My biggest project for the spring is upgrading all of the major kitchen appliances. Almost all of the existing appliances were from 2013 when I bought the house, and so they were coming up for replacement anyway. My goal was to move into the Sub Zero / Wolf / Cove family, and so that’s what I did. I have a french door Sub Zero refrigerator ordered, along with a Wolf induction range and a Cove dishwasher. Originally I wanted to get a Wolf LP gas range, but my sales rep successfully convinced me to go with an induction range instead. It’s easier to clean, and doesn’t have the same drawbacks as electric.

I also decided to keep my existing Kitchenaid double oven and replace my Samsung microwave with a matching Kitchenaid microwave. That will leave me with a Sub Zero family refrigerator, range, and dishwasher, along with a Kitchenaid family double oven and microwave. In the future, I may upgrade the oven and microwave but given the life left in the Kitchenaid it was hard to justify throwing away an extra $10k on a new oven.

The only challenge I encountered with ordering the appliances involved the refrigerator. While the others would be available within 3-4 months, I was told that the wait time for the refrigerator would be approximately 15 months. That was hard to stomach for a $14k appliance, so I decided to explore other options. Sub Zero restricts their dealers to a 150 mile delivery radius, so I couldn’t look at larger markets like New York City or Los Angeles. I could, however, look at the northern suburbs of Chicago. I was able to find an Illinois dealer that was literally 149 miles from my house that had a delivery slot available for April!

With that in mind, I put in an order and then ordered the other appliances from my local dealer.

The very last step prior to installation was to source trim that matched my existing cabinetry. I was able to bring a piece of cabinetry left over from the last kitchen remodel and match the wood and stain at Menards, and have an order in for several pieces of trim that will cover the gap at the top of the molding when the new, much taller refrigerator is installed and the cabinets above the current refrigerator are removed:

Everything is currently slated to be delivered in April and May, so it will be exciting to see the transformed kitchen take shape!

As I’ve continued to grow my football card collection, I’ve had to expand my storage and display space. Around this time last year, I converted two drawers of an IKEA drawer set to store cards in top loaders or graded slabs. This January, I converted the remaining drawers in the two drawer sets that are currently in the library, significantly expanding my storage capacity.

My wife’s new cat Tilly attempted to help, but only succeeded in getting in the way.

I also expanded the number of display shelves that I have in the library:

As I continue to collect more cards and sports memorabilia, I’ll need to keep getting more creative to find storage space. That said, this latest project has given me enough space to last the next several years.

When I originally worked with my interior designer on the master bedroom, one item that I neglected to finish was upgrading the old ceiling fan to something that better fit the design style. I finally got around to that recently, and installed a new wifi-enabled smart ceiling fan that really nicely integrates with Amazon Alexa, and also looks excellent. Wiring the fan was an adventure, since I had to first wire in the wifi transceiver.

Once the wiring was done, I installed the rest of the fan.

Once the fan was connected to Alexa, along with the table lamps on either side of the bed, the look of the bedroom was transformed!

One of my birthday presents to myself this past January was upgrading the old Range Rover Sport into a new Range Rover Supercharged. It’s an unbelievably well engineered vehicle with a gorgeous interior and a fabulously powerful engine.

The current fleet consists of a Bentley Flying Spur W12, Porsche Cayman S, Mercedes SL, Range Rover Supercharged, and an F250. Not bad, in my opinion!

It’s been awhile since my last post… Once fall hit, I took a short break from home projects after all of the pool craziness from last summer. However, since the new year I’ve been busy. One small project involved a pair of TV upgrades with very different circumstances. First, I finally ordered a four seasons TV for the hot tub area and installed it, along with an outdoor sound bar.

It has excellent picture quality and sound, and has made winter mornings watching English football a lot of fun!

When buying that TV from Best Buy, I noticed how cheap 85 inch TV’s have become, and I got the itch to upgrade the main living room TV.

The previous TV had been in a TV hutch, which looked nice but limited the TV in size to around 55 inches. For the new TV, we wanted to go with a TV console that had a built in fireplace insert, and was more minimalist than the previous hutch. My wife found this option, which fits with the rest of our furniture in the living room really nicely:

Once the furniture was selected and ordered, I installed the TV. It took two people to hang it, which was a first for me with a modern flatscreen TV. The sheer size of it makes it pretty impossible for one person to manage. Once on the wall, it dominated the living room space in a good way.

After hiding the wires, it looks really clean even with the old console in place.

After installing the two new TVs, there were a few cleanup tasks to perform. First, I moved the previous living room TV up to the master bedroom.

I also did some work to fix the broken TV lift in the three season room, converting it from a motorized lift (which had been nothing but trouble despite multiple replaced units) to a manual lift with a latch to hold the lifted TV in place.

All of these minor upgrades have had a pretty dramatic impact on the house’s TV landscape!

