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.

Close up with the Kitchen Cabinets

Thought a look at the kitchen plan might be fun.  Everything below countertops will be in the stained cherry, and above will be painted white.  The refrigerator cabinet will be all white to the ceiling.  Interesting thing about refrigerators, countertop depth refrigerators are crazy expensive - I mean CRAZY. So we had the wall behind the fridge framed to hold a standard depth fridge, but have the front align to counter depth.  Who knows, might not look any different.

Not a lot of uppers because of the windows in the kitchen. Also, having a pantry helped us keep the number of cabinets down.

Here's the fridge wall.  The door to the mudroom and powder room are to the right of the fridge.

And the island.  Should hold 1 stool on the end and at least 3 along the length.  Notice the microwave drawer  - this will be a learning experience, but we just didn't want to give up any counter space.  With a hood, you also give up the space above the stove.   

This weekend, we visited a granite place in Farmington, DDF Jet Cutting.  Great prices and nice stock. The same granite that would have been $60 - $70 installed elsewhere is $37 installed through them!  We are having them install in our current house before we sell, so we will know if we want to go with them for the new house.  Might be a way for us to get all granite (price-wise) instead of only on the island....  fingers crossed!

Wood and ivory

We set out this morning for St. Michael, site of our cabinet shop, Great Ideas.  We needed to decide on the wood species for our cabinets and other wood built ins.  The birch floors have thrown the whole equation out of balance, so off to find zen (equation) balance again.  

We have found a balance that makes us both happy with stained cherry.  And thankfully it all looks good with the lot of Restoration Hardware knobs and pulls that we bought on Craigslist.  

The kitchen base cabinets and island will be in the stained cherry at the back.  The few upper cabinets will be in the painted white.   

In other news, Lucy has found that there is a piano in her bedroom.