Updates!

The house is coming along! The drywall was floated and taped and then we had to wait for it to dry. Kind of hard when we were experiencing some very cold, wet days! 

Once everything was dry the guys textured the walls and this week the trim went up! We are LOVE LOVE LOVING it. So pretty :) 

The shelving and hanging bars have been installed in the closets. This house is going to have so much storage. I'm so excited!

Our fabulous doors went in. We are so glad we splurged for the more expensive ones! They are going to look so awesome once the doorknobs are on there! 

Couldn't remember if I'd posted a picture of our gorgeous back patio. Our architect did an amazing job designing it, and our builder did an awesome job building it! Those squares will eventually be covered in screens that can be removed. We can't wait to spend time out there!

This week we've been working on picking paint colors. The only room giving me trouble is Anderson's room! He wants it to be green, but I'm having such a hard time find a good green that isn't too blue or too limey. I'll post our final selections once we have made them! 

Tree Trimming

Before:

After:

Big change, but the good news is that we can now see our gorgeous second story :)

Insulation and Drywall

It has been a busy few days at the house. First insulation went in, then it was inspected. Now drywall is going in, next it will be inspected. There are real walls now!

The screen porch is starting to come together. It is going to be a great space for our family.

The columns were finished out and painted. Love them!

Today the tree trimmers came by to clean up the trees front and back. See those pretty light green limbs in the photo above? Totally gone now! It was a huge shock to drive up to the house to see that ash tree totally naked, but I guess it needed to be done. It will take some getting used to- hopefully in the summer it will fill out and look great! Makes me realize even more now that we really need to figure out landscaping as soon as the house is done. We need a little lipgloss on this beautiful girl! 

Porch Stain

Eric and I had a really hard time picking out a stain color for the front door and the front and back porch ceiling. There are some restaurants and swanky bars around town that have gorgeous stained ceilings, but we just couldn't seem to find a color that went well with the house color and was something we would be willing to put on our gorgeous custom made front door.

Luckily in a moment of desperation I remembered that some friends of ours have a really beautiful wood exterior on part of their house and the stain color is awesome. A few texts and a trip to Sherwin Williams later and we had a color we both loved!

Here's the sample board we used. The color we chose is the sample on the bottom.

Here it is in action. So pretty! 

Another picture :) Gorgeous! Can't wait to see it with the new door! 

House Paint

Lots of emails flying around this week! Security wiring quotes, kitchen cabinet redesign, moving windows.... I guess it was just another week in the life of someone building a home! 

Here is a picture of the peninsula before we made it two feet shorter. We thought it crowded the stairs too much.  The window on the right is also going to be moved over 5 inches to accommodate the overhang of the peninsula. 

And here's the house today- hello paint! 

We love the way the second story looks with the white trim. At the last minute I decided to keep the vertical trim boards at the corners of the house the same color as the base, but I'm thinking that was a mistake. A house that we love up the street has it that way, but with our greenish-gray color we think the white trim really pops. There is still more work to be done on the front view (finish and paint the columns white, trim out the door etc.) We'll see how the front view looks once it is further along, but I suspect I might decide to change it back to the original plan. Ops! 

Preparing for Vacation

We are leaving for vacation for all of next week, so we've been busy making decisions about the house so things can continue while we're gone.

We had a bit of drama at the end of last week that resulted in us deciding to shorten the peninsula in kitchen. We are also going to lose a few cabinets in the kitchen, so our architect is working on re-working the cabinet plans.

Meanwhile, today I spent a bunch of time pricing out our appliances and meeting with vendors. I also made final decisions about paint and trim and started trying to decide what color stain to put on the patio ceilings. I need to take a picture, but it is a really lovely pine ceiling that we think will look just fabulous when it is stained. Now we just have to decide what color! We're guessing we will probably stain the front door the same color, so it is a big decision!

I need to update with pictures. I'll try to get some tomorrow!

Siding!

Yesterday the kids and I met Eric downtown for lunch, and since we were in the area we decided to swing by the house (oooh weee can't wait until we live closer to Eric's office!). 

We were greeted with a happy surprise- most of the siding and trim is complete! 

The shingles in the gable are a little different than what we expected, but we think it will all look great once it is painted. We are still trying to decide if those shingles should be a different color than the rest of the house. Here's a picture of a house with our paint color (Sherwin Williams Rare Gray- the second line from the top in the paint samples above). If we were to do a darker color in the gable we would probably do the same green as the one below: 

We think this house looks great, so time will tell if we copy it exactly! Note: the trim on our house is pure white instead of cream. 

In other news, our builder decided to remove/replace all of the drywall in the house- sweet! When the drywall was removed in the dining room, look what we discovered behind it- the old spot for an original window! It was covered up when the master bedroom addition was done who knows how many years ago. I think it is so cool to discover little things like this :) Now that all of the ceiling and drywall is removed I think this is the last little surprise we'll find, but I guess you never know!