We were all set to head out to the new house and see the progress this morning when we discovered black ice at our current house.
Better safe than sorry – but I really wanted to see the hardwoods all finished!
This is the stain sample I approved earlier this week. Classic. Timeless. I love it.
Painting is inching along…I’m loving the richness of the trim color. So much better than stark white.
This is our builder, Walt. He’s a good guy.
He does not know that I have this blog.
I cannot wait to get rid of all of this plastic and tape! Though I do appreciate the thorough prep work.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, packing continues. I’m trying to stage most of the boxes upstairs in the middle of the house. Consequently, with the furniture against the wall, the dining room looks like a waiting room.
Bu is waiting for us to tell him what is going on.
The house continues to look more like a house each day, though we are *still* waiting on the county to hook us up with some electricity(!) Until we have power and are able to connect the HVAC and condition the house, we can’t proceed with grout, paint, staining floors, etc.
In the meantime, we are moving forward with everything else we can.
The balustrades are looking lovely.
The hall bath is looking classic and precious. The chair rail tile really makes my day.
The guest bath tile is complete, except for the grout.
Downstairs, the Dining room and Library fireplace surrounds are starting to look fabulous. Can’t wait until they put up the mantel surrounds!
But what really brings me joy is the entry checkerboard floor. I have wanted one of these my entire life.
I am also extremely excited about my closet. I had the trim guys build in a dresser for a more furniture-like look and I was a little nervous about them understanding my design intent, but they did a really nice job. Can’t wait to see the unfinished wood painted!
Meanwhile, outside, they have been working on the porches. The screened porch columns are in place but not yet trimmed out.
They also placed the massive classical columns on the front porch and side entry.
I am in love.
Though they still need to finish the trim at the top and paint them to match the house, they make a huge difference in the overall look.
Thanks to our neighbor for this photo of the snow we got last week!
I got to see it Friday when I arrived for my site meeting. Can you see the columns in the distance?
Now we need the shutters, which will really complete the exterior look.
The end is in sight! I’ve already started purging and prepping…
We have passed the one year mark of owning the property. Closing day seems like 100 years ago and last week at the same time. This feeling is only compounded by the roller coaster 2020 has been.
I know you’ve been on the edge of your seats since the last post, waiting for me to try parking my car in the garage. Last weekend was the big test, and though it was much easier to maneuver in my car than in my dad’s enormous truck, I did send some feedback to our landscape architect/site planner (my husband) that it would be really helpful to widen the driveway about 3 feet.
I have not yet received confirmation on this change order…
We have a roof!
The exterior is looking more and more buttoned-up each day. The painters are slated to start this weekend (yay!). The last big impact item will be finishing out the porches with the columns and ceilings. We are waiting on the front porch classical columns to arrive in the next few weeks. Though these toothpick temporary supports are necessary at the moment, they are sort of killing the vibe.
Without the appropriately scaled supports in place on the front porch, I think it looks like house has an overbite. Don’t worry, we’ll be putting in 16″ diameter columns to correct this.
I had a lovely open-air visit/picnic with friends that I hadn’t seen in person since March(!). This is my friend Jessica and her 14 month-old daughter Sophia. Sophia has literally doubled in age since I last saw her.
Sophia was a little skeptical at first, but she quickly made herself useful inspecting the plumbing. She also had a grand old time walking through walls and limboing under electrical wiring.
After the interior inspection, we had some lunch. Sophia was committed to getting the full porch experience, insisting on sitting in her mom’s chair and watching the neighbor’s horses.
We decided to walk off lunch and take a grounds tour. The roof is looking good from the treeline!
We have some new gravel to make the circle drive continuous. However, there are still several piles of material in the way keeping the “circle” aspect from being useful. I’ve watched many trucks attempt backing down the one section of the driveway and it’s never pretty. We have many bent pieces of rebar driveway markers to prove it.
Looks like the grounds crew’s efforts are paying off! This verdant patch here is all new growth, sewn by yours truly.
Yesterday, after my site meeting with our builder, I decided to put up some paint samples of the colors I’m considering for the porch ceilings.
Approximately, .02947 seconds after I took this picture, I was chasing after my samples across the porch. A storm was about to hit, thunder was cracking in the distance, and sudden wind gusts were sure to make my paint selection efforts futile. (Though frustrating at this point in time, sitting (safely) on a porch as a storm approaches is maybe one of my favorite things in life.)
Since the house is not painted yet and this yellow color of the raw Hardie siding will most certainly influence how these colors read, I should know better than to be doing this at this point in time. But, as I have mentioned before, I am my own worst client and I refuse to listen to myself.
Bearing in mind that the siding and trim will be very close to the color of the windows and that I am going for the “haint blue” ceiling effect to keep the evil spirits away, which color do you vote for? Left, top, or right?
Not a whole lot of progress at the house this week, unfortunately. Tradesman are slammed in the Nashville area, which is not good news for our house build, but it is good news for being able to pay for the house build, since both Josh and I work in professions related to construction.
We did get 8″ of rain at the property last Sunday, according to our neighbor. This helped to get the grass going. See it peeking through the straw matting?
They finished the first chimney this morning and are about 1/3 of the way done with the second. I am hoping they finish it this weekend so we can get the roof on next week and the bulk of the exterior trim and siding finished. That will be a HUGE deal to have the house looking fairly complete from the outside.
The siding and trim on the dormers is complete and I am SO PLEASED. It looks a little funny now because some of the material is white and some is beige (it will all be painted the same color), but I love all of the layers of detail. I’m a bit of a trim enthusiast as you can tell by my dormer detail from the plans:
Josh and I spread some more grass seed and erosion control matting this morning.
There was a different crew working on the chimney than had been there before and one of the guys came up to me and asked if I might have some mixed fuel for my weed eater (which he must have assumed we had in the truck) that he could borrow for his saw. I told him I didn’t have any, but if there was any on site, it would be in the garage.
I thought this was kind of odd, but then it occurred to me that he thought Josh and I were the lawn crew.
Primm & Property 