Future plans

We heard a little about the future of our project today. The roof trusses are on order and should be on site within a few days. Once the second floor framing is done, the trusses are the next step. Once they are in, the roofers can go on site and start work there. Other interior work, like plumbing, HVAC, and electrical, cannot start until the roof is complete. The estimate is that all the interior roughing will start in about three weeks.

We got the estimate for the wiring for audio and video and it came out to about $1700. This included wiring for central audio in six locations plus wiring for surround sound in the family room and wiring for an HDTV above the fireplace. The central audio is pretty cool - you hook it up to a capable reciever (those don't come cheap, by the way) and each room that is wired has separate volume controls. The HDTV wiring is the part I worry the most about, both from a technology standpoint and a cost standpoint. HDMI was spec'ed to go from the TV site to the receiver site, but some things I've read lead me to believe that component video is just as good and has better signal retension and is cheaper. It is five cables to hook up instead of one, but you only do that once, right?

We also, apparently, have to make some decisions about our fireplace - we thought we'd done all we need to do, but I guess there are a few options. We're meeting with Tom tomorrow at the site to go over the options.