Erich's Photo and Travel

The walk through went well. We put several dots on items that need to be corrected. Did I mention that we did the walkthrough without power? From what we were told, Xcel is coming out tomorrow (August 1st) to reconnect the power line and then bury the cables and finally install the meter on the house. We were assured that the work would be completed by Tuesday at the latest. Since we are doing the final walk on Friday and signing the papers right after, I hope they stop of it. Time to pack some stuff at the existing house…

Are we excited that the walkthrough is tomorrow? Not really…..why you ask? Let me explain. I went by the house today and found that the house has not been cleaned up. There are soda cans, water bottles, dirt, carpet debris, dust (a lot of dust) on the counters, window sills, filthy windows and mirrors. It looks like my family came to visit for a couple of days. You must understand that it only takes my family (mom excluded) to destroy and perfectly clean house in a matter of hours. They say that a pictures is worth a thousand words….unfortunately I didn’t take any pictures. I had my iPhone but was too pissed. Since I don’t have any pictures to show you, I will be forced to use a thousand words. Here is the email that I sent to Courtney (our beloved sales girl): Courney, We are really concerned that we might not close on the property on August 8th.   Since Xcel Energy has not restored the power to the house, we will be forced to do a “limited walkthrough” tomorrow and a more thor

I know you have all been waiting for an updated slide show of the house being built. I am not one to disappoint so here you go (whiners):

Our kitchen faucet must have been on backorder or something. All of the other sinks, tubs and showers had the faucets installed a while back. I guess when you purchase the best, you wait and wait (and wait). The masking tape has finally been removed from the bannisters. The walkthrough is a couple of days away! We may need to bring a couple of flashlights since the house (still) does not have any power.

It has been five days since we went by the new house. Guess what? Not much was done other than putting in the sinks in the master and secondary bath (basement bathroom is still waiting), Euro Shower installed, basement shower enclosure installed (needs to be tweaked as the enclosure is rickety), outside painting has been completed (including the front door which looks cool) and mirrors for the bathrooms… The basement window well has been pounded out (we can live with it). The walk through is only four days away… Secondary Bath Sinks Master Bath Sinks (nice choice huh?) Euro Shower Door Downstairs Bathroom View From Living Room (looks the same as last week). The hole in the wall on the right side is where the refrigerator will be. We will be going shopping for a refrigerator this weekend   The Paint Looks Good The Grading Has Been Improved (notice the retaining wall) Like The Color (missing trim on the top of the door?) Need Landscaping!! Still Need Landscaping! I most likely will

What would a Tuesday be without going to the house to check on the progress? Boring as hell that’s what. I am not saying that work is boring but actually I am on vacation this week (parents in town). Why did we look at the house today? Read the paragraph above! Just kidding. We walk every morning (you know that) and we walked to the new house. Okay, you have heard this all before. I’ll shut up now… Nice color choice (we forgot what colors we had picked out)   The color is about the same as the neighbors house. I guess we should have looked at the neighbors house before we picked out the colors. I guess that the neighbors will need to repaint their house.

I know, I know… Cain is not spelled correctly. However, it IS spelled right in the context that I am using. Michelle and I were privy to go to my Auntie Helen and Uncle Dan’s dear friends, Bud and Shirley. Since they are all in their 80’s and using canes, it only makes sense to spell it this way. We had a great lunch and a great time. We also got to see the house that Helen and Dan bought in Denver back in 1958. The house was purchased for $17,000 and they sold it for $17,800. As you can see, they didn’t make a lot of money off the house but that is how it was way back in the stone age. You have to keep in mind, the big prize on the game shows back then was fire. The house on Reed Birch Street Bud and Shirley’s house in Lakewood. NICE HOUSE Uncle Dan and Shirley (notice the cane) What a happy group! Lunch was great too! We garnished the dessert with cashews coated in toasted coconut (not pictured)

My mom, aunt and uncle are in town the for the next few days. We decided to take them to the house and show it off and we were in for a few surprises when we entered the house: Nice Backsplash! More nice backsplash Not so nice but nice to see the tile work done around the fireplace! Nice double oven too (yes, that is just a plastic coating on the oven(s) - The finish is all stainless steel Kick ass convection stove! As you can see, we put a lot of upgrades in the kitchen. The double oven, cook top and tile backsplash are all options. The way we look at it, we have thirty years to pay for everything so actually, the whole house is an option. We are “going owing” and that’s a fact.

