Still Waiting…

This post is called “Still Waiting…” because we are still waiting for our driveway.  It’s getting very old.  Not that I am not grateful to be in this amazing house, but it is getting very old because so much other work (and getting all these contractors out of our hair) hinges on this driveway.  In addition, I have had just about enough of cleaning up mud, gravel and dust from the house due to everyone tracking in crap from the driveway!  The curb, sidewalk and approach have all been poured, thank goodness, (and hopefully will be approved), and next is the driveway.  But as usual, about 15 things have to happen before they are ready for the asphalt guys, so here we sit.  Rumor has it Tuesday might be the day, but we won’t hold our breath.

Yes, I did carve our initials into the concrete down by the sidewalk, but don’t tell anyone.  😉

I’m doing this update as we have begun to get a little settled and I thought you might be interested to see all the empty rooms you have been looking at for so long getting filled with at least a little bit of furniture.  We have a long way to go, but here’s a glimpse.

I’ll do the best one first…  Last year I saw the following wall hanging at a hotel and fell in love with the idea:

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I was determined to incorporate that into our house at some point, and it finally came to fruition in our dining room!  Photos don’t do it justice, it is amazing and Bill and I love it!  Also good for filling up VERY LARGE walls that we have.  Every wall hanging or piece of art we have looks like a postage stamp compared to the size of the walls.  It think it will be a while until we get stuff large enough to fill up wall space.

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Master bedroom pretty well set up.  Bench was the final piece that came last week.  It was pre assembled which made Bill very happy.  He has put together so many pieces he’s about done.

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Lower level family room.  Very much work in progress, but we found a mini couch and filled the bar area with bar like items.

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Living room.  We have a new couch coming as this one is a little big for the space and is sinking badly.  Also new coffee table on order and just taking our time with what we will do with end tables, lamps and a behind the couch table.  New rug in greens and earthtones to break up all the gray and blue we have going on.

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A bit of decor, but like I said, everything we have is SO small it looks silly.  My sister gave me that little bowl on the shelf for my birthday and it has been packed away ever since.  Looks great with the colors, great choice MK!!!

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Bill’s office.  We laughed when we put his very traditional desk in this more modern space as it looked a little odd.  It’s a good desk for him, though and sticking with it.  If you look on the left side of the photos you can see a table.  That is Bill’s old school briefcase from years past that I made into a table for him as a housewarming gift.  Had to keep some traditional and nostalgic touches.

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Karen office.  Space from which I wield power. haha  And killer view.

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MagnaMemos studio.  Now this space is just unreal.  Pretty much put all my stuff in one room instead of having it spread out all over the place.  Much neater and out of the way.

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Laundry room/pantry/mud room/catch all room.  Come straight in from the garage door.  Really working out well.

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Front entry

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Lower level gym

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And last but not least, another neighborhood cat that REALLY wants to come inside.  And a good shot of our back patio area which is still also a major mess.  Been staring at the pile of gravel for 2 weeks now.

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We’re getting there, but so happy to be in!  I’ll probably do one or two more posts to show you all the driveway and some really finished photos (may be a while), and then wrap up this portion of the blog and move on to something else.  Hopefully MagnaMemos related as I start to get back in the swing of things.  Have a great holiday everyone!

In at last.

Oh goodness, gracious me…  You must all think we fell off the face of the earth.  My mother is even wondering where I’ve been!  Well, we have been in moving mode, in the zone, very focused, and now for an update on how it all went.

Moving day was hectic as you can imagine and turned out to be moving dayS as the company we used only has one size truck and we filled it with a fair amount of stuff remaining.  We did the main load on Monday the 23rd, and had to have another round on Tuesday the 24th to get the rest.  That was unexpected and frustrating, but in the end it worked out fine and the movers did a great job with minimal damage to anything.  Success in my book.  I did feel badly for them, however, as the conditions at the new house were not optimal.  We STILL do not have a driveway and had to use our neighbor’s carport and a “runway” of plywood over all the mud and dirt to get to our garage.  They moved it all with no complaints and got it done.

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Only casualty was our beloved leather overstuffed couch and chair which were going to go in the family room on the lower level and could not even fit through the doorway.  Major bummer.  But the beauty of still being a construction zone is that there are plenty of contractors/people/workers around in the market for furniture, so it did not take long for one of them to scoop it up and so it was not sitting in our garage for long.  Since we had sold so much of our furniture and belongings before the move, we were counting on that set to fill the family room, and now we were left in the market for ANOTHER piece of furniture.  Our credit cards are taking a beating.

So since I mentioned the condition of the outside of the house, I guess I will start there.  But perhaps there is really not much to say, so I will give you bullet points:

  • We still have no driveway.
  • We need to get the sidewalk done first to get a driveway.
  • The sidewalk can’t go in until the curb is done.
  • The inspector keeps changing the rules and water lines, sewer lines and the curb has been moved several times.  Guy keeps giving a new direction each time he comes out.
  • The concrete guys have added fuel to the fire by pouring the curb incorrectly twice.
  • Curb has been torn out twice.
  • We are on the third pouring of the curb or portions of it anyway.
  • It is rainy here.
  • Rain makes dirt into mud.
  • In order to get to our cars parked 1/2 block away, we have to walk through all this mud.
  • Every contractor doing work inside also walks through this mud.
  • Lots of mud/dust/gravel/filth in our new house. 🙁
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My favorite photos I have taken is of all these guys standing around for hours staring at the holes they have dug and contemplating what to do  next.  Ugh.

Okay, enough of that.  I think I have drilled that home enough and you all can get the idea of the situation.

Happily the joy of being in the house is offsetting the mayhem outside (except when I am working in my office and they are jackhammering the curb out for the second time and the whole house shakes).  The house is beautiful and better than we dreamed.  I snapped photos when we first arrived with our stuff in the truck as it would be the last photos of the house empty and “ready” for move in.  Check it out:

New fireplace in family room up and running:

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Laundry room bubbles:

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Gym:

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Lower level guest bathroom (still a few things to complete in there):

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Family room lower level (door on the left is bill’s wine cellar – underground:

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Master:

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My rule when moving is that the bed is the first thing to get set up.  After a long day, that last thing you want to do is make your bed up, so this was the first order of business:

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Attic storage area (sweet):

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Bill office (house came equipped with a devils decal):

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Still love my sliding office door!

