Excess

Today was delivery day at the apartment. This is crazy because nothing fits in here, I have to head off the UPS guy at the door and re-route him to the van. I think he actually prefers this option to carrying boxes up 26 steps to our door! So is it a good sign when the UPS man approaches you in different settings (ie the doctor's office) to report how many deliveries on that particular day? Brown came first with 14 boxes, including fans, light bulbs, curtains and blinds. Next came the semi-truck, which parked across the street. I drove the van over to accept the chandelier. Finally, just after lunch, Fed-Ex knocked with a small box (cabinet knobs) and asked "Where do you want the BIG one?" The BIG one was heavy (basket ball hoop), and didn't fit in the van, so we had to make 2 trips up to the house.

Our builder seemed pleased that things arrived today. They have kept the scaffolding in the great room, waiting to hang the chandelier and fans. Once it is out of the way they should be able to work on the flooring.

Meanwhile all of the pocket doors are in, and most of the other interior doors. A couple of guys were working on touching up paint on the trim and doors, and installing door handles.

We are thinking that perhaps we should paint these white doors (yep...they were less expensive than wood) a darker shade of the wall color so they blend in a bit more.

The tiles are down in the girls' bathroom.

The cupboard under the stairs opposite their bathroom is meant to be a small linen closet.

This area will be for games...and for the girls to play in.

Here is the cabinetry in the Master Bathroom.

I also started cutting out fabric for drapes in the girls' rooms today, and worked on address changes on all of our periodicals.

The Sky Came Down

It was a humid evening, with light showers all afternoon. We were anxious to see the kitchen cabinets, so planned a picnic dinner out at the house. We have been doing that at least once a week for the past month or two. The mist was heavy in the valley. This picture was taken just down the road from our place.

The kitchen cabinets were all still in boxes, so unfortunately they remain a mystery.

Most of the light fixtures and smoke alarms have been installed. I spent an hour on line last night and approximately $500, ordering compact fluorescent lamps for all of the light fixtures! This is the fan in the library.

Several of the window sills and trim have been installed too. They look really sharp.

This wood on the back porch is for the window trim in the Great Room.

All of the interior doors were delivered today as well. A bunch of them are in storage in the Master Bed Room.

These ones have been painted and are out on the porch.

The wood ceiling in the Kitchen/Dining Room is nearly completed. The builder was there late finishing the solatube. Even at 7:45 PM on a cloudy evening, it was generating a lot of light.

We put the girls to work filling their little red wagon with scraps of wood and taking it to the burn pile. They had fun, but got very muddy (as did the wagon) in the process.

Perhaps a Prescription?

I've gone from getting extremely anxious to getting seriously spastic every time I visit the house these days. Things are getting SO close to being done, and I am SO tired of living in this apartment (and while we are on the subject of being SO tired of things, I'll mention that I'm SO tired of being J's cyber school teacher...she's tired of me too). I pace. I jump around. I growl. For some reason, none of these things seem to make things happen any faster. We have 5 more days of school, and 3 more weeks of apartment living. I wonder if JP could put me in a medically induced coma until then?

Lots of guys working out at the house today!

Today they are priming the walls. The primer is tinted, so the colors are similar to the final thing. Our "weeping willow" is very nice, although lighter than I anticipated. They didn't have the girl's room primed yet, so I still don't know what the "lemon mint" will look like. Through some miscommunication, the builder thought I wanted the mud/utility/T's Own Private Room to be "butter". After I thought about it, I thought it might be quite stimulating, so we're going with it! This is a shot...sorry it's so dark...of the green color in the library.

They have nearly finished the siding on the entrance side of the house, including soffit over the door. There should still be some cedar detailing over the front door.

The last green door for the breezeway is in. There will be one more door on the other side of the breezeway, and then the house will be closed up!

Here is the cork flooring that we picked up in Pittsburgh yesterday. It will go in the library. I love the way it looks!

The well man finished putting in the rain water cistern. It's not exactly what we were anticipating, but he hit bedrock one foot too shallow, and we told him not to jack-hammer. He also found another spring, which is why the hole was full of water in my last post.

I counted nearly 100 light bulbs that we will need for the house. That's a small fortune when you are considering compact fluorescent bulbs throughout. Anyone know where you can buy light bulbs in bulk?

I can see clearly now (the rain is gone!)

On this beautiful Thursday, the UPS man delivered 3 BIG boxes to our tiny apartment. Most of the lighting has arrived (check) and the gas/propane stove top (check). This necessitated a trip to the property since they took up most of the room in our kitchen/dining room!

Out at the house, the shingles are ON (check)!

Did you notice a bare spot on the garage? That is for the cupola to hold my flying pig weather vane. I forgot about it until I saw that our wonderful builder had not.

The siding is going up on the front of the house, with help from the "Lull". Here is one of the crew in a box working up there.

It is completed underneath the deck, including the first set of green french doors (check).

The dry wall is almost all up. It should be ready to paint in another week. I am so excited I can almost taste it!

Color Samples

Here I am, wasting time on the computer, when I should be doing school with J! I just wanted to post an idea of the exterior color scheme. So here is an idea:

Keep in mind: 1) The colors are not exact because we are getting our siding, shingles, windows, doors and paint from different companies, not just the one that had the sample. 2) There will be no shutters. 3) The gingerbread on the eaves is tentative...just brainstorming at the moment.

Ta-da!

Happy to be Here

The builder called today and said he had window and shingle samples to bring by later. I offered to meet him at the building site so I could see how things are coming along. They have all the structure framing finished, and have boarded up windows, doors and the stairwell downstairs in order to maximize warmth down there.

L slipped on some ice and fell in the mud. Going out in the cold with her is tenuous at best, and this incident put her over the edge. "I code. I wanna go home!"

Now we need to pick windows. I think this is what we are going with, without the grilles.

We thought for a brief minute that metal prices had come down enough lately to make our metal roof affordable. They have come down, the builder informed me, but are still more expensive than when he gave us a quote last Spring. Bummer. We are interested in these shingles in Hunter Green.

We are supposed to be thinking about exterior doors now. What color are those going to be? We ended up with white garage doors because that was the only color we could get FAST, and we needed to use the garage in a hurry. Do we go with white, green, taupe (like the garage) or some other accent color??? HELP!