2-Hour Subcontractor Blitz

2 Hours, 4 Subcontractors.  With the scheduling leading up to the move-in date, there is not a lot of excess time to deliberate on decisions.  I took 2 hours off this morning and met with 4 subcontractors and our GC.  I thought treats were in order, so I took a coffee cake...  I had to push it on the guys!  Next time, apples and Mueslix.  

1.  Mudroom Floor

First up, the mudroom floor.  I wasn't exactly sure how I wanted the layout, so I had ordered and 80% light (127 Warm Beige) / 20% dark (239 Brown Earth) color mix.  J.O. Thompson in St. Paul will be doing the mudroom tile and carpet.  It took us about 15 minutes and we have a fun, slightly quirky pattern - still geometric and symmetric, of course.

View in from the back door, the dark tiles take you to a rug detail in the hall outside of the powder room.  

Since light will be a little sparse in the mudroom, I opted for more light tiles in the mudroom.  I love a checkerboard pattern, but it seemed a little busy in this room, especially since we have 2-toned cabinets.

I got my checkerboard pattern in the small powder room.   Brown chocolate walls are coming, too!  

We used Vinyl Composite Tiles (VCT) from Mannington.  These are usually used in industrial applications and are very, very cheap - only $.99 a square foot for almost any color under the sun.  We like the idea of basically indestructible, industrial-feeling, cheap stuff.  This will be a couple hundred dollars cheaper than sheet vinyl - score!

2.  Excavator

After a weekend meeting with a landscaper, we have an initial plan.  I needed to let our excavator know what this meant for moving dirt around and brining in black dirt so stuff will actually grow.  Much yet to do here, but we think there will be a raised bed directly behind the house with an 18" wall, perfect height for sitting.  Then a patio will tie into the drive way to provide a space to turn around.

A hand drawn plan is as good as it's going to get for now.  The excavator needed to take the plan, so this picture is all that I have.

3.  Glass/Mirror Guy

Two areas needed love from the glass guy from Minneapolis Glass.  The master shower is getting a frameless glass shower door with the equivalent of RainEx on the glass so it doesn't etch.  We also are getting a mirror made for above the kid's vanity.  Pretty cheap and a weird dimension, so a no-brainer.  

4.  Painter

The house is being brought to you by Valspar.  Yes, that is where Andy works, but supporting his company is only a bonus because the paint is so fabulous!  I am only sort of kidding, after 2 homes with almost every surface painted, Valspar is a complete standout.  So, happy to oblige :)

All the pretty Valspar cans lined up and ready to bring color to our 2nd floor.   Lucy thinks this will be just like her painting at school...  I hope not, no offense kid.

A brief look at the interior color pallet.  What you don't see are a couple of grays for the bedrooms, but hopefully I can show you that once they are on the walls.

Pillars, stairs & garage - Oh My!

Just pictures!  World's easiest post :)

Front pillars are trimmed in Miratek boards, an engineered product that once painted, should be fairly low maintenance.

The pillar profile has just a few details on the corners.

Stairs are up!  Thankfully the stair width still feels spacious.

Garage framing has begun!  Yee ha!

Go! Go! Go!

Two days since the last update - here's the skinny.

Mudroom
The cabinets are starting to take shape in the mudroom.  Flooring goes in on Monday morning, then all cabinets can be secured in the mudroom.

The white upright cabinet is a broom closet, just general storage.  The cherry cabinet on the left will have a powered charging drawer for phones, electronics, etc.  The top is going to be granite to match the kitchen, kind of a food/drink staging area for entertaining in the back yard.

This one's a little harder to explain.  There won't be lockers, but there will be a bench.  The uppers will be general storage.

Fireplace
It's finally finished off and prepped for paint.  Current plan is that the fireplace bump out will be a dark brown, but no mantle, tile or rock. Someday we might add built ins on either side of the fireplace.

Rails and stair parts
The first permanent stair parts are in place.  If you haven't noticed, we're not big on curves or bevels.

The secret behind the plastic

I wanted to check on the painting progress and found the entire 2nd floor covered in plastic in quarantine-fashion 

No peeking!  

I found a little piece of loose plastic, small enough for a cell phone camera...  the trim has been sprayed!

Basement/Laundry Room
This is as "finished" as the basement is going to get.  We had the laundry room framed and the exterior walls, but that's the end.

Progress and undocumented features

All sorts of stuff that I can't show you... Every time something gets done, it gets covered. The master shower, the front entry, the wood floor. Probably good thing since the paint will start to fly in the next few days.

Sorry about the order of this post, it's via iPhone, so not as much control.

Done this week:
:) kitchen cabinets installed
:( kitchen cabs had one unintended "feature" - had to build out the soffit above the fridge cabinet because the moulding would have stick out
:) hood installed
:) granite measured
:) tile completed
:( it's killing me that I can't see it because...
:) painter masked the entire upstairs
:) stair treads mostly installed but
:( lumber yard originally ordered the wrong newel posts - thank goodness that was caught, they were hideous
:) chose all remaining kitchen appliances (will probably cover in more detail once installed) - thank you Warners Stellian!
:( met with landscaper and became completely overwhelmed with the needed work that is outside of the build budget
:( Front door arrived and was not what we expected, another lumberyard switcheroo, reordered a different door, but...
:) we now get a free service door for the garage

Up this week:
- paint in the upstairs!
- hopefully flooring will get installed in the mudroom
- stair rails installed
- garage building begins

And now for random pictures!