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Kitchen:

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Living:

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So we’ve been in a couple weeks and basically it has been unpacking and juggling all the things that still need to be done.  We’re now down to all the little stuff on the inside and pretty much totally unpacked.  Adjustments that need to be made to fixtures, dents and dings that need to be repaired and things that were forgotten or are incorrect.  Lots of list writing and working with the site manager to coordinate it all.  I took a fair amount of vacation which was a very good thing as I could focus my attention on what needed to be done.  But as of Tuesday the 1st I was back at work and it has not been easy to stay focused when there is so much in and out and activity here.  Not complaining by any means, just saying’…  Now being here we are available for everyone to ask us questions, so we get pulled in a million directions every day.  So amazing how much still needs our attention.

Bill also had to deal with the wine that he decided to move himself.  He did not count on us not having a driveway, so he esentially carried every box by hand from the old house, through the neighbors garage to the new house and down into the cellar.  Took him about 4 days, and the day the last case came it, we celebrated like no other.  What a chore and made much more difficult by the lack of concrete.  I gotta hand it to him, I would have been totally overwhelmed by day 2, but he did it and is so happy with the new situation!  Go Bill!

We said goodbye to our old house on Sunday the 29th and it was a major relief to be done.  Did a bit of cleaning (movers trashed the carpets and they had to be cleaned) and labeling of stuff around the house for the new owner and away we went.  Not having two places to even think about is a major weight off our shoulders.  Feels so good.  The new owner is doing her own remodel and will be tearing out all the flooring and possibly the cabinets (which we had redone only a year ago), so she will be having fun too!  I know she will like living there as much as we did.

The new house is relatively bare since we sold so much furniture and wanted to wait until we got here to figure out what would look right.  We need a lot of new stuff as this style of home is so different than our old house, so we spent a day buying furniture that is all on backorder.  lol.  Of course the one time I actually wait to get into a house to buy furniture, none of it is in stock.  Oh well, we’re making due with what we have and it’s not a hardship by any means.  Just excited to pull it all together.

So we’re working things out, piecing in all together, and staying in a holding pattern on some things until other pieces fall in to place and we can move forward.  That’s pretty much a summary of our status to date.  We knew things were not going to be perfect.  A few things have surprised us, but that’s what you deal with when building.  My beloved refrigerator is too big for the spot in the kitchen, our washer died, our toilet tissue holders are not the ones we chose, the bathtub faucet is wrong, kitchen drawer handle is crooked, and Comcast still has work to do.  These are just a few examples of our first world problems.  Earth shattering stuff.  We are in.  We are so excited.  We are thrilled with the end product so far and loving every square inch of this place.  I really don’t want to leave, but I have to travel for work next week.

I hope this gives you an idea of how it all went and what our status is as so many of you have been asking.  Apologies for taking so long to update, but I’m sure you appreciate the hectic nature of the last two weeks.  Once our furniture and decor come together a bit more, I will send some photos of how that is going.

Thanks for reading, and I will leave you with a few more photos of the outside of the house.

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And last but not least, our new best friend.  Our neighbor’s cat “Dusty”.  My new love.

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Where the sidewalk ends…

These past few weeks have been so intense and filled with a range of emotions I have never experienced.  Luckily most of the emotions have to do with the excitement and joy of the final aspects of our year long “project” coming together but still takes a major toll.  We are ready.  We are more than ready.  Ready for the sleepless nights to end.  Ready to not be living out of boxes.  Ready to not get pulled in 50 different direction all in one day.  Ready to give my full attention to just one thing.  Ready for some routine.  Ready for some peace.  Ready to stop bleeding money.  Ready to see all the things in my head be right in front of me.  We can’t wait, nor can we even believe we are here.  As George Constanza would say “I’m bustin’ Jerry, I’m bustin'”.

The house is almost done.  Our move is scheduled for monday the 23rd and I can barely believe it.  We finally got the power connected a few weeks ago and I screamed with excitement the first time I walked in and there were LIGHTS ON!  It was amazing.  Almost a year of walking around there with not lights and could not go there at night, and it takes on a whole new feel.  Amazing.

The finishes are pretty much done and we are down to the nitty gritty of all the little stuff that the crew strives to make absolutely perfect.  There is no “good enough” with this team, so any little flaw in paint, door not quite level, light bulb missing is being attended to with excruciating detail.  Very impressive and although we have blown the budget by far, we know it will all be worth it in the end for what we are getting.  The cleaners were in last night and the painters are doing touch ups today.  A few last plumbing and electrical items will be seen too over the next few days and we are fine (although the builder is not) with a few items that may have to get done post move.  No big deal, just get us in.  Everything I speak of here is on the inside.  The outside of the house is another story.