Once the pool concrete pouring was done, the pool was fully usable but there was still more work to do. First, the fence had to be installed. I went with an aluminum fence in pre-fabricated sections, which made it easy to anchor into the concrete and install.

The end result looked really good, and fit with the aluminum railing style from the deck that went in last summer.

Once the fence was done, the pool cover was installed and I assembled some pool furniture. Given how far back ordered most higher end pool and patio furniture is, I went with what I was able to get from a local big box store, and it ended up looking pretty decent.

The current pool cover is a simple hand-cranked cover, but I wanted the option to install a powered cover in the future. To facilitate this, the electricians installed an outlet on the far side of the pool, that can power the cover as well as future lighting or other things that require electricity.

Lastly, I removed as many rocks from the dirt as I could, then hand tilled the dirt and planted some grass seed and threw down some hay over top of it. In the spring, we’ll do it properly and have top soil brought in and re-plant much of the grass, but I needed to get something growing before winter to help prevent erosion. It’s coming in fairly nicely, and will at least do the job until spring.

In the meantime, there are still three more weeks before we shut down the pool for winter, so my wife and I are trying to get as much use out of it as possible for as long as the weather cooperates!

While the pool was usable and very delightful after the initial installation, it obviously needed a concrete deck poured. I brought in Concrete Keith for the job, who had worked with me on the three season room and deck project last summer. He got to work pouring concrete, and the results were incredible. The first step was to pour a small ring of concrete around the pool, before pouring the rest of the deck and the stairs.

After that was done, he and his team poured and stamped the rest of the deck, along with a sloped walkway leading up to the pool from the hot tub area.

Now that the concrete is done, I have to wait a couple of weeks for it to fully cure on the inside before installing the railing and the pool cover, but until then there’s plenty of time to spend enjoying the pool!

Despite the pool excavation being a little more involved than anticipated, the project to install the pool managed to roll on mostly on schedule. The Patio Pleasures team arrived, and started installing the pool walls and setting up the pump, filter, and heater.

Next, the plumbing went in, along with the liner, and we could start filling the pool. For the initial filling, we used a vacuum system to keep the liner tight along the walls and floor before the weight of the water took over. The installers also had to wait to cut the liner for the stairs until enough water had filled at the bottom of the pool.

While the pool started to fill, the electricians got to work wiring the pump and heater, running circuits for the pool lighting, and installing a grounding ring around the pool that grounds all metal and prevents us from getting electrocuting, which is a good thing.

We still had to wait for the pool to fill with enough water before moving on to the next step. I installed a WiFi smart faucet that allowed me to control filling remotely, since the pool could only be filled during daylight (so the liner could properly stretch) and needed around five days to fully fill.

After the water levels got high enough, the installers came back to cut in the liner around the stairs:

With the stairs cut in, the pool could start filling again. While that happened, the gas installers from Consumers Coop came and ran LP lines from our primary propane tank to the pool’s heater.

As the pool finished filling, I took care of some ancillary tasks like installing outdoor security cameras from Arlo and buying furniture for the pool deck.

With the pool full, I added chemicals and for the first time, we were able to use the pool!

After the grading for the pool was done and the land was surveyed, the next step was for the excavators to actually dig the hole for the pool, which turned into a much larger challenge than expected, and also turned into a logistical mess since I was coordinating the various contractors from Vegas (in a pool at the Wynn, which was sort of ironic given that this project also involves a pool).

The excavators started digging, and quickly encountered a huge limestone shelf that their equipment was unable to break through.

They then brought in heavier artillery, which also broke on the limestone:

Ultimately, I had to call in the original excavator who had done the grading, since he had heavier equipment than the excavator the pool installers had hired.

He was able to break through, and then we could start the pool installation!

In a previous post I mentioned plans for a pool in the summer of 2022. Now that the summer of 2022 is here, I’ve been hard at work coordinating the pool project. In addition to working with the pool builders, electricians, gas company, and concrete company, I had to have the land where the pool is going to go graded, so that rainwater will run around the pool and down the hill, and not cause problems. This ended up being a pretty dramatic amount of earth movement. The first step was to carve an entrance through the trees onto the property from Range Trail, which allowed the backhoes and other equipment to get to the pool area.

Once that was done, the workers were able to quickly remove trees and brush, and create a level space for the pool.

After the land was leveled, I needed to have the area surveyed and the property lines marked, obviously to make sure that the concrete around the pool and the railing were all on my side of the property line.

Once that was done, I was able to finalize plans for the pool and get permits in place with Dane County and the Town of Verona.

I worked with my concrete contractor (the same person who did the concrete for the three season room project last summer), and also got railing ordered and delivered to be installed around the pool.

Excavation for the pool itself starts on July 1st, and the majority of the construction will be done by the end of the following week!