A couple new additions...

So, there are a couple of new additions around here. First, we have a new pet - he is a Russian Tortoise and he does not yet have a name. We think it is a male, but we thought our bearded dragon was a male until she laid eggs. The girl at the pet store said that it was too young to tell what sex the tortoise is yet.
Here he is from the front. He will be 6-9" long when full grown. I think he is 4-5" long now.
This is the cage we used to have our bearded dragon (lizard) in. I think it will work well for the tortoise also. He is still very nervous and huffs at us when we touch him or pick him up. This morning he was a little more curious and was peeking out the window of the cage instead of hiding his head in the corner.
The other new addition is the bookcase we bought for the powder room. Our powder room is near a door that leads out to the pool so we made an "L"-shaped powder room where we could incorporate a changing area. We placed the bookcase in the short side of the "L" and bought fabric containers for people to put their clothes in while swimming.
We also hung this fun mirror on the wall so people could see themselves full-length...
Here is what the tall part of the "L" looks like - you can see the position of the mirror on the far right...
And this is how the bookshelves and mirror are positioned in relationship to each other. We also bought 2 small square tables to use for a bench near the bookshelves, but I decided they were too deep and stuck out too far into the room. They didn't go to waste however - we used them to hold the tortoise's cage.
DD headed back to college yesterday and I am moving DS into his dorm today. We will be true empty-nesters for the first time.

My, how time flies!

My apologies for taking so long to update my blog. There hasn't been all that much going on with the house - at least that's my excuse! I hope you all had a blessed Thanksgiving day. We had some of DH's family down and had an enjoyable time.

I drove to Winchester, VA on Tuesday to pick up DD so that she could spend all her time in the car doing homework. It was the only way she could come home for Thanksgiving. She also did homework pretty much morning to night the whole time she was home, and also in the car on the way back (I didn't have to drive her back - she was able to catch a ride with a friend from OH).

We have been having a problem with water getting into the basement. While DH was up on a ladder outside my sewing studio, he spotted the problem. The flashing in this area is missing, or not done correctly. There is a gap between the gutter and the wall to the right and the water is missing the gutter and traveling down the brick wall into the basement.
You can see the white marks on the brick (to the left of the ladder shadow) where the water has been trickling down the bricks...
DH has made a lot of progress in sorting boxes and things in the basement. Here are all the games - we sure do have a lot! I've gotten rid of stacks of games the past few years at the church rummage sale. We used to go to garage sales and buy games for $1.00, which is the reason we have so many. I'll have to sort through these again and set aside some more for next year's sale. Our family was big into board games, but not so much anymore.
The holiday decorations and textbooks/papers are on shelves, but we either need to get rid of some, or get more shelves...
Here is the corner where the leftover paint is stored...
And here are the empty boxes and luggage...
Our kitchen/family room stools arrived today! I got them assembled (only 4 screws per stool) and I think they look nice there. They certainly are sturdy, not to mention heavy!
Here is a shot of the room where the stools are...
I spent a good part of today sorting through the items behind the French doors in the great room. I arranged the shelves and got all the plaster dust off the shelves from when DH when doing some electrical work inside the closet.
We were very surprised on this first day of deer hunting season that our hunter did not show up to hunt. We figured the hunter set the hunting blind up behind our house 3 weeks ago to stake out a spot for the first day of hunting season, but he was a no-show today. We'll see if he shows up tomorrow...

Bookshelves, crafty things and more grass!

Goodness - it's been almost a week since I posted! I've been working on the tall bookcase shelves in the great room. I've never been very good at figuring out how to decorate shelves, but they look better like this than with cardboard boxes stacked on them!
I still need to arrange the things on the shelves in the closet next to the tall bookcase. I unwrapped all the breakable knick knacks when we moved and put them all on these shelves, out of the way. I moved some of the things onto the tall bookcase shelves and will arrange the rest of the items, plus probably put our photo albums in here. The shelves behind the closed doors at the bottom have plastic bins with my greeting cards, paper pads, pens, markers, etc.
I've also been putting my sewing studio to good use. I've been planning a ladies' luncheon for Thursday of this week. Here are the place cards that I created (with an obvious Autumn theme)...
And I made this scarecrow decoration. It is an embroidery design from http://www.embroiderygarden.com/.
Our grass is getting taller and denser. The other areas of the yard that DH planted are just starting to sprout. He planted those about one week after he planted these areas...
I also made myself a new purse. It's been about a year since I've made a new purse, so it was definitely time!
Here's a close-up of the embroidery...

The septic man cometh!!

Hallelujah! The septic system is going in! We were excited to see the septic man's equipment at the house tonight.
He has been busy digging trenches and holes for the tanks.
The front door has been stained and sealed and the columns have been started. The column bases will have stone on them.
The refrigerator was in the garage (I'm hoping that isn't a sign of it not fitting), but all the other appliances were in place in the kitchen.

