Gould Home

Yesterday the movers came and took everything to the new house. They reassembled any furniture they disassembled, but most of what they packed stayed in boxes. And boy, are there a lot of boxes. It will take us quite a while to unpack, and in the meantime we are having trouble finding things we need right away. (Where is the box cutter packed?)

Our computers are set up on our old desks, which will be replaced with new desks tomorrow. The old ones will go back to Cherrystones to be refinished and then they will be returned to be put in other rooms. We had to have the computers set up so we could connect to our new Sonos system and our new Unify Protect system. But also so we could order, from amazon, things we need real soon (cords the telephone, bumpers to stop doors from banding in the middle of the night, etc.)

Here are some pictures. The first is the garage with its new epoxy floor. The floor is still out gassing and we have to open up the garage during the day to help it air out. The vent hood in the corner is where I may eventually install a 3D printer. To the left of the vent hood is our only WiFi, which only turns on when we flip a light switch.

The kitchen is a mess with all the boxes packed by the movers for the kitchen. The dining room table comes tomorrow, so for now we eat on card tables.

Before the normal kitchen stuff gets unpacked, we had to transfer the contents of our chest freezer from our old house to the new house. I made a freezer run this morning with four large coolers and here is Daphne loading up the new chest freezer which had been cooling down all night,

The second floor family room is pretty empty. There are some boxes, but more are still in the basement. The reclining chairs we will put near the windows are currently in our living room until our new love seat arrives (later today).

Its the basement where most of the boxes are. The ones we packed and moved using my Prius over the last month are sorted by room. The boxes and other basement things from the movers are all over the place and need sorting.

Our A/V consultant is done. He installed our Sonos and internet infrastructure. Here is the cabinet in the utility room. Ignore the reflections in the glass. We have four Sonos amps, three sets of speakers (living room, kitchen and game room) and one soundbar for the main TV). We have an Ethernet switch in this cabinet and another one in a smaller cabinet on the second floor. We also have analog phone wiring for VOIP (the VOIP box is also in this cabinet), and a Roku (more on that later).

The plumber installed a water softener for the house. Our water is what he calls middle-hard. We now soften everything except the outside faucets (because the salt in the softened water kills plants) and a line going to a filter in the kitchen for drinking water. You can also see the hot water heater to the left. And against the wall, just to the right of the hot water heater, is the pump that circulates hot water to the master bathroom so we get instant hot (just in that bathroom, however).

Here are some interesting stories and tidbits from the move.

Spontaneous Sound

We have a soundbar in the living room, and ceiling speakers in three rooms. They are all connected to Sonos amplifiers in the utility room (see the picture above). When I was there two days ago, while we were working around the house, the soundbar started playing music, quite loud.

Well, I fumbled around with the TV remote and the electrical kill switch we have on the TV and nothing worked. Finally I was able to switch the TV to using the Roku and that stopped the music. Later in the day, the workers in the house asked if I could restart the music, but I had no idea how.

Then yesterday, it happened again, but this time the speakers in the game room started playing music very loudly. I did not know what to do. So I went downstairs and looked in the wiring cabinet and one of the Sonos amplifiers had a green indicator. I pressed it and the music stopped.

When our A/V consultant came the next day, he explained what had happened. The Sonos amplifiers were configured with the Sonos radio channel that the consultant was using for testing when he set up the units. It turns out that there is a very sensitive touch button on the amplifier’s face that start it playing. The electrician had been working in the utility room with the cabinet door open and if he bumped into an amplifier, it would have started the music.

So no chance it would happen in the middle of the night, while we were sleeping, thank god. And now the cabinet door is closed, so it should not happen again.

Roku Kill Switch

We use a Roku box for our TV (not a Roku TV, but the separate box). At our old house, the Roku would occasionally hang, and when that happened, we would turn off power to the entertainment plugs, which included the Roku, let it sit for a bit, and then turn power back on so it could reboot.

At the new house, the Roku is 30′ away, hidden in the cabinet in the utility room. Because of that, we included in the plans a light switch in the living room that would kill power to the Roku, and just the Roku, in the basement. Well, there was a switch, but it was wired to kill power to outlets under the TV, not in the utility room.

So we asked the electrician if he could fix that and he was able to run a wire down to a new outlet begin the cabinet in the utility room, which is now labeled “switched”. Then, the next day when the A/V consultant came, we asked him to move the Roku plug to that switched outlet.

Well, said the consultant, that was actually the wrong thing to do. It turns out, unbeknownst to use before then, that the A/V consultant had set up a web address where we could remotely reset any of the Sonus amplifiers or the Roku. No need for a switch. Sigh. We just wasted a bunch of electrician’s salary to wire up an outlet that we did not really need.

So now, if the Roku hangs, we will first try the web site to reset it, and only if that fails, will we use the switch. So for now, we have tape under the switch to keep it turned on unless we really need it.

