Tile and Pergo

Well, we had an "oops" over the weekend. It's the first one in a long time. Titan's fault, of course. The tile guys showed up Saturday and got to work right away. I had a fundraiser for therapy dogs all day. Joe got to the house around 2pm, after he fixed the AC at someone's house. The poor tile guy was putting the very last tile on the tub surround (goes from top of the tub to the ceiling)....and Joe saw that it was the wrong size tile! They put those itty bitty 6x6 tiles in and we had specified 12x12 tiles. So they had to carefully rip out all of the tile they had just put up. Titan had never given the change order to the tile guys. And it gets even better....the tile guys are on a company trip for the next 10 days! So needlesstosay, we won't have tile in our main bath for two weeks. It shouldn't put that much of a kink in things. Just annoying....more annoying to the tile guys, I'm sure! So on to the pictures....

Tile around the fireplace....still missing the mantle (ignore the disgruntled Sheltie pup in the x-pen):

Tile in the foyer and hallway:

Tile in the bathrooms (hard to get a good photo since they're not big, open rooms):

And finally, the Pergo floor in the dining room:

Cooper "tested" all of the new flooring. We caught him napping on the tile, the Pergo and the kitchen floor. Goofy puppy! He seems to like the tile best. Here he is napping on the kitchen floor:

Appliances are being delivered today. Then we just need the plumbing, electric and trim to be finished. Followed by the carpeting. And that's it!

Kitchen Flooring and Stair Railing

Things are moving along very quickly now. I'm going to try to keep up with the updates. We *should* be moving in around the end of May. Yesterday, they installed our kitchen floor. We had originally wanted tile in the kitchen, but the upgrade charge was ridiculous (somewhere around $10k, I think). So instead we went with the best linoleum you can get. Supposedly nothing sticks to it and it has a lifetime warranty. We plan on putting tile and granite in the kitchen in a few years. Until then, this will do! The island was moved temporarily until the flooring is finished.


Kitchen floor (photo is a little dark, it was sunset when I took it):

You can click on the photo to make it larger.

They also installed our stair railing. We were originally going to paint it all white. But now, we're kind of glad we stained it. Well, Joe stained it. We did miss the little screw covers, so those will be stained this weekend. The stairs will be carpeted. We picked a dark brown color.

Monday, the tile guy starts. The foyer, hallway and bathrooms all get tile. Then the electrician and plumbers will be back to finish their stuff. Oh, and our appliances are being delivered Tuesday. I'll try to update after the weekend!

Painting is DONE!

Well, three weekends later and all the painting is done. Thank goodness! I mean, they'll still be touch ups later....but all of the yucky, all day painting is done. We went with color everywhere. I'm not a fan of white walls, nor was I going to paint the whole house one color. Right now, we're pleased with how everything turned out. I think it'll look even nicer once the trim is up. Trim starts tomorrow. Followed by the tile guy, final electric, final plumbing and the rest of the flooring. The end is in sight! Woohoo!

It was a gloomy, rainy day so the kitchen looks darker than it is...there are two pantries to the right that you can't see in this photo:

So you can get an idea of the flow of the floorplan...this is standing in the laundry room, looking through the kitchen to the great room....we love open floorplans!



The next two are the Great Room...same paint color as the kitchen (it looks different in every photo):

Dining Room (two windows to the right)....I had to take this at an odd angle to show the paint color correctly...it was showing up too dark:

One of the guest rooms....it's not that dark of a purple, bad lighting again:

Other guest room, also not this dark:

Master Bedroom:

Master Bath...color is "Squirrel" :)..

And finally the master walk-in closet....

The only thing missing is the laundry room. It's the same color as the walk-in closet above. There was just too many things in there to take a nice photo. So the next set of photos will have the laundry room.

And last but not least....our little painting helper, Cooper:

Who was sleeping when he wasn't getting into the paint:

Painting begins...

