Sewing studio cabinets

I finally made it back to Lowe's to get the cabinet gurus to correct the mistakes on the prior cabinet layout. Here is what the wall of cabinets in the sewing studio will look like. The wall is 14' wide in this section of the room.
The 5 upper cabinets are hinged on the top. The tall pantry cabinets have roll out trays (4 in each) which will hold my baskets of fat quarters, the cabinet to the right of the desk is a filing cabinet, and the cabinet to the left of the tall pantry cabinets has flat storage. I thought this would come in handy for scrapbooking supplies.






I ordered a 50 lb. box of white newsprint in 20x30" sheets today from Office Max so that I can start pre-packing things in our kitchen and in other areas of the house. We need to get some of the cabinets and closets cleared out before we put this house on the market (still a couple of months away, but there's a lot to do before then). I found some leftover paint in the basement that I will use to cover the bottom of the dining room wall where it is currently sponge painted. The paint still seems to be in good shape and usable. (I really hate painting!)

Straw mystery solved!

DH spoke with the builder yesterday. He found out that the straw was put in the basement as insulation against the cold. It is used to keep the ground from freezing so that they can dig down to install the pipes that need to go under the basement slab (oh, the joys of living in the snow and cold!). The pipes will go in (hopefully) this week and the slab will be poured when we get a warm(ish) day.

The builder also said that the stairs will be delivered in the next couple of weeks. I assume that they've been waiting for the basement slab to be poured before getting the stairs. It sure will be nice to have access to all the levels via stairs, instead of having to wish for a ladder!

We will meet with the builder on Monday to go over the exterior color choices (http://bellsrus.blogspot.com/search/label/exterior%20materials). We've picked out the colors, but the builder wants to double-check where some of the trim colors will be used.

I've decided to make some changes to the kitchen design (I'm sure our KD will be thrilled to hear that!). I decided that the kitchen island needs to be one level, not two. We like the look of the 2 level island, but I just don't think it will be functional for me. One of the items on the top of my "dream kitchen list" has always been a large island without any sinks or appliances taking up space on it. It will mainly be used for baking, so there needs to be room for rolling dough, for cookie sheets and cooling racks. I've been struggling with the decision since I first saw the 2 level island, but now I'm sure it needs to be 1 level.

I still need to get back out to Lowe's to have the sewing studio design corrected and to get the printout so I can post it. The plan was also to pick the hardware for the cabinet doors, but I may wait and do that after the cabinets are in.

Views all around...

The ground was frozen enough today to walk around the house (hmmmm...except for that one spot where my foot went through the ice and my shoe got soaked), so I can finally post some photos of the back and sides of the house.

Here is the newest shot from the front - notice that some of the windows are now in (about a dozen around the house) and that almost everything is under roof. From left to right on the main level, we have the garage, mudroom (with powder room and closets), music room (this would be a dining room for "normal" people), front door, guest bedroom. On the second floor (L-->R) is the sewing studio and upper part of the great room. On the attic level is DS's bedroom.

The view from the end of the house (where the guest room, guest bath, and study will be, from left to right)... On the back side of the house, there is a walk-out, daylight basement but it will be unfinished for now, and there are no plans to finish it at the moment. DH will have a workroom down here and there will be a garage door on the left end for storing the lawn tractor.

Not all of the window openings have been cut out yet - there will be single windows on each side of the angled window area in the basement, main floor and second floor, but not on the attic level. There will also be windows on the angled section in the basement, but they haven't been cut out yet either.

(Wow! The house looks huge from back here!) From left to right on the first floor is the study, great room and family room where we will have our table. On the second floor, left to right is the top of the great room, master bedroom closets, and the master bedroom. On the attic level is DDs bedroom.

This next photo shows the back and the patio ends of the house from the corner...

Here is the patio side of the house. From left to right on the main level is the family room, kitchen, pantry, powder room, mudroom, garage. On the second floor is the master bedroom, master bathroom (with laundry room behind it), and sewing studio. On the attic level is DD's bedroom, kids' bathroom (with the oval windows), and DS's bedroom (since he only has one window on the front of the house, there is a skylight planned for his room).
The rafters have been added for the great room ceiling...

Lots of progress this week! We expect the house to be completely under roof by the time we go out there next weekend. This section near the front door and sewing studio seems to be the only major area left to finish, other than the windows, to get the house under roof and weather-proof. The window in this photo is in the stairwell to add light to that part of the house.

Ladders and bricks and windows, oh my!

The house is coming right along! So excited! When we stopped at the house today, there was a framer working on the roof (all by himself!), and ladders for us to climb to the second and third floors! I've been wanting to get on the second floor and actually stand in my sewing studio for a few weeks now, but alas, no one was ever working when we were there and no ladders were ever left out for us to use.Look...LADDERS!!!!!

And the bricks and windows have been delivered...the bricks have actually been in the brick yard for a month or so now, but the builder didn't want them delivered back then. I hope their delivery means we're getting close to needing them.
Here is the view from our large bedroom window...

This is the smaller section of my sewing studio. It will be even narrower once the cabinets are along the wall on the right side, but the only other things that will be in this section are a corner cabinet made by DH's grandfather and a cutting table with a stool, which will be used both for cutting fabric and scrapbooking (I am making a scrapbook of our house building project). Here is a link to the sewing studio layout http://bellsrus.blogspot.com/2008/01/we-have-second-floor.html.
This is the larger side of my sewing studio. It will house my sewing table, pressing table, computer desk, and a comfy chair and ottoman. There is a walk-in closet to the left (not shown in the photo below) and the door to my studio from the hall.
This is the attic level of the house which will be DD's and DS's bedrooms. This is the view from DD's (as of now, non-existent) window.

