Just a few new things this week...

The photo I posted the other day of the lights that DH put up between the trees behind the pool didn't show up well, so here is another photo of the lights at night...
My two sisters were visiting the week before last and one of them brought some old music that my mom sent down. We divided the music up between the three of us and I decided to frame some of my music for the walls of our music room. I found 11x14" floating frames at WalMart and bought 14 of them. Since most of the music was 9x12", the pieces fit in the frames with a 1" border all around. The music was old, most of it from the 30s, 40s, and 50s, but some of it dated back to the 1890s.
Here are a couple of the pieces close-up...
And here is one with Frank Sinatra on the cover...
I made this door sign for a friend from church (if you know Doris, don't tell her about it). I am also making one for her husband, Wayne, but I'm having issues with my embroidery card and need to get it replaced before I can embroider anything else.
We didn't get much done this weekend on the house. Friday night was a wedding for the daughter of our friends and Saturday we hosted the end-of-the-year party for our church choir. On Sunday, DH planted the five lilac trees that I bought last week. The outdoor TV is not up yet, as the pole that it was to be mounted on turned out to be the wrong size. DH ordered another one, so it shouldn't take long to get it up once the pole arrives. Here is the happy wedding couple...
Oh, and of course, LET'S GO PENS!!!!

Christmas is coming!

So, we finally found the right size light bulb for the glass-topped coffee table that sits between the 2 red chairs in front of the fireplace, and now that there is an outlet in the floor, we were able to see how it looks when it's lit up. It's a fun table!
Last night I decided to finish a UFO (UnFinished Object) in my long list of quilting and sewing UFOs. I'm also probably procrastinating on finishing DD's window seat cushion because I'm not exactly sure how to go about making it. :-D

I started this quilted wall hanging back in 2004, right after I'd taken an online quilting course (Starting From Scratch) at http://quiltuniversity.com/. I embroidered all the reindeer and Santa squares and sewed the top together. After that, it sat for quite a while because I had never done machine quilting before and I wasn't quite sure what my next move would be.

The green squares were embroidered after I put the quilt sandwich (backing fabric, batting, quilt top) together so that the stitches would help hold the 3 layers together. I was having an issue with my sewing machine back then and the tension was really loose on the back of the quilt, but I didn't realize it until I had embroidered most of the green squares. I set the quilt aside for a while (which turned into a couple of years - I didn't like going down to the basement to sew in our former house). Last night I got the quilt out and "stitched in the ditch" in the blue squares, in the two text squares, and around the outer border. Then I trimmed the quilt up and sewed the binding on the outer edge.

I like how it turned out. I designed the quilt from scratch, using embroidery designs from http://emblibrary.com/. Here are some close-up shots of some of the squares. Here is Dancer and the Christmas tree outlines...
And here is Donner and the Santa hat outlines...
And, of course, Rudolph had to be embroidered on blizzard fabric instead of the snow fabric that all the other reindeer were embroidered on, since Rudolph had to save Christmas in the midst of a blizzard...

I still need to make a label and sew it on the back, but it's nice to finally have it done (and it's only been in the making for 4 years!).

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.

The moving men cometh...

The moving men arrived bright and early yesterday morning. Seven guys and two trucks, with an estimate that it would take 11 hours for them to load the trucks, drive them to our new house, and then unload them. As they wandered through the house looking at what was to be loaded, they were all joking that "it will be an easy day", "there's no way this is an 11 hour job", "we'll be done and out of here in a few hours" - and they were serious when they were saying all of those things. Well, 11 hours later (almost to the minute), they finished unloading the truck! I guess the estimator did a much better job of figuring out the time than they imagined he did! Here are the trucks being loaded...