Throughout this project, I have made reference  to the sidewalk issue.  As a refresher, when you do a “remodel” this large, the city of Kirkland requires that a sidewalk be put in if there is not one already.  There was not one, so we need to put one in and we have to pay for it.  Sounds like a great deal for the city…  Well, this has by far been the most complicated and expensive part of the entire process.  Engineers, surveyors, inspectors, designers, diggers, concrete specialists, and on and on and on have been working on this since we purchased this property in November of last year.  YES, it has already been a year!  Anyway, we did everything required along the way, and it would be one of the last pieces of our remodel to be completed right before we move it.  Everything was set, sewer lines inspected, catch basins installed, storm drains relocated, heavy equipment on site to do all this digging and moving (and be reminded that we are paying for all this), and they were ready to pour the sidewalk.  The sidewalk concrete would be paired with the concrete needed for our entry and then we would get our driveway installed, but then the worst thing happened.  City of Kirkland had a reorganization.  The inspector that had given us the blessing and approval to pour was off our project and we got the “new kid in town” that does everything by the book.  He came out and handed our builder a list of things that needed to be changed to the work we had already done.  Unbelievable.  Without a driveway, access to the house is limited and we are moving in a week (this all happened Monday).  WOW, what a blow.  Much of what was already done has to be dug up.  Sewer line has to be replaced and relocated and another catch basin (those HUGE concrete cylinder things you see in large construction sites) has to be installed (we have already put in two).  Not to mention a bunch of other stuff that he wants done.  All this for a city block of sidewalk.  We were taken aback, but as many people that build a house know, nothing surprises you when you get to this point.  I thought we were not going to be able to move as I thought it was going to take a very long time, but not the case.  They are working on it now and predict it will be done by next week.  WOW, it sounded like a 3 month job to me!  Only really put them behind a week and that is good news.  Not sure we will have a driveway anytime soon, but we found a way to work it so the movers could get in.  We are still on for the move.  Whew!  For your enjoyment, here are two photos of the masterminds at work.  You can see the mess of mud that is our front lawn.  And as a side note, the drought in WA is over based on the amount of rain we have had in the last two weeks.  It has been unbelievable.  That along with the power outages has not helped our stress!  It has delayed a lot and made it a real mess to get around the site and not drag mud through our new floors and carpet.  Two houses with no power for 1 day as we wind down toward a moving date in desperate need to get everything done was close to my breaking point.  I thought I might lose it but then Bill reminded me “one day at a time”.  Gosh he’s great…  😉

 

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So I am going to do a video the day before we move in to document the final day and preserve what the house looks like empty and pretty much done.  I will try to post the dropbox link and email it out as well.  In the meantime, here are some photos to give you an idea of how it is coming together.

Here are some photos of the outside paint from sunnier days:

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Accent wall in master:

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Kitchen is coming together nicely, and it’s the only room where I have some issues.  I decided I don’t like the crown molding and want the cabinets to go full to the ceiling.  Nobody would ever notice but me, but I am fixated on it now and they are going to change it for us.  It will be a bit of a project post move in, but I’m not happy with the way it looks, so we need to change it.  In addition, the section with the refrigerator and oven is a bit of a mess.  Long story short, it was mis-measured and does not fit well in the space.  The edge of that side hangs out into the living room a bit and looks awkward.  Because of that, the space between the fridge and oven is very tight.  The fridge doors hit the oven.  Very bad.  We are working on that now, but also will be rectified post move.  Frustrating, but issues are bound to happen somewhere.

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Kitchen door to back patio.

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Art nook.  Kind of a “Bill thing”.  I could have taken or left it, but he liked the idea.  I just don’t have any art for an art nook.  Decided I’m going to put a framed photo of myself in it as a personal tribute to my awesomeness.  Love the art nook now.

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Karen’s office door.  Sliding barn door.  YES!

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Front door.  LOVE!

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Lower level family room and fireplace turned out great.

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Laundry

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Fireplace surround is done and is beautiful.

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Not sure if I will post again before moving on monday.  But I will try to get plenty of photos between now and then as well as moving day and post after we are a bit settled.  Should be an interesting Thanksgiving at our house.  Planning on making something, but not sure what.  We will have to figure that out.

 

Enjoy and more to follow…

 

 

Freaking out!

I’m stealing away for a few minutes to post, which is increasingly difficult.  Insanity has set in, we are really close now…  I think we are looking at about 4 more weeks and we should be starting to make our transition.  Can you believe it?  We are so excited we could burst.  But our excitement is tempered by some things that are required to get to the end.  We have some issues with the sidewalk now and the city sewers and storm drains that are going to drain our budget even further.  This is all part of the sidewalk we are required to do based on the scale of the remodel we are doing.  Basically extortion from the city, but whatever.  It’s getting a little more complicated, but we have to stay focused on getting to the end.  Lots still to be done and we are in crunch time.

But here are a few photos to give you an idea of how things are coming along.  Things have progressed even further than these photos reflect, but challenging to keep up.  I will take some additional photos this week and post them so you can see how much more progress we have made.

Kitchen cabinets in.  This is pre granite installation.  Photos with granite in this post too.

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Living room fireplace and built ins to the sides.  Look at those windows!!!  The entire area above the fireplace will be stacked stone going in next week.

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Quartz counter tops went in this week and they are awesome!!!  Loving how the kitchen is turning out.  While we were there looking some things over we got to see them installing all this and had to make critical decisions on where exactly to place our sink faucet.  Took us 20 minutes to decide.  We think we like it better when they just decide and don’t involve us.  Too stressful  – lol.

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Master bathroom floor and vanity.

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Floor and shower stall with our river rock shower floor.

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Main floor bath.  White glossy subway tile that I thought I would hate but our designer told me to trust him.  It looks amazing.  This is pre accent tile, which also looks amazing.

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Wine bar area on the lower level.  This will have a granite counter top cut around the barrel.  Barrel obtained from our friend Morgan of Two Vintners.  Little trading going on there…

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A few samples of our window coverings.  Doing roller shades in most and a massive paneled draw shade on the big slider in the living room.  Wanted to put a motor on it so it could open and close automatically, but it is too big to do that and has to be on a cord.  bummer, but I will be working my muscles on that one.  Turns out Bill has a very good eye for this stuff, some of these are his choices!

Gym:

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Lower level family room

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Karen Studio (of course)

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Main House

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Master bedroom

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Here’s how the schedule looks for our remaining weeks.  Painting this week, floors and 2nd round of tile installation next week, then electrical, plumbing and AV stuff.  Then we have to sprinkle in our own stuff like closet installation, window covering installation and landscaping, which should be mid november, and then we can start slowly moving.  Hooray!

