Ladders and bricks and windows, oh my!

The house is coming right along! So excited! When we stopped at the house today, there was a framer working on the roof (all by himself!), and ladders for us to climb to the second and third floors! I've been wanting to get on the second floor and actually stand in my sewing studio for a few weeks now, but alas, no one was ever working when we were there and no ladders were ever left out for us to use.Look...LADDERS!!!!!

And the bricks and windows have been delivered...the bricks have actually been in the brick yard for a month or so now, but the builder didn't want them delivered back then. I hope their delivery means we're getting close to needing them.
Here is the view from our large bedroom window...

This is the smaller section of my sewing studio. It will be even narrower once the cabinets are along the wall on the right side, but the only other things that will be in this section are a corner cabinet made by DH's grandfather and a cutting table with a stool, which will be used both for cutting fabric and scrapbooking (I am making a scrapbook of our house building project). Here is a link to the sewing studio layout http://bellsrus.blogspot.com/2008/01/we-have-second-floor.html.
This is the larger side of my sewing studio. It will house my sewing table, pressing table, computer desk, and a comfy chair and ottoman. There is a walk-in closet to the left (not shown in the photo below) and the door to my studio from the hall.
This is the attic level of the house which will be DD's and DS's bedrooms. This is the view from DD's (as of now, non-existent) window.

The framer that was working today told us that he's pretty much done all the framing himself. He usually has another guy there who passes the materials up to him from ground level, but he's done all the building alone. It made me nervous that he was totally alone today - he's working very high up without any safety equipment. If he ever fell and was injured, no one would know for quite some time, I'm afraid.

We stopped by the kitchen designer's on the way to the house and looked at granite. Right now we are leaning towards Verde Butterfly granite, but we need to go to the granite fabricator's and look at the actual slabs of granite before we can decide for sure.

Fun house finds!

Since I was snowed in the house today and couldn't go out and do something fun for my birthday, I decided to look for some fun house finds. These lamps are from http://www.eco-lights.com/lamps.php...

This is a waterfall accent light. I think it would fit in our house well, since we have waterfalls on our property!

Here are a round and an egg-shaped profile lamp...it looks like they would cast interesting shadows on a wall.



This tye-die lamp is available in several different colors... I prefer the cool colors over the warm colors.

The window saga...

Great news! I think my sewing studio window has been saved! I was willing to live without it, as I would still have 3 windows which is 3 more windows than in my current sewing studio (which is in the basement), but I'm thankful to have the fourth window.

DH emailed the architect yesterday about the window/roof obstruction and his reply indicated that our builder had contacted the architect the day before and they decided to move the window to the right and make it a bit smaller, but that it would still fit. I may have to rearrange the studio layout for that wall, but it will all work out just fine.

We need to make a decision soon on the plumbing hardware for the guest bath and kids' bath. They need to know which tubs/showers we will be using and while we're at it we're trying to figure out the faucets so it will all be decided. If we wait until the last minute to make the decisions, we will feel rushed, and would rather get things decided ahead of time.

We have so much wood in the house, going every which way, that it's hard to tell what all the wood is for. There are temporary diagonal supports that make things look jumbled, and the scaffolding just adds to the sense of confusion when you walk in the house. This is a photo of the vaulted ceiling in the great room , looking toward the guest room, hall closet in the entryway, and bookcase in the great room. I'm sure it will be a lot easier to visualize once the drywall starts going up.

Windows and straw...

We discovered today that I've probably lost one of my sewing studio windows. The roof line over the mudroom area which connects the garage to the house is blocking my window and I don't think there is anything we can do about it. The framers accomplished a lot this week, though!

Here is a close-up of the area...
DH climbed up to the second floor today to look around, but decided not to go any further than this, in case he had trouble getting back down!
We couldn't figure out why they covered the basement floor with straw - any ideas? There was a lot of water and snow on the decking on each level which I'm sure drips down to the basement. No one has any need to be in the basement at this point - do we care if the floor is muddy? Is there another reason they would put straw down there?
I was able to get a shot of the house from the right end - this is the guest room and office end of the house.

