Safari So Good

So, update from last blog…we got a call from Mike, the window guy.  The shades we chose do not come wide enough to cover our super wide sliding glass doors – one of which is in the downstairs great room and one is in the upstairs Bonus/Theatre/Karaoke Room.

This is one of the giant sliders that is causing all my window treatment nightmares. It’s beautiful, but very problematic.

 Mike didn’t know until he got back to his office and began submitting our order into the Hunter Douglas computer system (33 windows total, of which 13 are sliding glass doors).  Six days after the 2nd window treatment trip to the Delta house, we made a third trip.  Being careful to check the width noted on the back of the shade samples, we selected new material and Mike re-did the order.  We then headed to Sugar Barge Marina for burgers and fries on the upper deck overlooking the docks. It’s fun to sit up there and watch all the boats come into the marina. We decided it was such a beautiful day, we should drive to the top of Mt. Diablo (the mountain you can see from those incredibly wide glass door/windows). Neither of us had ever been there.  Although it’s not far away, the drive up the mountain takes quite a while, but we got there in about an hour and a half. The views from the top were pretty amazing. You could see across the valley at the rivers and the Delta. If we had binoculars with us, I think we could have seen our house.  It really was a lovely day!

The following Wednesday, the window guy called again. Turns out some of the shade material isn’t LONG enough. We discussed a few options and realized we both needed to meet at the house again to find a solution.

On Friday, my next day off, I drove once again to the Delta and Mike and I went over all the options and he actually stayed there and submitted the order while I waited. He spent 45 minutes on the phone with Hunter Douglas.  One material I selected was on back order…one was not long enough, and on and on. We were there about 2 hours total. I did take advantage of the opportunity to measure lots of areas. Also, the bath tub and carpet had been installed! We have carpet on the stairs, upstairs hallway and in all the upstairs bedrooms. This will reduce the noise when there are guests upstairs. The carpet is gray, but looks almost silver where the natural light hits it. It’s really beautiful.

We have made lots of arrangements and coordinated furniture delivery, TV installations, window treatment installations…but we cannot get our landscaping scheduled. My son, Brian, prepared a plan and I sent it to 3 different landscapers – one only does one kind of decking (which I don’t want), and the other two never got back to me. We’ve decided to split the work into stages, beginning with the decking. Davidson Communities, the builder doing our home, has offered to do the decking for the Delta Cove residents; however, we don’t have approval from the County to build the deck out over the rocks! Also, it can take weeks to get the plan approved by the “Design Team”. So, it looks like we’ll be living with 3” of loose dirt in the back for quit a while. This does not bring happiness to me.  But I cannot control everything and I’m managing what I can.  Nineteen Days!!

Michael enjoying the sun at the top of Sugar Barge Marina.

The view from the top of Mt. Diablo – you can see the waters of the Delta in the far distance.

The tub in the master bath – it’s a big one!

We have carpet – it’s gray, but looks silver in the sunshine.

A rainbow around the sun – it’s called a Halo. That’s a bird flying through it.

“We all have big changes in our lives that are more or less a second chance.”
Harrison Ford

“You can dream, create, design, and build the most wonderful place in the world. But it requires people to make the dream a reality.” – Walt Disney

The construction foreman feels confident the house will be ready for a final walk through by the first week of July. While I was talking to him, I learned that construction had actually been shut down for almost 5 weeks due to the Coronavirus! We had been under the impression that construction had continued the whole time. Consequently — the delay pushing us into July.

On Saturday, May 23rd, Michael and I, our friends Robin and George and their kids, Jeret and Gretchen, drove to Delta Coves to check progress.

It was astounding! Lights are in, wood and tile floors are down, and cabinets and countertops installed. And we LOVE IT! It’s always scary making decisions from small samples. Cabinet styles and colors, floor colors, countertops – granite or quartz or both…and you think, how will that wood look over 2,000 square feet? Will the cabinet color go with the countertop? Is the pattern in the granite too busy? Well — it looks great, they do, and it isn’t!  Next – finish the roof and install solar, put in appliances, plumbing, and carpet, then driveway and front yard landscaping.  Landscaping the back is on us.  We have a houseful of furniture on hold at R C Willey and I have bedding, dishes, and cookware, etc. collecting in the garage and all over the house!  