 

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More later, gotta run…

 

 

Don’t blink

Don’t blink on this house construction, ’cause you’ll miss most everything.  We keep blinking…

House was bustling with activity yesterday after a quiet friday/saturday.  Cabinets delivered:

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Lotta boxes and they are well protected until they get to them, but you cannot move around in the house!  I am wondering what the tall one in the back is.  The fact that I don’t know is scary.  I know we ordered something like that, but cancelled it for the kitchen, so I’m hoping it’s the laundry room piece.  Took a peek in the boxes and pretended they were wrong to send the foreman into a panic.  I’m so mean, but I just can’t help myself.  We did have a good laugh.

Young crew busy at work putting the trim on.  They will also be doing the cabinets, and rumor has it they will be totally done in 7 days.  So they have most of the door trim done, which means they have installed the interior doors.  Happy with our choice here.  We have 6 panel traditional doors in our current house, and I’m glad to move into a less dust collecting door!

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Doors will be painted brown to mimic the floors, these are only primed right now.  I’m not sure why they hung them before they were painted.  I’m assuming they will take them back down to paint and the trim guys just wanted to get them set and level in the doorways while doing the trim.

And most exciting of all if the finishes have been delivered.  Got to see all of our choices in person and larger samples.  So far so good!

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Bubble for the laundry room and river rock for the master shower.  Made a last minute change on the river rock, and so glad we did!

With the demolition of the garage complete, we were just waiting for them to haul away the last of the debris, and that has been done now.  They also removed the chicken coop and other creepy out building that was on the back lot.  I assume they did this now as it is more cost effective, because the last priority we have is to put any money into the back lot right now considering how tight we are on budget.

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The idea about subdividing the back lot is still alive, and the designer and builder are doing what they need to do with the city to get initial approvals and ok to move forward with the subdivision.  Remember, we still need the neighbor to give us some land.  We are treading lightly as we’re not quite ready to dive into that right now.  We need to get this house finished and then we can focus on that piece.  There are, however, a few things we can do now to get the ball rolling without investing any money, so we are doing those things and will see if the plan works for us.  More to come on that I’m sure.

Now we are in to final decisions on plumbing fixtures and lots of other “little” things, but this is when you really start to tear out your hair.  We are pretty worn down at this point and now find ourselves saying “whatever” quite a lot.  Glad this is getting close.

Hopefully more updates after the next blinking.

 

0 to 60 in…

Been a little over three weeks since I last posted, and in that time we have gone from (relative) 0 to 60 in no time.  Moving so fast I can barely keep up with the decision making and pressure to make choices let alone being able to set aside time to blog.  Not to mention that by the time I take photos and get around to blogging, the photos are old news, so often you are a couple steps behind!  But I want to keep you all updated and assume you still love hearing all about it as much as we like to share, so I am doing my best to keep posting!  And I will stop complaining now…

Last left you with insulation, and that was short lived as the drywall went up in no time, and we have ourselves a real house.  Unbelievable.  I took a few videos as I thought they would be better than photos, but they are too large to be uploaded onto this site, so no luck.  I went back and took some photos which don’t give you a good idea of the space, but here they are anyway.

 

This is actually post painting, and I have a blurb about our paint selection in a bit.  The paint turned out a lot lighter than we expected.  It’s supposed to be a bit gray-blue, and it is, but very subtle.  We are certainly not afraid of color, but did not want to go too dark for the entire house, so erred on the side of caution.  Maybe too much, and now we have to decide if we want to change it up to a bit darker shade for the final coat which comes much later, or just do a few accent walls to add color.  Bill has left this up to me (insert maniacal laugh here).  He said I did such a good job on our current home that he is fine with me choosing on this one.  If I translate that, I think it comes down to “I don’t care”, so this one is on me.  Should be fun (I think).

First few are the “great room” – living, kitchen, dining combo…

 

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Master bedroom

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Hall and Karen’s office

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I’ll share the videos from last week in email and on FB so you can see the “before” and here you can see the “after” with the first coat of paint!  We were not 100% prepared on a paint color, so that was a bit of a last minute scramble for such a big decision, but we hammered it out and chose one.  Here is a deep dive into our decision making process.  haha

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Just slap a few samples on the wall at sunset when the light is the worst and choose!  We did not go for the dark one (which was supposed to be MUCH lighter) in case you are wondering.

So the paint is today (thursday the 1st), then trim goes on (seriously? — so fast), then cabinets delivered on Monday with installation to start next week.  Then finish work on electrical (lights, switches) and plumbing as well as the other finishes like tile and appliances and then floors are last.  Then they do ANOTHER coat of paint to cover up any scuffs and bumps from all the other work, and we have ourselves a livable house.  Not sure what will happen on the outside, but that will fall into place after the interior is done I imagine.  The next 4 weeks are going to be crunch time.  This week Bill and I have had so many meetings and tasks to complete, we are just exhausted.  Lots of “shopping” which consists more of “searching” for the right item and telling the builder what we want.  Bathroom fixtures, pendant lights, toilets (elongated bowl or round, hmmmm?), bathtub faucets, and sinks just name a few, and that doesn’t count the stuff we are doing outside the construction budget like window coverings, closets and AV installations.  It’s all coming at once and while we are having fun and trying to enjoy it, we do have full time jobs (not a lot of hours put in the week – yikes), lots of traveling, and then (me) with all the MagnaMemos activities, I’m starting to lose track of what I’m doing.  Day by day, right?  Breathe.

We are also overwhelmed at how far over budget we are, but that should really not be a surprise to us as anyone we have ever known that has done this has said the same.  From the jubilation of selling our house, back to the task of juggling finances to actually make this work.  Ugh!  That is another sorted tale…

So can’t wait to show you all the finishes when they are in place.  We have made some beautiful selections most of which I have shared with you, but even I cannot picture what they will all look like in place, so we will see it come to fruition together.  So exciting!

