Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Stuff and things...

DH was busy while I was down in TX. He took Friday off from work and went to buy our tractor. It should be delivered in a couple of weeks. He also cleaned out the garage and the large unfinished part of the basement. We need to clean out a couple of more closets, make a couple of minor repairs, and this house should be ready to list.

We went out to the house as soon as my mom and I got home from the airport last night. It's the first time she's seen it in person. It didn't look like anything new has been done on the inside since I was out there last Wednesday, but the brick and the siding had been worked on. The newest estimate of when the house will be finished is the end of June - the estimate up to this point had been "sometime in July", so that is good news.

The last section of brick that needs to be done is the angled wall area in the back of the house. They are just starting on the first floor level of the brick there. (I forgot my boots so I took a photo leaning out of the basement!)

The painters are supposed to arrive this week to begin painting the inside of the house. We spent some time last week trying to figure out what colors to put on the walls from those little tiny samples. We really need to get the colors correct for the rooms where there are vaulted ceilings so that we won't have to paint those ourselves. The great room will have the same color we currently have in our family room, so we feel fairly confident about that color (Sherwin Williams Vesper Violet). We'll use a color 2 shades lighter than that for the walls above the light valance that runs around the room about 10 feet up from the floor. After the painters are done, the hard floors will be installed.

We had to decide whether to put windows in the garage doors, or not. We only have 1 window in the garage so I think we are planning to put windows in 2 of the garage doors, and leave them out of the shorter bay, which is closest to the window.

Most of my sewing studio cabinet hardware arrived today. I was able to order most of the knobs and pulls from Sears (good price), but they didn't have all the left hand pulls that I needed. I had to order those from another place online.

I need to find time to go look at the bamboo for my sewing studio floor. Our salesperson emailed to say that the finish on the bamboo that arrived at the store for our house is not the same as what it was on the sample in the store. The store sample had a satin finish and our order came in with more of a slight semi-gloss.

We're still waiting to hear from the landscape designer. I'm anxious to see what kind of a plan he has come up with for the patio area.

And, I'll leave you with a photo of my niece's cats - Black Cat and White Cat - that I spent some time with this weekend at my sister's house in TX.

Wednesday, April 23, 2008

We have leaks and the mud is back!

The brick and siding are almost done on the front of the house. There are just a few more spots that need work. It was extremely muddy out there today. It was definitely a boot day if you wanted to walk around the back of the house.
On the inside of the house, it looks like the drywall is completely mudded and sanded. This is the opening in the great room wall for the projector.
We have a few areas that are leaking water. This is in my sewing studio. There are some very strange roof lines over the front door which are probably the cause of this leak.
And this one is in the music room, right under the one in the sewing studio. There are also leaks between the entry and the guest bedroom and near the chimney.
The brick is all the way around the garage now and they have started the angled walls where the kitchen and master bath and kids' bath are. Most of the siding looks done on this side also.
The covered area on the patio side of the house now has the ceiling installed up underneath the roof.
Here is a closeup shot of the installed ceiling. It is a stained beadboard, I think.
I ordered the pulls and knobs for my sewing studio cabinets today. They are Atlas Modernist pulls and knobs in a brushed nickel finish.
Left knob...
Right knob...
Left pull...
Right pull...
I did a mock-up of the sewing studio cabinets using the actual chestnut stained maple slab of the Kraftmaid cabinets and shrinking the cabinet pulls and knobs down to the right size (or at least close). It isn't perfect, but it gave me an idea of where to use the left and right knobs.

I love it!

Found this on the Rural Renovation Record and Revelations blog this morning and it tickled my funny bone!


I asked DH if he wants me to get him one to wear while working on the house, but he hasn't answered me yet. I told him he has the legs for it! :-D

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Hey, I won a pillow!

Back at the beginning of April, I posted a Spring party suggestion on the Create My Event blog in a contest to win a Thomas Paul pillow from 2Modern. I checked the website today to see who won the pillow, and it was me! What fun!
Here is the pillow...

And this was my party theme suggestion:

"How about a "Springing From Your Garden" party for your friends. Provide inexpensive, colorful flower pots, pansies or seedlings from a nursery, and some dirt. Let each person plant a couple of pots of flowers (or herbs, hot peppers, etc.) to take home with them. Serve simple hors d'oeuvres on spring themed floral plates and enjoy good friends and conversation. Send everyone home with the promise that Spring has sprung."

If you want to read the other party suggestions, you can find them here, in the comments section of the page.

So, I worked in DD's bedroom yesterday packing up her desk so the desk can go in the POD. I spent today in there also, packing up all the things that were piled on her floor, cleaning out the bookcase, moving the furniture around, cleaning out the closet, vacuuming and dusting, and using a scraper and Goo Gone to get a gazillion little spots of sticky stuff off her walls. She used to have a bunch of cork board squares on her wall and they didn't stick well. The double stick tape that was supposed to hold them up stuck very well to the wall, albeit not to the cork boards. After I finally got all the sticky stuff off the wall I had to touch up 2 shades of blue paint (she has 3 wide horizontal stripes in different shades of blue on her walls) where some of the double stick tape had pulled the paint off the wall.

So, it looks a whole lot better than it used to and this arrangement of her furniture makes the room seem larger, so I think it is ready for potential buyers to see. Oh, wait - I forgot the tape on the window that I need to scrape off with a razor blade. OK - it's ALMOST ready to show!

