Don't Blink or You'll Miss It

It's been a slow news week on the home build. As in, "Don't blink or you'll miss it" changes. Hopefully that means that this upcoming week will be full of multiple new additions to the house. It's kind of worrying that at least two days last week nothing happened, especially considering that we are less than 30 days from Thanksgiving (our move in goal and a goal that Maribeth assures us we are still on track for barring some disaster).

 

In one of the "don't blink" moments, you might can tell from the photo below that the front porch concrete has been poured.  

 

 

 

The biggest addition this week has been the backer board that has been installed in all the areas of the house where tile will be put. Below is the master bathroom shower.  Brian is especially excited about the shower because he keeps injuring his shin when he is getting out of the shower at the apartment. I agree- I hate shower doors with their ever dangerous metal tracks. While my accidents with shower doors have never drawn blood, I have had my share of incidents involving the metal track trying to hold on to a pinkie toe while I was attempting to exit the shower. It will be so nice to be able to step right out onto the floor.

Below is the decking for the tub in the master bath. Because it is curved, it had to be installed on site instead of being painted at the cabinet shop. I'm so ready for a big bath tub. You don't realize how much you miss taking a bath until you only have the option of a small, yucky apartment one.  I've only been that desperate a couple of times in the last nine months.

This is a view of our front yard. For the first time in a while there isn't a huge garbage dumpster or a cement mixer on the site. We are planning to do a trick or treating table on Halloween this week at the house, so we were thrilled the dumpster was moved. Now, if we could only get the port-a-potty off the lot, it would almost look like a real front yard.

Here is the back yard. Since there wasn't much going on in the house this week, Craig decided to take some time to get the back yard cleaned up. He had to haul off a pile of bricks that had been put there by some builder who had left them on the lot. And there were a lot of weeds and trash that had accumulated on the lot.

The back of the house looks like it has had its final coat of paint. Now we're just waiting for handrails and steps from the back porch.

Trim work

The house has seen a lot of new additions this week. Crown molding, base boards and window trim have all be added in most of the house. It is so pretty and make such a difference in the house. It's really made it seem like the final stages of the home build are here,  or at least will be here soon. Also added this week were the interior doors. It wasn't so long ago that we could look through walls from one room to another. Now, we can actually go into a room and shut a door and just take in that one space.

 

Behind the doors below is my closet!  I haven't had a real closet to hold all my stuff in a year and a half. I can't wait! In addition to actually having a closet, I'm excited about something that probably no one else but me would be thrilled about. I love that the closet has double doors- not just a single door. You wouldn't think that would be so exciting, but I really think that it will make the closet seem bigger.  There won't be a big area of the closet that is blocked by a door being opened.  It will just have a little space behind each door where I can build shelves to store shoes and purses.

Today, the brick layers finished the house. The picture below shows the columns that hold up the porches have had the bricks applied. It seems so strange that a decision I fretted so much about has turned into one of my favorite aspects of the house.

Here is the breakfast area of the kitchen showing all the new trim that was added this week.

When I got to the house this afternoon, these guys were there cleaning everything up.  That really makes it feel like it will not be long until we are able to move into the house.

To the right of the garage is a little "wing wall" that was added to hide our garbage can. I think this was the last of the brick laying projects.

Let there be color!

Last Friday late in the afternoon, I got a call from Maribeth wanting to know why I hadn't called her. I knew that there must have been a big change at the house. She was eagerly waiting for my phone call and I had been too busy to go by the house so I didn't know to call her.  When I finally got there, after working late and going to a six year old's birthday party, I got to see what she was talking about.  We have color!  At least a first coating of color on the whole house.

 

Then on Sunday, after Brian got back in town from his big golf trip, we discovered that the wood floors had been installed. It's really amazing how much the house can change in two days.

 

Below is our dining room, a familiar red to anyone who has ever dined in our home.  I'm so ready to see our furniture and curtains and pictures in here. Brian is perhaps happier than anyone that this room has been painted. For the most part, he doesn't mind painting, but the red dining room in our last house about made him decide that it was worth every penny to have a professional paint a red room.

 

Below is Caroline posing in her room. She loves pink. This summer she had asked for her new room to be painted "rainbow." Thankfully, she forgot that was what she had asked for.

 

Brian and the children posing by the outdoor fireplace. Brian can't wait for this winter so he can chop wood and build a big fire. This is the second fireplace we've had in this spot. The first one just wouldn't hold a big enough fire, so we had to change it out for a bigger model.  

 

 

Below is the upstairs landing. Wood flooring was installed on Sunday. On Saturday, Grandmother Jo bought us a really pretty rug at a yard sale to be used in this area.

And here is our living room with the wood floor installed. Now, we just need some sanding, staining and poly and we'll be ready for a dance party.

Color...Here We Come!

 

The sheet rock crew has been moving fast. So fast, in fact, that we went into emergency "pick wall color" mode today. Hopefully, tomorrow the sheet rock crew will be finished and the painters will start painting the walls on Friday. I had a general idea about what I wanted for most of the walls. But picking the exact color and saying "buy the paint" is a different story.

 

This afternoon, the kids and I went over to Maribeth's house with all the paint chips I had collected this weekend from Lowe's. She is really good about helping to narrow things down into manageable two or three choices. The main color we selected is a National Trust for Historic Preservation color called Churchill Hotel Ecru. This will be in all the rooms for now except our dining room and Caroline's room.  The dining room is called Heirloom Red (thankfully not Heirloom Crimson). This will be my third red dining room. Caroline's bedroom color is Pink Taffy. It will be her third bedroom that will be painted this exact color.  I guess we find a color we like and stick with it.  Definitely makes it easier when picking colors.  I'm sure as I buy bedroom fabrics I may want to change some colors at some point, but we think our main color will be a good neutral choice for all the main areas.