Tile smile

I have tiled three bathrooms.  They were fairly simple, still each took me days and looked like rookie jobs.  In one day, the professionals made significant progress on two bathrooms and they look perfect!

Love the way the oversized subway tiles look!  Also, the corner shelves are better looking than I thought, they are cut into the tile, I was anticipating surface mounted.

A look at the porcelain tile that looks like marble.  

The master shower is also coming along.  The walls are also the porcelain tile, but the floor and accent strip are marble.

The kitchen cabinets are being mounted and getting ready for the granite.  Saturday, we drove out to our granite friends, DDF Jet Cutting in Farmington and picked out the granite for the kitchen.  We get measured on Wednesday!

I wish I remembered what it was called, but here it is.  We'll use the rusty color for the island, the neutral swoopy parts will be used around the rest of the kitchen and on a cabinet in the mud room.

Uppers are in place ready for the hood and some crown moulding.  We will be moving it from the storage unit on Thursday for installation.  Now that we have granite picked out, we need to choose some backsplash tile!

Finally, Lucy brought her baby to the site to give it a tour.  Baby seemed to like how it was coming together

First baby got pinned against a wall in the closet. 

Then, baby was put in the hole for the microwave drawer... maybe we need to keep an eye on that microwave.

Closets, cabinets and a giant slab of concrete

The main floor floors have been sanded and poly'd.  The brief glimpse that I was able to see, the floors were still wet so it was difficult to get close.  Since taking this picture, they have been covered so this is as good as it is going to get for a while.

The birch floors are looking pretty sharp!

I had a quick meeting with the carpenters this week to plan the closets.  Kind of fun!  I am so used to small, limited closets.  I think I will need to acquire a clothing habit to fill mine...

Andy's closet, room for a dresser and way more hanging space than he'll need.

Kid #2's closet - shelves and 2 hanging bars.

The built ins in the loft area.  Kid's books and toys coming soon!

Tiling has begun in earnest, too.  Paul the tile guy is starting in the Master Bath.  The shower seat is now installed, backer board is in the shower and on the floor.  Tomorrow I have a quick meeting to finalize tile layout, then we just wait and watch.

Master shower coming along!

 Just like Legos, the kitchen cabinets are moving into place.  The scale of the space is still hard to imagine.  The cabinets just seem so tiny.

The island generally in place, give or take 3 feet.

A look out the back window shows some good progress with the garage.  The slab was poured today.  Finally able to see what the final sight lines will be - I think it will give us privacy where we need it, but still give us good views.

Finally, we are now able to get into the basement.  Yippee!

Pours. Floors. Doors. Drawers. (Say it aloud, very fun.)

If you were standing on our street at around 5:15 pm yesterday, you would have heard my voice through the front door yelling, "that's so COOL!" over and over.  Throughout the last week there has been ridiculous progress on many fronts.

Pours.
We have been accessing the house by traversing a board (see previous post re: goat bridge.)  We now have two very large concrete stoops, the front being a fairly significant specimen.  If it were ever to crack, I worry that my husband may never be able to focus on anything else (cracks do seem to bother him.)

Yup, solid.  I love this style of inset step, fits great with the prairie style.  As a friend said today, easy to image flower pots on both sides.

The back steps, looks like the top is small, but when you're up there it's just fine.

Floors.

With the 2nd floor all sanded and polyurethaned, the main floor was next.  The wood has been installed in every part but the stair treads.

As expected, there are some great boards of birch with fun character in visible areas.  I am looking forward to seeing some really pop with the finishing - zebra stripes?  Swirls?  Who knows?!

The wood transitions are in place.  The one that leads to the front door will butt up against tile.  The back will butt up to what we think will be VCT Tiles (more to come on that in a future post.)

Doors.
Interior doors and trim are popping up all over!  Today we even got to see our first pocket door hung - the first of many.  With a smaller house, door swing kind of cramps your style.

The 3-panel look that will be EVERYWHERE.  I hope it doesn't get old.

And when I say "everywhere", I mean - EVERYWHERE.  Here are kid #2's closet doors, same style.

Doors also apply to cabinet doors - we found our kitchen actually located in our den.  The stained cherry finish looks great!

This was a late change.  The master bath cabinet was changed from the stained cherry, to an ebony stained alder cabinet.  Alder because it takes stain well and is cheaper.  Ebony because the entire bath will be black and white.  I love it.

Drawers.
This is the best thing yet.  The kids' bath will have a 36" vanity.  With 2 kids' stuff to hide, we thought drawers would make the most sense.  Our cabinet maker said that 36" cabs look too busy with drawers and suggested this little innovation (it's probably been around forever, but new to us.)  A seemingly single drawer from the front opens to a double - no TRIPLE - drawer!  This will prevent many fights between children about their stuff touching.

Still room for plumbing in the middle.  Brilliant.