Come in and have a seat...

So, on Friday while I was in the kitchen making our usual Friday night homemade pizza, I glanced out the window and saw this...

I guess the birds decided to try out the seat wall on our deck. It looked like they were settling in for the night, but after I took their photo, they flew away. I think they are mourning doves.(Sorry about the quality of the photo - I took it through the window screen, figuring if I opened the door it would scare them away before I could take the picture.)

DH and DS finally finished putting the pool table together. This is the pool table that we bought from Sears for $99. It had to be assembled though, which is probably why it was on sale for so little. DH figures that a lot of people bought one, took it home, saw how much work it was going to be, and took it back to the store!
Here is the first game played on it - you can see in the foreground some of the piles of things we still need to sort through in the basement.
We are making progress though. I've sorted through the large black garbage bags and boxes of linens that were in the powder room and in the guest room closet and in the laundry room. Most of it I've bagged up to give to Goodwill or saved for next years church rummage sale, and the rest will be stored on the guest room closet shelves, guest room bathroom shelves, or in each of the bedroom closets where the sheets, blankets, and towels will be used.

I'm so glad to see that http://houseblogs.net/ is back up and running. Welcome back to those of my readers that get to my blog from Houseblogs and haven't been able to read for a while! If you want to catch up on the posts that you missed, here's the link to my main page: http://bellsrus.blogspot.com.

Uh-oh! No more pavers!

So, the patio still isn't done - so much for my estimate of another half day to finish it! On Tuesday they added another 3 rows, or so...
By Wednesday afternoon, they were down to this small area to finish. DH was fairly certain that they had run out of pavers. We had 4 palettes of pavers and he only saw a few pieces left. When none of the landscapers showed up this morning, we knew DH had been right about them running out of pavers! The other 3 landscapers will be back next week to work on (and hopefully finish!) the deck. I'm not optimistic about the pavers getting done anytime soon - I'm sure they will have to order another whole palette and that will take some time to get delivered.
My sewing studio is done for now. All the boxes are unpacked and I think I've found places for everything to live. Here is the sewing table (which will eventually be replaced by a rectangular table which will support quilt bulk better than the oval table), the computer table (which is behind the sewing table so that when I am embroidering I can see the color changes on the computer instead of wasting paper by printing out the color changes), and in the back is my pressing table (which is actually my portable folding handbell table with a small pressing pad on it - eventually I will have a full-size tabletop that will be covered in batting and muslin).
Here is a better shot of the current pressing table with several tubs of fabric beneath it. A lot of this fabric is only used for church sewing projects (school kits for 3rd world countries, adult bibs for senior citizens, quilts for babies, etc.), so these tubs will either stay where they are with a fabric skirt to hide them, or they may end up in the basement.

Here is my other handbell table which is currently being used for my cutting table/planning area. I need to have a counter-height table and a stool for this area of the sewing studio.
I emptied most of the master bathroom boxes today. I still have this box to empty, but it's good to have most of the boxes gone.
I have 2 more bathroom cabinet drawers that need to have full-extension hinges put on them. The cabinet guy is coming tomorrow morning (at 8am!) to install them.
And I'm hoping that all of this stuff will fit in those 2 drawers, but I'm not going to hold my breath!
The tax lady showed up at the door yesterday to do a tax assessment. So far, we've only been paying taxes on the property. She asked questions about the house and then took measurements on the outside, so I suspect we'll be getting a new tax bill soon. I was happy with just paying for the property, but I knew that had to end. :-D

Golf balls and outlets and deer, oh my!

I saw a couple of deer down behind the house today. When I walked back from the mailbox, there were two deer (not sure if they were the same 2) at the end of the driveway. One ran but I was able to get within about 10 feet of the other one before he ran off. (Click on the photo to see them better.)
There were only 2 guys working on the patio today. They only worked on the travertine tile and are almost finished. It will take about another half day to finish, I think. Here is what they have done...
And here is what they have left to do...
So, my sewing studio is almost done. Here is the closet...
It still looks messy, but I only have a couple of boxes left to empty, plus these 5-6 boxes that need to be carried down to the basement. The two on the right are packed with things for next year's rummage sale at church...

This pile in the corner will stay in boxes for a while. DH's grandfather built a corner cabinet years ago from trees on his property. The cabinet needs some TLC before it can be put to use in my sewing studio. DH's list of things to do is very long, so I'm guessing it will be a while before he gets around to working on the cabinet. Most of the items that will go in the cabinet are crafting supplies that I don't use all that often, so it's OK for them to sit in boxes for now.
Here is the photo of my sewing studio chair that I promised to post...
And I also said I would post a photo of the black outlet covers in the kitchen. They blend in with the granite much better than the white ones that used to be there.
This last photo collage is for DD. She has been collecting golf balls from the property ever since we bought it last year. Here are 4 more for her collection, but she has to find them herself when she gets home on school break. :-D (Hint: they are all along the driveway...)

