We have a second floor!

The framers have moved up to the second floor. The second floor is the master bedroom, master bathroom, laundry room, and my sewing studio. We weren't able to walk around up there because the framers didn't leave any ladders around for us - imagine that!

Here is the view coming up the driveway...
This is looking up through the stairwell toward what will be our laundry room and master bathroom. I noticed that this area has not been framed correctly. The framers used the original blueprints instead of the design that we had our kitchen designer come up with for these rooms. Our kitchen designer completely changed the arrangement of the laundry room and bathroom, so this area will need to be re-done. DH called the builder while we were there and let him know that it isn't right. This is a shot of the outside of the newly built master bathroom. There will be two windows in this section. The master bathroom is directly over the kitchen.
This is my sewing studio. I so wanted to get up there and walk around the area, but I wasn't about to scale the wall. :-D
I took an online class, Studio Makeover, with Myrna Giesbrecht in March 2007 through Quilt University. Myrna helped me to come up with this design for my new Sewing Studio. The yellow pieces are storage, green are seats, orange are work surface areas, and pink are design walls. The photo above was taken from the viewpoint of the lower right corner of this floorplan.

Moving right along...

We were anxious to get out to the house and see what has been done. DH and I headed out there around lunchtime and found the interior walls on the first floor are done and the framers are now working on the joists for the second floor. I'm not sure how well things can be seen in the photos - they might just look like a jumble of 2x4s! Clicking on the photos to enlarge them will help a bit...

Alongside of the driveway was this interesting ice formation...

The garage has been framed...
DH standing in my pantry... The upper level of windows in the great room have been opened up...
View looking from the music room toward the stairs and family room...
I wonder if they could have used a few more 2x4s? :-D
We think we've decided on the exterior materials and colors for the house. The copper-colored metal goes above the front door, the shingles color is "driftwood" and is the one that the lower corner of the copper piece is touching, the hardie board color is Cobble Stone, the brick is Boral Old Salem, the Pella window trim color is Putty, and the chimney and bottom of the columns by the front door will be covered in El Dorado stone - Meseta Fieldledge. That's a lot of different materials!

The views are fabulous!

After a meeting with the kitchen designer this morning, and a stop at Bruegger's for bagels, DH and I headed out to the house to see what progress has been made. I think this is the largest gap between visits - it's been 9 days since we were last out there. We now have first floor exterior walls, some interior walls and most window and door cutouts, so we were really able to get a good feel for how large the rooms will be and what the views are from each room.

I've included quite a few photos today. If you click on the photos, you'll be able to view them larger and it might be easier to see the details...

Here is a panoramic view of the front of the house. The garage foundation can be see at an angle on the left (the garage meets the mudroom at a 45 degree angle). The temporary ramp going into the house is actually going through a window. The front door is the opening to the left of the ramp.

This is the view from the family room looking out toward the river. This is similar to what the second floor (our master bedroom) and the third floor (DD's room) will look like.
This is also a shot of the family room - these will be French doors opening out onto a patio. The angled wall to the left of the French doors are the angled kitchen windows. This is the great room wall which will have 8 windows. The ceiling in this room is vaulted...
Here is a panoramic shot of the view from one of the kitchen windows...I'm so excited!
And I can see my favorite tree from the kitchen windows!

Beams and subfloor...

Last week DS and I were out at the property around noontime, which is when I took the photos of the basement wall framing. DH stopped out there the same day, but around 4pm and he said that some of the steel beams were in place (which is the reason the guy was using the sledgehammer on the concrete block - it was a hole for the steel beam). It's amazing to me how fast this house is going up!

Today they were working on putting in the joists and the subfloor (decking) for the first floor.

We have an appointment with the builder tonight and will then stop at the flooring store to review our choices for flooring.

Framing started!

The back wall of the basement was framed in today when we stopped by...

One of the guys was taking a sledgehammer to a concrete block - not sure what that was all about...
Here is a panoramic shot of the garage foundation. I stitched 3 photos together so ignore the back right corner where it looks like the wall is wavy! :-D Hopefully, you can see from this how the garage connects to the house (Susie!).

Kitchen design

We haven't been out to see the house progress since last Friday, but I assume the only thing that has been done is the finishing of the garage foundation. Our builder thinks the framers will start this week, or next, so we'll head over in a couple of days to see what has been done.

I thought I would share our kitchen design with you. The kitchen sink that I wanted is iffy at the moment, as there is no easy way to center it under the 3-pane kitchen window and it will look odd if it is not centered. If we center it, we lose all kinds of space on either side of it and won't have room for the pull-out waste basket and recycling bin, so the kitchen sink is up in the air at the moment. I will probably have to go with a smaller one.


These photos are a bit skewed - the angle of the cupboards and counter are nowhere near that sharp (next photo), but it is the perspective that the photos were printed out at. The island is 2 levels and will be 2 different materials, but I haven't decided what those materials will be yet. The blue was supposed to be the Alkemi (http://bellsrus.blogspot.com/2007/08/kitchen-countertops.html), but it is more expensive than granite, so we will not be using it on the island. The lower side of the island is table height - 30" and the higher side is counter height - 36". The lower side will be for rolling out dough. The area at the far end is a beverage area - ice maker, small beverage refrigerator, wine glass storage, etc. and my second oven will be there. The door to the right leads to a walk-in pantry which will be lined with shelves.

This is the view of the kitchen from the adjoining family room, which has a fireplace and will be our dining room with a large table. On the right in the family room there will be French doors leading out to a patio area.