Last night I made new curtains for the dining room window and for the French doors in the kitchen. The old curtains were getting tired after 11 years and the morning glory flowers on the fabric on the kitchen curtains went well with our wallpaper and border, but since those are no longer up on the walls the curtains went bye-bye too. I didn't replace the curtains over the sink, but the French doors have mini blinds on them to block the setting sun and I needed new curtains to cover up the ugly mini blinds.
We are planning to head out to the house tomorrow to see what's going on. I won't be here this weekend, so we'll go tomorrow and then again on Monday or Tuesday to check on things and take more photos (I love digital cameras - I can't imagine how much film I would be going through taking photos of this house if I didn't have a digital camera!).

Oh, and let's go PENS (for the hockey fans in our midst)!

Friday, April 18, 2008

There's mud, and then there's MUD...

Wow! The siding and brick are almost done on the front of the house! There is still a lot of brick to go up on the back and side of the house, but the hardie plank looks like it's about done.

And, notice that my sewing studio window has been corrected. It only took 3 tries to get the window correct. :-D

The window was originally supposed to be a rectangular window where the octagonal window is now, but the roofline over the mudroom was in the way, so the framers put the rectangular window further to the right and higher up. In that position, it was too close to the adjacent protruding wall and there was no room for the window trim around it on the outside. Now, they have replaced the rectangular window with the octagonal window and put it in the location that the window was originally intended to go.

On the inside of the sewing studio, you can see the second location of the rectangular window(where the drywall is missing on the left). The octagonal window is too high up to see out of, but it does let in light. I'd rather have it look right on the outside of the house than to be able to see out of it from the inside. Whoever buys this house from us is going to think it rather odd, though.

The brick accent has been put in over the front door. They built a template to use to help keep the arc of the brick even and to hold the bricks in place while the mortar dries.
Here is the underside of the covered area by the patio.

And these are the boards that will be used as the ceiling of the outdoor covered areas (by the patio and by the front door).
The El Dorado Meseta Fieldledge stone has arrived. It will be used on the chimney, on the bottom of the posts near the front door and near the patio covered area, and on the fireplace inside the house. They don't have as much color as I thought they would...
The mudding of the drywall inside the house will probably take most of next week (we like this kind of mud!). And, speaking of mud, we were happy to see that most of the MUD around the outside of the house has dried up (we don't care for this kind of mud). I'm sure it won't stay that way for long, but it was nice not having to put boots on to walk around the house.

Tomorrow is a big work day at our current house. DH will be replacing the woodpecker-damaged corner boards while I continue packing up stuff in our closets, and we need to get the POD loaded with boxes.

Arrival of the POD...

The POD arrived bright and early this morning. We had a call at 7am from the driver to let us know he was on his way and would be about 1/2 hour. It was interesting to watch how the POD comes off the truck.
Chains were attached to the POD in 4 places and the bars of the frame were raised and moved away from the POD until the chains were taut.

The truck was driven out from under the POD.

I was impressed that the driver was able to stay off our grass as he pulled the truck out!

The POD was suspended from the frame and manuevered into place.

The POD was then lowered to the ground.
"Houston, we have landing..."

The rear bar of the frame was raised to clear the top of the POD and the frame was driven away from the POD.
The frame was tricky to get back on the truck due to the curve in our driveway.
The driver decided it would be easier to manuever the truck under the frame.
And it's all back together (minus the POD)...and we know what we will be doing this weekend - someone needs to load all our boxes into this thing!
I noticed while watching the delivery of the POD that our weeping pea tree is budding out. It won't be long now until we see some pea pods on it. Spring has sprung in da Burgh!

Thursday, April 17, 2008

New mantel and old cupboards

Not a great photo, but here is the mantel for our new fireplace. I didn't quite get all 6' of it in the picture! It is unfinished cherry and will be stained to match the kitchen cabinets.

We met with the realtor on Tuesday night to discuss getting this house on the market. We are having a POD delivered tomorrow and will load it up with all the boxes that we've been packing up. I cleaned out every kitchen cabinet and packed up everything that we can do without until we move. Here is the pantry - still full, but neat, at least.
And a couple of my kitchen cabinets - nothing falls out on our heads anymore!

This week I've been working in my sewing room. I haven't seen the floor and table tops in that room for a very long time! It had become a catch-all room this past year. I should have taken a before photo (on second thought, that would have been too scary to post). Here are a couple of after photos...

Now it's time to pack up some of the excess paraphenalia in the closets and DD's bedroom. What fun!

The walls in the new house are being mudded now. We haven't been out there this week, so I will take photos this weekend. The builder said that the hard surfaces (tile, wood floors) will go in about 3 weeks from now. I'm anxious to get out to the house to see how the exterior is coming along.

Saturday, April 12, 2008

We have walls!

Brick is going up on the front of the house and our front door has been uncovered...
We have walls! This is the kitchen wall, looking out over the future patio area...
Drywall in the family room, everywhere but on the fireplace...
The ceiling in DH's study...looks like the fan extension pole will need to be pretty long in order for the fan blades to clear the ceiling.
Photo of my closet, looking up at it from the great room...
Detail on the corners of the brick...
Shot of the back and side of the house...there is quite a bit of hardie plank up on these sides, but not much brick.
It's time to decide on interior paint colors. I think we know what we want in our bedroom (Sherwin Williams Quietude - this is the color currently in our bedroom and I love it - it changes from blue-green to green-blue depending on the lighting in the room at any particular moment) and in the great room (again, we like what we currently have - I can't think of the name of it, but it is a very gray purple), but the rest of the colors are a mystery at this point! What is your favorite paint color? (We prefer cool color tones, if that helps you choose!)