Details, details, details...

Our meeting with the builder, architect, and electrician this morning lasted over 3 hours! A lot of decisions were made about where electrical boxes and lights needed to be installed and where some could be taken out. There were discussions about the duct work and phone jacks and a gazillion other things. I think most of the issues were ironed out. Some of the outlets and recessed lights were already installed and the plumbing work will begin soon.

Some of the issues we're having with this house stem from the way the joists run in one direction and steel beams run in the other direction. We are facing problems with getting the ductwork into some of the rooms because the steel beams block the way.

The shingles are being put on the roof and several guys were there today to continue the work on those (sorry about the reflection of my hand on this photo!).

Today was the first day I've been on the attic level of the house where the kids' bedrooms are. I stood on the ladder and looked around up there one day, but now that the stairs are in, it is easy to get up there. Here is a photo taken from the attic level, looking down through the opening in the stairs, all the way to the basement. That's a longgggg way down!
This window is over the stairwell on the attic level and provides some natural light to the stairwell...

The view from DD's bedroom is awesome - the best views in the whole house! She can see the woods, the river, and both ponds. The electrician told me that he saw 8 turkeys down by one of the ponds yesterday.

The kids' bathroom has 2 oval windows. You can also see the edge of the shower/tub in this photo. The commode will be between the shower and the left window, the vanity will be along the right wall near the other window. Beyond the bathroom wall you can see the joists from the ceiling in the master bathroom, which is directly beneath the kids' bathroom. This is another one of those complicated roof lines in this house.
One of the skylights in DS's bedroom has been installed.
There is also lots of under-the-eaves storage in DS's room...

After our meeting, we grabbed some lunch and then headed to downtown Pittsburgh for the Home & Garden Show - 9 acres of displays! I believe that the Pittsburgh show is the largest home and garden show in the country. We were able to skip a lot of the displays that we stopped at last year - windows, doors, foundations, etc. are all done now. It also was a lot less crowded than last year, probably because it's near the end of the show and we were there while the St. Patrick's Day parade was going on.

Yippee for stairs! (and other fun stuff)

It is so exciting to finally have stairs in the house! The front door is temporarily closed off and the entrance is from the basement now. The cement slabs have been poured for both the basement and the garage. The front porch has not yet been done.

Our master bathroom tub has arrived. It is a Kohler Sojourn Bubblemassage air tub.
The master bathroom and laundry room areas are finally framed correctly, to match the plans from the kitchen designer. Here are the half walls for our master bathroom shower. There will be glass above each half wall and a glass door across the opening.
Here is a shot from the master bathroom, looking down at the awning that was built off the back of the garage as shelter in the patio area.
The stairs only went as high as the second floor today, so DD still couldn't get up to her bedroom, and we took her picture standing one floor down in the master bedroom window area. In her bedroom this whole triangular window area will be a large window seat.
It was good to be able to stand in my sewing studio again. This is looking toward the larger section of the room...

And this is looking toward the narrower section of the room...
The newly poured garage floor...
So, everyone deserted me tonight - DH and DS had tickets to the Pens game and DD and her friend Ashley went to the high school musical (DH and I are going on Friday night so I didn't want to go tonight). I spent the evening at Lowes getting some details written down about the sewing studio counters and looking at vanities for the kids' bathroom. I think this is the vanity we'll go with (only in a 48" width). It is the Crestview Warm Sienna finish vanity from the Cross Creek collection by Kraftmaid. The counter is King's Gold granite with an undermount sink.
I think we'll also get the matching mirror/medicine cabinet...

Tomorrow I meet with the kitchen designer to go over the changes I want to make to the island. On Saturday morning we meet with the builder and the electrician and the architect (and who knows who else) to walk through the house before the electrician gets started.

Odds and ends

There were lots of odds and ends that were tied up at the house this week. We couldn't get upstairs as all the ladders were chained together outside, but from downstairs we could see that the master bath and laundry room framing has been corrected (the framer had used the architect's plans to frame it instead of using the plans from our kitchen designer).

The fireplace area has been framed,

the stairs have been delivered,
a couple of the stair landings have been built in preparation for putting in the stairs,

the pipes have been laid in the basement and covered with gravel in preparation for pouring the slab and the plumbing for a future bath is in place,
the arch in the great room has been built,
all the windows are in,
the exterior wall of DS's room is now finished, the octagonal window near the front door was lowered (as per our request, as I couldn't see out of it in the original position),
and the awning has been built off the back of the garage as part of the patio area (didn't get a photo of this).

Minor issues and fun finds

We met with the builder (Ray) tonight and nailed down some details with the exterior colors and other minor issues. Ray had paperwork from the power company for us to sign to give the power company a right of way for a width of 15', centered on the trench where the power wires will be buried along the length of the driveway.

We still have an issue with the window in my sewing studio. The window has been moved from its original intended location due to the overlapping roof there, but to us it looks cramped in its new location (and it is up higher now than the other windows in the room). We threw around some ideas with Ray to figure out what some other options might be. We are now thinking we'll do one of two things: either put an octagonal window there (which would match the one near the front door in the entry, but perhaps smaller) or a window similar to what is there now, just smaller. Ray is going to go out and doublecheck the measurements and maybe even make a wooden template of an octagonal window to nail up there so we can see what it would look like.

I've been looking online a lot lately for some hanging pendants for the kitchen. While looking, I ran across some fun finds...like When Pigs Fly!
Or this motorcycle pendant...
I love this light with the people - the arm and legs can be repositioned!
These are some pendants I'm considering for the kitchen, perhaps using all 3 colors over the island.

Racing the darkness...

