Weekly Bowling

Lilly, Mom and I go bowling pretty much weekly during the summer. They have a great snack bar (to have lunch at) and its fun to bowl. Here is Lilly with some of her bowling flair.

Here she is receiving instruction from Grandma.

Copper is great!

Here’s a picture of mom looking out the guest bedroom window. She is admiring the copper roof below.

Bathroom Updates

The master bathroom door is now installed. And the finishing touches have been put on the half-bath downstairs.

Hardwood Floor Dilemma

Well the hard wood floor is kind of finished. It lacks its last coat of polyurethane that was supposed to be put on last night. The flooring guy basically wanted his check yesterday (after stalling on our floor for 5 weeks) and when Brian told him he couldn’t have it until next Tuesday the guy didn’t put on the last coat. Since we have our floor, Brian fired the guy last night. We won’t be getting our matching mesquite newels or rail, but we ordered white newels (we already have white balusters ) and the painter said he could match an oak railing to the mesquite coloring. Of course we’ll still have to figure out how much to pay the bozo that did the flooring seeing as how he destroyed out back door and messed up the dry wall in several areas along the floor line.

Hopefully we can get the stairs finished up the beginning of next weeks so we can get our house inspected and we can close on it (so we don’t lose our sweet locked interest rate)

The pictures below are of down the stairs, the dining room and my office respectively.

Living Room

Here is an updated picture of the living room. The carpet was installed (as you can see Lilly enjoys it) yesterday and the “tile guy” just finished with the fireplace. The fireplace is a poured sandstone. The painters are in today staring touch up work.

Delighted..not really

The hard wood guy is seriously slowing down progress so no new pictures. However this does bring me joy, as Lilly and I have become PBS junkies during the week.



This is captain huggy face doing his end of the episode dance to one of his vocab words. It's fun to dance along and the music rocks.

Update on Family Room

This is the RED family room. It actually turned out pretty nice. The red really pops in the evening when the lights are on (we have electricity now!). I was initially afraid that the dark red would make it look like a dungeon., but it doesn't all all.

If you look on the upper left you can see the light fixture over the breakfast bar in the kitchen. The lights were hung in a straight line, but will be moved to more of an arc shape to match the breakfast bar.

View from Living Room

If you stand in the living room and face the foyer, this is the view you get. The opening on the left goes back to our bedroom. The second opening on the left is my office. The handrail on the stairs should be going in soon.

Newer Kitchen Pictures

Here are the kitchen cabinets stained. The stain is basically natural tone (over the beech wood) with a hint of cherry (to spice it up).







This is a close up of the counter top. It has plastic on it now to prevent the other contractors from messing it up.

Downstairs Bath

Here is a picture of the downstairs bath. The tile on the wall is a tumbled marble. It looks prettier in person.

Why we can never change a light bulb in the living room.

Seriously, look how high this is. I hope he doesn't fall.

It's all about the tile!

Master Bath

Upstairs Bath

Picture of the downstair's bath looks awful. I'll get another picture this afternoon.

Lilly's Kingdom of Girliness

Here is the bedroom you've been waiting to see. The paint is called magic wand. I have some material to make her a window bench cushion. It is kind of psychedelic 60's pattern.

Her furniture will look like the picture here at j.c penney

My Office

Here is a picture of my office after they installed the built in book shelving on the right hand wall. This next photo is a picture of the office in its current state.



















The book cases are finished in in white enamel. The room is painted a taupe color.

You can see a little bit of the light fixture poking down. It has an oiled-bronze finish and will match the antique desk and chair I have for this office.

Earlier Kitchen Photos

Here are some photos of the cabinets as they first looked when hung in the kitchen. I'll go back this week and take some more pictures of the kitchen as the cabinets are now finished and the counter tops have been installed.

