Day 21 - Slowing Down

The progress seems to be slowing down a bit. In all honesty, it has rained here every single day for the last 6-7 days, so I am surprised that they accomplished much at all this past week! But, they definitely did!

With that being said, Tristan and I had a play date today that took us out past Oronoco, so we stopped in to see what was happening with the house. There was one guy there and we couldn't really tell what he was up to, so it definitely wasn't something that my untrained eye would notice ;)

Since yesterday afternoon, they DID add in the landings for the stairs. I am so excited to see this staircase come together- it is going to be STUNNING!!

I also tried to get a picture of a little more of the framing upstairs, but it was hard :( They are done framing up there, so my personal goal for them (HAHA!) is to get the roof on and the stairs done by mid-next week. Anyone else think I should just be the general contractor? No, ok then ;)

I was inundated with emails today - our flooring quote (so far!), our plumbing fixtures quote, and our final cabinet choices sheet. YAY!! It feels like it is all coming together now - I love seeing the continued progress!

Day 20 - Countertops & Blinds

My pictures aren't super exciting today as they don't show a lot of change/progress. There WAS a lot of progress done today, but unfortunately, it was on the upper level of the house and I can't get up there yet :( I am hoping they build some stairs soon!!!

I am struggling SO MUCH with the countertops to put in our home. I am absolutely obsessed with marble, but everyone has told me how difficult it is to care for! So, I am trying to be strategic about where I use it! This piece was sent to be by our countertop company and it will be used our powder room. I am so excited for it!!

The rest of our house will most likely be MSI Calacatta Quartz and Alaska White granite (for the laundry room). Trying to be keep it clean and neutral with our color schemes!

Like I said, not a lot has changed from the front...

But they got the side wall up! And you can see how amazing the windows are going to look!! I love them!

It is all coming together nicely :) I can't wait for the stairs to be done so that I can get upstairs and see the progress! Hopefully that and the roof will be done this week!! 

My question for today is: what window treatments are you currently loving? I am thinking roman shades for most bedrooms, beyond that I am struggling!! 

Day 19 - Stairway Lighting Help!

Another day full of progress at the house! They got the upstairs started, so the look of the home is coming together!!

From the back :)

And this is a picture of the wall by the stairway - going up from the foyer to the upstairs. I am OBSESSED with our foyer - it is wide, bright, and open! I cannot wait to welcome people in with the dramatic staircase and bright windows!!

I am having a hard time picking a light for our foyer and stairway - thoughts on this Kichler Larkin Indoor Pendant?? Any other ideas you love for the foyer/stairway??

I am hoping that they frame in the upstairs soon - but unfortunately, we can't get up there because the stairs aren't built yet :( Soon - I hope!!

Day 18 - Roof

Today was a super fun day to go out to the house because they got the roof on above the garage! These peaks look really high to me because I am used to our house (not a walk-out). Everything just seems so much taller because of how high the house needs to be in order to accommodate our floor plan. 

View from the back of the house. 

They also put the plywood on for the floor of the upstairs, so hopefully we will see more framing done with that tomorrow!! It is so exciting seeing it all come together! 

I picked out our garage door today and plumbing fixtures. Hopefully more on that sometime this week!! 

Day 17 - Flooring!

We went out to the house after dinner tonight, but it didn't look like much had changed. So, I am mostly going on to focus on some things that I picked out today and get your opinion on things I could use some help on!!

To begin, I picked our hardwood flooring out today. On the top picture, you can see the hardwood we are going with. We decided to do a hand-scraped hardwood. I love the texture and I love how it can hide the "dings" that the boys make unintentionally when playing on the wood! Do any of you have hand-scraped? What is your experience with it? I also picked this particular piece because it is a true brown color and it has wide planks, which I LOVE!!

The bottom of this picture is our carpet. I don't know (or care!) much about carpet, so I let Mathew (our flooring guy) help me out! I wanted something neutral and soft - so we picked the bottom carpet. It has gray and brown flecks, so it will work with all of our color schemes throughout the house and also not show everything the boys do to it! Haha!

 Below is the color options we have for our house. We are doing a custom siding that is going to be painted, so we need to choose three of these color options. We are for sure doing the "Black Fox" on the peaks, so we need two others. Any favorites?? White trim is going around everything, so it definitely needs to be darker to contrast with the trim. I would love to hear your ideas!

Now, onto the house. They put plywood up around the garage today. Holy cow - our garage is TALL! We had no idea it would be this tall, but it is clearly because it is a walkout...the house needed to be built up in order to accommodate that part of our floor plan. 

They also got the trusses done on the top of the main level. I hope that means that the upstairs is coming soon!! YAY!!

There clearly won't be much progress this weekend, but hopefully lots more FUN to come next week!!

Day 16 - Framing!!! YAY!!

Sorry for the SUPER long break in the blog, but we were in Hawaii :) It was a wonderful vacation and we had AMAZING friends send us pictures and updates, but keeping up on a daily basis while we were gone was impossible. And that's okay!! It was super fun to go out to the house today and see all of the progress!!!

Front of the house - garage and double front door :) They are still missing some of the front where the stairs will go!

This is in our basement - I took the picture because we decided to do a box tray ceiling in the basement to open it up even more :) In our current home, our basement isn't used a ton by us, so we wanted to make sure that this space was the best it could possibly be!

Looking into the basement family room from the walkout door.

Our foyer - stairs will be to the left. 

Looking ahead into our family room - we have a lot of windows in the back of the house to help us enjoy (what we hope will be) our backyard oasis ;)

Powder room on the main level, off the foyer

Looking at our kitchen and into our mudroom. As I was explaining to one of my girlfriends tonight, when we designed this floor plan, we really emphasized the open concept. The kitchen is open to the family room and dining room with only a small wall distinguishing the foyer from the rest of the house. 

The family room - and if you look closely, you can see the fireplace framed in!! 

Mudroom - it is very spacious - I am super excited about having more room in this area than we do in our current house!

Looking out into the garage. 

Basement family room. 

Exercise room in the basement. 

Basement bedroom :) Love the large window looking out!

We will try to utilize the space under the stairs as storage!

Storage and utility room.

 Overall, lots and lots of stuff was done over the past week and a half and it was SO FUN to come and see the progress!!

Also, my dining room chandelier arrived!! I am super excited about it because it is made out of capiz shells, so it will reflect the natural light beautifully in our dining room! (This is just a picture of it off the West Elm website, but I am loving it!!)

We will be better about going out there more frequently for the rest of the month!! We are staying pretty local as we close on our current house in two weeks!! YAY!!

Day 6

Basement is DONE!! YAY!! They were pouring some more concrete today, but the basement is finished! 

As you can kind of tell from the picture, there was a lot of action at the house today, so I couldn't get up close and get great pics :) 

Now, we kind of wait to see if all of the black dirt that they pulled out will be enough to "build up" the house 6 feet or so. Let's hope it is so that we don't have to spend all of that extra money on dirt and can spend it on some fun house upgrades!!