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.

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