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...

The list is shrinking...

A lot has been done out at the house since we were there on Friday. The painting is done, the closets all have shelves, and a few more lights are up.

The concrete was poured yesterday or today; it was difficult to tell which day they did it, but it looked wet.
This concrete pad is for equipment outside the garage.
The back entrance to the mudroom also has a concrete pad.
And there is a concrete pad in the back outside the door and garage door...

We were surprised to find that the sidewalk sloped right up to the front porch/door. We thought there would be a couple of steps up to the porch. If we ever need wheelchair accessibility, this will work out great!
Out back, they figured out how to connect the downspout to the drain that was about 6' away from the downspout...
All the freshly poured concrete made it interesting to try to get into the house, but we were resourceful and made our way inside!

We now know what the portable AC unit was for that I found in the garage the other day - it was hooked up and running to air out the house from all the fumes caused from the sealing of the hardwood floors and to cut down on the humidity so the floors would dry faster.
The hardwood floors look great! We think that they need another coat of sealer before they'll be done. The wood is cumaru, otherwise known as Brazilian Teak.
Someone with very large feet left their footprints on the hardwood!

The light for over the table had been hung. This photo is looking out the family room windows toward the back of the house...
I don't know if this will be an issue, or not. We noticed that the holes in the granite for the kitchen sink faucet were very close to the wall. There will be a granite backsplash behind the sink and it doesn't look like there will be room for the faucet to fit once the granite backsplash is in place. The other possible problem is that the wood trim underneath the window may interfere with the faucet. I'm sure that it's something we can figure out a work-around for if we need to - we just need to keep an eye on it. The cement truck dumped the last of the concrete next to the driveway, which didn't seem like a very good place for it. It will probably be covered by dirt, but may interfere with drainage along the driveway.
So, here is the list that I made back on July 1st of all the things that still needed to be done at the house. It was too depressing to list it back then, but many of the items are now complete, so I'll post it. Items completed as of today are marked in green...

septic tank

gas lines

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

top for windowseat

doors on bookcase shelves in great room

doorknobs

There are still quite a few things to finish, some by the builder and some by the KD, but the list is a lot smaller now than it was 2 weeks ago. The builder estimates that he can be done by midweek next week, but the KD won't be done by then with the kitchen and master bathroom.

Countdown to move day: 14 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!