The carpet installation is almost done. Looks like the stairway is the only part left. Well, there is the trimming and placement of the heater vents on the floor and major vacuuming but that is just being picky. I guess my constant bitching paid off. They finally exposed the hole where the light is going to be in the master bath shower.   Did I mention that they STILL Need to fix the basement window well? It looks like it is caved in. Let’s get ready to crumbleeellll! Here is a better shot of the quartz master bath countertops. I can’t believe that we paid $800 to get this done! The sink holes have more surface area than the actual counters. I believe that the entire kitchen cost us $3,000. Maybe I am wrong, maybe it was $300 for the master bath quartz countertops. The price difference between granite and quartz was pretty reasonable and besides, they only gave us four choices of granite and two were the same color. The quartz offered a few more color choices and we NEVER h

We went to the house early this morning so we could beat the contractors to work. We got there a little before 7am and found the front door locked (a first in five months). The garage door was open so I just had to slide it up and open. Like my previous post said, Courtney said that they were laying the carpet yesterday but when we arrived we found that the quartz countertops were installed as well.   There is a lot of work to do on the carpet. The stairs have yet to be done as well as most of the other bedrooms. The downstairs powder room now has a toilet and pedestal sink. Sorry for the shitty picture (no pun intended), we still don’t have electricity. The master bath has quartz as well but the color is darker (not that you could tell by the picture). The sinks will be top mounted and rectangular. They will look cool.

Just got an email stating that the carpet is being installed today. You know what that means…trip to the new house tomorrow morning. Of course I will post some pictures. That’s a silly question!

The contractor has been working hard the past day or so. He has most of the hardwood in place. Here is Michelle sporting some wood:   We keep hoping that the quartz countertops will be next. Knowing our luck, the quartz will be on backorder or they will deliver the wrong color or it will be chipped beyond repair or totally screw up the order and install granite or… As promised I took a video with my Go Pro Hero camera. I shot the movie in HD this time so the clarity should be way better:

This embedded slide show has all the photos that I took up until today. Well, not all of the photos because you would be really bored. The slideshow clocks in at 4min 48 seconds. Anything under five minutes is considered “not boring”. I just made that up. Enjoy I think that this slideshow is better. The pictures are clearer. You be the judge:

Friday is my Starbucks & Donut Day. It just so happens that King Soopers has a Starbucks kiosk in the store (and they sell donuts too). In addition to coffee and donuts, the store is really close to the new house. The left turn light that leads back to our current house takes forever to turn green so I took the opportunity to swing by the new house. In my (soon to be study) there were a bunch of boxes containing the hardwood flooring. There was a guy in the living room with a hand held sander sanding down the high spots so the flooring can be installed. This was about 7:30am this morning so hopefully the flooring is in. We will find out tomorrow when we take our weekly “New House and Back” walk (four miles roundtrip). We can only hope that the quartz countertops get installed next.   This has nothing to do with the hardwood flooring Either does this.. To be continued…

We are 21 days away from our initial walkthrough but that does not mean that I can’t do a walkthrough every now and then (or every other day or so). Oh, you are wondering about this entry title huh? Sometimes you just go to….: Say fuck it, call in sick, pick your nose…the list goes on and on. So, back to the house. The heater vents (which are on the floor by the way) have grates on them now and the closets pantry have shelves. The shelves are not your run of the mill wooden ones but the metal open slat type. I am sure that there is a name for them but as they say, a picture says a thousand words. Master Bath Closet    

You are probably all tired of reading (if you are reading my blog) of the new house so I will post about our day trip to the Wild Basin in the Rocky Mountain National Park. Wild Basin is typically less congested than the rest of the part so we thought it would be cool to hike up to Calypso Cascades (and hopefully farther up to the Ozeul Falls). Since it was a three day weekend, we figured it would be kind of slow on a Saturday. WRONG. The place was quite packed. We were able to find a parking space about a half mile from the start of the trail head. The guy that pulled out of the parking space dropped his camera. We tried to flag him down without luck. So, dude (or dude’ette), if you are reading this, we left your camera with the park ranger at the Wild Basin entrance. The ranger said that he would put in in the lost and found (wherever that is). Here are a few pictures of the walk…                  We actually didn’t make it up to the falls sinc