ALL THE THINGS! (Part 2)

Alright, here we go on part 2...what else could have possibly been done the last 2 weeks? Well, hold on to your hat. Get this: Lights, Appliances, NEW STONE delivered and almost finished, Master tile floor and shower, kitchen backsplash, wood floors installed AND stained. Wait, what?? All of that? Yep. It's all here!

Where to begin...so last Sunday, I flew out to California for work through Wednesday (part of the reason for the blogging delay)...so I had to rely on Rob's phone pics to give me the play by play.
 
So Monday, the electrician came to install all of the lighting and wire all the switch plates and put in the double ovens and microwave in the kitchen. They are based out of Arlington, so they stayed until after 10:00 that night so they could just make the one trip. They even brought out a special extension cord that they could hook up to the electrical panel to check all the lights and outlets...so we got to see what it would look like with the lights on for the first time ever! Of course they can't run everything off that little cord, so they only powered up a few things at a time. Still really neat to see! 

Why yes, that is an outlet INSIDE the vanity drawer! No more hair appliances on the counter!

The new stone also showed up Monday! Looks SO much better than the last batch. So Tuesday the masons came back to put all of that up on the inside fireplace and the patio fireplace and started on the front too. They're almost all done now, all they have left is the verrrry top of the chimney and they have to build us a little mailbox out by the street. And they need to get their stuff out of the way so I can take better pics. :)

The tile guys also worked all week to get the master bathroom finished and put in the backsplash in the kitchen. It's awesome! 

The master floor tile we found at Floor and Decor, they have an awesome selection and finally after visiting probably 4 or 5 times, we found some we REALLY liked. Their little displays help to visualize it too. We found it in 2 different sizes and the installer put it in a pattern mixing them. It has a light stone look to it.

The master shower took quite some time to get right. Rob had a vision from a while ago of this shower we found on Houzz. It had what looked like mountains carved from stone on the bottom half and a lighter tile on the top. But we used tile for the bottom half though since we weren't sure how stones would hold up, but it still has the same effect.  The instructions were for it to look like it was carved out of a cave haha.The installer had Rob draw out a line of the "mountains" he wanted cut out of the dark tiles and said he could cut the tile along that line. They also put some small mosaic tiles on the floor and in the storage niche and travertine tiles on the ceiling and lining the outside. It was pretty intense...the guy spent A LOT of time in here and it turned out great!

Some guys want a man-cave, Rob wanted a shower cave.

So in order to get electricity (which is one of the last few steps before the certificate of occupancy), the power company told us they would provide everything EXCEPT the trench from the transformer to the house. (Even though they dug the trench from the back of the property up to the transformer and have the equipment and are fully capable). The trench has to be 3 ft deep and a min of 6" wide and the transformer is about 120-ish ft from the house. Home Depot said they had a machine that would do it so of course Rob will take any reason to rent big hole digging machinery. Last Sunday he got a trencher and went to work, but after several hours with that thing, it ended up not quite 3 ft deep and couldn't get close enough to the house and the transformer. Lame. So this weekend, he rented a backhoe to finish up that job. Now the power company can come hook us up any day! Keep in mind, everything that has been done so far has been with extension cords running from our temporary power pole...crazy!

And of course, I've saved the best news for last! Now that we have the stone fireplace in, the wood floor installers we were ready to get started!! They started Friday morning and had the whole thing floored by the end of the day! They came back yesterday and stained it all, then put a coat of polyurethane on it a few hours later. We are currently barricaded so we can't walk on it to get more/better pics of the office and the hallway but I have no doubts it's just as beautiful as the living room and master bedroom. I really want to put a million pics up of these floors...so consider this narrowed down. :) You just really need to see it from all the angles to get the character of this reclaimed wood. 

Annd another panorama comparison so you can see the difference a week makes!

 

So with the holiday tomorrow, and another coat of polyurethane going on the floors Tuesday, we won't be able to get anyone else in there until Thursday this week. But we're trying to get the security/low voltage guy in Thursday, HVAC sometime this week, and the trim guys and painters back to finish up all the trim and touch ups now that the wood floors are in. Getting so close now!

ALL THE THINGS! (Part 1)

So yeah, it's been 2 weeks now, oops! Don't worry, things are happening, lots and lots of great things! We've just been super busy, so I broke this up into 2 posts because there's just too much! This post: Granite - check. Paint - check. Tile floors - check. Exterior final paint - check. Let me just catch you up on the how's and when this all went down. (Or just scroll and check out the awesome pics.)

