

We figure that we'll have to repaint in 7-10 years anyways and can always change it then!

In simpler news....
Walls facing the pond are going up (we DID decide that these will be a different color)

our bathroom

Kitchen!

Kitchen Cabinets!

In progress.... here's David and Lynn working on the shelf spacing for our pantry!

Progress!

c'mon kids! Let's go see the house! The siding is all up!




These are 2 planks of our hardwood floor!!! We went to the tile store to check something else and the people there excitedly brought us back to look at what our flooring look like! It's tigerwood, and awesome!

Bathtub space in the master bath is coming together

closet behind the media room

Granite

Each step in building a house involves hours and hours of deliberation. Granite is one of the most expensive (per square foot) parts of the home, so deciding on granites takes a loooong time. Not only is granite expensive, but installation runs about $20/sq ft and add $500 for the granite guy for our delivery and installation penalty for living on the other side of the island. In the morning we dropped the kids off at Therese's and headed to Kailua town (1.5 hours away). We looked at scores of slabs of granite and some marble. After the first pass, Karen and I both had personal favorites (the air of a ground war brewing), but both were in love with Amazonia.



So, we asked, "How much?" Of course, it was the most expensive granite by far in the whole shop! I already had it in my mind that I'd have a piece of it in the house even if it was just a back splash. Karen wrote it off. We looked at Santa Cecilia, Uba Tuba, Verde Butterfly, Persian Brown, and about a dozen others caught our fancy. Natural rock is always beautiful! We ended saving some money by ordering pre-fab granite vanities (made from left over pieces) for the guest and kids bath. After a couple hours in the blinding Kona sun, we broke for lunch and secured the bamboo ceiling for downstairs.

Back to the granite. Granite is most impressive in large areas. The largest unbroken area in our house would be the island in the kitchen. Doing the whole kitchen in Amazonia would break the bank, so we decided to do the island in Amazonia and find a complementary color for the rest of the kitchen. After an hour of taking samples back and forth to the slab of Amazonia, we chose Uba Tuba for the rest of the kitchen. I was feeling blissed (for getting the Amazonia) and burned out. So, Karen chose the granite for our bathroom (Santa Cecilia) and I picked the slab from which it would be cut.

After about 7 hours we were back home.

house progress

After all of the rain, to see the sun? and shadows? a breath of fresh air!Though the walls aren't up here, there will be 3 narrow floor to ceiling windows in the kitchen. This is how the light will fall into the kitchen. Nice!

More Goat Fencing

Today we were able to put up 1/3 of our fence for our "upper pasture"

Our good friends Tom & Buck selflessly slaved their respective svelte and sexy buttocks off to help me. Only the gods and goddesses can thank them enough for such work.

Pool Deck

One of the ways to mitigate damage to the hillside is to control the water. The water falling on the crest of the hill should be diverted into drains and carried to the stream in pipe. So, when we approached the deck, we decided to cover all the hillside that was close to the landslide and put in lots of concrete (makes the LA girl happy) and lots drains. Lots.



In general, the design craziness seems to continue.

On solar!!!

Yesterday and today the whole construction crew was running solely off our solar system without any generators. The construction site is quieter and no emissions!!!!

The roughing in the wiring is moving fast with Scott at the helm.

One full side of the exterior is done too!

Post landslide pics

We went to look at the landslide and house, after the mega rains.

Here you can see the house... AND the rivulet of water flowing down towards it

It's exciting no matter HOW wet!

Looks like everything is holding up ok

it worked!

Temporary tarpage was successful. Jeff is awesome and drove out there early this am to check on it. They're not working today since it's SO wet, but I was thrilled to get that message.

Now to figure out a permanent solution.

Landslide #2 (aka Rain, Rain, and more Rain!)

About a year ago we had a landslide. So, we hired a soil specialist and we didn't do the minimum. We did EVERYTHING he suggested. Yesterday we had about a FOOT OF RAIN in 24 hours.

Noam and I went to the land to survey the pool for the decking.


After we finished I walked around upstairs to see how far the rain blew into our lanai.



...and then I looked down from our master bedroom!


DISASTER!
The side of the hill has collapsed only about 15 feet from the edge of our foundation!
That bamboo slid about 50 feet down the hill and the hill slid down around it.


Part of the wall fell revealing that they, in fact, had not put any rebar under all the wall.
FRACK!


The hill slumped at the top about 4 feet and then....

...the water dug a channel about 20 feet wide and 60 feet long.


I took Noam home and Karen called for re-enforcements.


I surveyed the damage and dug out our beautiful plants....


...above and beyond the call of duty Gene and Jeff showed up to help. Jeff bought a huge plastic sheet.


Remember this is Superbowl Sunday and these guys left the game for this! Gene obviously has the good ideas.


Jeff and I mitigate the water causeway the best we can.

And when we finished, we feel better, but the rain pours down even harder as I write this. I can only hope we don't lose more of our hillside.


"tryin to find the sun;
And I wonder, still I wonder, who’ll stop the rain.”

February Begins

February began with more rain. It's very wet chez nous.... but at least the roof is keeping the inside of the house mostly dry!

Behold! the Roof!
We like it very much! It's quiet (compared especially to the LOUD metal roofs that are ALL over Hawaii), and blends in nicely. It's lovely!
(I know it's hard to get an idea of the color- but this was taken in the ONE break in the rain. No sun)

The siding is now bigger- that's the whole dining room and into the living room that's sided

see how nicely the siding fits around the windows? attention to detail!

siding from the inside
The guys cleaned out the kitchen and Jeff marked the cabinet and island placements on the floor. That's why I drove out in the rain- I needed to check and see if it felt "right"

The plumber was there doing some rough work. (I can't figure out where this is!)

This will be the vanity wall in GB and my bathroom. The 2 holes are for the sink plumbing

looking good!