Front and Center

The front of the house is finally finished (except it needs lights and a mailbox and ok, grass would be an improvement...whaddya mean you don't think the dumpster adds anything???). In construction, we use the term finished rather loosely! But the house is now fully clad in it's red cape and it really is Super! (It can't leap tall buildings, but it IS a tall building...)

It was a little disconcerting that when I was over there an hour ago, there were no tradesman on site. Not a one! That hasn't happened in over 5 months! Maybe they took off early for their Labor Day weekend, so I'm guessing there'll be no labor on Labor Day (as it should be). That probably means I won't have anything to post until mid-week at the earliest, so enjoy your long weekend!

Slow Motion

We are almost (be still my heart) finished with the siding. Glaciers have melted faster than this siding has gone up! In fairness to Jim and Paul some of the delays were due to material shortages but they'd originally hoped to be done by the end of July and they're going to be lucky to finish in August! I think they're just toying with me because I said early on that I couldn't wait to see how the red looked on the dormer over the porch and that piece STILL isn't finished. Maybe, tomorrow?!?! The south side is done though and it looks wunderbar!


The other slow process is the trim work, but that is only because Alan says he can't find helpers that want to work as hard as he does. He makes steady progress every day. Today, Conor's closet got some built in shelves. He'll have double hung rods to the right of the shelves and hooks along the wall in front of the shelves. My hope is that he can at least get clothes as far as the hooks!

Here's a couple pix that if you squint and put them together will give you an idea of what our fireplace will look like! Our mantel will be painted white like the rest of our trim and the slate tiles will replace the white porcelain inset in the picture. We will have some of the wrought iron 2x2 tiles but not as many as they've used on this sample board. The floor tile is very simple, just a black slate.

House Animation

With two months left until MI Day (Move In...), I added a time elapsed sequence of the house building process (see right) that shows just how far we've come in 5 1/2 months. Sticks and stones may break your bones, but they can also be put together to make a pretty nice house! (Ed Note: I obviously need to hire a new photographer as the current one can seem to hold the camera level! I said this process would drive me to drink but I really was sober when I took all these pictures...)

Costume Changes

Alan is almost finished with the master bedroom closet shelving and I think we'll have ample place to put all our stuff!! This first picture is our little shoe shelf just as you walk in the door. On the wall directly behind it are two more shelves over a rod for hanging longer skirts and dresses. The second set of longer shelves are in the back corner of the closet and will have about 9' of double hanging along the back wall to the right of the shelves. That should be plenty so that Brian and I don't have to fight over space!

Brian and I stopped by the house on our bike ride to the Farmer's Market this morning and caught Rob just as he was finishing the laundry room with.............the wrong tile!!!!! Actually, it was the right tile just in the wrong color - although that is a distinction without merit when you have to rip up a half morning's hard work!! We felt so bad for Rob, but the order form was accurate so I don't know whose mistake it is (not mine!). The good news is that the tile hadn't 'set up' yet so it was easy for Rob to rip it out -- would've been worse if we hadn't happened by. We checked the tile for Conor's bath and the powder room and those looked good so he can still get something done today, but what a waste! Mistakes happen.

We're off to look at some furniture and compare our paint swatches to the carpet samples. More later.

Rolling Out the Red Carpet

Ok, so it's grey and it's cement but let's face it, a real red carpet would clash with the house and be a little bit of overkill. Our new sidewalk and walkway DO make the house more inviting, however, and we sincerely hope that lots of folks will make the trek up to the porch to visit. I don't think you'll be disappointed unless you're expecting the papparazzi to be there!

We also worked with Mike yesterday to get a layout for the driveway, access walkways and the patio. He laid it all out in orange spray paint to help us (ok, me) visualize what it will look like. I need to make a paper patio table or two to make sure it's wide enough etc. None of it will get poured right away as he has to figure out a trench for where our drive meets the existing drive and get gutter info from Dave. It continues to amaze me how each piece impacts and is impacted by so many other little pieces.

We're also getting tile this weekend!! I can't wait to see what it is going to look like in the house but wow, what an odyssey that process is! So many choices, so many price points and so complicated to come up with a final number. After switching gears once on the master bath, I feared that we still weren't quite done after talking with Rob this morning. But it turned out he'd counted the cost of the floor tiles TWICE, so when you pull the extra cost out we're back in budget (well...close counts).