Other things to note:  The garage from the old house came down this week and that was very exciting.  If you remember, they had left it up so they could work out of it and use it for storage, and it was VERY close to the new house.  It came time to take it down as it was getting too crowded.  Was going to be a precarious task as if it fell the wrong way, it would hit the new house.  I knew the day it was happening, so I went over to see, and was a bit late as it was already a pile of rubble.  Only one scuff on the new house and everything fell the right way.  Really changes the feel of the property and opens us up fully to the neighbor.  We’ll have to consider a fence, perhaps!  We also disrupted a hornets nest or something in some kindling that the neighbor had leaning on the garage, so that was exciting to say the least.  Our site forman took to the task of eliminating them.  It was a multitude of very angry creatures.  And you all know how much I love bees.

I am having a lot of trouble with the photos posting “right side up”.  Seems they view differently on handheld devices versus viewing them on a computer screen and I can’t figure out why.  I apologize if they are not the right way…

 

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Big battle:

 

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A couple of doors went in as well and the siding went on.  You can see in the lower right some paint samples for the outside of the house.  The yellow color is just the siding color.  Will be painted of course.  Couple photos here.

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Bill is traveling for the next two weeks, and I have a long trip week after next, so it will be interesting for us to see things when we get back.  Hate being gone like that, but we have to work to support this monstrosity now I guess, so better not lose sight of that!  LOL…

I hope you enjoy the photos, and should be posting more soon as things get delivered.

 

 

Insulating our future…

Here’s the latest photo of the outside of the house (top)so you can get a sense of progress.  It probably doesn’t appear from this photo that much more has happened further to the framing, but the framing was completed and the roof put on.  They built the entire addition as well which is basically our garage with our bedroom and bill’s office above it.  I particularly like the pool out front.

You may notice in the back of the photo that the old garage (original) is still standing.  This has been a spot that has been helpful for the crews working on the house.  Lots of storage, and essentially an office area and breakroom for them.  They are trying to keep it up as long as possible as it is a great resource for them, but it will be coming down in September.  That is going to change the look of things a lot!

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Overall, things are looking really good.  The windows give us a better sense of how this is going to turn out, and since you are all aware of how fixated I have been on the windows, I will tell you that I have more than made up for not feeling involved in window selection.  The sliders you see in the front are 6’ tall sliders (more recent photo on top).  We are changing that and putting 8’ sliders in there instead.  The ones you see here are coming out!  This change came because for a time during framing, the entire front side (where you see the sliders and upper windows) of the house was completely open.  It was just one big hole with an unobstructed view (see the photo on the bottom).  So when they put in the sliders, divider between, and upper window, and we stood inside, the divider seemed to cut off the view.  It’s a funny thing because the view is awesome no matter what, but why not maximize?  Haha…   It turns out the 8’ sliders are not much more expensive and the builder has another job he can use the 6’ slider, so we don’t lose anything.  Very cool.  So we are trading these 6’ sliders in for 8’ ones and it is going to be spectacular.  Now, what we are going to do about window coverings is another story.  Ugh.

We are also going to add side lights to that lower window you see on the right that you can see a bit from the photo below.  It is now centered with the window above and then it will have two crank open side windows for additional light in the lower level.  Window in kitchen is going to be a casement crank window as well, and we are adding two windows to the living room wall to the north to add some light from that side.  I think with all that in place I will stop obsessing about windows now.  Whew, wasn’t sure I could get over that one, but I feel much better now.

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It’s been interesting for us because it has been a much more fluid and flexible process than we expected.  Once we got those drawings done, we felt pretty locked in.  It was nerve racking doing the design on paper as it seems so set in stone. Turns out it really isn’t.  For a few weeks in August, we were over there quite a bit making decisions as to how things should look.  There have been a couple walls that they did not even frame because the builder and designer wanted to have a discussion with us as to how things looked and felt.  This was especially true for the living and dining area.  We have a pretty open/great room area with our kitchen/living/dining combined.  The problem is that since that area is the main section of the house that falls into the footprint of the old house (think outline of the foundation), it is not quite as spacious as we hoped.  We knew from the drawings that it was not a large space, but seeing in person it felt even smaller.  We had one area designated for living and the other for dining.  We wanted the dining to be right in front of those sliders for that indoor outdoor dining feel, but that meant the living room was getting a bit mushed into a corner.  Then it hit me (yes, I also moonlight as a designer) to flip the living and dining.  This has changed the face of everything.  It has opened up the room a lot and given us a lot more options.  It meant moving the fireplace and feature wall, but turned out to be even better as you will actually see it when you walk into the room.  Hard to really explain in this blog and unless you’re looking at the plans everyday like we are, it may be lost in explanation, but trust me, it was a big deal.  The designer was very impressed and went to work on updating the plans to reflect this.  It also eliminated the need to move a wall in the old dining room so we were still in the good graces of the framing guys.  This photo is of the living and dining room combo.  You can see at the far end the fireplace which will be floor to ceiling tile and built in cabinetry on the sides.  That’s where the dining room was going to be, but we moved it to the other side.  To the right you can see the drop down from the high ceiling and that’s the kitchen to the right.

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Also been juggling some things around to gain space in our back patio.  In short, we are limited on the square footage allowed on the back patio because only a certain percentage of our lot coverage can be impervious.  It’s complex, but think of it this way as an example…  If we pour a solid concrete driveway we can get a 9’x 10’ patio off the side/back of the house.  If we put a strip of grass up the center of that concrete driveway, we can do a 12’ x 12’ patio.  Since you are adding pervious material to that driveway, you can do a partial impervious material on the patio (pavers).  Pretty interesting, but the one thing we adore about our current home is our large back patio, and because of the amount of impervious coverage we have on our lot (because most of it is house), we weren’t going to get much of a patio off the back.  So we had to make a few adjustments like adding a paver pad and some grass here and there to gain more patio.  I think we have achieved that and we are going to have a fabulous back yard/patio area.  Bill’s standing on it in the photo below, and still have views!