Mystery Black Marks on Floor

When we were unpacking our clothes, there was a mystery stain on the floor. It looked like black streaks and it took some scrubbing to get rid of it. One feature of the luxury vinyl tile flooring is that it is rougher, meaning less likely to slip on the floor. But those ridges mean that dirty can get stuck easier and it is harder to clean, as we just learned.

Well, we really wanted to figure out where those black streaks were coming from. As it happened, we noticed some black material under the shirts, which had not been smooshed into the floor yet. We also saw some read and green material mixed in.

What we thought at the time was that some piece of clothing which had been in our old closet for a long time was breaking down and shedding material. We looked at everything and could not find any likely candidate. Then, Daphne noticed that some of our hangers from previous visits to the cleaner had a foam protector on them. Like the hanger below.

Well, it turned out we had a few hangers like that and when that material ages, it breaks down and drops black, green and red stuff onto the floor. Mystery solved. We looked at every hanger we had and removed all the hangers that had that foam. Hopefully, that will be good enough.

Broken Phone System

At the new house, we town internet service. But the town does not do telephone service. Therefore, we have switch over to using voice over IP (VOIP). I ordered a service and a few days ago the connection box (ATA) came in the mail and I added it to the internet cabinet the way I was instructed by email from the A/V consultant. Then I tested the phones upstairs. No dial tone. So I took a phone and plugged it directly into the ATA and it worked fine. Then I took that phone upstairs and pick a different jack and plugged it in. No dial tone.

So I contacted the A/V consultant and he suggested that the electrician look into it since it was probably the electricians wiring that was at fault. The next day, we added it to the electricians list. He poke around for quite a while (translation lots of hourly billing) and finally figure out that the cable from the ATA to the first junction box was bad. He replaced it with a cord from one of our phones. That fixed it.

The next day the A/V consultant apologized. He had use an old cord he had handy and it was bad. He did not test it. Sigh. Now we just have to wait for our phone number to transfer from the old house.

Anyway, today is unpacking (as will be the case for many days to come). We also got some furniture delivered and will have more tomorrow, so pictures will wait until then. In the mean time, here is a picture of Daphne at Fairhaven Bay looking at the aquatic flowers. This is from a morning hike.

First I will update you on the occupancy permit process. We have successfully passed all the necessary inspections. Two documents need to be given to the building inspector on Monday morning, and he will turn around the occupancy permit by end of day Monday. Tuesday, we move in.

Let me show you progress pictures. First they fit the electric oven into the cabinet by widening the opening.

Outside, they put gravel on the walkway, which is only temporary until the landscaping is done. The gravel will keep the movers from tracking dirt into the house.

On the second floor, we positioned and then had them install, the pull up bar. It is positioned for Daphne and me. Tall people may find it mounted too low.

The media consultant finished their installation. Here is the living room TV and sound bar.

Here is the second floor wiring closet where we have an Ethernet switch.

And here is the main rack with an Ethernet switch and the doorbell and camera equipment.

The plumber has installed the water softener.

I do not know how to use any of these things, but I will be trained in the coming week.

I forgot to get a picture of the new garage epoxy floor, which will be drying until Monday. Inside the house, on Saturday, they will put the final coat of finish on the hardwood floor and stairs. On Monday, the construction crew removes all their equipment. The dented appliances get replaced on Tuesday, the same day that the movers arrive.

Today is Wednesday, which means another house meeting. The next meeting will be a few days after we move in, to list the things that may be problems. I will summarize where we stand, and what’s left to do.

Lets start with the saga of the range. We had bought a Kucht propane range, but it was not on the Massachusetts approved list, which meant that we failed the plumbing inspection. The builder and the construction team said they had never seen a plumbing inspection fail — ours was the first. Once I got ahold of a manager at Kucht, I learned what happened. It seemed that Kucht let their Massachusetts approval expire. They were working on reinstating it, but that was not going to happen any time soon. I suspect that when we picked out the range last year, it was on the list, and it fell off the list in the intervening time.

Anyway, after dealing with Kucht and then Lowes, I finally got approval to return the range, which will be picked up this Friday. Meanwhile, the new range arrived at the warehouse this morning and we sent down a crew member to pick it up and bring it back.

It had a different layout in the back so they had to move some pipes around, but they got it working before the end of the day.

Daphne is not in love with the red buttons, and will try to see if there are black versions. But it is good enough to pass plumbing inspection, now scheduled for Thursday at 1pm.

Not everything we ordered fit. Because the range also has a propane oven, we wanted a separate electric oven to use. Unfortunately, the cabinet middlemen mis-measured the opening for the electric oven, so the opening is not large enough. There is a plan to fix this in time for the move, however.