You can see (hopefully) in the background the faux finish we had applied. It has kind of a cement wall-Tuscan kind of feel to it. I will probably have it darken some once the rest of the kitchen is complete. The faux finisher actually completed the project lighter than I asked for because she said it is easier to make it darker, going lighter is going to be difficult. So I will have her come back when the rest is complete.

Kitchen Update

Here is what the tile (see previous entry) looks like in the kitchen. Well actually it’s beside the kitchen where the bar is. The tile doesn’t actually go back as far as it appears in the picture. The last 3 full tiles and last 4 half tiles actually aren’t supposed to be there. The tile angle off at 45 degrees around the breakfast bar (to the right). I think the diagonal lay looks neat.

I will now resume blogging

Seriously I am still in school. It's June and I am STILL in school. We get out on Thursday (teacher workday Friday). And then I will get this silly blog caught up.

But while I am here lets talk about tile.

Here's what I know. Tile makers are mathematically challenged and picking out tile makes my stomach hurt.

O.K. so the first tile I picked out matches the faux finish on the walls in the kitchen. Not cool. So I get some other tile, which also looks like the walls. Finally I find the perfect tile.

But here's the rub. I was going to do a pattern that needs 6x6, 12x12 and 18x18. This tile comes in 6.5x6.5, 13x13 (so far so good) and 19x19 (what!). O.K. so the pattern thing is NOT going to work. So we are going to do the tile (19x19) diagonal through the kitchen and everywhere else that is kitchen related (laundry room, pantry, hallway).

Stupid tile.

Dinning Room Chandelier

O.K. so I was flipping though a recent issue of Real Simple and saw this dining room pendant lamp that I adored. Of course there was no source for the lamp. So I looked around on line and found...THE EXACT lamp at Lamps Plus .

Here's the picture in the magazine below.
















And here is the picture from Lamps Plus's Website. So tomorrow we'll be driving down to Arlington (where they have a store and one in stock) and pick it up. I just can't believe I found it.

Kitchen Counters

This is the counter top we picked out. (It takes a while to downoad so be patient.) The color is called blue sahara and it is composite quartz surface. The cabinets are going to be a natural cherry color. The flooring in the kitchen will be tile, but I haven't picked any out yet.

Paint

Just thought I'd let you see some of the paint colors for the house. The family room is going to be in Berry Blush. The dining room is going to be in Belle Grove Moss. The rest of the down stairs will probably be in Epic (which is a khaki) with the exception of the kitchen. The kitchen will be in a faux finish called Tuscan gold. Unfortunately I cannot find any picture of it. You can visit Valspar to see my palate. Once there, you have to choose the room, but it will be ugly because it is throwing all the colors together in one room. The trim in the house will be gloss white.

Best Things = Worst Things

The best thing about building your own custom home is that you get to pick out every thing that goes in to your home. The worst thing about building your own custom home is that you have to pick out everything that goes into your home.


Things I hate to pick out the most (so far): faucets.


I think this is what we are going with....



Brian picked this out because I kept giving him the look of death at Lowe's


More info about this series of faucets and accessories can be found at Kohler's website. The rest of the fixtures in our house will be the same idea.

All metal things in our home will have a brushed nickel finish.

Anyhow, as Brian will give you updates on construction, I will give you updates on the interior decisions, even the ones I hate making.

What happend to me?

O.K. I'll start posting again (with pictures) soon.

I have had a horrible few weeks and am feeling much better now.

I went to the doctor and he found some gastritis in my stomach along with several non-cancerous polyps. I am on medication now to help the erosions heal. It is a slow process and the medication is a pain to take as you can't take for 2-3 hours after you have eaten and can't eat for an hour after you take it. And as you can tell from my posts, I love food.

So it has taken me a while to get adjusted and the spots in my stomach are starting to feel better. Although the pain in the back is not.

I have an appointment in February to check on my progress.

This week at school we have semester exams and have to work on Monday (martin Luther King Day). Huh...do you think it's stress that causes the gastritis?

I am sorry I ruined everyone vacation.