Another day of work...

Today I built a small patio off my new back steps.  I love the simple design!  The town/village building inspector came by the other day to inspect a couple things for me and he commented on my 'temporary' stairs.  Apparently he felt they were a little too permanent.  I told him I wanted them to last two or three years so I could decide what type of permanent deck/patio to build.  He shrugged and accepted that they were temporary.  This is the problem with wanting to do things right from the beginning.

 These really are temporary stairs.  I haven't decided whether I want to add a small deck with large patio, or a large deck altogether, or keep the stairs and build a large patio.  Until I decide, these are temporary.  When I decide, if I need to keep these, I will make sure I get all necessary permits and make any needed improvements.

As with so many of my projects, they are a work-in-progress.  I still have to add some wood handrails above the metal risers as well as some wood framing on the sides.  Off course I also need to stain/seal the steps in early fall after the pressure treated lumber has had enough time to dry out and acclimate.

Last Friday a contractor was supposed to stop by and help me install a bathroom vanity cabinet under the open space under the counter. Ryan offers a double vanity in my bathroom and I didn't want the second sink and the SR didn't think I could install only the extra cabinet (I latter learned that she was wrong). Well, the contractor never showed so I spent most of today pulling out base trim, cutting vinyl and Luann sub floor, repairing poorly finished drywall, moving the existing bathroom vanity, and finally reinstalling both bathroom vanities and putting the whole thing back together. Wow, what a HUGE project. Not truly for the DIYer, but I had help and we got through it. It looks great. There were some huge, unfortunate obstacles that made this project a nightmare. For instance, the floor in the bathroom slopes a little so instead of shimming the cabinet from the floor, they left the front 'suspended' by screwing the back of the cabinet into the wall. This is fine, but they used three different types of screws and two of them were stripped. Another issue was that they had put the wrong cabinet in during construction and when they replaced it, they tore some of the drywall. This was never correctly repaired but covered over with a piece of wood; even though my new cabinet hides this area, I needed to fix it for my piece of mind. I also had to move the existing cabinet over because it was too close to the wall so I could fit the second cabinet in (this was more of an annoyance as the contractors had no way of knowing I planned on purchasing a matching cabinet and adding it to the empty space under the counter. Finally, the counter was glued to the drywall at the wrong angle so I needed to pull it off and repair the drywall damage. A whole lot of fuss for a 'small' project. Suffice it to say, I love my house, but there is substance to some of that stuff you read about Ryan homes on the web. But let me be clear, this would have been an issue in almost every house I bought, new, existing, Ryan Homes, or another builder.

Above: Original Cabinet (wrong type, wrong height)

 Below:  Correct cabinet installed with open space under counter

 Above:  My addition of an inverted copy cabinet (drawers on left side)  I will finish the trim this weekend.

Below:  Another view

Above:  I love my square bathroom window!