Cow Patties of Concrete

Garage doors!

We've been staining...this is the "barn" aka Master Bedroom

this is the Master "barn" bath - and yes, we have a window in the shower :)

added 2 extra coats of stain

We finally feel like we are in the home stretch of getting this house done!  It's nice to know we are down to just weeks instead of months!  All in all, the building process hasn't been too terrible.   Mind you, I don't want to do it again anytime soon as it is stressful and unbelievably time consuming, but we've been pretty lucky and have not had any major problems in construction.  And, I think that has a lot to do with Ron and Jason. :)  It's like that old saying, if you want it done right, do it yourself and for the most part we have.

Which brings me to cow patties of concrete...we opted to subcontract out the work for a 28x30' concrete pad for the drive and the back patio.  (You know where this is going, right??)  Well, Jason's buddy Dave flew in from FL Wednesday so we went to pick him up from the airport and then went out to dinner.  We swung back by the house to lock up as the rock and concrete workers were still working when Jason had left earlier.  It was about 9:40 pm and the concrete guys were still there and as the truck's headlights shown ever so brightly on our drive, all we saw was a large mess of concrete with what could only be described as multiple cow patties of concrete all over the 28x30' pad.  Not exactly what any of us were expecting.

I don't know the entire story or the reasons why the concrete was poured so late, etc.  It was obvious there was some error in judgement.  The next day, the concrete did look better but the job was still not up to our expectations.  The back patio was acceptable; the drive was the problem.  The subcontractor did compensate us for the mistake and the drive is functional, it just doesn't look as "nice" as we would have liked.  Jason and I came to the realization that its just a drive.  Its only concrete and there are many more important things in life than a patch of concrete on our driveway.  We opted to let it go.  We are also hoping everyone is just so wow'd by the house that no one even looks down at the concrete!

the scrap pile is gone!  replaced with seed and straw!

The rock subcontractor, Castone, did an awesome job laying our rock on the fireplace and front pillars.

the 2 holes are for holding firewood

the hearth stone

We finally got our 2700 lb delivery of porch railing and interior railing.  It was a lot of fun to unload and even more fun to stain!  Thank goodness Dave is an awesome stainer and was a HUGE help!

the rest of the railing got walked down the drive