We ran out to the house fairly late today. DH sacrificed watching the end of the hockey game so we could get out there before darkness fell (he DID listen to the end of the game on the radio, so don't feel too badly for him).

All but a couple of windows were installed and the front door was in. We are a bit concerned about the front door, as it hasn't been stained and sealed yet and we have big rain storms coming on Monday and Tuesday.
The front door from the inside of the house...
The inside of the house has been cleaned up - floors swept, most of the 2x4 braces had been removed, 2x4s in the doorjambs had been cut out, and the window openings that hadn't previously been cut out had been opened up and most of them had the windows installed. There were still several areas that were icy, but I'm sure that will melt in the next couple of days as the temperatures go up.
The guest bathroom tub/shower stall was in place. The kids' tub/shower stall was in the attic, but not yet in place. The only section of the house that is still open to the weather is on the attic level in DS's bedroom and we suspect that it was still open in order to get the shower up there.
Just inside the front door was the punchlist for this week, with about half of the items crossed off - love how they wrote it on the board!


These are the French doors in the family room which will lead out to a patio.

And my kitchen windows...

We had really bad weather last night and DH found it fairly treacherous driving home from the airport and he came across many accident scenes, mostly fender benders. On the way out to the house tonight, as we drove up the main road near where we live I spotted part of a car fender attached to the guard rail - someone had a bad trip home last night!

Sewing studio cabinets

I finally made it back to Lowe's to get the cabinet gurus to correct the mistakes on the prior cabinet layout. Here is what the wall of cabinets in the sewing studio will look like. The wall is 14' wide in this section of the room.
The 5 upper cabinets are hinged on the top. The tall pantry cabinets have roll out trays (4 in each) which will hold my baskets of fat quarters, the cabinet to the right of the desk is a filing cabinet, and the cabinet to the left of the tall pantry cabinets has flat storage. I thought this would come in handy for scrapbooking supplies.






I ordered a 50 lb. box of white newsprint in 20x30" sheets today from Office Max so that I can start pre-packing things in our kitchen and in other areas of the house. We need to get some of the cabinets and closets cleared out before we put this house on the market (still a couple of months away, but there's a lot to do before then). I found some leftover paint in the basement that I will use to cover the bottom of the dining room wall where it is currently sponge painted. The paint still seems to be in good shape and usable. (I really hate painting!)

Straw mystery solved!

DH spoke with the builder yesterday. He found out that the straw was put in the basement as insulation against the cold. It is used to keep the ground from freezing so that they can dig down to install the pipes that need to go under the basement slab (oh, the joys of living in the snow and cold!). The pipes will go in (hopefully) this week and the slab will be poured when we get a warm(ish) day.

The builder also said that the stairs will be delivered in the next couple of weeks. I assume that they've been waiting for the basement slab to be poured before getting the stairs. It sure will be nice to have access to all the levels via stairs, instead of having to wish for a ladder!

We will meet with the builder on Monday to go over the exterior color choices (http://bellsrus.blogspot.com/search/label/exterior%20materials). We've picked out the colors, but the builder wants to double-check where some of the trim colors will be used.

I've decided to make some changes to the kitchen design (I'm sure our KD will be thrilled to hear that!). I decided that the kitchen island needs to be one level, not two. We like the look of the 2 level island, but I just don't think it will be functional for me. One of the items on the top of my "dream kitchen list" has always been a large island without any sinks or appliances taking up space on it. It will mainly be used for baking, so there needs to be room for rolling dough, for cookie sheets and cooling racks. I've been struggling with the decision since I first saw the 2 level island, but now I'm sure it needs to be 1 level.

I still need to get back out to Lowe's to have the sewing studio design corrected and to get the printout so I can post it. The plan was also to pick the hardware for the cabinet doors, but I may wait and do that after the cabinets are in.

Views all around...

The ground was frozen enough today to walk around the house (hmmmm...except for that one spot where my foot went through the ice and my shoe got soaked), so I can finally post some photos of the back and sides of the house.

Here is the newest shot from the front - notice that some of the windows are now in (about a dozen around the house) and that almost everything is under roof. From left to right on the main level, we have the garage, mudroom (with powder room and closets), music room (this would be a dining room for "normal" people), front door, guest bedroom. On the second floor (L-->R) is the sewing studio and upper part of the great room. On the attic level is DS's bedroom.

The view from the end of the house (where the guest room, guest bath, and study will be, from left to right)... On the back side of the house, there is a walk-out, daylight basement but it will be unfinished for now, and there are no plans to finish it at the moment. DH will have a workroom down here and there will be a garage door on the left end for storing the lawn tractor.

Not all of the window openings have been cut out yet - there will be single windows on each side of the angled window area in the basement, main floor and second floor, but not on the attic level. There will also be windows on the angled section in the basement, but they haven't been cut out yet either.

(Wow! The house looks huge from back here!) From left to right on the first floor is the study, great room and family room where we will have our table. On the second floor, left to right is the top of the great room, master bedroom closets, and the master bedroom. On the attic level is DDs bedroom.

This next photo shows the back and the patio ends of the house from the corner...

Here is the patio side of the house. From left to right on the main level is the family room, kitchen, pantry, powder room, mudroom, garage. On the second floor is the master bedroom, master bathroom (with laundry room behind it), and sewing studio. On the attic level is DD's bedroom, kids' bathroom (with the oval windows), and DS's bedroom (since he only has one window on the front of the house, there is a skylight planned for his room).
The rafters have been added for the great room ceiling...

Lots of progress this week! We expect the house to be completely under roof by the time we go out there next weekend. This section near the front door and sewing studio seems to be the only major area left to finish, other than the windows, to get the house under roof and weather-proof. The window in this photo is in the stairwell to add light to that part of the house.