With the outside of the house complete (aside from some touch up) we drove up to the same old thing. We are so over it that we didn't even take pictures of the outside.
We aren't over it but we really didn't take any pictures.
T
he day before we had stopped to look at the house and there was this crazy red substance on the floor. This had to be some sort of sealant for the concrete or permanent Passover protection.
Either way it went from the front door to the back. I assume they applied to the rest of the kitchen area but at this time it was only as wide as the entryway.
We were able to look through one of the bedroom windows to see they had started installing the entertainment cabinet. When we were at the design center we almost passed on this option, the cabinets in the model were really nice but it seemed an unnecessary extravagance. After seeing it installed we had no remorse.
The tile all looked exactly the same as we really only saw the top of the stacks.
You'll remember it's been months since the design center, the tile we picked is only a fading shadow of an image. We really didn't remember it but we knew it had some decent variation.
When we looked at the tiles they looked way too uniform.
Panic.
"Oh crap, did we pick that?"
"No way, ours had variation."
"Yeah, I know. This doesn't."
"Our tile is cooler than that."
"Well that's nice. Too bad they are installing this lame stuff."
". . . We've got to stop them."
So off to the Design Center we flew. We really like the project manager Paul and we agonized about calling him on a Saturday.
He'd want to know if the wrong tile was shipped.
What if it's not the wrong tile?
What if it is?
Check the paperwork!
"Do you have the paperwork for the tile?"
"No it's at home"
crapcrapcrapcrapcrapcrapcrapcrap
"Hello Paul, It's Fred. Listen, man, I'm sorry to bother you on the weekend... What's that? You're in the line for Magic Mountain??"
That's right. He was on vacation and had taken his family to Disneyland.
Paul was totally cool about the whole thing, and after he heard our concern he called the tile people and had them stop working while we went to confirm the choice. We knew we had picked tundra terrain. We knew the boxes said "TD TERR". This all seemed right but the color was just so wrong.
The reason we were heading into Tempe was to sign some new paperwork they had drawn up with the adjusted pricing. On the way there we saw these people moving their brand new furniture to their home. The delivery charges must have been incredible for them to go through this.
We got to the design center, saw the tile we picked was definitely called Tundra Terrain. That was what was being installed in our home. This didn't really make us feel better because they must have changed Tundra Terrain in the last 11 months. Our tile didn't look like what was in the design center. We could just hear the conversation from the manufacturer:
"You know this Tundra Terrain is so cool it just isn't selling!"
"Yeah people are stupid."
"I know what we should do!"
"What?!?!"
"Let's make it dull and boring."
"YAY!!!"
We'll have to live with it.
Some other highlights this week:
We had some of this installed in the house.
Our friends Mark and Mary got an incredible deal on granite counter tops and they had finally been installed. They looked really good. The backsplash up against the new hood came out great. This is their actual counter top up close.
Cool.
This week the saw a lot of action. Sinks, faucets, more lights.
The tile was grouted and covered with protective paper and the backsplash was done. The kitchen is really coming together and we can't wait to see the appliances.
The master bath was almost complete and it was nice to see the shower wall completed.
They had started patching and texturing the various holes and dents in the walls and our Central Vac unit was in.
We drove up this Saturday to see some strange fabric type stuff on the driveway. We weren't expecting carpet until next week so this was exciting.
This seemed to match. How could this be? We thought for sure it was going to clash.
