Let there be light! And fans!

It was very busy around here today - two electricians arrived at 8am and didn't leave until 4:15pm! They came with a HUGE ladder so they could access the fan in the great room. It hasn't worked since it was installed - until now!
Here it is - all in working order now...
Our master bedroom fan/light was installed. We could have used it last month when the weather was really warm. It's nice to not have a bare bulb hanging from our ceiling anymore!
And DD's fan/light also went in today...now that I'm looking at it, I think they put the fan blades in upside-down from what she wanted (they didn't ask, and I didn't even think about telling them). I think the other side of the blades are white and that side was supposed to face down. I'll have to go investigate, which I guess will require a ladder since her ceiling is so tall.
Our whole-house fan at the top of the stairs hasn't been working either. The electrician said that the fan belt had come off.
He fixed the fan and also installed a speed control for it. We finally have an outdoor light at the front of the house. This lamp was installed on top of the post out front...
We had a couple of visitors to the house today. The first one we discovered when the electrician told us that something had strewn the garbage all over the driveway. We must have had raccoons in the night. They made their way into the locked garbage can, spilled everything from the plastic garbage bag all over the driveway, and dragged the torn bag into the yard way over by the pool. What a mess!

Later this morning, I looked out and saw our neighbor's HUGE great dane out by the pool. This guy is so big that I mistook him for a white horse one day while driving down the road! He makes me nervous when I'm walking down for the mail and he comes up behind me and growls at me. :-O
I made myself a tote bag while I did the laundry last night and this morning. I'm going to head to Houston, TX tomorrow for the International Quilt Market and Festival. My sister told me I should bring a tote bag to collect all the freebies that will be given away. This bag is made out of red pet screening and 3 different fabrics.
Here's a close-up...

DH had been busy changing the heating system to a different type of filter, which is more efficient. He is also adding a whole house humidifier to the system.

More stuff in the walls...

We went to the house on Tuesday so DH could run the wires for the security system. It took about 2 hours. While DH and DS ran wires, I took 228 photos of the insides of the walls and ceiling in every room in case we someday need to know where the electrical, heating, and plumbing "stuff" is located. Today I uploaded them to the computer and sorted them into file folders by room. Hopefully, that will be enough to tell us what area each photo is showing, although I'm sure over time it will become more difficult. I had a tough time today telling where some of the photos were taken and I knew what order I photographed the rooms in.

The first thing we noticed when we arrived was a huge trench running from the private road to the house (about 450 feet). It contained the electric cables, the phone cables, and a pipe of some sort that will be used to run the cable wires later.


Here is a shot of the front of the house, since I haven't put one up in a long time. The large ditch near the base of the house has been filled in with shale and dirt, the side yard has been roughly graded, the shingles have been finished, and of course, there is a huge trench running up to the house. The area over the front door will have a copper colored metal roof, so it has not been shingled.
Lots of wires hanging down into the basement...
So, we've had some good news. Molyneaux was able to find enough of the tile that we need for the kitchen/mudroom/powder room/halls/entry so we won't have to pick another tile - hallelujah! But, Lowe's now no longer has the fan that we picked out for the kids' bedrooms, so we need to hunt for another one (or two).

We are meeting another landscape person out at the house on Saturday morning. Our DD will also be in town, playing with the Shenandoah University Wind Ensemble at the Fox Chapel Area high school on Friday night at 7:30pm, and in the lobby of Heinz Hall on Saturday night. Jens Lindemann, former trumpet player in the Canadian Brass and guest trumpet soloist in orchestras around the world is traveling with them and will also perform in the concerts.

The long-awaited window seat...

We stopped at 2 tractor places this morning. DH had already decided on a Kubota so we just needed to check out a couple of different dealerships. We were using the GPSr to locate the first one, when we decided we must have passed the place. I'm not sure how we missed it, as there were all these HUGE, very orange tractors next to the road! We must have really been in la-la land when we drove past it. :-D I think we've decided on the B3030 tractor and attachments so we can mow, smooth gravel, landscape, etc.
We headed to the house after our tractor shopping trip. The carpenters were back today and they had put in the half wall between the kitchen and family room.
They were also working to open up the ceiling over the master bathroom tub. Originally it looked like this, with a flat area over the tub (this photo taken from above the tub, from the kids' bathroom in the attic)...
And now it looks like this, with the ceiling opened up to the area beside the kids' bathroom on the attic level (this photo taken from the master bathroom, standing where the tub will be and looking up into the kids' bathroom)...
They were also framing-in the master bathroom tub...
And DD will be excited to see that her window seat has finally been put in. It's really big - we could get rid of her bed and she could just sleep on the window seat! I'll eventually make a cushion for the seat...
The electric, heating, and plumbing guys were all working on things today. This is a photo taken in my sewing studio. Because of the way that the steel beams and joists run, there needed to be a soffit built in my sewing studio to contain the heating and A/C ducts. The soffit will be over the wall of cabinets, over the door and in front of the closet. We started with 9' ceilings in there, so it doesn't feel closed-in at all.

The stuff in the walls...

We had a taste tonight of what DH's commute might be after we move. Traffic was horrible and backed up on both the highway and on the back roads. We were planning to meet a landscape designer at the house at 6pm. It took us nearly an hour to get there. The landscape guy didn't make it until 7:15, although part of that was due to him getting lost on the way there!

So, all the "stuff" is going into the walls now - heating, electrical, and soon the plumbing.

And the Royal Flush has finally arrived on-site... :-D

We narrowed down some of our lighting and fan choices this week. Here are a couple of options for the master bathroom lights.



This is probably the fan that will go under the awning off the back of the garage (in the patio area)...
This is probably the fan for the great room (with the very tall ceiling)...
A here is a fun pendant light that I found - it would be great for the sewing studio if I was using pendant lights in there!
OK, who in their right mind would want a light that looks like an artichoke? And even if you did like it, would you really pay the $13,598 that it costs! Yikes!

Oh, I almost forgot...we saw a couple of flocks of very noisy geese fly over the house tonight and, on Saturday, I saw a heron (twice). Very fun!