All you need is a screwdriver...

I guess I haven't updated since Thursday morning - sorry about that! Here is the patio area, looking toward the back of the garage. The landscapers started the tile on Thursday and by the end of their day on Friday were about halfway done with the tile. They also attached the sandstone to the seatwalls of the deck.
Here is where they were at the end of work on Thursday. They had recently sprayed the tile with water, so it's looking a bit spotty...
And at the end of work on Friday...

They filled in one of the planter areas with dirt...
And added trim boards above the steps...
And more trim boards on the far side of the deck where the railing will be...
I really hope they finish up this week!

So, my long-lost desk handle (for the sewing studio) has been located. It is the one that couldn't be put on when the rest were put on because it didn't have any threads inside. DH has a friend with a set of punches and he punched threads into it for us (I hope that's the correct terminology!). I asked DH about the knob the other day and he said he thought he gave it back to me a long time ago, before we moved. I didn't remember seeing it since he took it to have it fixed. Fortunately, DH located it in his office boxes while he was unpacking things the other day!

So, I told him I could handle putting on the knob. In my defense, if the screw had been the right length I could have put the knob on. The screw that was with the knob was too short. I found another one that turned out to be too long. DH had to get his handy drill and make a recess for the head of the too-short screw to fit into so it would be the right length. I guess all it takes is the right tools for the job...and it took more than just a screwdriver!

The sewing studio is taking longer to organize than I imagined it would. In this house, I have combined the office supplies (paper, notebooks, bill-paying things, calculater, etc.) that used to live in a closet near DH's office, with my sewing studio. That wasn't the original plan, but seemed to be an obvious place for all those things since I pay the bills and use most of the stationary supplies. It has required me to rethink where everything will go in my sewing studio, however, and has made me wish for the closet I had in my old sewing studio (DH built me a walk-in closet there that was about 8'x6').

My current closet is about 1/3 the size (it looked bigger than that on paper!) and I'm having trouble figuring out where to put all my sewing, craft, and office supplies. It will all work out...I'm just having to sort through everything and throw out some things, and box up things for next years church rummage sale. I should have done this culling out a long time ago, so it's all for the best. It just takes lots of time...

Home again, home again...

Sorry to be MIA for a couple of days, but I drove my mom back to Northern New York State yesterday (8 hours) and drove back home today.

On Tuesday, while Mom was still here, we tackled some of the sewing studio unpacking. I forgot to take "before" photos, so these are "in progress" photos. This is the larger side of the room...
and the smaller side of the room...
The closet is filling up fast! I'll have to rearrange things after I get everything unboxed.
Mom was the expert box opener and made short order of breaking down the boxes after they were empty...
The landscapers finished the second seatwall (on one side, at least)...
They also worked on extending the exposed aggregate concrete that will be around the pool so there will be a strip of it along the edge of the pavers.

There was a gorgeous sunset on Tuesday night...
Must have been the calm before the storm...
On the way home from NYS, I stopped at the Grove City outlets to pick up some spice tins from Pfaltzgraf. I was planning to order them online, but the shipping charge was so outrageous I decided to stop at the outlets sometime to pick some up. I didn't get quite enough, so I'll have to get back up there sometime and buy more for my baking spices. These are my cooking spices, all labeled and in their tins and in the drawer near the cooktop...
The edge of the covers on the tins have both sprinkle and pour areas and there are magnets on the bottom of the tins. I'm going to have DH find me a piece of metal to fit the drawer so the spice tins will stay where I put them.
While I was gone, the landscapers finished putting the stone on the second seat wall and then grouted both seat walls. The concrete around the pool wasn't able to be poured because of the rain. The wood for the deck and the pavers have arrived, so they can work on those next week.

DH spent a couple of hours replacing the white outlets and switches on the granite backsplash in the kitchen with black outlets and switches - what a huge improvement! I didn't get a photo yet. He didn't get enough, so I'll wait and take a photo after they are all changed to black.

Don't you love vacuum tracks?

