Day 225

 

 The new windows are in! It has changed the way the inside and outside of the house look. I don't know if it is all in my head, but I think the house seems brighter inside.  Here are some pictures of the progress.

 

The window on the right has not been finished on the outside, but the window on the left has. You can tell a difference if you look closely.

 

This is the big window in the kitchen coming out! This is the same size and shape as the 2 large windows that were on the front of the house. We actually liked them, but they were just so inefficient. It was better to go ahead and replace them. I did not get a picture of this window with the new one in, but you can see what it looks like when you see the pictures of the front of the house.

 

Here is the final product! Some of them still need to be finished and trimmed on the outside, but you get the idea. It makes me excited to paint the brick and get the front door put in!

 

The other big project has been getting all of the trim put in. They have been installing new crown molding and baseboards.

 

This is the coat closet in the foyer. It originally had bi fold doors and we decided to replace them with standard doors. They of course need to be painted but it really brings it more up to date.

 

Doors leading from the laundry room to the master bath and closet.

 

Board and batton in the foyer, just to add a little something different!

 

The trim crew is also installing bookcases in Ben's office! This is Ben's drawing below and the initial work on the bookcases. I am so happy that he will have such a nice office. It is on the front of the house with one of the large windows.

 

Tile work is finishing up and appliances are going in! Will update when I have pictures.

Day 205

 Just a small update on the kitchen...look what got delivered last week! The granite!

 

We wanted something with the same colors that the traditional Santa Cecilia/Venetian gold granite had in it, but also wanted something a little different. Mom and I went and looked through a warehouse of slabs to picked a color called delacota cream. It has a mixture of chocolate brown, copper and cream colors in it, with a few metallic flakes. Sounds odd, but it really is pretty in person.

 

The other big thing you will see is that they delivered the hood for over the range! It accidentally got ordered in a pure white versus soft white, so we have been waiting for it to come in. We chose a style with a mantle on it. I am sure that I will enjoy decorating it especially around holidays. The entire kitchen will have crown molding that will make the cabinets appear to go to the ceiling. I feel like that will really change the way the kitchen looks.

 

 

The tiling work in our bathroom is also nearing completion. I can't wait to post pictures and share! 

Day 197

So much has happened over the past few weeks that I don't even know where to begin!

 

It took them nearly 3 days, but the majority of the kitchen cabinets are installed. I am so so so excited about them. I kept telling Ben that it was like Christmas, but better : ) As you can see in the first picture, there is a big spot where we are missing some. They accidentally ordered the hood in white, versus soft white, so they had to re-order. Eventually there will be a range hood and cabinet to the right of it. I chose to do the perimeter of the room in a soft white cabinet and the island in a darker wood. They will install the hardware in a few weeks when they come back to put the range hood up. I think it will make a big difference in the way it looks! We also went this weekend and picked out our granite slabs, they are hoping to install them on Friday.

 

 

The missing appliance on the left wall is the dishwasher. To the right of the dishwasher is the farm sink, probably one of my favorite things in the entire house. I didn't take a great up close picture, but you can see it if you look closely.

 

This wall will have the double ovens (they will cut the existing hole that you see to fit them) and refrigerator. The upper cabinets in the middle section will be open with a clear glass pane.

 

They also got started on the laundry room cabinets. The big hole you see will be the washer and dryer. I chose to do front loaders so I could put a counter top over them for folding...thank you Pinterest!

 

My desk is under the window and will have cabinets and bookcases built in the right corner. The bookcase will rest on the countertop so they will wait to install the remaining cabinets until the tops are in.  There will also be a sink and hanging bar, but they are not installed yet.

 

My brother in law has been busy working at the house to get the tile put down. We decided to do a heated floor in both the hall bath and master. They are inexpensive to do and will make a big difference. Both of these bathrooms are above the crawl space, so it would be super chilly during the winter. You can see the heating coils in the picture below.

We went with a white subway tile in the hall bath, i wanted to keep things fairly neutral and add color with fabrics and paint. The bathtub is original to the house but we will re-glaze it. For the floor, we chose a light blue penny tile (small circles). They are finishing up grouting this bathroom today and I will hopefully have pictures of it finished soon! 