Here is the complicated roof section plan for our house - I think if you click on it you'll be able to see it OK... I visited Lowe's on Wednesday to get the sewing studio cabinets figured out. I had planned to put the layout up for you to see, but there were a couple of errors that needed to be fixed. I called and had them fix it, but the fax they sent isn't high enough quality to put online, so I'll stop out there again this week and pick out cabinet hardware and get a better copy of the layout.

Onward and upward!

After being away all week, we were so anxious to see what had been done on the house that we drove home from the airport, DH unloaded the suitcases while I started some pizza dough in the breadmaker, then we hopped in the car and drove out to the house. DS informed us on the way to the house that the weather had been pretty bad all week - ice and rain and snowstorms and lots of wind - so we were actually surprised that the framers had done as much as they had.

Here is where we were...

Here is what the framers accomplished while we were gone. They worked on the decking for the third floor, the roof over the one-story end of the house and did some more work on the second floor. We have very complicated roof lines, so the roofs take a while to complete. For example, on the right side of the photo below, the front room is the guest room and has a 9' ceiling, but the office which is located directly behind the guest room has a vaulted ceiling.

The framers built this "bridge" across the great room, from the family room to the office/guest room closet area so they can walk back and forth.

The porch over the front door has been started...this photo was taken from the entryway where the temporary ramp goes into the house.
While we were away, I had the laptop with me and spent some time planning the layout of the cabinets/desk area in my sewing studio (I had the .pdf files of the cabinet types saved on the laptop and took along some graph paper and a ruler). I also worked on my lessons for EQ6 (I'm taking an EQ6 class from Quilt University) and watched a quilting DVD (Katie PM's DVD "Simple Steps to Dynamic Art Quilts"). My major accomplishment on the computer during our trip, however, was to finally write our Christmas letter - I know, I know, it's a bit late, but better late than never, right? :-D So, if you usually get a Christmas letter from us, my "Ye Olde Midwinter Newsletter" should be on it's way shortly!

I will be making an appointment with someone at Lowe's this week to have them take my graph paper drawing of my sewing studio cabinets/desk area and input it into their computer. I can then get a price estimate and a 3D view of what it will look like.

I also need to get this house ready to sell. I purged one of our closets before we went on vacation and need to continue purging. There is also a lot of painting and wallpaper removal to be done.

We have a second floor!

The framers have moved up to the second floor. The second floor is the master bedroom, master bathroom, laundry room, and my sewing studio. We weren't able to walk around up there because the framers didn't leave any ladders around for us - imagine that!

Here is the view coming up the driveway...
This is looking up through the stairwell toward what will be our laundry room and master bathroom. I noticed that this area has not been framed correctly. The framers used the original blueprints instead of the design that we had our kitchen designer come up with for these rooms. Our kitchen designer completely changed the arrangement of the laundry room and bathroom, so this area will need to be re-done. DH called the builder while we were there and let him know that it isn't right. This is a shot of the outside of the newly built master bathroom. There will be two windows in this section. The master bathroom is directly over the kitchen.
This is my sewing studio. I so wanted to get up there and walk around the area, but I wasn't about to scale the wall. :-D
I took an online class, Studio Makeover, with Myrna Giesbrecht in March 2007 through Quilt University. Myrna helped me to come up with this design for my new Sewing Studio. The yellow pieces are storage, green are seats, orange are work surface areas, and pink are design walls. The photo above was taken from the viewpoint of the lower right corner of this floorplan.

Moving right along...

We were anxious to get out to the house and see what has been done. DH and I headed out there around lunchtime and found the interior walls on the first floor are done and the framers are now working on the joists for the second floor. I'm not sure how well things can be seen in the photos - they might just look like a jumble of 2x4s! Clicking on the photos to enlarge them will help a bit...

Alongside of the driveway was this interesting ice formation...

