Progress at the house, and another birdbrain!

DS and I headed out to the house after I spoke with the bathroom floor tile guy. He said that there were "tons of people" working out at the house today and it made me curious to see what had been accomplished.

My sewing studio cabinets have been delivered, but were scattered about the house instead of being upstairs where they need to be. These two tall cabinets which will house fabric were in the entryway.
Most of the rest of the sewing studio cabinets were in the family room...
The painters have been hard at work staining (and leaving a horrid smell in the house from it!). These are the bannisters for the stairs...
These are the mullions that go between the double-pane glass of the patio doors in the family room...
The patio doors were also stained...
Here are the newel posts for the stairs...
And these are some of the spindles for the stairs...

The master bathroom floor is looking awesome!
The keystones for the medallion in the center of the floor are cut and placed. I think the tile guy said he is doing a herringbone pattern in the center, but don't hold me to that.
My sewing studio closet doors have been installed...
and all the attic and garage access doors are in place...

I was very pleased with all the work that has been done over the past couple of days. I hope it continues at this pace!

Around here, the shelves are looking very bare...
and the amount of stuff that has been boxed up for the move is increasing...
The cabinets are looking empty...
and the boxes are stacking up higher and higher...
So, if you happen to remember back a couple of months to the post about the robin that kept banging into our dining room window, you might also be interested in this. Yesterday and today there has been a bird (not the robin) flying against the French doors off our deck over and over again, and then flying to the kitchen window and hopping along the ledge, pecking at the glass as he goes. I don't know what his problem is, but he is driving me batty with the tapping!

What a great day for a picnic!

DH and I decided to head out to the house and have a picnic on our property. We packed a cooler with drinks, grabbed a couple of folding lawn chairs, stopped at Subway and picked up some sandwiches and enjoyed the sunny day (which, after about 10 days or so of straight rain and cool temps sure was nice!). After we ate, DH took the tractor and used the brush hog to clear some more brush.
While he was doing that, I set up camp and spent a good part of the afternoon reading a book. I still can't get around very well since hurting my back last Monday and I thought sitting out in the sunshine was a better idea than sitting at home.

Here is a path that DH cut through the brush yesterday when he and DS were out there clearing brush. Look how tall the brush is on each side - that's what he cut down with the brush hog yesterday!
The scaffolding was taken down from the back of the house. This was taken from down below the house when I walked down to the ponds. It almost looks like a finished house!
There were lots of frogs and tadpoles in the pond. Whenever I took a step, the bullfrogs would plop into the water to hide.
And I found some wildflowers growing nearby...
These plants grow in the pond. Anyone know what they are called?

When DH took a break, we walked through the house to see what's been happening. The tile is down in the kitchen, except for the pantry.
The same tile is in the entry. It's funny how different it looks depending on the lighting conditions. This tile was actually laid out on the great room floor, waiting to be put in the entryway. The drops are granite - the same Verde Butterfly granite that will be on our kitchen counters.
The drywall guys have patched the holes in the sewing studio wall from changing the window to the octagonal one, but there are still holes in the drywall in the chimney in DH's closet and in DD's bedroom wall.
And the doors, and trim around the doors, are going up, starting up in the attic in the kids' rooms...
Unfortunately, the Pens lost to the Detroit Redwings last night. We'll have to make a comeback tomorrow night in game 2!