I'm back! The pool looked good enough to jump in - well, almost. And I didn't jump in it because DH had said he was going to shock the pool and I didn't know whether or not he had already done it. The landscapers have prepared the pool for the concrete (exposed aggregate) surround...
The retaining wall for the flowerbed is in now. The white pipe in the foreground is what the water from the pool and patio will drain into. It will become more obvious after the concrete is poured and the pavers are in. Just trust me for now - it's a drain...
The pool equipment is all hooked up and the pump was running when I got home...
The vacuum even works! The pool was so dirty that I could see the tracks that the vacuum made as it wandered around the pool! DH used the net to get most of the stones out of the pool before he started the vacuum, but every now and then the vacuum would stop because it choked on a stone.
And the satellite dish was installed while I was gone. I'm hoping we will have better reception than we had with the cable. I missed parts of many Olympic gymnastics routines because the TV program would break up right at the very worst possible time! :-(
I think the next few days will be spent working in my sewing studio, unpacking the boxes (I'll make my mom help me!). My chair arrived, but I didn't get a photo of it yet. I'll wait and take a picture once DH and DS carry it upstairs to the sewing room...

Progress on the patio...

On Wednesday at the end of the day, this is what the patio area looked like. The beams for the deck were laid and a lot more dirt was moved around and packed down around the pool.
By Thursday, the crosspieces had been attached...
And by the end of today, we don't have a whole lot that's changed since yesterday. Those boards sticking up on the far side of the deck are different from the ones I posted a photo of on Tuesday. They ended up cutting those off even with the crossboards and then attached new boards for the railing. They also have strung some string around the yard. I'm not sure what it is for. It may be prep work for the pavers that will be going down.

We started filling the pool with water. This is how much is filled after running the hose all day long. We have a ways to go yet...
I'm making progress again on the boxes. DH, DS, and DD carried all the boxes from the POD that had been stacked in the entryway up to my sewing studio, so the entryway looks clear now. Yesterday I think I emptied all the kitchen boxes from the POD, except for a couple of large boxes that were mis-delivered to the basement, and today I emptied all the POD boxes in the music room, so that room is looking better again.

The chair we ordered for my sewing studio is ready to be picked up at the furniture store distribution center, but that is an hour's drive each way. I called the store to see if we could get it delivered to the local store for pick-up and for 15 bucks they will do that. That will save us the time and gas to drive to the distribution center, and is well worth the money! I had to stop by the store and pay the delivery charge today and my chair will be ready for pick-up next Thursday. Maybe I can get some of my sewing studio boxes emptied by then!

Lots of guys here again!

So, I had a houseful of people here working again today. Two electricians connected the whole house fan and fixed the way the puck lights in the great room were wired. We wanted them wired so that the front ones were on 2 switches and the back lights were on 2 switches. They now work correctly, so we can turn off the front lights when we are watching the projector and leave the back lights on. Here is the whole house fan, which is mounted on the attic level in the hallway. It will suck the hot air up through the staircase and vent it out of the house.

One of the builder's guys was here to work on several things. He recessed the medicine cabinet in the kids' bathroom. I forgot to ask the electrician to hang the light the other way up (and I'm not positive that this particular fixture can be hung in either direction). We need to do something different with that light, as I don't like the way it looks right now. I think the medicine cabinet looks a lot better recessed though.
He also installed the grab bar in the guest bathroom, for times when we have older guests here, to help them get in and out of the tub. He installed the push plates on my pantry door and removed some stray stain from the grids in the French doors so it doesn't look messy from the outside.
The landscapers have been busy working on the deck off the French doors in the family room. These concrete block structures are seat walls which will be covered with the same stone that is on the fireplace, columns, and chimney. There will be steps in-between the two seat walls, and between the one on the right and the house. I think the tall poles in the back will form a guardrail to keep people from falling off the edge there (there's probably a 6', or more drop-off there). I'm guessing they are too tall and will be cut down to the right height after the deck is finished.
The pool is definitely not ready to swim in - yuck. DH has to hook up the filter and skimmer and all that other pool equipment and the concrete will need to be poured around the outside. The pool then needs to be inspected, so it will be 2-3 weeks before we can use it. DD is sad that it won't be ready to swim in before she returns to college next weekend.
The cabinet guy was also here today. He installed most of the rest of my full-extension, soft-close drawer glides. He was short by 2 and will need to come back and do those, plus the ones for the master bathroom. I love the full extension, but don't really care about the soft close feature. Unfortunately, the cabinet company doesn't offer full extension without the soft close, so I had to get both. While he was here, he also added the upper moulding around the one cabinet that was missing it and he worked on the vent over the cooktop. It's not nearly as noisy now and he fixed it on the inside so that you don't see all the equipment up inside it.

I made it to the store yesterday and bought some storage bins to put inside the closet (closed storage part) in the great room. Today I sorted all the stationary supplies, greeting cards, pads of paper, etc. into the bins and got them put away.

It was starting to look like I was making progress with emptying the boxes, at least on the first floor, but now that DS is emptying out the POD all the boxes are piling up again.