The electrical contractor showed up with 4 electricians and 2 more showed up before lunch. Things are happening fast. They still have a lot to do to finish up before the final inspection.

They’ve been putting all of the circuit breakers in the distribution panel. We had a few of them in so we didn’t need to run the generator any more.

Oh, there’s one thing that you need to know. We had the electrical meter set early and then started receiving utility bills for electricity despite the fact that we didn’t use any electricity. Why? The local utility company has a monthly minimum for electrical and gas!

What a joke! I can’t wait until we (customers) have other sources of energy such as solar and wind power. Then the utility companies will actually have to provide customer service and be fair in their pricing structure.

It won’t be long now. The utility companies have taken advantage of us for way too long and the minimum charge is an example of this.

The trim carpenter is moving along quickly. They will be done in another 4 days. Baseboard is going up, the doors and windows are being trimmed out.

Trim carpenters are making short order of the trim.

I asked them to give me a price on putting up the crown moulding and they were out of their minds. $9 per piece regardless of how long the piece was. It would be really expensive to have them do it because each corner consists of 3 pieces and there are a lot of corners.

Electrical contractor continues to finish topping out. They aren’t as far along as they think they are. They have more like a week to go than a couple of days like they thought.

They have changed personnel on this job so often that nobody in the office knows how much has been done.

They say they will have 4 electricians on site tomorrow to get everything wrapped up.

We’ll see.

The trim carpenter showed up today and man does he move fast.

There were 2 guys and they really put some trim up fast.

I didn’t mention that they also hung all of the doors including the pocket doors for the agreed upon price.

The only glitch with the trim carpenter was that they installed a couple of doors the wrong way, which was easily corrected.

I figure they have 2-3 more days and they will be done.

They will have to come back after the hardwood flooring is installed upstairs to put the shoe mold down, but other than that everything else can be done as fast as possible.

We called the electrical contractor in to finish his top out so he can get his final inspection. The electrical contractor will take a couple of days to get everything done.

They have to install the chandelier in the main foyer, check the light lift and get everything working properly.

They are also installing all of the switch covers and the socket covers plus just wrapping up loose ends.

We ran into some trouble with one of the electricians that didn’t want to wire the double convection oven the way that we wanted. His attitude with Lori resulted in me calling his office and demanding that he be removed from the jobsite before I had to take physical action against him.

Other than that everything else went well.

We started painting the ceiling and the walls in the master closet today.

I had to be on a jobsite doing some work that actually paid me money so we didn’t get started until late in the afternoon.

Once we did get goin’ things went fast. So fast that we ran out of paint before we were done.

So we will have to get some more paint and then finish the closet later.

We are far enough along where its time to start the trim work.

Lori and I have contacted a trim carpenter to do the work and his price was ridiculously low. He came well recommended or I would not have used him because his price was so cheap.

The trim carpenter agreed to do all the trim around every window  and door as well as all of the baseboard and shoe moulding for only $3,250.

He’ll start the day after tomorrow.

The number of colors is not so bad in here. There’s only 2. The ceiling is one and the walls are another.

I am constantly amazed at how much time it takes to cut in around windows, doors, floors and ceilings.

The cut in takes most of the time. I finished the ceiling in the master bath and worked on the walls. It went fairly quickly, but at the end of the day I was worn out again.

Working over head really wears you out.

We didn’t get the toilet area, the linen closet or the master closet done.

We’ll attack those tomorrow.

We continued painting the downstairs. Started on the master bedroom and the master bathroom.

Lori chose a copper color for the tray ceiling in the master bedroom. The stuff costs $25 per quart and it doesn’t look like its covering very good. At this point it looks like it will take almost 3 quarts to cover the tray ceiling.

I would recommend not doing the copper impregnated paint. It left streaks and will have to be painted over for it to look right.

There are so many colors in the master bedroom that I am spending half of my time cleaning the paint brush, roller and pan. We finally finished the master before we went home for the night, but it sure was tiring.

We will work on the master bathroom tomorrow.

P3310168, originally uploaded by homebuildingmentor.

I was trying everything to get this equipment out. It stayed stuck for almost a week.

I finally had to rent a full size backhoe and pull the CAT out with 100 feet of chain.

It didn’t want to come, but I made it bow to my will!

The BOBCAT stayed buried for an additional week after I got the CAT out.

Surprisingly enough both of them still ran well after they were dug out. The Bobcat has some other issues that I am having to address.

P3310169, originally uploaded by homebuildingmentor.

Here’s what happens when it rains a lot and you refuse to wait to do dirt work.

The CAT is buried around 3ft deep and the Bobcat is about 30″.

I have not figured out how to get them out yet. They are stuck good!

P4250225, originally uploaded by homebuildingmentor.

The Circular Stairs complete.

They make the entry of the house look awesome.

After the paining upstairs is done we get the hardwood flooring guys to come in and then we can get the handrail for the stairs made.