Ah, the joys of painting an entire house. It seems a lot bigger when you have to paint every square inch....THREE times! I think Joe said there was 6500 sq ft of walls and ceilings (the whole house is only 2200 sq ft of living space). We sprayed and then back rolled the primer. That took about 7 or 8 hours. Then we started the ceilings that night with the first coat of paint. The next day, we finished the first coat on the ceilings and went back for the second coat. And finally, by Sunday afternoon....we started the color on the walls. That's the fun part....well, ok, maybe not "fun"...but interesting! We got a first coat on the laundry room and the walk-in closet. They're two of the smaller rooms (walk-in - 9x10 ft; laundry- 8x10 ft) so it was a good place to start. Now onto the photos.... :)

Part of the Great Room:




Kitchen:



Master Bedroom (ask Joe how much fun it is to paint vaulted ceilings!):





Master Walk-In Closet:




Sorry for the darkness of the photos. It was pretty late before I had a chance to grab the camera and take some photos. The color in the walk-in closet is actually a grayish blue-green, if that makes sense. The paint was still wet when I took the photo (and that's only one coat).

We'll finish painting this weekend. So LOTS of photos after this weekend!

We have siding!

The siding and shutters are finally complete. All we need yet on the exterior are the gutters and porch railing. Still waiting on the HVAC to be finished and then we can paint!


The latest photos:














View from the fields...we love how the color blends with the scenery.

Garage door and the start of siding...finally!

We now have a garage door and they started siding yesterday. The siding guys hope to be finished by the end of this week. They should be digging trenches for the underground utilities shortly. Painting and the rest of the HVAC are up next!

Garage Door:

The walk-out basement is sided:

Best of all, almost a perfect match between the Pella windows and the siding....yay! We were worried there would be a noticable difference...we're trying to avoid that white window/tan siding look (it's fine for replacement windows, but not on a new house):

More updates when the siding is finished!

Drywall/sheet rock is up

We seem to be moving along pretty quickly now. We now have drywall/sheet rock. They're siding the house this week or next. The garage door should be here shortly. And they're digging for underground utilities end of this week or early next. Here are the latest pics...


Kitchen (little guy in the middle is our new Sheltie pup, Cooper):

Great Room (fireplace side):

Great Room (other side):

Hallway & part of Foyer:

Dining Room:

From Kitchen looking into Great Room:

Master Bedroom:

Guest Bedroom:

Guest Bedroom #2:

Upstairs Hallway:


I'm sure they'll be more updates after the weekend. :)

Concrete floors

The concrete guys poured our floors on Thursday and Friday. It looks great! The house is finally starting to feel like a house. Almost all of the insulation is done, so it's very easy to visualize the rooms now. And more importantly, it now holds heat much better! So these photos aren't pretty (it's concrete, for goodness sakes) but they do show progress. :)

Basement:



Other side of the basement:




Garage:




I didn't take a photo of the porch. It's not that exciting. Maybe we can put a rocking chair or something on it now though. Next up is siding, sheet rock/drywall and the trenches for our utilities. All pending weather, of course!

We have a fireplace....

Last night, we went to see the progress on the house. We check in a few times a week and every weekend. They're almost done with insulation and they set the fireplace. Yay! So here are some new downstairs photos....I also have some of the upstairs but that would be picture overload!

One side of the great room (fireplace side...kitchen to the right):



Other side of the great room (pardon the mess!):



Kitchen:



Dining room:




And here are two photos of our "winter wonderland"...the first is Joe shoveling drains into the driveway:





And then some of the view:



Sorry for the not-so-great photos. I had my little pocket camera and not the dSLR. They are some interior walls that we need to insulate yet. The builder only does the exterior walls (per code). Even though it's not necessary, we want insulate interior walls for sound purposes.

And that's it for now! The concrete guys did their prep work but didn't pour yesterday due to the weather. Hopefully they'll pour the basement, garage and porch floors today.

The final window

I haven't updated this blog in awhile because everything that's going on has been rather boring! But this weekend, they put in the last window. It's about time!





And the last window from inside the master bedroom:





Besides the new window...we've had all the electric, plumbing, and HVAC roughed in. We passed that inspection. They're starting to insulate on Monday. They'll be pouring the garage, porch and basement concrete floors on Wednesday. Then we have to wait for the weather to be decent so the trenches for the underground electric and gas line can be dug. We're also waiting for the security alarm guy to do his wiring. He's supposed to be doing that tomorrow.

So that's the latest on the house! Sorry for the long delay in updates. Hopefully, things will get more interesting shortly!