The pictures do not do it justice, but here you go…

The entry chandeliers are in!  The cables still need to be installed on the stair railing.

Cabinets around the U shaped island and a beautiful quartz countertop.  

In person, the LVP (luxury vinyl plank) flooring is not quite as rustic as it appears in this picture.

An incredible view of Mt. Diablo today.

Master bathroom – the opening is my vanity.  Note the extra outlets on either side of where the mirror will be – those are for my blow dryer, 2 curling irons, and straightener.

The large soaker tub goes in this space and there is a sink on either side.

The entry chandeliers from up on the staircase. Robin waves.

We had some snacks on the future deck area.

Love the pendant lights over the U shaped island. The island cabinets are medium grey (not as dark as they look here) and the perimeter cabinets are a shade lighter (they also look darker in this picture).

Our 6 burner Wolf Range goes here and this is the granite on the perimeter counters.  The color of the cabinets in this picture is more true. 

Michael, me, Robin and George

Jeret (Robin’s son and one of my surrogate sons – our boys met in kindergarten) his wife, Gretchen, Robin and George

Bedding for 4 bedrooms!

A sample of throw pillows I’ve purchased to date.

Construction is an essential activity, so says the Governor of California, the Honorable Gavin Newsom (and my new best friend). Consequently, construction on our home at Delta Coves is moving forward. Michael and I took a drive to the site on Saturday, April 11th. The last time we were there was Tuesday March 17th for a frame walkthrough with the construction foreman, Troy. The afternoon before, Contra Costa County had ordered a shelter in place for the entire county, including a shut down of all “non-essential” activities. Two days later, the Governor declared construction to be an essential activity. Three and a half weeks after that, we were anxious to see if the sheetrock was up, as it could not be put up until county inspectors signed off on the framing.  Inspectors had stopped working the day we were there doing the walk through with the foreman.  Troy said he would continue to work but until the inspectors signed off on the framing, not much else could be done.  
We were so happy to see the progress made over the last month! Our home is part of Phase 2 and the 5 houses to the left of ours are Phase 1. It was encouraging to see fences around Phase 1 houses and front landscaping completed for the two adjacent houses. In fact, we peeked in the windows of one of them and it looks ready for occupation— floors are laid and appliances are all in! Ours may be ready for a June move-in after all! Woohoo!  As I was peeking in, I also noticed the Ring doorbell was filming me.  I had two immediate reactions – 1.  Wow, if their Ring Doorbell is working, their house must be totally done. AND 2.  Holy Crap, my face is on their record now!  I hope nobody is monitoring that yet…that is no way to introduce oneself to new neighbors…”Hi, I’m Karen.  I’m the person who was behaving like a Peeping Tom a couple weeks ago.”  Sheesh!

The front of the house all spackled and ready for painting.

The fence is up between us and the neighbor and their front landscaping is completed.

The inside staircase is framed and the stairs are in. You can see the holes for the cables in the post.

We took a picnic lunch and sat in the doorway of the great room to enjoy pasta salad, cheese and crackers, grapes and wine!

Me enjoying a glass of white wine. That’s re-bar sticking up in front of me, it’s all over the place.

We took another trip to check progress on the house and to talk about backyard landscaping.  We asked my son Brian and his wife Natalie to come along and help us with ideas and taking measurements.  Brian is an extremely talented designer and builder and his lovely wife is his muse.  We had the added pleasure of having our granddaughter Brittney home from college, so she joined us (also quite talented in her own right).  As I write this, it occurs to me that I totally forgot to take a picture of my son and his beautiful family.  I was distracted by sea lions…

The windows and doors have been added, which are just beautiful!  But the highlight of the visit was seeing two Sea Lions playing in the lagoon — right in front of our boat dock!  We had been told that river otters have also been sighted in the area.  We were unable to get a picture, but I took a screen shot of them from the builder’s wildlife video at their website (davidsoncollectionatdeltacoves.com).

