Well, this has been an interesting week for the house build. Things never seem to go as planned. When we started picking out materials for our house build, Pella Windows were part of the build package. Generally, our architect recommends a certain line of Pella windows, which are very good windows. In New Mexico, the variation of humidity as much as 50% from day-to-day cause wood to shrink and expand over time. Really hard on musical instruments. We decided to go with fiberglass windows – basically indestructible, requires no maintenance or staining and very clean lines. We checked them out in the show room. They were super nice and easy to manipulate.
The windows (and front door) showed up on Monday. They didn’t fit in the window frames for the house. The front door came in pieces and wasn’t mulled together at the factory as normal. And the front door, once it’s put together is too big for the opening. As it turns out, Pella didn’t cross check the window sizes against the original windows that came with the package. And the fiberglass windows are more expensive. The framing crew made them fit after dismantling the window frames and reframing. BUT, once the windows were installed it became apparent that the windows were badly built. Scratches, poor miter joints, misaligned casings and generally terrible quality.
So, the architect is working with Pella to determine the resolution, and reduce our blood pressure and anxiety. We’ll see how this works out.
Yesterday we met with the lighting folks, which changed the entire lighting plan. We’re redoing the lighting plan completely, so our electrician does not have to work with a marked-up plan. Lighting is going to be very cool and transitional.
The architect discovered that we have a canale that drains right in front of the garage side door. He and our general contractor are working out a solution for the water drainage. We don’t really want water splashing on the house and door, so it needs to be redirected. Fun stuff.
Electrician is finishing outlets today, and the HVAC guy will be here to do one last vent for the master shower. The we finish up with the lighting rough-in and it’s time to start wall board. We still are waiting for the glass sliders from Pella which should be here end of the month. I’m sure that will require rebuilding the door frames, which is also an issue with our SIP panel maker. Overall, our architect isn’t happy with the panel people as this is rare for them to screw up dimensions. Overall, the windows generally work fine and are easy to use. We’ll have to see how things play out. The house is schedule to get wrapped next week, which will help weatherproof it for monsoon season.
Organized chaos. That’s what building a house is like. And overcoming all the obstacles and things that come up during the build. It’s definitely challenging and takes a lot of energy. We still need to pick out small stuff, but we’re getting close. We discovered one of Wendy’s old teachers does cabinets. Had we known, we’d have used him as I’m sure they would be cheaper. We’re going to ask him to build the outdoor kitchen and garage cabinets. They should be amazing. Wendy’s cousin had him build their cabinets and they are beautiful.
Alright, enough for this evening. My beautiful wife is home, so we need to go get some food. Take care and enjoy your evening.
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