The Rambling Writer’s Quest for Home, part 15: Cabinets, Doors, and More

Progress on the new house for Thor and me continues in what our builder calls the “impatient final pregnancy trimester” with interior detail work.

NOTE: People have been asking to follow our progress as Thor and I pursue our quest for our dream home with sunsets over the Salish Sea. So starting with my post of 5/21/22, we set out.

Meshak, our builder, is familiar with the urgency that grips his clients once the house is close to finished, and everything seems to take too long before “the baby” arrives: move-in date. We are close, maybe less than a month away, and Thor and I are champing at the bit to finally sleep in our new home beside the Salish Sea. It probably doesn’t help that we are visiting the building site several times a week to see what’s happening. Next week’s blog post will cover some of the ways we’re coping — starting to plant around the edges of the still-to-be-finished excavations and dirt rearranging. For now, a look inside at a surprising number of cabinets, drawers, and doors that all have to undergo finishing and mounting. We are excited about the beautiful wood grains:

Kitchen cabinets going in. Fridge will be on the left and range and hood in the middle on the back wall:

More of the beautiful alder wood on the cabinet sides:

Doing dishes will be a pleasure looking out at the sea. I found an “apron-front” sink that Meshak said would hide the seam where two cuts of granite counter-top will join. Dishwasher will be to right of the sink.

Cabinets in the laundry room above washer and dryer platform, where the tile work is done:

Ken, Meshak’s building partner, is cutting and fitting each piece of window trim in preparation for sanding and finishing them.

Interior doors stacked and drying after a coat of finish:

It’s hard to believe this many cabinet doors and drawer fronts will fit in this one house!

We love the front entrance and look forward to installing a walkway, plants, and stones (of course, for geologist Thor) around it.

Even the back door from garage into mud room has gorgeous wood grain. For security, this needed to be a solid wood door. This is birch.

Meanwhile, our meticulous tile guy Alexi has almost finished the upstairs master-suite tub surround…

…and the upstairs shower:

I was particularly thrilled to see that he had installed the accent strip of glass tiles to tie in the color of the walls and bluish floor tiles. The glass tiles are called “Beach Glass,” of course.

We like to bring lunch for picnics on the edge of our bluff overlooking the sea, to look for whales (we’ve seen four gray whales so far, as they migrate north), and watch the active bird life. One of our resident bald eagles had caught a water fowl and was munching away on it while two crows perched waiting for scraps:

One of the hummingbirds has claimed this bush as his territory, and keeps an eye on these weird humans. We’ve promised him a feeder soon, and many blooms as well.

Next week: More plants!

*****

You will find The Rambling Writer’s blog posts here every Saturday. Sara’s latest novel from Book View Café is Pause, a First Place winner of the Chanticleer Somerset Award and an International Pulpwood Queens Book Club selection. “A must-read novel about friendship, love, and killer hot flashes.” (Mindy Klasky).  Sign up for her quarterly email newsletter at www.sarastamey.com

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