Teri called us Thursday of this week and said we have a CLOSE DATE!!! May 12. Yippee, I think! Sassy and D will be so glad to be out of our apartment. They're both stir crazy.
The trim guys are gone and Roberto and his painting crew have arrived. They began on Thursday. I did a walk-through with Roberto and gave him paint colors for each room which he wrote on the wall in impecaable Mike-fashion. All of these guys like to do that. They must not have gotten it out of their system when they were toddlers.
Our cabinets are so beautiful. Gary, Aaron, and Donnie did a spectacular job. I love my kitchen and the library. I just can't wait to see them painted. Our front door and sidelights were installed this week. They look great and so does the way Gary finished out the door framing on the inside of the foyer. I know people think we're out of our minds for painting mahogany but we wanted material that will last and love the painted look.
Oh, and I had the pleasure of meeting the guys from Sloan's Lumber, Brad and Greg. They evidently do walk-throughs on their builders' projects every Tuesday and Thursday. True to every other sub we've met that works with Gems, these are super nice fellows.
Friday evening I went by Gems to drop something off to Teri and then on to 5902 Cajun Way to see what was going on there even though I had been by the day before (well I was so close--how could I not go?). I was, uh, surprised(shall we say) to see that the stain on the steps, stair railing and newel post was the same as that on the hutch unit in the kitchen. Teri, Mike and I had talked about stain colors a couple of days earlier and the decision was to match the steps, stair railing and newel post stain to the color of the floor (sort of a dark honey color). One is oak (steps, stair rail and post) and the other is pine (floor) but Mike thought it could be blended so that it would be pretty close. We chose a "redder" stain (more mahogany) for the hutch in the kitchen because I wanted it similar to the stain on our breakfast room table. When I saw the stain on the stairs, I called Teri (who was still at work at 6:00 pm on Friday) and said, "Teri, we got red on the stairs." Teri said she'd page Mike and that we would work it out. (I knew they would!)
Well to make a long story short, this is how good our builder is: Mike phoned the next morning and asked when D and I could meet him at the house. We settled on 11:00. By the time we got there, Mike had been to some place that had pieces of laminated pine strips that looked like a mini model of what our floor will be like. He had stained four samples four different colors and had them set up near the stained railing and newel post. "Which one do you like for your floor," he asked, "if you like any of them." D and I both chose the same one. Amazing! It's the same color used on the steps, stair rail and newel post! But the pine is knottier and coarser grained and takes the stain differently-darker in some places and lighter in other--which is what we wanted. So it all turned out fine thanks to Teri's dedication and efficiency and thanks to Mike's time, effort, and ingenuity, we know our pine floor will be just what we envisioned.