For the other appliances, two arrived with dents — the chest freezer and the washing machine. Both will be replaced next Tuesday (which is also moving day, so chaos). Meanwhile the dented washer (and non-dented dryer) are sitting in the laundry room so you can see them. They are on a raised pedestal so no bending down to load and unload them.

In the kitchen, they installed the refrigerator, including piping in water for the ice maker.

And both dish washers were installed and running when we got there (for testing purposes).

While we were there, we worked out placement of grab bars, towel racks, toilet paper holders, etc. We also pick a location for the pull-up bar on the second floor. Here are the grab bars by the master bathroom toilet, whose location is dictated by the ADA.

And since I did not have a picture of it before, here is the bathtub in the master bathroom. (Its grab bar is not installed yet).

I also took a picture of the extendable ladder that goes up into the crawl space under the roof for access to the ventilation system. I have been told that this is a high quality ladder that can handle an overweight repair person.

Yesterday, our media consultants did a lot of work including installing the ceiling speakers (2 in the kitchen, 2 in the living room, and 2 in the game room). Here are the game room speakers. The other speakers are round.

We had picked out hinge stops to prevent doors from slamming into walls, but the builder discovered that those hinge stops did not work with our door frames, so we spent a bunch of time picking out alternatives for every door that had a planned hinge stop. In most cases, where possible, we will have a wall mounted post near the floor that will prevent the door from opening too far. When that did not work, we will just mount a clear bumper to keep the door knob from damaging anything when the door opens.

Here is a partial list of upcoming items for the next few days.

• Finish plumbing install including water softener and also reworking the pipes leading to the exterior faucets so they connect to pre-softened water.
• Install garage epoxy floor Aug 6-7
• Finish internet and media installation Aug 7
• Finish the final coat on the second floor flooring and stairs Aug 8
• Cleaners Aug 10
• Install the replacement chest freezer and washing machine Aug 11
• Fix cabinet face around electric oven
• Add basement stair nose (a piece of trim between the stairs and the flooring)

Here is the list of remaining inspections.

• Plumping final Aug 6
• Fire inspection Aug 6
• Building inspection Aug 7
• Occupancy certificate Aug 10

And here is a partial list of what will not be done by the time we move in.

• Install the screens on the porch
• Install the Murphy bed in the gameroom
• Final paving of the driveway
• Landscaping of the front yard including installing the walkway and grass

Current estimated occupancy permit date: August 10, 2026.

So disaster struck. We failed the plumbing inspection on Monday afternoon. It turns out that the range is not approved for use in Massachusetts. Anyway, here is what the range looks like now.

Massachusetts has an long list of approved plumbing and gas fixtures and appliances. We knew about this because we had to avoid using some plumbing fixtures that were not on the list. But when you by a range from a Massachusetts Lowes, you expect to be able to install that range in Massachusetts. Well, it turns out that nothing from the Kucht brand is on the approved list. So we had to remove the range.

After scrambling a lot, we finally found a Daphne acceptable range that we can pick up from the warehouse on Thursday morning, install before noon, and get inspected at 1pm on Thursday. That may cause the occupancy permit to slip until next Monday (which would be fine) or next Tuesday (which may be a problem).

Meanwhile, I now have to fight with Lowes, who sold me an unusable range. They said it could not be returned unless I get the manufacturer involved, which I am working on.

This is crunch week, where we try to get everything finished and inspected so that we have an occupancy permit by end of week (Monday at the latest).

The good news is that they finished installing the luxury vinyl tile flooring on the main level. We had to get the crew to work both weekend days, but it was all finished by around 4pm on Sunday. Here is a video of the process. The start of this video is the installation of the splash guard in the kitchen, which was over a week ago. Then you see the flooring get installed in the living room, kitchen and master closet.

And here is the living room after the flooring has been installed. We have turned on all the lights so you can get the full effect. It looks like Daphne’s calculations for lighting strength was good enough to illuminate the room.

This morning they installed the kitchen range, which is propane. This is our only non-electric appliance. In this picture I opened the cabinet above the range so you can see the exhaust fan as well.

As we were leaving, they were setting up for the HERS testing. This involves installing a giant blower over the front door and measuring air leakage. We did not stay for the test, but I have this picture of the front door getting set up.

Plumbing inspection is today at 1pm. We did not install the water softener yet, and will hold off until we can get most of the outside spigots switched to use pre-softened water. But that can happen after inspection and even after we move in.

Also at the house today were the construction team installing the baseboards, and the electrician finishing up the electrical system for an inspection in a few days and the painter doing touch up. I will probably visit the house every day this week, so there will be a lot of posts.

We went over to the house mid-morning. They looks to be about 70% done with the flooring, although they have some tighter spaces left to go, which will take longer.

Here is the finished game room floor.