The framer that was working today told us that he's pretty much done all the framing himself. He usually has another guy there who passes the materials up to him from ground level, but he's done all the building alone. It made me nervous that he was totally alone today - he's working very high up without any safety equipment. If he ever fell and was injured, no one would know for quite some time, I'm afraid.

We stopped by the kitchen designer's on the way to the house and looked at granite. Right now we are leaning towards Verde Butterfly granite, but we need to go to the granite fabricator's and look at the actual slabs of granite before we can decide for sure.

Fun house finds!

Since I was snowed in the house today and couldn't go out and do something fun for my birthday, I decided to look for some fun house finds. These lamps are from http://www.eco-lights.com/lamps.php...

This is a waterfall accent light. I think it would fit in our house well, since we have waterfalls on our property!

Here are a round and an egg-shaped profile lamp...it looks like they would cast interesting shadows on a wall.



This tye-die lamp is available in several different colors... I prefer the cool colors over the warm colors.

The window saga...

Great news! I think my sewing studio window has been saved! I was willing to live without it, as I would still have 3 windows which is 3 more windows than in my current sewing studio (which is in the basement), but I'm thankful to have the fourth window.

DH emailed the architect yesterday about the window/roof obstruction and his reply indicated that our builder had contacted the architect the day before and they decided to move the window to the right and make it a bit smaller, but that it would still fit. I may have to rearrange the studio layout for that wall, but it will all work out just fine.

We need to make a decision soon on the plumbing hardware for the guest bath and kids' bath. They need to know which tubs/showers we will be using and while we're at it we're trying to figure out the faucets so it will all be decided. If we wait until the last minute to make the decisions, we will feel rushed, and would rather get things decided ahead of time.

We have so much wood in the house, going every which way, that it's hard to tell what all the wood is for. There are temporary diagonal supports that make things look jumbled, and the scaffolding just adds to the sense of confusion when you walk in the house. This is a photo of the vaulted ceiling in the great room , looking toward the guest room, hall closet in the entryway, and bookcase in the great room. I'm sure it will be a lot easier to visualize once the drywall starts going up.

Windows and straw...

We discovered today that I've probably lost one of my sewing studio windows. The roof line over the mudroom area which connects the garage to the house is blocking my window and I don't think there is anything we can do about it. The framers accomplished a lot this week, though!

Here is a close-up of the area...
DH climbed up to the second floor today to look around, but decided not to go any further than this, in case he had trouble getting back down!
We couldn't figure out why they covered the basement floor with straw - any ideas? There was a lot of water and snow on the decking on each level which I'm sure drips down to the basement. No one has any need to be in the basement at this point - do we care if the floor is muddy? Is there another reason they would put straw down there?
I was able to get a shot of the house from the right end - this is the guest room and office end of the house.

Here is the complicated roof section plan for our house - I think if you click on it you'll be able to see it OK... I visited Lowe's on Wednesday to get the sewing studio cabinets figured out. I had planned to put the layout up for you to see, but there were a couple of errors that needed to be fixed. I called and had them fix it, but the fax they sent isn't high enough quality to put online, so I'll stop out there again this week and pick out cabinet hardware and get a better copy of the layout.

Onward and upward!

After being away all week, we were so anxious to see what had been done on the house that we drove home from the airport, DH unloaded the suitcases while I started some pizza dough in the breadmaker, then we hopped in the car and drove out to the house. DS informed us on the way to the house that the weather had been pretty bad all week - ice and rain and snowstorms and lots of wind - so we were actually surprised that the framers had done as much as they had.

Here is where we were...

Here is what the framers accomplished while we were gone. They worked on the decking for the third floor, the roof over the one-story end of the house and did some more work on the second floor. We have very complicated roof lines, so the roofs take a while to complete. For example, on the right side of the photo below, the front room is the guest room and has a 9' ceiling, but the office which is located directly behind the guest room has a vaulted ceiling.

The framers built this "bridge" across the great room, from the family room to the office/guest room closet area so they can walk back and forth.

The porch over the front door has been started...this photo was taken from the entryway where the temporary ramp goes into the house.
While we were away, I had the laptop with me and spent some time planning the layout of the cabinets/desk area in my sewing studio (I had the .pdf files of the cabinet types saved on the laptop and took along some graph paper and a ruler). I also worked on my lessons for EQ6 (I'm taking an EQ6 class from Quilt University) and watched a quilting DVD (Katie PM's DVD "Simple Steps to Dynamic Art Quilts"). My major accomplishment on the computer during our trip, however, was to finally write our Christmas letter - I know, I know, it's a bit late, but better late than never, right? :-D So, if you usually get a Christmas letter from us, my "Ye Olde Midwinter Newsletter" should be on it's way shortly!

I will be making an appointment with someone at Lowe's this week to have them take my graph paper drawing of my sewing studio cabinets/desk area and input it into their computer. I can then get a price estimate and a 3D view of what it will look like.

I also need to get this house ready to sell. I purged one of our closets before we went on vacation and need to continue purging. There is also a lot of painting and wallpaper removal to be done.