Posted on by Emily

Day 496

We arrived yesterday to find 47 painters hard at work.

The moving truck shows up in less than two weeks. Carpet goes in on Tuesday. We may need 47 more painters to be done on time.

It’s a good thing there’s a mask covering my face in this photo.

When I walked in earlier this week, the electrician told me he was “putting the jewelry on my house”. I’m going to miss him.

I’m so happy the dining room chandelier is in! I put this fixture in at our soon-to-be “old” house when I did the initial renovation. I still love it so it had to make the move with us. Thankfully, I had saved the extra wire and chain as the ceilings are 2 feet higher in the new house and I didn’t want the fixture hanging 8 feet off the floor. (They have it tucked up at the moment so people don’t run into it.)

Continuing on the subject of house jewelry, most of the door hardware is in. Egg knobs for the win!

Originally, I was going to do rectangular roses (backplates) but I am slightly neurotic about alignments and if they weren’t perfectly straight, it would drive me nuts.

At least I know this about myself.

And speaking of alignments, I went through and finalized where I want all of the cabinet hardware installed so I can make notes for the cabinet guys.

Somehow, I managed to hold up the hardware and my tape measure and make some sort of alien symbol with my fingers all while taking a picture.

I specified in my cabinet drawings for the space between wall ovens to be 48 inches above the floor. This gives a superb alignment for the center of the appliance pulls.

Details matter.

The transoms make me so happy.

The plumbers are *almost* done (we desperately need them to finish so we can call in for the final inspection!).

The kitchen plumbing is complete. Air switch for the disposal on the left (no fumbling around for the wall switch and turning on all of the lights in the process). A faucet I won years ago and have been hanging onto in the hopes that I would use it in my forever house someday (dreams do come true!). And, on the right, though I’m not one for lots of gadgets, a glass rinser, which was a gift from a vendor event (thanks, Delta!).

I am super excited about this for cleaning wine glasses and water bottles.

Still waiting on the rest of the shower trims in the master bath.

Hall bath fixtures are in!

Finally some wall color! The painter asked me three times if this was the correct color for this room. I assured him that it was and that I’m not afraid of rich walls.

This makes me so happy to see some color!

We are really going to be in business once the carpet is in this week.

It’s going to be a big week – wish us luck!

Posted on by Emily

Day 382

What do you think of our new furniture?!

Just kidding, we have a long way to go until it’s time for furniture.

We had a big inspection last week for the rough plumbing, HVAC, and framing. The inspector was cranky and came up with a list of things (several of which the builder and I have never heard of before) that need to be fixed before he’ll pass us. Still working on getting that completed.

In the meantime, we are bursting at the seams with insulation.

Progress continues on the exterior:

I am loving the paint color!

The black doors and shutters will add some much needed definition.

Less exciting but extremely necessary, they are putting in the septic system. I am not sure what all this entails and I don’t think I want to know. All I know is that the ugly orange fencing is gone and the open yard feels a million times better.

So much more open from the porch!

This will soon be a lovely, grassy field.

The cellar door is in! Getting close to being able to secure the house.

Perhaps most exciting of all in the last week, I selected our soapstone slabs for the kitchen and butler’s pantry. I am absolutely obsessed with them.

If you need me, I’ll be staring at pictures of my slabs.

Posted on by Emily

Day 371

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?

Posted on by Emily · 2 Comments

Day 357

Greetings! Happy Fall.

It’s been nearly 3 weeks since my last post. The reason for this is partly because we’ve had a lot of other things going on, but it is largely due to the fact that not much has been happening at the house.

The plumber saga dragged on for several weeks (injuries, surgeries, no shows…excuses, excuses) which has set us back nearly a month in getting our rough inspections complete so we can move on to insulation and drywall. They did finally show up this week and are almost finished (hallelujah!).

Tubs are set and water lines have been run…

Though I was not shy in expressing my displeasure about the pace of the interior progress, I have been delighted by the exterior progress.

We have porch floors!

And siding is almost complete. I have submitted the exterior finish schedule to the builder in preparation for the painters to start in a few weeks – bye bye, yellow!

I am so excited about the screened porch, I can hardly stand it.

I am in love with my door and window trim. I could stare at it all day. And I plan to, once the screened porch is finished.

We’ve also had some good progress on the grading. The Chia Pet dirt mound has had quite a haircut…

…and has been transferred to the front of the house to smooth out the slope around the driveway.

We arrived last Saturday for a meeting with our builder and upon inspecting this, Josh insisted we make an emergency trip to the CO-OP to pick up more seed and erosion control mats for this section.

Lawn crew reporting for duty.

My dad came to help the next day. This is like an acre of dirt.

Grass is starting to come in on the hill by the garage we worked on a few weeks back.

Just for fun, one day when my dad and Josh were off chopping down trees on the other side of the property, I decided to test out parking in the garage with my dad’s giant truck. Kath was a good sport and rode the 37 feet from where the truck was parked in the driveway to the garage, and then she got out to help direct me so I didn’t crash into anything. It took a 27 point turn for me to get into the first bay. So, I’m thinking a) we need to widen the driveway and b) I will be parking in the second bay if I get a vehicle larger than my small SUV.

Next time, I intend to try this exercise with my current vehicle. Stay tuned for the results. Oh, and for house updates.

Posted on by Emily · 1 Comment

Day 331

Well, well, well…

We have a well!

I stopped by for a quick site visit this week and this was happening in the backyard.

It amazes me that they can do this all in one day.

Mostly because of what they charge for this.

Nonetheless, I am THRILLED that we have a well, and therefore, a water supply. We are waiting on the official report, but our builder told us that they were somewhere around 140 feet down and getting 15 gallons per minute.

Continuing the exciting infrastructure tour, Walt, our builder, is seen here pointing to where the propane tank will be buried behind the garage.

And, lastly, here is the electrical thinger. It will have a cover and we can plant some shrubs strategically to block it from view as you come up the driveway.

We’ve been watching Yellowstone, Longmire, and now Justified lately so I am really feeling my 10 gallon hat shadow in these photos.

In other news, we have exterior doors! Front door…

French doors from the living room to the screen porch. I have a thing for French doors so these make me especially happy.

Kitchen door to the screen porch.

I’m also obsessed with transoms. There will be many throughout the house.

OK, back to the exterior: John graded the hill by the garage and it looks approximately 1 million times better.

They also put in the gravel driveway up to the garage, which means, were there not a bunch of supplies and bathtubs in the garage, I could park in the garage!!!

I will be doing this the first chance I get.

Having the hill graded meant it was time to seed and straw. This was our project yesterday morning. Here is Barry (my dad) loading up the erosion control matting at the local Farmers Co-op. I predict we will be back here many times over the next few decades.

My Dad and Josh did a fine job getting all of the matting and straw in place.

My job was to spread the seed. The workers did not know what to make of this. One day, I show up in business casual attire and am telling people what to do. The next day, I am wearing yoga pants and a fedora, spreading grass seed.

I like to keep them guessing.

The masons are almost done with the first chimney.

And they have started on the second.

We REALLY need them to finish the chimneys so the roofers can finish the flashing and put on the roof.

My other order of business yesterday was to paint some samples for the exterior.

I LOVE this color. It’s Benjamin Moore “Limestone”.

The exterior is coming along. I can’t wait to see the whole thing painted!