House Improvement

I know, I know....I should be blogging about my Nashville trip and what I learned, the wonderful girls I met and reunited with, etc, etc.
But that post just seems too overwhelming right now for a headache and a late Tuesday night. So here is a post about our new home improvement that took place Sunday evening.

Hubby says to me: "You want to help me put up our chandelier? It should only take about an hour and a half." Well, little did I know that finally about four hours later we would be admiring our handy work, finished, lit up and correctly positioned in the window.

I guess the two lessons I took away from Sunday night with my husband are:

1) It will always take longer than expected.

2) Never take flash photography when your husband (who incidentally is afraid of heights!) is balancing on two planks between two rickety ladders about 15 feet in the air trying to connect a lamp to the electric circuit. He may just think that he's being electrocuted....

OOOOOOOPS!

House Update...again...

Getting closer....

We are getting carpet this week, upstairs today and our master bedroom on Friday. Yeah!
















Also pouring more concrete outside to finish part of the patio.

Got our appliances last week and have installed a few already, some are still in the boxes...just not enough hours in the day.

Our countertop for the kitchen is supposed to come on Friday also.

On Saturday we had soem parts of the reiling brought over to see if they fit. And to our amazement they were perfect. What's a 1/2 inch in a time of crisis... LOL

Tuesday last week I spent the day taping off and painting my daughter's room. It's now a vibrant shade of puprle called "Sassy Lilac", which I found super fitting.

The kid's bathroom upstairs is almost completed with tile too, just a few tiny touch ups and the vanity which is in the mail.

Update!

Don't really have time for a lot of writing so I'll post some photos and call it good.

After putting in most of the light bulbs downstairs and up, (we were still short about 50 or so after purchasing 74!), we stained our concrete floors on May 19th and they turned out wonderful. The rust color is all through the downstairs except for the master bedroom and my scrapbook studio. I picked a more neural grey/black which I love the way it turned out.

Then we have most of the trim work done, the doors installed and trimmed out and Martin, Adam, Grace & I screwed on almost all of the electrical outlets and light switches.

So here are some more... the fireplace, the front door.

Our kitchen being installed.

On the outside of the house we've put on black gutters and white downspouts which will be painted later.

We've also forked out a lot of $$$ for ordering the carpet we will install upstairs in all the rooms except for the bathroom. Here's a picture of what will go into the Master Bedroom downstairs.

I think we've also got the counter top choice narrowed down. So not what we had both pictured, but several people we asked for opinions were instantly drawn to this one, so it must look good.

We've also picked some tile for the master and are in discussion for the other two baths.
This weekend we are having the painters working on getting everything ready to paint the trim and doors so that come next week we can complete the clean-up in preparation for carpet and tile.

Exciting stuff. Tune back in for further updates in the near future.

More House Stuff...

here are the two new things we are trying since this weekend; a new color (surprise!) and the trim around the window. I am kind of on the fence about the color, altought it seem sot be the best so far. On the trim I think we need to go with the same width on the bottom as the sides, as opposed ot the top and bottom being wider. What do you think?

Still Struggling...

with decisions about our new house. As you can see here:

We had a visit from my aunt Verena, her daughter Sydney and her hubby Chris, from North Vancouver today. She took pity on us and helped us out with some great advice for our color choices on the paints. They also are going to help us finish the concrete floors with color and sealant. Hoping to do all this in the next couple of weeks. So things are moving along...

Here's a picture of the front of the house:

So it looks like we may have a decision on the house body & trim paint. I'll let you know...

House Framing Coming Along...

Well, it's not proceeding as planned, but what ever does? Progress is being made and for that we are thankful. Here's my scraproom...and the view facing the kitchen french doors leading out to the covered deck, eventually! LOL

House Building Update!

Well, I've been meaning to post some pictures of our building project for a long time now...but you know how it is.
We started the whole thing way back in November of last year when I made the appointment for a permit application. The first open slot was for March, so that already put us out almost 1/2 year. Then we brought in our houseplans which we bought on the internet. This is a picture of the original plans:
We took these to an architect, who sucks BTW, and had them altered. We added a bay to the garage, a bonus room over the garage and several extra bathrooms, you know those darn plumbers, can't have too many bathrooms. LOL We started with 2500 square feet and now have 35oo square feet after alterations. There were other changes made later on but not by the architect. We had enough problems with what he did/didn't do...
We finally started prepping the site on August 1st of this year by mowing the lot. Since then we've put in most of the drainage ditches, sprinkler system, electrical, septic tank, cable, etc. Concrete work started on the 13th of September with forms being installed for the foundation pour later that month. The plumbing was put in on the 25th and the infloor heat piping was stapled on the insulation foam on the 29th. We had the concrete guys pour the floor on October the 10th, after which I was watering concrete for two days straight so it wouldn't crack. Of course both of those days were gorgeous and sunny so it had to be watered every 15 minutes. On the 23rd of October we finally started the framing after a week long delay. So that's the stage we are at now...today being the 2nd of November and pouring rain this morning. So the framers left after an hour and then it stopped raining. Of Course!!!
Watch for an update in the next month...