I'm starting to look at paint colors for the main level. Having some tile down will make it easier to test drive the various colors. I read a great tip in one of the many home magazines I've been perusing. They said instead of painting directly on the wall, you should paint onto extra wallboard. That way you don't have darker spots on your wall that have to be reprimed and are sometimes still a little visible AND you can move the board around the room to see what it looks like in different lights etc. Very wise, I think! I'll let you know if it makes me any more decisive on colors. Brian's stock response to any color other than beige seems to be "Are you sure it's not too dark?" Oh well, I'm not as stressed about this as I was the exterior. One room can be repainted more easily than a whole house!

I think we're going to paint much of the house a neutral color to start and then live in it a while before choosing bolder colors. The first floor is the exception. I'd like to start with that level pretty much DONE except for tchochkes (sp?) and a few accent pieces. Actually, I'm just kind of 'over' all the decision making and would like time to more thoughtfully consider my selections within the context of something that actually exists! I don't know how people build multiple houses. I guess you get better at it, but there will always be too many choices to make as far as I'm concerned. I'm glad we're never leaving this house!

Reviewing the Dailies

There's not a whole lot that is truly new to report, but I thought I'd post a couple more pictures. The railings have gone up on the porch which kind of finish off the whole porch look. It's funny, ND won't approve these composite railings. If you buy the lot through them you are required to have wood or wrought iron railings because these are thought to be too shiny. Unfortunately, what the wood ones look like after about four years is "in need of sanding and repainting" so we'll take shiny and maintenance-free any day!! Personally, I think they look great AND the flat tops work just as planned!

Alan is working away on all the interior trim, but he's just one man and there's an awful lot to do so I imagine he'll be with us awhile! Here's one picture of a fully trimmed window. Every little detail just makes such a world of difference!

Command Performance

Now we are truly the newest Pillars of the Community!! We have 6 of them, that's got to count for something. From across the street, the pillars are the perfect addition to the porch. When you are ON the porch, they feel a little massive but it's a lot of roof to hold up and smaller pillars probably would have looked skimpy. I'm sure we'll get used to them.

Finally met with Rob, our tile guy, today so we're getting all that ordered and it should go in the last week of August. He was at the house putting down the cement board for under the tile. We're meeting with Alan, the trim guy, tomorrow to talk about the built-ins and the closets.

Stay tuned. Things are changing quickly! Wish me luck as I begin the furniture search in earnest!

Cast of Thousands

Today was a busy day at 918. We had the wood floor installers, the indoor trim guy, the electrician and the siding dudes all working all over the house all day and even the rock crew made a late day appearance.

The wood floors, which are a mix of 3", 4" and 5" planks, have been installed in the 'gathering room and the office is full of more wood awaiting its turn! They said it should take about 2 1/2 days to install the whole floor. We had a little last minute hiccup about the opening for the faux hearth. Our fireplace is gas so we don't really even need a hearth but we want it to look authentic! There was some confusion over the dimensions/span of the floor tile but after a conversation with no less than 5 'experts-in-their-field' (and me), we got it figured out and only required a minor correction for the floor guys. An hour later it would have been a much bigger issue, so it's been really helpful to live close enough to run right over.

We're also getting doors! The siding guys put forth a yeoman effort to carry them all over the house for Alan (aka the trim guy) because we needed to get them off the main level so the floors could go in. This is the master bedroom door, and my little bookcase alcove. (Don't you love all the light? This was taken about 7:30 pm) Steve, the electrician, was also putting in all the canned lights and switches and plugs today and even that makes your heart beat a little faster. "Oh look, an outlet AND it has a plate cover!" It's like having an infant and you say things like "Oh look, he found his thumb! Ohhhh". It's the little things that keep you going through this long process of building (a house or a person!)

The dining room is full of all the trim for the house. I guess that will get moved to the kitchen when they are ready to put the floor in there. At first I thought it was the wrong trim and then I realized that I was looking at it upside down! Reason number 407 why someone else is in charge of building this house!

I am hoping to meet with Rob, the tile guy, in the next day or two as the tile floors will go down after the wood is in. I've changed the tile selection for the master bath and the basement guest bath. What we had ended up being too pricey and more complicated to install than we'd planned so I went back to the drawing board. I found something that I think I like even better but I just need to talk through my design ideas with Rob and show him the accent tiles to make sure they are easy to work with. As with so many of our decisions, you don't have all the info you need to make a final decision until you've already gone pretty far down that road so it's a pain to start all over. But it's a process and I'm just keeping my fingers crossed that the inside will come together as well as the outside seems to be.

