Inching along...

Boy, things sure seem to be going slowly now -- maybe it's because we have a deadline for getting out of our current house and into this one and things just SEEM to be going slowly.
The roof area over the front door is finished. This is the area that was still leaking and hopefully having the siding and roof done in this area will eliminate the leaks. The basement seemed to have some very wet areas also and we hope they won't be a problem.
The vent has been put up in the peak of the roof...
We had a call from the KD's tile guy who will be installing the stone/tile in our master bathroom and he wanted us to stop by the house and look at the travertine and other stones that he is thinking about using on the bathroom floor, shower and wall trim. This is the latte travertine that we think we want on the floor. The orange veins look great with the stain on the maple cabinets and hopefully will also look good with the granite on the counters. (I'm not sure how accurate the colors are in the photos we took of the granite, so it's a bit hard to tell what might look good with it.)
He also thought this macchiato stone would look nice with the color of the walls. I'm not convinced that I like this stone. I like it OK in the small pieces, but I don't like the chair rail at all and I'm not certain about the larger sample piece. He's going to go ahead and get started with the latte travertine on the floor and then we'll figure out what we want in the shower and for wall trim.
We really liked the center stone below. I don't know what kind it is. The stone on the left would look good as a coordinating stone once it is sealed. Unsealed, it is a bit too white.
I've started packing up things in this house so we'll be ready to move in 6 weeks - it doesn't seem possible that it is coming up that soon! The movers dropped off 25 small boxes and 45 larger boxes. I used up about 7 of them just emptying the dining room china closet (with a few towels from the linen closet mixed in as padding)! Anyone have any boxes lying around that they don't need?

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.

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.

"Follow the orange brick road..."

There was a lot of activity at the house today, both inside and out. There were workers everywhere! There were a couple of guys working up around the chimney area. I don't think that area has been completely sealed up yet. A couple of other guys were covering the soffit areas.
The bricks are going up! They started on the end of the house where the office and guest room/guest bathroom are going to be. This is also the end of the house where they started with the hardie plank siding, so both materials can be seen together in this shot...
Around to the back of the house, the siding and trim continue to go up. The angled walls will be brick.
On the inside, it looked like the plumber was finishing up some things and sheets of drywall have been placed in each room. It didn't occur to me that they might be starting the drywall on the top floor until I was halfway back down the driveway to the car, so I didn't go up to see.
It's exciting to have so many different things going on all at once! If they keep going at this pace, we'll have to start going out there more often or we'll miss something!