The garage has been framed...
DH standing in my pantry... The upper level of windows in the great room have been opened up...
View looking from the music room toward the stairs and family room...
I wonder if they could have used a few more 2x4s? :-D
We think we've decided on the exterior materials and colors for the house. The copper-colored metal goes above the front door, the shingles color is "driftwood" and is the one that the lower corner of the copper piece is touching, the hardie board color is Cobble Stone, the brick is Boral Old Salem, the Pella window trim color is Putty, and the chimney and bottom of the columns by the front door will be covered in El Dorado stone - Meseta Fieldledge. That's a lot of different materials!

The views are fabulous!

After a meeting with the kitchen designer this morning, and a stop at Bruegger's for bagels, DH and I headed out to the house to see what progress has been made. I think this is the largest gap between visits - it's been 9 days since we were last out there. We now have first floor exterior walls, some interior walls and most window and door cutouts, so we were really able to get a good feel for how large the rooms will be and what the views are from each room.

I've included quite a few photos today. If you click on the photos, you'll be able to view them larger and it might be easier to see the details...

Here is a panoramic view of the front of the house. The garage foundation can be see at an angle on the left (the garage meets the mudroom at a 45 degree angle). The temporary ramp going into the house is actually going through a window. The front door is the opening to the left of the ramp.

This is the view from the family room looking out toward the river. This is similar to what the second floor (our master bedroom) and the third floor (DD's room) will look like.
This is also a shot of the family room - these will be French doors opening out onto a patio. The angled wall to the left of the French doors are the angled kitchen windows. This is the great room wall which will have 8 windows. The ceiling in this room is vaulted...
Here is a panoramic shot of the view from one of the kitchen windows...I'm so excited!
And I can see my favorite tree from the kitchen windows!

Beams and subfloor...

Last week DS and I were out at the property around noontime, which is when I took the photos of the basement wall framing. DH stopped out there the same day, but around 4pm and he said that some of the steel beams were in place (which is the reason the guy was using the sledgehammer on the concrete block - it was a hole for the steel beam). It's amazing to me how fast this house is going up!

Today they were working on putting in the joists and the subfloor (decking) for the first floor.

We have an appointment with the builder tonight and will then stop at the flooring store to review our choices for flooring.

Framing started!

The back wall of the basement was framed in today when we stopped by...

One of the guys was taking a sledgehammer to a concrete block - not sure what that was all about...
Here is a panoramic shot of the garage foundation. I stitched 3 photos together so ignore the back right corner where it looks like the wall is wavy! :-D Hopefully, you can see from this how the garage connects to the house (Susie!).

Kitchen design

We haven't been out to see the house progress since last Friday, but I assume the only thing that has been done is the finishing of the garage foundation. Our builder thinks the framers will start this week, or next, so we'll head over in a couple of days to see what has been done.

I thought I would share our kitchen design with you. The kitchen sink that I wanted is iffy at the moment, as there is no easy way to center it under the 3-pane kitchen window and it will look odd if it is not centered. If we center it, we lose all kinds of space on either side of it and won't have room for the pull-out waste basket and recycling bin, so the kitchen sink is up in the air at the moment. I will probably have to go with a smaller one.


These photos are a bit skewed - the angle of the cupboards and counter are nowhere near that sharp (next photo), but it is the perspective that the photos were printed out at. The island is 2 levels and will be 2 different materials, but I haven't decided what those materials will be yet. The blue was supposed to be the Alkemi (http://bellsrus.blogspot.com/2007/08/kitchen-countertops.html), but it is more expensive than granite, so we will not be using it on the island. The lower side of the island is table height - 30" and the higher side is counter height - 36". The lower side will be for rolling out dough. The area at the far end is a beverage area - ice maker, small beverage refrigerator, wine glass storage, etc. and my second oven will be there. The door to the right leads to a walk-in pantry which will be lined with shelves.

This is the view of the kitchen from the adjoining family room, which has a fireplace and will be our dining room with a large table. On the right in the family room there will be French doors leading out to a patio area.