DH stayed at the house while the guys loaded the truck and DS, DD, and I headed over to the new house to get the van unloaded and to try to get the kitchen boxes that we moved on Monday unpacked. We also took all the cold and frozen foods over. DS and DD finished unloading the van and got in a couple of games of chess while I worked in the kitchen. (Oh, and that cute little round table that we put together so they could play on it? I pushed it closer to the fireplace when the moving van arrived so it would be out of the way, and in the process I scratched the floor - oops! I guess it was bound to happen sooner or later. DD was glad that I made the scratch, instead of her.)
So, DD figured out how to turn on the cooktop and she made mac and cheese for our lunch. Later, she figured out how to turn on the oven and she made chocolate chip cookies for the movers (and us!).

Here comes my piano off the truck - it was very scary to hear DH say, "Watch out! The leg is buckling!". I should have stayed in the house while they took it off the truck! All is well now, but "egads!" that was scary! (Another little side note...at the end of the day, one of the movers called me over to the music room and asked if he could play something on the piano. He played a wonderful piece and said that he is here from Jamaica on a work/study program to earn money to continue his education. He is a piano major there and hadn't been able to play for a long time.)

Last night was the first time we had a chance to see the puck lights behind the valance lit up at night - it was a very cool effect. (I'm not sure what that moon-like thing is on the wall.)
So, the one bad thing about the new house is that the gas line was never hooked up. We really don't care that we don't have heat at this time of year, but we would really love to have the hot water working! DD, DH, and I headed over to the old house this morning to do some cleaning (while DS stayed here with the kitchen guys and the granite guys) and she took her towel and supplies with her so she could take a hot shower while we were there! I attempted to take a bath in my air tub this afternoon, hoping that the heater on the tub would take the worst of the chill off the water, but it didn't work. It did, however, wake me up! Brrrrrrr! The builder told DH that the gas will be hooked up on Friday.

So, our old house (where we lived for 11 years) is clean and we will close on it tomorrow. It looks very sad now that it's empty...this is DH's office...
And this is the family room...

I didn't think I would get emotional leaving the house, but I didn't sleep well last night and was exhausted and achy from the move and from cleaning our old house all morning. I think all those things just set me off and I bawled most of the way home! I feel much better now! LOL! Sometimes all it takes is a good cry to make things all right!

So, the granite fabricators were here to install the granite backsplash in the kitchen. They got most of it in...the pieces behind the sink were too thin, or something, and were crumbling. So, they will be back out another day to install behind the sink.

The kitchen guys were here to work on the cooktop vent and to do some other odds and ends. They have to come back another day also, as they still aren't done.

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!

Lots left to do, but moving in the right direction...

The metal copper-colored roof has been installed over the front door. It isn't completely finished, but this photo gives a good idea of what it will be like. We noticed the materials had been delivered about a week ago, so we were anxious to see what it would look like.
The kitchen is ready to be templated for the granite counter. The fabricator is coming out on Monday to template the granite. The beverage center is now installed correctly and the doors on the cabinets that will have glass in them are now on. The electrician has been busy putting the pot (can) lights in the ceiling and every now and then you can see a switchplate that has been put on.
I just figured out that the doors on the angled cupboards actually open! I thought these 2 areas on each side of the island were empty space, but I was wrong. I'm not exactly sure what I'll put in there... All the kitchen drawers (and master bathroom drawers) will be full extension - they will open all the way so you can easily access things in the back of the drawers. For us, that also means the drawers are all soft-close because our cabinet company doesn't sell one option without the other.
When we lived in North Carolina, we had some doors that could swing in either direction and if you pushed them slightly past 90 degrees, they would stay open. We asked for those hinges in the new house on the kitchen pantry door, on the double door between the family room and great room, and on the door between the hall by the stairs and the entryway. When we went out to the house today we were surprised to see these HUGE commercial swinging door hinges. The doors swing in both directions, but they don't stay open when pushed past 90 degrees.
We met with our KD's tile guy today. He will be doing the stone and tile work in our master bathroom. He was looking at the kitchen before he left and pointed out that we might have an issue with the granite counters/outlets/window moldings on the window walls. The countertops are 1.25" high and are supposed to continue up the wall for a 2" backsplash. With the outlets located like they are, there isn't any room for the 2" tall granite backsplash. He suggested several different solutions. We're not exactly sure what we will do there yet, but we're glad that he pointed out the issue to us.