New Home: Hectic Schedule

So here is our hectic schedule for this month. Add to that my meetings with various contractors about twice a week at the house either before work or on my lunch breaks (like my meeter with the carpenter from 10-11 today) and let's just say my sorely neglected laundry is unfortunately taking a backseat to the house projects (thanks Mom for throwing my clothes in the dryer the other day!)

I also sent this schedule to our builder so he knows what our deadlines are for our "sweat equity" so he can plan around that and to give us the head's up if he needs us to move a deadline up or make a project a priority to work with his schedule.

So what does tonight look like for me? I have to run to Lowes to pick up more bead board and chair rail and then back to the house to paint trim til the sun goes down. Charles will be installing cabinets all night and my dad will be finishing up staining the stair rails....We seriously would not have been able to get even half of this stuff done without my dad helping us with the work and my mom being our babysitter every night...once this is over we owe our "orphan" daughter a month of family nights putting together puzzles (her fave activity). The end is near!

New Home: Big Things Happening...and Big Stress

These past few weeks have been crazy busy with the house. I didn't think that we really were doing that much for sweat equity....but it just so happens that everything we are doing has to be done within a 2-3 week period of time....so that makes for just a little bit of stress, plus Isabelle and I have been sick all weekend so that cut back on what I was able to accomplish this weekend as well. The tiling was WAY more work than we thought it would be. My dad and Charles ended up getting the upstairs bathrooms done but we had to hire someone to finish the laundry room and main floor bath. That was probably the most stressful part of the process so far. The timeline was short to get it done and it was a miracle that we were actually able to find someone on short notice for a decent price. Here are some of the things happening at the house the past few weeks:

Saturday we got our cabinets delivered from Ikea. Everything comes individually wrapped so there were 158 packages for me to inventory. They forgot to give us 1 cabinet frame and gave us 1 drawer the wrong size but we had to go out there that night anyways for our anniversary dinner so we just picked up the correct items while we were out there.

My dad and Charles put together all the cabinet frames. The counter top measuring takes place on the 7th so all the base cabinet frames need to be installed by then.

The trim went in upstairs this past week and now I have 2 weeks to get all the trim and doors painted. We went with the higher (4.5 in) baseboards in the house, and I'm so glad we did. They look amazing!

The main floor bathroom tile:

The master bathroom tile (I need to get over there and wipe off the grout haze). It's white tile with light gray grout. Ignore the paint color...it's way to blue for me so I brought the paint back and had them "fix" it so it will be a different color when it is all done.

The mudroom/laundry room tile:

Charles' Bathroom Tile:

Hardwood floors got started Thursday and should be finished up today! They are kinda dusty looking now so I'll have to take a better picture once they are cleaned up. I won't be able to do that until the very end though because the builder is covering them up for the next couple weeks so that people aren't walking on them.

Saturday Charles and I celebrated our Fifth Wedding Anniversary. We spent the morning running to Lowes and Target with Isabelle, then went to the house while our cabinets were being delivered, back to my parents for lunch and then spent 4 hours putting all the cabinets together, by the time we got home it was 7:15 so we quickly cleaned up and ran out the door at 7:30 so we could make it to Ikea before they closed. After Ikea we went out for dinner at Big Bowl and each got Pad Thai (our fave Asian meal). We talked about how we never dreamed this is what our 5 year anniversary would look like when we first got married (I of course had unrealistic dreams of touring Italy) but we both agreed that it was the perfect anniversary, filled with family and each other and we couldn't really think of anything else we would have wanted to do (except maybe be in our own place already). In exactly 1 month from today we close on our house!!! I'm so excited! I know the time is going to fly by, and I can't wait to finally be in our own place again.

New Home: Sheetrock Up!

Yay! The sheetrock is finally up, and it's really starting to feel like a house now. Next Thursday we have to get in there and start tiling all the bathrooms and the master shower....and I still don't have all the tile yet. Yikes! So I guess I will be forced to go shopping all weekend to look for some...I'm crushed, can you tell? =) They will be finished early next week with all the taping and mudding of the sheet rock and then the siding is going on, interior painting is being done and hopefully we can get all the tile in by the end of that weekend. The next 4 weeks are going to fly by with all the stuff we are doing, but I'm excited to see some of these finishes I've been shopping so hard to find are finally in!

Our Front porch....still waiting to add the columns, railing and stone work

Front Door/Entry way

Front half of the greatroom/livingroom

 

Back half of the greatroom/livingroom, deck will eventually be off of here whenever we get around to building one

Kitchen- My goal next week is to map out what cabinets I want and where I want them and get them ordered

Charles measure out the kitchen for me so I know how much space I have to fit cabinets into

Kitchen Pantry- I'm doing base cabinets in here too

Dining Room- I love the huge windows and the great view

Downstairs Hallway off kitchen- first door on the right is a half bath, and then there will be a door that will shut off the mudroom/laundry room from the rest of this hallway. It was too dark to take pictures of the half bath and mudroom/laundry room

Stairs going from main floor up to second floor- still waiting on the railing for the left side

Upstairs hallway- room straight ahead is the master, door on the left is the guest room, and Isabelle's room/guest bath/bonus room are behind/right where I'm taking the picture from

Master Bedroom

Sitting area in master bedroom

Master Bathroom

Base for the glass shower- I have to go buy the tile and cement board for it this week

Where the double vanity will go

Where the clawfoot tub will sit- I'm going to have to find something to frost that window with though so the neighbors don't get to "see" more of us than they would like

Isabelle's Room

The space on the right will be her closet and the space on the left will be a built in desk

Guest Room

Charles' bathroom (until Isabelle gets older)/Guest Bath, Right wall is where two single vanities will be separated with a foot between them

Shower and huge linen closet...not sure what all I'm going to put in there yet

Future Bonus Room above garage

Stairs from main floor going down to basement

That back wall will be where the future 4th bedroom will be and the black pipes sticking up are where the future bathroom will be

Future Pool Table area or maybe mini gym area

Future "movie theater" area for screen and projector