 

I kind of like to choose colors the same way I pick race horses--- by their name.  I definitely am happy with our wall color choices and their names. I love anything to do with England, so I would of course love the name Churchill, and Heirloom Red sounds like a traditional color in an antique dining room. And Pink Taffy is very much like Caroline- sweet, but somewhat demanding.  I've already written about the color of our roofing shingles- Oxford Grey (an English reference again) and the name of our brick is called Old Fort Augusta. As much as Brian loves golf, having golf's premier city in the name of our brick was perfect.

 

Here is the living room with some of the sheet rock mud applied. I can't wait to see the built-ins on either side of the fireplace.

 

Below is a view of the kitchen from the living room..

The front porch has all of its bricks. Now it just needs, a floor, lighting, posts and of course, a swing or rocking chairs!

The back view of the house with the trim work added to the screened porch.

Brian, John Thomas and the gymnast, Caroline enjoying the first of many afternoons on the back porch.

A Southern Tradition

 

The finishing touches are being added to the front, back and screened porches. And perhaps my favorite element has been the addition of the ceilings. When we started talking about what we wanted the porches to look like, I knew that I wanted the ceilings to be painted a traditional light blue in keeping with the Southern tradition. There are many reasons why people in the South like to paint their porch ceilings blue- from fooling spiders and wasps into thinking the ceiling is the sky, to blue being a harbinger of good luck, to the color extending daylight, to scaring away evil spirits. All of those are excellent reasons and hopefully, all true. I just wanted to do it because it's traditional.

 

I like the way that the white trim and the orange and gray bricks look against the blue. And an Auburn family can never have enough orange and blue in any shade.



 

Auburn's Newest and Smallest Brick Mason

 

Meet Caroline Walker, Auburn's newest and smallest brick mason. For some reason, Caroline was especially interested in watching the brick masons work today. When I tried to get her to go inside the house, she said, "No, I want to keep watching this." So we stood around for a while and watched and I explained as much as I know about laying bricks, which is not much. I told her the gray, squishy stuff is called mortar and that the masons slather on some on the brick and that is what glues the brick to the house. I also told her that mortar is what holds the bricks together and then one of the guys said, "It is actually what keeps the bricks apart." I'm guessing that he was trying to be funny.



 

So after observing for a while, Johnny, who is a super nice guy (even if he is a big Alabama fan) asked Caroline if she would like to lay one of the bricks. Of course she did. (I have wanted to do one myself, but have been too afraid to ask). It was quite a coincidence that the brick he had for her to do is probably the smallest brick on the whole house. I thought that was perfect. We'll always be able to know which brick was hers.

 

After Caroline finished, Michael, the head brick guy (and part-time comedian), told Johnny not to expect to get paid for laying that brick. I said that I would be more than happy to pay extra for that special brick.



 

She is so proud of her brick and couldn't wait to show it off!

Sheet-Rock 'n Roll

 

The word of the day is"Wow"!  I skipped going to the house yesterday and boy, was I in for a surprise today. When I first drove up this huge truck and crane was at the house, which I knew meant sheetrock had been delivered. I wasn't prepared for the huge transformation the house had made in the last 48 hours. Most of the work at the house so far has been slow and steady. From day to day, there were definite changes in the house, but sometimes you would have to look for what had been worked on that day. Well, there was no doubt today that the sheetrock installers had been there.



Here is the delivery of the sheetrock mud. I've purchased a lot of sheetrock mud in my life. I bought my first house when I was 24 years old and I've lived in and renovated four houses. But, I've only bought those cans of mud that are about the size of a jar of peanut butter or a pint of ice cream. If I'm seeing this right, there are 36 of these huge buckets of mud. That's a lot of sheetrock mud.

This is the garage.

Here is the living room from the view of the kitchen

Brian and Caroline checking out the playroom.

Brian and Caroline dancing in her bedroom.

Caroline and her daddy walking down the stairs.

A view of the kitchen from the back porch.

Mickey Mouse is Calling...

The last two days have been rainy and yucky in Auburn. The picture below must have been taken a couple of days ago, because the sky hasn't been this blue in a while. As you can see, the back of the house is coming along nicely. The addition of the screened porch definitely makes the back of the house look better.





The screened porch is definitely taking shape. Can't wait to sit out there this winter.

Thankfully, we've moved into some areas of construction that are not too impeded by rainy weather. Today, insulation was installed in a lot of the house.  The insulation definitely is affecting the feel of the house. It is not as noisy, it's holding in the heat and humidity and it's making it where you can't see through walls anymore!

Below is the playroom. Today, I had to make an emergency call to Maribeth about getting another phone line run in the playroom. I forgot about my Talking Mickey Mouse phone that has to live in the playroom. I bought the phone a couple of years ago at Goodwill and I love it.  I had to pay for a service call to the house to install the phone line and it probably will cost me 10 times more than what I actually paid for the phone itself. But, what do you do? I definitely think its better to go ahead and get it done now than to unpack Mickey in a couple of months and have no where to put him.

Here's John Thomas on the other side of the playroom. As you can see, huge sheets of drywall have been delivered. And, I did check that they were stamped "Made in the USA".  Chinese drywall was another fear I had entering the building process.

Brian and I spent a long time yesterday going room by room taking pictures of all the walls and ceilings in each room showing the pipes and wiring in each.. One of our new neighbors had suggested that we should do that for a reference for the future. It took a long time and hopefully it won't ever come in handy. But it's there if we do need it.