The granite guys came first thing Monday after the last post (5/13) and were there until after 7 working on squeezing in the kitchen apron sink to fit just right. They installed all the other sinks too and did such a fantastic job, with just a little setback. When they came to make the templates/take measurements, the cabinets had JUST been installed and the little decorative pieces on the pull out spice racks weren't on yet. So when they brought the pieces that go next to the range top, it didn't fit over those. Ooops. No worries though, they were back on Thursday with new pieces cut perfectly for them and it's all great now!

Giallo Ornamental granite - looks great on both the dark and white cabinets in the master bath, closet and utility room.

Kitchen island and Jack/Jill bath

The painters also finished up painting all the rooms (except the office). If you know me and my decision making skills (or lack of), these tile/paint decision making weeks have been a nightmare. Pinterest/Houzz narrowed it down quite a bit...still wondering how people built houses before those sites, and internet in general...but anyway, our painter uses Sherwin Williams paint so we just started searching, and searching, and pinning, and searching. Pretty sure I ended up with 50 paint chips, and finally settled on a few we liked enough to buy the small samples cans. 

Few = umm...10. But 2 of them were blues that we were looking at for the Jack/Jill bath and master closet. One of them was a darker gray that's in the utility, master bedroom and half bath. And the other 7 were "main area" beige colors. Yes, that's right. 7 beiges. So we put them all up on the walls and compared them with the tile color and the dark stain we picked for the cabinets. Also, I have to thank Mrs. Cole for convincing me we needed to do a few areas with a darker color on the ceilings because her house looks fantastic with it! All of the trim is extra white, except the stain grade trim in the office. Super fancy. Also, to remind you what the floor plan looks like too - here's all the paints and their rooms. 

Loggia and Sandbar look close to the same color here but Sandbar is in the Jack/Jill rooms and hallway, Loggia is everywhere else. Rob still needs to decide on the office color too, but we're leaning towards a gray color.

I posted the Jack/Jill bedrooms and bathroom and media room last week. So...ta da, here's what the rest of the paint looks like in the other rooms!

Master bedroom & bathroom

Silver Sage in the Master Closet - perfect.

They also finished the final coat of exterior paint, including garage doors and stained all the cedar and under the patio ceiling. 

Once the painters were done, it was time for tile! For the Jack and Jill bath, we found a really pretty (and great priced) tile at Seconds and Surplus a few weeks ago so we snagged that up. It looks awesome with the white cabinets, granite and paint color...couldn't be happier about this bathroom!

The kitchen tile stumped us. Nothing really called out to us except some travertine we saw with rough edges in varying sizes laid in a pattern, BUT it was so far out of budget it just wasn't going to happen. The rough edges and pattern make the installation price go up quite a bit, so we set out in search of some tile we liked just as much. Everything we looked at just didn't compare to the travertine, so we settled on a single size 18x18 travertine without rough edges so that the installation price would be the same and the material price would be just a little bit more than what we had budgeted. The tile is still really pretty and and there are so many other focal points in this space (have I mentioned the amazing cabinets??), that I don't think we are losing much by taking out the pattern and rough edges. 

We'll get to the master bath tile fun in the next post...and TONS more updates to come. Really good stuff. Check back in a bit for Part 2...maybe tomorrow. We'll see. It takes a while to get through the hundreds of pictures I take each week, but I love having it all documented. :)

Remember that last panorama shot??

And now this! Woohoo!

Priming, painting, and a new door!

It literally feels like every day is Christmas around here, there is always something new showing up or being delivered or installed. It's pretty awesome to see it all coming together! Surprisingly a lot of the list was accomplished this week. Let's start wiiiiithh....

Brick! Almost all the brick was finished. All that's left is what goes around the front door when they finish that out with the stone...someday. 

We also had them brick the wall of the dining room. It's amazing.

We got our septic tank installed on Tuesday. We don't really need to talk about what that's for but uhh yeah, there it is. We have to have the aerobic (sprinkler) system, so our little sprinklers are wayyy out towards the back of the property. I would not recommend running through them on a hot summer day.

The trim is finished too, with the exception of baseboards/door casings that will need to be installed after the wood floors go in. They finished the cedar beams in the living room and put the mantle up, and made the giant window seat for the master bedroom! Yay storage! They also had to make the window casings stick out far enough for the brick wall in the dining room. They turned out great!

The painters got all the trim, doors, and the cabinets painted white (except the ones they stained last week), and all the exterior trim primed. They will still put another coat on outside to finish it out. Since they have still been spraying all over the place, the tile installer wanted to stay out of there. But they got almost every room primed annnd they painted the media room, jack/jill rooms and bathroom! Finally some paint color to show, woohoo!
 