We made lots of decisions about landscaping and Brian offered to prepare the plans for us!  Such a fun and productive day.  We also discovered that the plan we selected includes another small balcony off the 4th bedroom upstairs instead of two windows.  That was an exciting discovery.  It means all 3 upstairs bedrooms have sliding glass doors that lead to 1. a private deck, 2. a walk out balcony, and 3. access to the upper wrap around deck!

A view from the boat dock.

Look at the huge sliding glass door and windows! This is from the back outside the living room.

The same size door/windows upstairs in the bonus room. I’m gonna need a truck load of Windex!

It was a clear day, so we had a nice view of Mt. Diablo.

A screen shot of the video the builder took of the two large sea lions playing in the lagoon!

Until our next visit!

In early 2018, I was looking for ways to invest some money in such a way as to reduce our tax rate.  I found a cute little cabin in Incline Village, Tahoe, Nevada that would have provided us a great tax write off and it was only about 15 minutes from Lake Tahoe.  As someone who has always wanted to live on/near the water, this seemed like a good option.  In spite of the fact that it snows half the year (I HATE the snow), in order to actually benefit tax-wise, we would have to reside there at least 50 percent of the time and change our legal residency to Nevada.  After a few weeks, Michael decided he did not want to go forward for several reasons, one being that he did not want to live in Nevada, even half the year.  I was quite disappointed, but realized that for something this important we both needed to be on board, so I agreed to take a step back.

It is at this point that I need to acknowledge the fact that I am exceptionally grateful for Michael’s decision about the Tahoe cabin.  Finding this perfect community with houses directly on the water is a dream come true!  Here is it in black and white…”Michael, you were right and I was wrong.”

I was still intent on looking at options for our future, which for me included a house near the water.  Late Spring I googled “houses on the water” and came upon a brand new community that was in the early stages of development called Delta Coves.  The more I read, the more enthused I became.  Actual construction had not yet started.  There was a description of the planned community, which included every house directly on the water with its very own boat dock as well as a community “Island Camp” that would include a fitness center, separate yoga building, a large community pool, and a huge area available for events.  It seemed like a perfect retirement home for Michael and me.

It was located on Bethel Island, not far from Antioch, in the Sacramento/San Joaquin Delta about 75 minutes south of our current home in Elk Grove.  Michael and I talked about it for a few weeks and he seemed genuinely interested and open to considering this new idea.  Although it would not provide any tax benefit per se, it would be a good investment and a perfect place for us to spend our active retirement years.  We envisioned kayaking right from our own back yard, biking the 3 1/2 miles of road around the community, attending community dances, and having karaoke parties at our Delta house.  On the Delta Coves website, there was an invitation to sign up as a future resident, so I did.  In spite of the fact that no decisions had been made, it seemed like a good way to get regular updates and be the first to see the development in process.  Late May 2019, we decided to drive to the area just to get a sense of what it looked like.  We had only been to a couple of River towns, like Locke and Isleton, so wanted to get a look at the community that might be our new home.  We wanted to have lunch on the Island and through Yelp, found a place called Delta Sports Bar and Grill that had 4 stars and sounded really good.  It turned out to be a little dive on Main Street, but you can’t judge a book by it’s cover…or can you?  When we walked in, there were about 4 pretty scruffy patrons at the bar who looked like they had been there for several years. Hmmmm…not easily discouraged, we walked through the bar and toward what appeared to be the dining room when the female bartender (who also looked a bit rough around the edges) said, “You can sit in there if you want, but if you sit out here, I can handle the bar and wait on you better.  It’s just me in the front today”!  Okay, now we were a little concerned, but again, Michael and I are quite adaptable when it comes to adventures and we sat at one of the small tables in the bar area.  We ordered BBQ, which turned out to be pretty good (3 stars???) and the Waitress was attentive, so all in all, not a bad experience.  But the atmosphere was questionable and we were a little concerned that the patrons here would be our best options for our new neighbors.  Yes, I’m being a little judgmental, but come on!

