More Painting and More Digging

It's the time of year when it's hard to take photos of the house progress because by the time the work day is over, it is dark out. So here are a few photos of the work so far.

This week, the painters started painting the library. This is by far the biggest part of the paint job. Usually when I design a library like this I choose to have the cabinets pre-painted at the shop because they can do a better job, but for whatever reason, the general contractor did not do that. So it's sort of a painful process for the painter to deal with all these darned doors.

Anyway, in one day they primed all the cabinets.

And here are a bunch of doors primed and drying on the hanging rig they built (there's also one in the kitchen).

Each door is hung on a hook, so there is one tiny spot to touch up at the end.

The doors with glass in them were all sent out to a glazier who installed the glass, though the method they used is a little weird -- a bead of silicone at the back -- and we aren't sure how that is going to look when the final paint is on. I'm glad I didn't choose a very dark colour for the doors because it would really stand out where the paint could not go.

They've also been working in other places where there are cabinets downstairs, such as the pantries:

And in the kitchen, which has pre-painted cabinets, they've masked off everything not getting painted so they can spray.

SO the painters have been going gangbusters. They're even working Saturdays, which just gets us there faster.

Also hard at work are the driveway guys, who had a couple open weeks in their schedule and squeezed us in. Yesterday they started removing the concrete:

In true Previous Owners overkill, it was 7" thick for no good reason at all.

Today they finished removing the old slab and started digging down for the base of the new driveway, which will have permeable pavers on it to help with groundwater infiltration of rainwater runoff, and if you think I say that phrase a lot, you are not wrong.

I went by when the light was not favourable to a photo and they'd finished the excavation and had laid a tarp over it in case of rain.

posted by ayse on 01/19/19