Getting Close

We are getting very close! We almoooost got the certificate of occupancy from the city today, but they ended up wanting us to get a survey done on the property to make sure we didn't go over the allowed impervious cover percentage. Luckily the survey company was able to come out within a few minutes (which we were told is really rare!) so we should be able to get that for the city in order to do another inspection on Monday. 

Until then, the painters are busy taking care of touch-ups and we are busy packing! During one of our many visits to the house this week the kids enjoyed rolling around on the newly installed carpet in their playroom. 

Door hardware was installed!

Knobs and pulls went on the cabinets.

Loving our breakfast area light fixture :)

New fridge arrived today. Whew, MUCH better! 

Couple More Days

We were at the house today during a flurry of activity- painters, HVAC guys, cleaners- it was exciting! Tomorrow I will go over and have at it with the blue tape- marking all of the spots that need final touch-ups.

Here's a picture of the kitchen looking to the back yard. We decided at the last minute to stain the back door to match the front door rather than painting it white. We are LOVING the way it looks! In other news- see the fridge on the left side of the photo? We were hoping it wouldn't stick out that far. Yesterday I had to scramble to find one that would fit better- and was in stock- a tall order but luckily I prevailed! Lowe's will be picking up the old one on Friday- for free!- and Home Depot will be delivering the new, counter-depth one, the same day! Hopefully it will look better.

Here's the front door. Gorgeous! 

Our builder sent me this sneak peek image of the kids' bathroom cabinets with the newly added knobs/pulls. Looking good!

FINAL WEEK!

I can't believe we are already here- but this is the FINAL WEEK of construction! Even though we are at the full 180 days that it was projected to take, I'm still surprised it went by so quickly. I booked our movers today- we will be moving in to the new home one week from tomorrow! We have to get packing!

Today there was a flurry of activity at the house. We are doing the punch walk on Wednesday and then the city of Austin will [hopefully] be out Thursday to issue the certificate of occupancy. If that process goes smoothly we could start moving in as early as Friday night! Holy moly!!

Landscaping will start on Saturday. By this time next week you'll never know there was a construction site here!

Kitchen Backsplash

Marble & Granite

Our marble and granite went in yesterday and it all looks gorgeous! The counters in the kid's bathroom looks great-we love that it will match the look of our master bath. We are in LOVE with the marble in the kitchen- I'm glad we decided to go with it even though it isn't as strong as granite. Luckily it already has a scratch so we won't have to obsess over making the first one!

Ops

So much has gone on at the house this week! It is so exciting to stop by and see something totally new. The kids and I literally squeal with delight every time we notice what was done since the last time we visited (which is every day right now!) 

Yesterday the railing was installed- wohooo, we no longer have to worry about someone falling through the stair opening! Unfortunately my Type A and occasional OCD-ness noticed something right away where we made a mistake. The lower part is a standard round handrail, and the upper part is a gorgeous squared off railing. This looks really strange to me considering they connect at the landing. Ops. It will be a $300 mistake to fix :(. I guess mistakes like this are bound to happen since this is our first construction project- but you can be sure I won't make that one again! 

More Pics

Hello, Gorgeous!

A few months ago our friend who works at AG&M, our granite/marble supplier, called to tell us he had just received a shipment of gorgeous carrara marble. I hustled out there as quickly as I could to take a look at them because they were really big slabs- meaning with some luck we might be able to avoid an ugly seam in the middle of the peninsula.  Sure enough, they were fabulous so we put our names on two of the slabs.

Today I got to go out to our fabricator's yard to determine the cuts for the peninsula, island and other two counters. It was great to see the marble again, but man it was a lot of pressure! Some of it had veining, some of it was more speckled. I really had to try to envision what it will look like once it is installed. I hope I did a good job! I can't wait to see it on Saturday! (And the really good news is that the slabs were so big that there won't be ANY seams!!)

More Cabinets

This week the uppers on the cabinets went in as well as the built-in in the playroom, the drop zone cabinets and all the bathroom cabinets. The doors haven't been put on and they haven't been painted, but I can already tell it is going to look awesome!


Kitchen uppers:

Playroom built-in

Kid's bathroom:

Floors

Oooh doggie a lot is going on at the house this week! Today I met with the builder to determine the locations of towel holders and hooks etc. While I was at the house the cabinet guys were there in addition to the gutter company. It's coming together!

Last week Eric and I had to tackle the biggest question of this job- what color should we stain the wood floors (3 inch red oak)?? I think early on I got the impression Eric wanted light colored floors and he got the impression I wanted dark floors, but in the end we agreed on the same perfect medium brown. It looks so gorgeous! We are extremely happy with our selection.

Here are the swatches we looked at. It started with the one on the top right. We wanted it "less purple" so they did the second one over. Too light- can we make it darker? Top left- hrm, a little too orange. Bottom right- a little too green. Next one over is a combo of the one above it with the two on the right. Almost there- we pondered this one for a good bit of time. The poor flooring guys were just waiting on us- but man, it was a big decision! In the end we wanted it a tad darker so they did 50% top right and 50% bottom right, resulting in the sample on the bottom left. Perfect! We loved it. 

Here it is post- polyurethane. 

And here it is nice and dry and satiny. LOVE!