Not to be discouraged, we continued to follow progress on development.  Finally in late August, the models were open for review.  We fell in love immediately!  All the houses were 2 story, but we would only consider one that had a master bedroom downstairs.  That eliminated half the options.  After several trips and much discussion, we decided to choose “The Lodge” — A gorgeous 4 bedroom, 4 1/2 bathroom home with a huge great room with a U shaped island in the kitchen.  Why do only two people need such a big house?  We are hoping that friends and family will come stay and play with us.  There will be plenty of room for guests to stay the weekend, go kayaking, BBQ/hang out on the deck, karaoke with us in our bonus room with a wet bar, and enjoy coffee in the mornings on the Delta.  If you want to see more, check out the website http://www.Deltacoves.com.  For floor plans, click on Find a Home, then Browse Builders, then Davidson Communities.  Scroll down to the Lodge and click on View More Details.

A shot of Delta Coves from google earth. You can see the large square area (center left) is where Island Camp is located.  Our house is at the tip of the third street (the straight one), counter  clockwise from the Island Camp

August 31st – Michael had the brilliant idea that we should kayak near the Delta Coves site before making a decision about buying there, since one of the main reasons to be on the water was access for kayaking.  So our dear friends and kayak buddies, Mary and Peter, agreed to haul kayaks to Sunset Harbor and spend the morning kayaking on the Delta to see what it was like.  We had a great time and found the area interesting with many tributaries to explore and birds to see.  We passed lots of houses on the route with families playing in the water and kids paddle boarding.  Everyone was friendly and greeted us as we rowed by.  The consensus was that kayaking here would be good!

December 6th – Made another visit to Delta Coves.  We have visited several times, mostly to measure rooms, make plans for structural changes and just to see if this is all really gonna happen.  It seems so surreal at this point.

This trip, I asked my sister Karlene and cousin Dorothy if they would come with me.  We toured the models (and, once again I have to pinch myself to make sure this is real).  The model seems more beautiful every time I see it.

I was told they had broken ground, but was so excited to actually see the workers framing the lot to ready it for the foundation.  As I was taking pictures, the Foreman came up and asked if this was my house and I said yes!  He introduced himself (Troy) and seemed genuinely happy to be working on this project.  I told him that my house needed to be his first priority and he laughed, saying all of these houses are my priority.  He was very friendly and I liked him instantly.  I was glad to meet him, because we want some specialized work done later and I’m hoping to use these same workers, hiring them for some weekend work.

OMG!  They are framing the lot for the foundation!  So Exciting!

February 8th – We’ve made many trips to the house in progress.  Lots of decisions have been made like what kind of cabinets, flooring choices, number and kind of can lights and hanging lights, counters, roll-out shelves, etc. etc. etc.

Move-in is supposed to be sometime in June – keep your fingers crossed!

A view of the front of the house. You can see the plan number 6-A and address – 90 Edgewater Court!

The view from the living room. The large opening is where the sliding glass door and floor to ceiling windows will be.

Second floor bonus room. You can see the wraparound covered deck framing in place.

Closer up from the opening where the sliding glass door will be. On a clear day, you can see Mount Diablo.

The view from the top of the stairs of the front door and entryway.

From the end of the 2nd floor hallway. It’s open to the entryway below with just a railing along the hall.

A view of the back of the house from the street across the water.  The boat ramp/dock is the white thing to the right.

This is the model home from across the water (a different angle from ours above). Ours will hopefully look like this when finished.

P.S.  As Michael was reviewing the draft (he’s proofreader of all blog posts), his first comment was “You need to bold the ‘Michael you were right and I was wrong’ statement and maybe have that embroidered on a pillow”.