We bribed the team yesterday with some real Turkish Delights that my daughter picked up in Istanbul. Then, the builder picked up pizza for the crew to keep them working later. It seems to have worked and it looks like the flooring will be done in time.

Once the flooring is in place, they will add the baseboards which are currently painted and ready to be installed.

We are now in the home stretch. As I mentioned in an earlier post, the wrong flooring was initially delivered, so we had to rush a new shipment of the correct flooring. The correct flooring arrived yesterday and today they started installation.

Here are two pictures of partial flooring. The first is the game room and the second is the living room. They are being done together since there is a door between the two rooms so the flooring extends across both rooms.

I also have a short video showing the process of installing this type of floor.

So what’s with this post’s title, you may ask. Well, next Monday we want to do the plumbing inspection. Everything is in place for that inspection (I have a few pictures below) except for the toilet in the guest half-bath. That toilet can not be installed until the flooring is installed in the guest half-bath. So while the flooring does not have to be finished by Monday morning, it must reach as far as the guest half-bath so the toilet can be installed for inspection.

Speaking of plumbing, here are some pictures. First is the master bathroom shower, and you can see the toilet on the right side.

Here is the second floor bathroom shower.

And here is the laundry room.

Outside, they have done the first layer of paving of the driveway. There will be a second layer added later.

Daphne spent a few hours this morning installing plants in the back yard. Here are two sections of the yard.

Also in the house this weekend were the painters and the window washers.

Speaking of plumbing, we have hit a snag. The Concord water is very hard so we are going to install a water softener (which is not needed for the inspection). But now we realize that softened water is very bad for the plants. So we will need to redo some of the pipes so that the exterior faucets will not go through the water softener. This work will have to be done after inspection.

This is what is left to do with expected dates, based on the latest meeting with the builder.

• Finish plumbing installation – 7/30, 7/31, 8/1, 8/3
• HVAC system balancing – 7/30, 7/31
• First floor LVT (flooring) installation – 7/31, 8/1, 8/2
• Window cleaning – 8/1
• Game room cabinets – week of 8/3
• Finish alarm and safety systems – 8/3, 8/4
• Appliances delivered and installed – 8/4
• Finish internet, entertainment, telephone – 8/6, 8/7
• Garage epoxy floor installation – 8/6, 8/7
• House cleaners – 8/8, 8/9
• Porch screens installed – week of 8/10
• Driveway paving – t.b.d. (depends on weather)
• Moving van arrives at house – 8/11
• Couches get delivered – 8/12
• Furniture from Cherrystones get delivered – 8/15

Here are some other things, which I do not have a date for, but need to be done.

• HERS testing
• Final coat of sealant on the second floor
• Adding the finish (3 coats) to the basement stairs
• Cutting and installing the master bathroom mirror
• Mounting the pull-up bar in the family room
• Final electrical work, including labeling the circuit breakers
• Mounting the computer monitor arms in the living room (probably done after we move in)

Current estimated occupancy permit date: August 4, 2026.

At the start of this week, they were supposed to put in the flooring on the main floor. However, when the builder opened up the packages, which had been sitting in storage for 3 months, he discovered that they were the wrong color. Big whoops. So he contacted the manufacturer and put in a rush order for the correct flooring, which should show up on Friday. Then the team will work all through the weekend to keep the schedule from slipping.

This coming weekend will also feature the plumber finishing up the installation of the fixtures and water softener, as the builder tries to get (almost) everything done for out move-in date of August 11.

The building inspector came by today and we passed inspection. We still need to get a HERS rating (home energy rating system) and a fire inspection, but we do not expect there to be any problem with those.

The electrician installed most of the lights for our inspection. Here are some pictures. First up is the kitchen and dining room. The dining room light is too low, but its height is adjustable and we decide to move it up by one-third.

Here is the game room ceiling. The lamps in the chandelier can face up or down (they face up in this picture). We decided to flip them so they face down, which will give us better lighting for playing games.

And here is the east side of the living room where you can see some of its light fixtures. The recessed light in the corner will be over my computer desk.

And here is the family room (second floor) showing some of its lights.

The splash guards in the kitchen and all the bathrooms have been installed. Here is the kitchen wall.

And the upstairs bathroom is almost finished, only missing the toilet and plumbing fixtures.

The shower in the master bathroom now has a Venetian plaster ceiling and the correct fixtures holding the door in place. This bathroom is awaiting the toilet, bath tub and plumbing fixtures.

The silt barrier has been removed from the sides of the house. This is the view out the game room window, looking south. We will be putting hair cap moss in the swale along the side of the house and adding some bushes at the edge of the current mulch covering. By the way, the wood pile is on our land, but belongs to our next door neighbors. I actually like the wood pile but wish it was taller (a lot of the wood was burned last winter).

Well, that’s all the update pictures I have for you today. This weekend and next week will be the big push towards completion. And with luck, we will move in on August 11th.