The beverage area is almost finished. The glass is in the doors and the ice maker, beverage refrigerator and oven are in place. The faucet has also been installed. I'm not sure why the faucets went in before the granite backsplash - it seems like it will be trickier to install the granite with the faucets in place. The cabinet pulls have also been added.
Here is the main oven, installed under the cooktop...
And the dishwasher is in place...
The main faucet is in...
And it is VERY close to the window trim...we are going to wait until the granite backsplash is installed and then maybe we'll have the window trim cut back a little bit.

The woodwork in the great room has been sealed. It looks much better without all the white dust all over it.
The master bathroom tiler worked today and finished the floor in the shower, the seat in the shower, and the stone baseboard. He will be back tomorrow to grout everything. This is the stone baseboard...
So, thank you to those who voted on the newell post topper. We decided to go with the square topper.
The fireplace mantel has been stained to match the cherry cabinets in the kitchen.

Items completed as of today are marked in green...(I added a couple of items that I had forgotten about.)

septic tank
gas lines - still need to be connected
furnace
A/C
painting
kitchen - granite, finish work, vent fan, pulls, granite backsplash, appliances
plumbing
electrical - lights/fans, valance lights
gutters
brick/stone/pillars
driveway - concrete, gravel
grading - rough, topsoil
sewing studio - knobs/pulls, upper crown moulding on cabinets
master bath - grout, finish shower, cabinets, glass doors, baseboard stone, granite
stained woodwork on great room walls
closet shelves/rods
pantry shelves
stain front door
paint garage doors, install gaskets
grab bars on guest tub
shower curtain rods in 2 bathrooms
stairs
fix vanity granite backsplash in kids' bathroom, recess medicine cabinet?
top for windowseat
doors on bookcase shelves in great room
doorknobs
carpet
fireplace granite surround

So, it turns out that the kitchen granite backsplash has not been templated. The granite fabricators will be there tomorrow to template for them. The carpet is going in on Monday, the master bathroom shower doors will be installed on Tuesday, and the granite in the master bathroom and (hopefully) the kitchen granite backsplash will be installed on Thursday.

Countdown to move day: 12 days and counting!

Granite!! (etc.)

The house was hopping today! The carpenters were finishing up the great room woodwork, working on closets, and putting the molding around the oval windows in the kids' bathroom. The painters were working on the second and third floors. The electrician had been there and most of the fans/lights were hung. One of the carpenters said that the great room fan wasn't working and would have to be replaced. The granite templaters arrived and templated for the granite in the master bathroom.

I was in my car heading down our road to run some errands when I spotted what I assumed was the truck with my kitchen granite turning onto our road, so I turned around and headed back to the house. It was indeed my granite, and the driveway had not yet been poured so they had no problem getting to the house to unload the truck. Here is the very first piece of granite (verde butterfly) that they put in place...

They ran into a couple of snags along the way. The overhang on the penisula hit the trim around the French door. The trim hadn't yet been installed a few weeks ago when the granite was templated. The sink had several cracks in it, including this really long one. Luckily, there was an extra sink onsite and I was glad I had talked with the plumber about it the other day, or I wouldn't have known it was there! They were able to use the second one and could continue installing the granite.The sink also didn't fit into the sink base cabinet, even after cutting out a "scoop" from the sides of the cabinet. Our KD was called and he came out to sort things out. By the time I left, which was before they did the backsplash, everything had been sorted out. DH and I are headed out again tonight, as he hasn't been out to the house since last Saturday. I'll get some more photos and post them later tonight.

The kitchen pendants have been hung. I love these 3 that are over the island.

I'm not so crazy about these pendants over the peninsula. The colors are very different from what I remember...
The holes have been cut in the ceiling for the 1000 cfm vent over the cooktop. It's probably overkill for an electric cooktop, but better too much venting than not enough. We still have to decide whether to put U-shaped track lighting around the vent. Our KD usually does that, but we have so much light in the kitchen already, I'm not sure we need any more.
The granite is all in place, but not attached yet...
Here is the photo of the stairs looking from the attic level all the way down to the basement (ignore that blue hose).

The stair railings are all finished now...
The fireplace mantel is up... and they hid an outlet on top of it, which will come in handy...
The lights have been installed in the master bathroom and most of the other rooms...
The furnace is in (or is that an AC unit?)...
This was sitting in the garage - not sure why we would have a portable AC unit????
The woodwork in the great room is done, except for the doors on the bookshelves behind the French doors. I love it!

Here is the wall opposite the wall in the above photo...the hole in the middle is for the TV projector.
A close-up of the woodwork over the bookshelves...
The downspouts have been connected to the drainage system...
Well, most of them - this downspout ended up coming down about 6' away from where the drainage pipe is located in the corner...
More later!