Exterior painted

Cabinets & trim painted white; Media Room in Sherwin Williams Tiki Hut

Utility/mud room

Jack/Jill Bath - in LOVE with this SW color match of Restoration Hardware's Silver Sage

Guest Bedrooms - painted in Sherwin Williams Sandbar

 And the finale this week...our gorgeous custom made front door came in and since our trim guys were already finished, Rob had to install it yesterday. It's beautiful.  

This week's plans - Granite is getting installed tomorrow!! Which means sinks too and I can't wait to see the apron sink in the kitchen! The tile will start and the rest of the walls should get painted, woohoo! The painters will also stain the cedar beams/mantle and patio cedar/ceiling. Whew. Still waiting for our new stone too, we'll see if it comes this week so we can keep this train movin.

This should look way different next week!

Brick, more trim, and STAINED CABINETS!

Lots of exciting happenings this week...along with a little bit of a train wreck too. Let's start with all the good things first! :) Monday, the mason came by to show us a sample panel to approve the brick layout since we requested a thicker/messier mortar than normal. But they got most of the brick done by Saturday. Crazy how fast they go! Can't wait to add those pics to the timelapse video. All they have left to do on brick is the back patio (they were waiting for the trim guys to get the paneling up in the vaulted area). They will also do the window wall inside in the dining room brick too if we have enough left over. 

Playing on the mason's scaffolding...pretty views!

Brick on the front almost all done!

A little panorama action on the back

The trim guys also came back this week to finish the crown molding, beadboard/wainscoting in the half bath, wood paneling on the patio ceiling, the office ceiling (amazing!), and wrapping the living room beams in cedar. They only got one of the beams done though and still have to come back tomorrow to finish the window seat in the master and the other 2 beams.

Office ceiling, half bath, cedar trimmed beam

Can't get enough of this patio!

Rob did a little DIY-ing to adjust the placement of the body sprayers in the master shower. The plumber had centered them on the shower heads but once they got the walls up around the fixtures, we realized they weren't centered between the actual knobs that control them. The plumber couldn't come out for another week and a half, so he fixed it himself.

All done now...and perfectly centered. :) So handy!

The painters showed up Wednesday and we met them out there to discuss paint colors. (Sorry no pics yet, sit tight!) They started taping off windows and caulking all of the trim that was done before they painted. Once they got that done, and the trim guys were gone Saturday, it was time to SPRAY the primer...which is also the ceiling color. So far the living room, entry, media, front hall and jack/jill rooms & bath are all primed now. They will start taping so they can spray the trim next.

Bedrooms and entry primed

MOST exciting though is that they got the kitchen/master cabinets all stained and the ceiling in the office too. It's looking great!!

Sherwin Williams Ranch Oak stain on the cabinets (1st pic after first coat)

Love it.

So now let's talk about the not so great things. It just wouldn't be fair for everything to go right, huh? So...our stone got delivered this week, yay! And they started putting it up, yay! But you may have noticed in the pics up there that there's not much of it up yet...because well, when we saw it we said "uhh that's not the color we picked". Oops. Apparently it is the right stone, but when this batch came out of the quarry it was just...grayer than what we thought it would be. 

Our stone....compared to the pic we sent them of what we wanted

We've stared at it way too much this week, and talked to the mason and the guy we ordered the stone from and finally decided to re-order. This time with a few more pictures of the house we found it on so they can get a better color match. Since it is a natural stone, we knew there would be variations but we had no idea it would be this dramatic. So...hopefully they can get that delivered in a week or so. It goes on the front where you see the spaces without brick right now, and the inside and outdoor fireplaces all the way up. It wouldn't look too bad on the outside, but it was very concrete looking and we didn't want that on the fireplace inside. 

Without the fireplace inside, we have to push out the wood floor installation and some paint and trim work that can't be done until the wood floors are in...domino effect: ENGAGE. Tile guys were delayed with some previous jobs this week too, so they haven't started either. They can't be in there while the painters are spraying anyway, so maybe later this week after the other half of the house is primed? We shall see!

On the plus side, everything else is looking AWESOME, so we're trying to stay positive. This week's agenda: Finish brick, finish trim list, prime/paint/finish stains, exterior trim paint, maybe tile/granite counters, line up septic/propane installation, annnd get the driveway situation figured out (another permit/inspection for that). Cross your fingers that stone shows up FAST. We need it...like yesterday.