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After a couple adjustments to our master closet size and main level bathroom to make them both larger, we were ready for electrical and plumbing.  This is when things started to slow down.  Electrical, plumbing and AV wiring just takes a lot of time and so weeks have gone by and it seems like nothing is happening, but I know they are working away on these things.  But even having said that, there has actually been a legitimate slowdown in the pace of work.  It is high season for construction, and sometimes the electrician or the plumber only has one guy on our job.  Our builder is having a major challenge getting full crews to work on our project.  Even crews he has worked with for years are just too booked up to come work on our house.  He also was getting close to scheduling his drywall crew, but when he reached out to them, they were too booked up and could not come when he was planning.  That is a major part of the process and could really mess up our timing if we can’t get that scheduled.  Happily after a couple week delay he found a different crew and got them on the calendar and things are moving forward.  Whew!

So it’s been a bit “hum-drum” just looking at a bunch of wires coming out, and plumbing getting in place.  Still amazing how many decisions need to get made.  “So, where are you going to put your desk in this room?”  “Where do you need your outlets?”.  I have no idea.  We just used our best judgement and are hoping for the best.  Can lights are going in, AV guys were over mapping out the speaker locations and lots of speaker wire getting run…

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It was so “hum-drum” that we hadn’t been over there in about a week, but decided to go over Sunday to see if we were getting close to dry wall.  We saw that not only to they have the dry wall crew scheduled, but the sheet rock is in the house and the insulation is in place.  I think they have to have all of that inspected before the dry wall crew can start, but once we get by that, the house will really start to take shape.  But even just with the insulation in place the house looks and feels very different.  Here are a few photos.

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We also made a big decision and one that my mom will be very happy with and that is to get rid of the stairs out front.  It was mainly a cost issue that was making it easier to keep them, but now we have a bit more flexibility financially and they decided it wasn’t going to be such a big job, so stairs are now gone…

Before:

 

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After:

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So the last bit is about the sale of our current place.  Many of you saw on FB that we sold our house and are going to be renting back to the new owner until our house is done.  Can’t believe how amazing it is that it happened this way.  We closed on August 31, and dropped one mortgage and a home equity loan.  What a good feeling that it!  Didn’t have to put it on the market, didn’t have to “de-clutter”, clean, paint, make changes, tidy up, deal with showings, deal with agents, go back and forth on a million issues.  Just found a buyer and sold it.  Saved us a lot of hassle and money.  We just couldn’t be happier and feel more fortunate.  We have a rental agreement with the owner until the end of November, and the builder is still shooting for us moving over Thanksgiving weekend.  That is the goal and looking good so far.  That will be here before we know it.  Maybe I should start packing…

Moving fast.

Last post I wrote was on July 14 and I was away on a biz trip.  I said in that post that I thought it would be interesting to see how things looked when I got back.  I know this builder moves fast and I knew it would be a challenge to keep up and/or not miss anything.  When I left, this is where we were.

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Bill was with me for part of the trip, then went on to his own biz trip, so we were both away.  Bill got home before me, and went over to the house the same day to see what progress had been made.  So I’m in a meeting, and he sends me a text with the photo below.  I fell off my chair and then almost cried.  We have a house!!!  Wow, unbelievable!  It is so amazing to see it take shape.  Seeing it on paper is a thrill, but when walls start to go up, it is unreal.  The framers started the week of the 13th I think, and today is the 28th, and they are pretty much done except for a few walls Bill and I want to move…  Wow, never thought I would be collaborating on where to move walls.

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Last week we were both around here for the most part and got to go by a couple days and really see the progress.  So we had the outer walls up…

Windows to Karen Office.

Windows to Karen Office.

Front door with side light panel.

Front door with side light panel.

Living room/dining room open space and this is the opening for sliders and windows to maximize view.

Living room/dining room open space and this is the opening for sliders and windows to maximize view.

 

…and then the insides start to come together.

 

Karen's Office

Karen’s Office

MM studio

MM studio

Hallway from Karen's office to entry, MM studio and staircase

Hallway from Karen’s office to entry, MM studio and staircase

Maybe too much focus on Karen’s office and studio?  Ok, let’s see how Bill’s doing…

Demolition of cement wall for Bill's wine room.

Demolition of cement wall for Bill’s wine room.

Our builder saw an opportunity to save a bit of money by leaving this cement wall intact (which is the foundation of the old house) instead of knocking it down so the wine room could extend to the “underground” cement area as originally planned. It was tempting, but this is just not an item to compromise on at this point and the room would be quite small..  So down came the wall!  A guy named “Tex” does the work.  Messy, messy work, but this guy is good.  Then the pieces have to get jack hammered and hauled out.  The neighbors must love us.  I think I will be baking a lot of cookies when we move in to apologize for the disruption of this very loud construction.  But this wine room is going to be nice size.  It is just for storage although the builder would love to make it a showpiece.  Not our style, sorry…  But on the outside we are considering a little bar area with a mini fridge with a wine barrel incorporated into it as a focal point, so that will be cool.  We don’t have a lot of those kinds of elements, so good to have at least one.

So as each day progressed, it took more and more shape, so here are some photos from yesterday.  Ceiling is going in and final walls (that are up for discussion) are drawn out or temporarily set in place.  Gotta make some big decisions.  It’s starting to come alive and have a “feel”.  It has a really good feel and we are loving it.

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entry way – front door with side light panel

Kitchen - spray paint on floor is where cabinets and island go.

Kitchen – spray paint on floor is where cabinets and island go.

Master bedroom looking at closet door

Master bedroom looking at closet door – where you see the framing crew guy is Bill’s office

Karen's fort - seriously will be crawl space we will have access to.

Karen’s fort above – by really will be crawl space we will have access to.  Framer standing in kitchen.

Living room ceiling

Living room ceiling

 

So here is the outside.  You can see on the left that the deck is starting to take shape and you can see the cool angles of the roof.  Called a “butterfly” roof with the two sections that go different directions.  The cool thing is that whichever way the roof slopes is the only place you need to have gutters, so you don’t have to put them all around.  Ours will be on the front for the most part as the overhang above the deck slopes forward.  We will have good coverage there allowing us to use the deck most of the year round.

