It's the Little things....

We'd hoped to that the house would be returned to us by now, but there have been delays - little things like quarter round trim against the baseboards and patching holes and such....Sometimes it seems like just as we see light at the end of the tunnel, the drywall gets resanded and covers everything in a thin white dust again....

But...  The granite is installed.  The kitchen cabinet doors are installled.  The kitchen sink and faucet are installed. The bathrooms have the tubs, toliets, sinks and such installed, with all their hardware. The basement floors with their underfloor heat mats are installed.  So I am hopeful that they will soon be ready for us.

Here are some of the latest photos:

Colin & Kristian in the basement with the floor down.

Me peeking out from behind the new shower door.

The kitchen cabinet doors installed

The granite!

Granite detail

Me & Kristian outside the house

We're getting warmer!

My last post was newsy but no photos.  This one will be the reverse.....

Update: the electricians were in today and now we have electricity in every room. Most of the potlights are installed, adding twinkle to the rooms.

One of the electricians installing a potlight.

Potlights in the kitchen and great room.

Lights in the basement "man cave".

The light in the master closet.  May I remind you it is 15x5 feet.

All the rooms except the dining room have been painted.

The bathroom, showing Benajamin Moore's "Mt. Rainer Grey"

The bedroom, master closet and hallway are Benajamin Moore's "Chantilly Lace" - a nice clear, bright white.

The kitchen foyer, stair well and great room are all painted Benajamin Moore's "Smoke Embers".  This will be the color of the dining room, too.

The doors are all installed now. Trim is up.  Bathroom fixtures installed.

Yea!!!!!!!

New Year - Almost a New House!

Well, things have really progressed over the holidays!  The hardwood has been put down and coated with the initial finishing.  We elected not to stain the oak floor, and I am so glad we left it natural.  You can really see the grain and variations of color in the oak - it has areas of almost a red tone, others white and others blonde.  Really lovely.

Al, our neighbor and cabinet maker, has done a spectacular job on the kitchen cabinets. The base cabinets are installed, in readiness for the granite countertops to be templated and installed. The cabinets will be a dark, almost chocolate, color. The doors will all simple Shaker style.  The granite is a green wave.  Most granites I've seen look like crushed stone - little bits and blobs - but the one I've selected looks like you are looking down from space at the waves in a deep green sea.

This was a very interesting part of the process, because it is no longer "empty space" but is taking form as a proper kitchen.  The island has been installed - yes, it is as huge as we thought it would be, but it doesn't overwhelm the space, as I had started to fear it might.  Lots of room to get around (we allotted extra space between the base cabinets and the island).

The new appliances have been delivered and have been slid into their new places. I am very happy with how it will look - so beautiful.  After 10 years of living in a white kitchen, I was nervous of going to a dark color, but because the overall space is so big and the appliances are stainless, it is as bright as I wanted it. I'll never go back to a white kitchen again - it gets dingy fast!

We also had fun at an auction the other day.  Colin wanted a pub table and chairs for his man cave, and we have long been tired of the mismatched and cheap bedroom furniture we'd been living with for over 12 years - some he brought into the marriage, other peieces I brought - so even though many designers hate the idea of a matching bedroom suite, we found one we love.  A solid headboard we can lean up against while reading a bedtime book or the weekend paper; matching bedside tables - the highboy chest and the "ladies dresser" will both go into the large walk-in closet.  We found everything we wanted at the auction - hey - where else can you find a pub table (larger then standard) and 8 chairs for $700.00?? The bedroom suite was a great deal, too.

The other furniture we had ordered also arrived over the holidays.  We've stored everything in the new dining room for now - I am anxious to get it unwrapped and in place soon!

The contractor says it is just a matter of weeks now.....some things will need to be held-off until spring, like removing the pile of dirt left behind when the basement was dug out (it's a frozen mountian now) and building the new front porch.  But wow - hard to believe moving day is a matter of weeks now and not months!

It's beginning to look alot like a house

This weekend (!) they came in and put up all the drywall.  What a difference it makes!  I can really see how this defines the rooms and brightens the space.

This shot shows the wide open feel between the great room and the foyer.  I can see our Christmas Tree over where the stair rail will be next year.

This is the view in the basement.  Colin wants everyone to know that where the drywall is stacked on the ground is about where his pool table will be - regulation size, of course.

This view is from the foyer towards the great room and the patio door (sans patio until next summer).

This view is from the foyer looking into the new dining room (yellow walls) and kitchen.

And, they have completed the new exterior stucco. We decided on a two toned finish with some design detail. The house will definitely stand out on the street....check it out!

This last photo is for those of you who don't think you have much snow....come take some of ours.

So close, I can Taste it

The good weather has allowed the team to get caught up after the various illnesses slowed them down, their subs down and even suppliers down. The roof is now shingled with a  40 year, 3-D effect and most of the siding on the back and side of house is up (photo is the rear of our house...they've now added some temporary stairs until we build the deck next summer):

They have almost completed insulating the house. 

This is me and the contractor in the basement, looking towards what will be Colin's billards area.

The bathtub is installed - an airjet tub big enough for two!

They will start to drywall this week, and this will really change the feel of the space.  So far, we have been looking through walls but that is about to change!  They might even start to tile the entryway this week.

...and it continues

The walls are up!

The roof is up!

The garage is built!

Now that the framing has been completed, we can start to finalize our kitchen design.  They re-used a window, but in took it from another room - and it was bigger then we realized.  So we've had to redesign some elements.  Where to put the microwave now that it won't fit next to the 'fridge? And now that the 'fridge is 27 cu ft....how much space will we really have for the double pantry????

Colin is thrilled with the new garage.  He had it built taller then it was before, and my gosh -what a difference!

One thing we noticed that is a strange trick of the eye.  When they dug out the basement - we thought OH MY!  It's HUGE.  Then they built the foundation walls and it seemed smaller - we expected that.  But what I didn't expect was once they built the main floor, the basement seemed larger again.  On the main floor, from one angle, I saw the new walk through closet and it seemed really large - larger then the bedroom.  I was starting to regret the decision - and then, once I walked around, I realized it was smaller then it looked when I was actually standing in the bedroom.

One can always question size when you build.  On plan, the entire space looked about 1.5 times bigger then it seems now. But I think if we had seen the plans on paper to reflect the size we saw in our minds, we would have balked - after all, this isn't meant to be a palace.  It is, and always will be, a bungalow, and I sure don't want to clean a palace!

Week 3 of the Renovations

The foundation base went up last week and the foundation walls went up earlier this week.  They have completely removed the front porch and steps.  I watched the garage come down Monday morning - it took about 30 minutes to completely come down - walls and roof. 

We've approved the electrical layout and plan. I want to cry every time I see what used to be gardens.

Now that it is getting wet and cold, they are starting to do things inside like change the direction of the stairs to the basement. And the site lead advised us that because there will be a new hallway in the basement, we need to rethink where the laundry room will go. Right now, it is in the unfinished part of the basement.  He's suggesting that it be moved to the room that I'd intended to use as a gym, because then the water pipes will all be on the same side as the basement bathroom.  But that then means two things:

1. We have to remove all the books that are currently stored in that room into the unfinished part of the basement - and will have no where to store them once the work is all done.

2. Since the unfinished part of the basement is remaining unfinished, the home gym won't be a very inviting place to work out.

Sigh.  At this point, selling the old dear and moving to a bigger place sounds like it was the way to go.