So things are happening fast and we're trying to stay on top of it all. I'll try and keep pix posted and maybe even try Brian's suggestion to be "a little less wordy" in my entries. Thanks for checking in. We love getting the feedback and emails.

Still Feeling Those Audition Jitters!

The outside of the house is really starting to take shape. Jim & Paul, the siding guys, seem to be back on track and have finished much of the south side of the house, including the side porch! Yesterday they were working on the beadboard ceiling for the front porch. My hopes that they would finish up this week were not realized, but we're happy to see progress!
The stone went up on the lower quarter of the house and is a lovely complement to the red siding. We had a little bit of an artistic difference with the stone mason, but that was resolved amicably and I think we'll all be happy with the final result. The stone doesn't have the grout/mortar in these pictures, but my understanding is that they will be back today to add some more smaller, rounder stones to fill in the gaps and then mortar the whole wall. FYI, that's Steve our electrician standing on the front porch. He's posing for Mr. February in our soon-to-be released Bungalow Boys calendar!

Inside the house, they painted all the drywall and the living room is full of molding - crown, baseboard and window/door trim. The wood floors go down on Monday, so we're cranking right along.

I am finding that the two emotions I feel most often in building this house are anxiety and relief. I think the joy will come later. You pick all these pieces in isolation and then just keep your fingers crossed that they will all mesh seamlessly and beautifully in the final product. So when they do go up/in, relief is the strongest emotion..."Oh, thank goodness I didn't screw THAT up, but now what about....?" I'll be very happy (beyond relieved) when October 21st rolls around and we're done with all the big choices. There will still be a million 'decorating' decisions but most of those won't seem nearly so permanent!

A Little Out of Focus

Ok, so I was more than a little lax in July. I think the heat has everyone moving a little s-l-o-w-e-r! Although they've continued to make progress at the house, it seems to be happening slowly and it's not really very exciting stuff. The siding guys are taking FOREVER to get all the siding up! This picture shows the north side fully done but I can't say the same about the front of the house or the south side. The white trim along the rooflines is time consuming, but not very exciting to photograph. With any luck it will all be up this week.

The stone is supposed to get added this week and you can see in this picture of the front of the house that they've built the bases for the pillars. The stone will be cover all four sides of the bases, as well as all the concrete on the front & sides of the house. You can also see the front steps and it has been delightful not to have to 'walk the plank' every time we enter or leave the house. I performed that task with varying degrees of grace over the last couple months!!!

Inside the house, they've been drywalling. I think everything has been taped but still needs a couple more coats of mud. They need to get going because the painters are supposed to come in Wednesday to spray everything with a base coat. My guess is that the painting may get pushed back to next week. The wood floors are supposed to go in on August 11th. Most of our decisions have now been made but we still need to finalize the carpet and granite selections and I've started looking at furniture which will drive the paint color selections! These pix are the dining room with our ceiling beams and alcove for the china closet and the living room.

Now that it is all drywalled, the basement is really taking shape. The boys will have a great little 'man cave' down there! These pix give you a pretty good idea of how it all lays out. The pool table goes to the right of the stairs. Until we decide if there'll be some sort of kitchenette at the foot of the stairs, we're going to put a game table in that little alcove. The plan for the rest of the room is a TV and a big comfy sectional. That pole that holds the house up went in long before the stairs did, but I'm hoping it won't be problematic as we try and get furniture into the basement. It will be trimmed out in wood, which is a plus. I think there's enough clearance around it. We'll keep our fingers crossed.

Conor has picked out the bedding for his room so we can deal with his paint. He wants his walls to be dark blue stripes as well and I am reminded of Randy Pausch's "Last Lecture" in which he strongly urges parents to let their children choose how to decorate their room...so I am trying to be accommodating but 'reign' him in just a little. He's getting a new queen size platform bed (if all the planets align) so he should have a nice little set up! His room will be available for rent..but you'll have to take up fees with our little hustler!

I'll post some new pix as soon as the stone and the rest of the siding go up. Have I mentioned how much I love the red!! Stay cool.