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What else can I say?  I guess I can say that this is consuming most of our mental energy.  There are so many things to think about, and we are trying to strike the right balance of what we need to be involved in and what we leave up to the builder and designer to decide.  We trust them so much that we have stayed out of most.  It is really a great collaboration and although we had our rough patches early on, the builder has proven to be great so far.  Every time we doubt something, we have our confidence rebuilt by seeing the progress and seeing how detail oriented and serious our team is.  We are having fun with this now, but exhausting all the same.  If we’re not having a meeting about something that takes up a good chunk of the day, we’re researching something or refining details.  Still a LONG way to go too!

So a few other nuggets completed:

  • Appliances all picked out
  • Framing mostly done and next is electricians and plumbing.  Bill’s “AV Navy” will be in next week too to do a walk through on where TV’s, speakers and other stuff will go.
  • roofers coming this week
  • finalized kitchen measurements and final touches on design done and cabinets ordered
  • picking out front door in process.
  • windows getting installed
  • patio configuration???  Here is a photo of the back patio area (soon to be party zone).  Thinking about pavers and a two tiered deck.  Will be an overhang off that door that you see straight ahead which will be a covered area for the grill in the rare event of rain.  😉

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  • Discussion on earthquake (seismic) considerations.  Of course this is the talk of the town now after the New Yorker article.  It may not matter if my house stays standing considering everything that will happen as a result of the huge earthquake that is assured to hit here, but good to know our house is bolted firmly to the foundation.  You should see all the stuff they do for this, amazing!

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Last, but certainly not least and for those of you who have actually stayed with this post the entire way through, congratulations, you get to hear this…  We do not and did not have our current house on the market, but we got an offer.  Shows the insanity of the real estate market here.  Most homes are not even hitting the market.  Basically a networking thing where we were talking to a real estate agent a while back and mentioned our house would soon be on the market, but we were waiting for our new house to finish.  We told her that it would be so great if we could sell now and have someone rent it back to us, and amazingly enough, she had a client that was interested.  We connected a few weeks later, and while Bill and I were away on our trips, we received an offer.  If all goes through, we will close the end of August which would help us out a lot by getting us out of one mortgage and an equity loan.  Can’t tell you how much time and energy it will save us if everything works out.  Totally amazing.  I won’t say much else at the risk of jinxing it.

Signing off now, I’m sure there will be many more developments in a very short amount of time!

Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoy, and feedback is welcome.

 

Building a strong foundation

Latest update, not terribly exciting, but definitely moving fast…

  • Demolition complete
  • Many dumpsters filled and dumped
  • Big hole dug in for the addition
  • Lotta dirt moved around
  • Siding removed
  • Lower level rough framing
  • Lumber for remaining framing delivered to site
  • Foundation for addition poured
  • Windows ordered and near arrival
  • Outline of Bill’s wine room in lower level laid out for his inspection (more on that in a minute)
  • Kitchen design finalized
  • More random bills handed to Bill and Karen

Main framing should start this week and in a couple weeks our roof structure will be delivered and placed on the house.  After that they will put up walls and then they will be to the point that the house will no longer be exposed to the elements.  Then the real fun stuff begins.

Our windows were ordered and are near arrival to the site, but when we heard this we were both stunned.  Neither of us remembers picking out window styles or anything, so that was a bit of a discussion with the builder.  Not sure how that happened, but I would have liked to see what I was getting before he ordered.  Just sayin’.  Not much we can do now but be patient, see how the windows look when they arrive and make changes if we have to.  I had a vision of sash windows or the crank windows, but what is ordered is the sliding windows which I don’t like much.  Will be interesting to see what happens…

Happily with all the demolition, there have not been any issues.  The demo has gone smoothly and they have not found anything strange or anything that had to be dealt with outside of what we were expecting.  The lower level which is being reconfigured is already roughly framed out and it looks fantastic!  The only issue we had is that the hall is very narrow down there and makes the space feel cramped.  This is because we are not renovating the lower full bath, the bathroom sticks out into the hall a bit.  The builder agrees that it is not a good situation and is going to move the toilet and sink around a bit and that will allow him to eliminate the bump out into the hall and make the hall wider.  So glad we have a solution for that!

The one piece of the lower level that has not been framed is the wine room.  In an effort to save costs (the budget is very tight), a suggestion was made to configure the wine room differently.  We did not think this change would affect the size of the room, but when we looked at the outline before framing, we realized that it changed it a lot.  It is actually significantly smaller than what we have now.  Bill considered compromising on this, but I convinced him otherwise.  This is important to Bill (and also to me), and I’m not going through all this to compromise on something like that.  I would rather save the money elsewhere.  We sent a note off to the builder requesting that he build it the way we originally had it on the house design, and he agreed that he would do all he could to make that happen.  We will see.

Next up is that we have to start thinking about and then make some decisions on the following:

  • Front door style
  • Exterior paint
  • Interior paint
  • Railing color
  • Trim color
  • Stone style
  • Fixtures
  • Appliances

Photos of the lower level bathroom and how it sticks out into the hall:

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See how narrow that hall is???  That “bump out” on the left is coming out…

Big hole dug for the foundation, and then foundation pouring started:

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As you can see, that big building in the back is the garage.  It has a huge workroom on the top, and the builder is keeping it standing as long as possible as it is full of building materials and LOTS of other junk.  I think it is also infested with rats, so as part of our permit approval, we had to agree to not tear it down until the rats were “eliminated”, otherwise the rats will just run to our neighbors houses when they tear down the garage.  WOW.  Who knew?

Naked house (siding removed):

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Here is the finalized kitchen design:

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The sink used to be where the refrigerator is (right), but we decided to move it to the left so we could put a window in for more light.  I LOVE the way it turned out.

You can see some of our selections of finishes on my previous post, but cabinets will be white, countertops will be whiteish gray swirl backsplash will break up the white with a bit of light green and gray accent tile, and island will be bluish grayish whiteish swirl on weathered blue/gray island cabinets.

