Boy, the finishing stage is painful. You write checks faster, and yet progress seems slower. When the structure was coming up you could kind of see the concrete "growing" day by day. The finishing stage, on the other hand, seems to be an endless sequence of painting and re-painting, doing and re-doing, laying out and adjusting. At least the windows are halfway in, so it feels like The Asia House is moving from being a construction site to something more resembling an actual house.

Paint is also starting to come up on both the inside and the outside. The first coat is up on the inside, in colors varying from white and beige to silver blue and baby pink, depending on the room. On the outside, we tested various shades of brown and off-white, and finally settled on combinations we like.

The corner posts look pretty cool, I think, and they do add an Asian touch.

We’re pretty excited about the kitchen, which is coming out quite nice in terms of colors and functionality (soft close doors, etc). There were quite a few quality issues after they installed the modular cabinets, but they promised to rectify everything so we’ll see how that goes. Next week another supplier is coming in to get the measurements they need to fabricate the white stone counter tops.

We have had long discussions with the carpenters, the electrician, the foreman and the site engineers regarding the indoor staircase. It’s amazing how many decisions had to be made regarding materials, dimensions, railings, glass, color shades, edges, covers, up-lights, bulbs and electronic transformers for something we’re just going to take for granted and step on every day.

My biggest surprise lately came when I discovered that the electrician had painstakingly routed the lighting conductor into and through the house. It cannot have been easy to get that thick copper braid through various conduits and down three floors to ground rods. Apparently he had always been doing it that way, since it looks so much better than having it visible on the outside. When I explained that this is not a good idea, and that lighting strikes can induce a current of over 100,000A and a temperature of over 50,000 degrees F in an instant, he kind of agreed that this is not a good solution. In fact, I said, we would have led the lighting right to where we do not want it: inside the house, next to all my home control wiring. Needless to say, the lighting conductor is being moved to an exterior wall…