 

 

We also chose a subway tile for the master bath. It is a cream color with a crackle finish. I don't know if you can tell from the picture, but it is a larger tile than we used in the hall bath.

 

 

Just to give a little perspective, the window you see in the shower is the one that is above the toilet below. We replaced the window with a patterned glass (you cant even really tell in the picture) so you couldn't see in from the outside. One of these days I am going to draw out the old and new floor plans, they really are completely different!

 

 The guest room that is right off the kitchen has a full bath attached to it, that will also serve as the mud room. Because it will be such a high traffic room, we decided to put tile down versus hardwood. They finished it up last week.

 

I did want to share 2 things just to keep things real. Not everything has gone super smoothly. For example, look how nice our garage door looks...

 Haha! Ben and I stopped by the house one night and this happened. We got in the truck to leave and when he pushed the garage door button, something went really wrong. We still don't completely know what happened. The glass didn't break when it initially came off the track. It broke a few days later when someone was trying to lift the door. In the end we will have to get a new door. I can't say I am sad, I have wanted a new door from the start, but it just didn't make any sense to buy one. The old owners replaced the door last summer and we just didn't need to spend the money. Hopefully the weather is starting to warm up and they will re pour the concrete on the garage floor. Once they do that, we will have a new door fitted.

 

I also have to tell on myself....Apparently the front door works with 2 separate keys. The deadbolt is one key and the knob is another. Ben swears he told me that, but I honesty do not remember hearing it. It makes no sense to me! I went over to meet his family Saturday morning and when I left, I locked the deadbolt and the knob, whoops. We went over later that night to meet friends and he realized what I had done. We only have the key for the deadbolt so we were out of luck. He decided we would just go around back and use the back door. Which sounded like a great idea, until he realized that I had locked the storm door ;-) I kept reminding Ben about how much he loves me, ha! He ended up taking a block and busting out the back storm door. We were going to take it off anyways, so it wasn't a big deal, just an annoyance. I can promise that I will never make that mistake again!

 

And last, but certainly not least, look what got delivered today...

 

WINDOWS! Hopefully they will be in by the end of the week.

 



Day 183

The hardwood floors are done and I am THRILLED! They looks so good. I am really happy with the color we chose. I was concerned because you have to pick by looking at a small square, but it ended up being just what I wanted.

 

Kitchen looking toward guest room

 

 Kitchen looking into the living room

 

This is from the entry way looking through the dining room into Bens office

 

We chose wooden floor vents in areas that have a lot of traffic.

 

And, look what else came on Friday....CABINETS!!! They are being installed today and hopefully I will have some pictures up this week. They said it would take around 3 days to install them all.

Day 177

The drywall has been completely finished up! There wasn't really much to blog about while they were finishing up. I don't think pictures of drywall mud, sanding and dust would be very fun to see : )

Here are some of the rooms finished up. Its really starting to look like a house versus a construction site now.

Small guest room off the kitchen...affectionately known as Aunt Anne's room

View from guest room to kitchen

 View from other side of kitchen. The breakfast table will be in front of that large window and the room you see to the left is the guest room.

 This is the ceiling in the living room where the 2 large sky lights used to be. Its crazy to me that you can't even tell where they were. They did a really good job.

 

 

They have also been working on the hardwood floors over the past week. If you remember back a little bit, I mentioned that they would be sanding down all of the old floors before they put new stain on. This will make the old wood and new wood look the same. I am shocked at how good it looks. I really thought you would be able to tell where the old ended and the new begins. Here is a good example, the next 2 pictures are at the same spot on the floor and you really cannot tell the difference between old and new.

 

 This is the hallway where the bedrooms are, the sides have been sanded and the old stain is still in the center.

Living room edge still needing to be done but main floor complete

 

After the floors were completely sanded they put 3 different shades of stain down for us to look at. This picture makes it hard to tell the difference, but the lightest is on the bottom and darkest is on the top. We both agreed to go with the top color. It was the darkest option but not too dark. They are going to start putting the stain down this week. We will have to stay out for a few days while it dries.

 

One last thing...a few weeks ago I mentioned that they finished putting all new gutters on but I didn't have a picture. I took this on my way into the house the other day and thought I would post it.