See here:

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And look, it is the start of the MagnaMemos new studio!!!

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We’re both away on business trips, so it will be interesting to see what things look like when we get back.  Things happen so fast that if you leave for this long, so much has happened.  We don’t want to miss anything, but we have to work!  I know I will be snapping photos like crazy this weekend when we go over and see what’s happening.  I’m sure the plywood floor will be in and some framing started.  Very exciting.  This is the point when things really start to take shape and we can get a good feel for how the space will flow.  That has already happened in the lower level and anxious to see how that starts to happen in the rest of the house.  I will keep you all posted.

Lastly, there has been some discussion about the sale of our current home which is something we need to start thinking about, but I will write more on that next time.  I don’t want to get ahead of myself.

Let’s destroy some stuff! Demolition edition.

Did I say things were happening? Well, that was the understatement of the century!!! Just as soon as those permits got issued, the crew showed up this past Monday morning at 8am to start demolition. I think the following photos are what most of you HGTV fans( and those generally inclined to enjoy stuff being wrecked) have been waitng for. Enough of the trials and tribulations of our finances, loans, changes in plans and communication with the builder (cry me a river), let’s smash some stuff up!

I am really glad that a few of you got to see the house before, because it is mostly gone now. Here are before photos:

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Front of the house.  As you can see we are built into the hill a bit which is really great.  We sit up a bit and the lower part of the house still has views.

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Now after photos:

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I was really hoping to be at the site when they took the first crack at the house, but the timing just didn’t work out. Or better said, they move so fast, if you blink, you’ll miss it… We blinked. They were long done by the time Bill and I arrived at around 5:00pm. We had spent the afternoon with the designer picking out finishes and we were so busy in the morning, we didn’t get a chance to swing by. Bummer. We are hoping for some “in process” photos from the builder.

I also really want to operate the crane thingy that smashes stuff, but I think that’s probably out of the question.  Don’t wanna be this guy:

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It is amazing how much they did in just one day!   Hope you can gather from the photos that the main level is gone.  The lower level is the foundation and we are working within that footprint with some reconfiguration.  Some may call it a basement, but we call it the lower level.  Our guest room is down there, and I refuse to have any guest stay in the “basement”, so the rule is that it is called the lower level or garden level.  Still nice views from down there!  Saved ourselves a lot by being able to work within that footprint.  I was glad to see the chimney still standing as we decided to keep that at the last minute. Ya never know if the message gets communicated to the guys actually doing the work, but so far so good.

Some of the piles of concrete are the walkway and stairs in the back that Job Supervisor Adam said came out way to easily. There is a lot more walkway that needs to come out (all that leads to the back yard), and he said that will not be as easy. Makes me glad we are keeping the front stairs. It was going to cost an additional 5-10K just to remove those so we opted to keep them (against Bill’s better judgement), and Designer Darren assures us he can make them look nice and match the house. You can see the “stairs that go nowhere” here:

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Next they will remove all the siding and finish taking out the windows that are being replaced on the lower level.  After that, they will start demo inside on the lower level which is being reconfigured.  Removal of inside stairs since they are going to be in a different location, opening it up down there and ceiling removal.  Then start digging a hole in the back for the foundation to be poured for the addition.  We’re cooking’ now!  It’s incredible that we are doing this and I can’t describe the excitement to see things getting started.  And it’s happening so fast, I feel like I can’t keep up!

Now a change of gears…

So as I said, we spend a good deal of time with Designer Tom this week. This is our second visit with him. Great guy, really easy to work with. He’s the one that does all the tile, flooring and a few other finishes. The first visit we had a couple weeks ago we picked out some thngs but after that exhausting session he wanted us to go look at some houses and get more ideas and really think about what we liked. We must have been all over the place on the first visit. I think perhaps he wasn’t convinced we knew what we wanted. He was right, we really didn’t. Looking at houses helped a lot, and seeing some of the finishes on a large scale was good for us. We looked at as many as we could, and also reasearched more online. We scheduled a follow up meeting for this past Monday to refine our choices.

We met at a construction site so we could take a look at more examples of styles in new homes. Again, very helpful. Then we went back to the showroom and started to make some decisions. Still pretty daunting task… Lots of rooms to cover and not knowing how things are going to look or feel is really challenging. But we stuck with things that we loved and did our best to tie it all together.   I think we have made some good choices and expressed ourselves nicely without getting too crazy. Designer Tom kept us on track and made sure we stayed in budget and allowed our personality to come through while keeping with good design. Bill and I work really well together (no surprise there), and liked pretty much all the same things. It was really fun and especially so when you agree! There are things one of us doesn’t have a strong feeling about, so we defer to the other to make the decision. Worked well and we had a lot of fun. I hope I remember this when we run into issues which invariably we will.

So here are some of our selecitons. Hard to get a good feel, but I’ll post them anyway…

Floor all through the main level:

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Master bath shower floor tile (flat river rock look – very cool), shower wall tile (keeping neutral), floor tile, and accent piece (the wavy one)

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Kitchen perimeter quartz countertop.

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Island quartz countertop (piece on the left) – We originally just wanted to do the white marble look for the island, but the builder and Designer Darren implied that maybe we should consider going with more of a “statement” piece for the island. At first we didn’t think we needed to make any “statements” (just not our style). But then we saw this very intereting quartz with a color scheme and design that really appealed to us, and suddenly we became “statement” people.  This process does crazy things to you…  Photos do not do it justice, it has blue and gray green tones which are tying back to other elements in the house.

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Main level fireplace surround.  LOVE!  Basically the cornerstone of all the other finishes throughout.  We both were wowed by this when we saw it in person.

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In the laundry room I am going with laminate on the countertop and floor as I don’t really need granite or quartz in there, but am doing a “bubble” backsplash just ’cause I can.  I say “I” because Bill did not have much choice.  Get it?, bubbles, laundry…

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Moving really fast now, so stay tuned. I think that’s all for today, let us know what you think, we would welcome the feedback!