It seems it's either feast or famine...

DH and I stopped at a landscape supply place this afternoon and looked at pavers for the patio. I think we decided which ones to get. We at least have a better idea of what direction we want to go with the patio.

We then headed out to the house to see what's been done and meet with the bathroom tile guy. He told us that there had been 20 or more trucks there on Thursday and the house was crawling with workmen, but that yesterday there were only a couple of guys around. We need a few more days of feasting and a few less days of famine if the house is going to get done on time!

The carpenters have been working on the stairs. They are enclosing the support 2x4's in stained oak to match the stairs. They did a really nice job with this one, and I think it may be the only one they got done.

I couldn't resist opening the boxes containing my sewing studio cabinets. They are Kraftmaid maple cabinets with chestnut stain and slab doors. Very pretty...
The tile guy is going to use this type of (very random) pattern in the shower. The stone is oro cappuccino from Mexico. He is cutting and polishing every single stone in the master bathroom floor and shower. He bought the 16x16 stones and is cutting them to the right sizes, then polishing all the edges. It certainly will be a one-of-a-kind floor and shower when he is done.
I had a call from the KD yesterday who was sounding panicked that the contrast between the shower and the floor wasn't enough and he wanted us to add some tile with more color. He really wanted our tile guy to talk us into using this stone, which is not the right color at all for our bathroom. Most of the stone in the floor, and the cabinets (maple with a spice stain), are all in the orange family and this stone is very pink/red.
We saw these small stones sitting on the bedroom floor and really liked them with the stones that are on the floor and those we'll use in the shower. These are also from Mexico, like the oro cappuccino stones. We'll use a 2 row section of them near the middle of the shower and a single row of them closer to the top of the shower.
The center medallion is coming along. The interior is a basketweave pattern (not herringbone like I thought it was going to be)...
I'm getting anxious to see some of the unfinished projects get done. I think the granite is going to be installed in the kitchen on Monday and that will go a long way in making things look complete. There is still no sign of the septic system yet...

Bamboo and baseboards and banisters...(oh, my!)

My sewing studio floor is finally in! DH and I were out at the house last Friday to OK the wood stains with the painter, and the floor installer had just put the first row of bamboo in the sewing studio, so all weekend I've been anxious to see it finished (this is the closet floor). I love it!
The tile installer has been working on the floor in our master bathroom. He is doing the Versailles pattern, which at first glance looks fairly random.

It looks like the carpenters have been cutting all the baseboards to size, but they haven't started installing them yet. They had hung a few more of the doors since we were there on Friday.

I'm assuming these orange marks indicate where the stair banister will be. It seemed obvious to me where it should go, but better too much communication than not enough, I guess.

Packing up of this house continues...

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?