Kitchen Cabinets and Counter Tops

There have been lots of changes since last week. The kitchen cabinets are in (minus the hardware). The cabinets are also installed in the guest bathroom and in the laundry room. The counter tops are in also.

Most of the window sills are in and they are tiling our bathroom.

I took some pictures with my phone. Obviously, they are not the greatest. Everything is still dusty and messy, but you can still get an idea. I took a close up of the counter top followed by a close up of the vinyl floor or lineoleum (not sure which it is.) Not exactly the most exciting color choices! They will be practical, though. The pictures also show the wall color, I think.

Kitchen cabinets and counter tops

Interior paint finished

I am back in town now. Even though it was a wet, overcast day, we went up to see the house yesterday. The inside is all painted and the outlet plates and switch plates are on. The linoleum (or vinyl?) is down in the utility room, the storage room and the guest bathroom. There are big cardboard boxes in the garage. I don't know if that is flooring, cabinetry or something else.

I'm OK with the paint color, but I know that eventually we will want to paint some walls different colors. It is a slightly textured paint. I didn't expect that, but I think it is fine.

The bathtub in the guest bath is still full of muddy water. It will be a great day when that gets emptied and cleaned up!

I got quotes from some movers when I was back in Indiana. We've been thinking about furniture arrangement in the new house. Today I tried to find some software that would help me visualize and plan my furniture arrangement.

Exterior paint color

Gregg took this picture. It is from the back of the house. That's the best way to see the main color and the accent color together. Ours is the one in burgundy and blue-grey.

Sorry, no pictures yet!

I have lots to report this time, but very few pictures. We have selected the light fixtures. We had to go over budget to get a few nice fixtures. The rest are just sort of generic. They will do, because they are not the focal center of the room.

They have put up all the dry-wall now. Last I checked, the dry-wall was not taped, but that might not be true anymore. I'm out of state right now, and my husband has not been feeling well, so neither of us has been up to see how things have progressed.

He did do a drive-by visit and discovered--oh joy!--they have painted the exterior! I can't wait to see pictures!

We also made the decision to go with bamboo flooring throughout the downstairs. Gregg really likes the comfort of carpet, but we decided (after looking at the model home) that it really looks classy when you have the same flooring througout. I wasn't looking forward to having carpet under our dining room table, either. (It's not like we can eat anywhere else, either. There is no table in the kitchen.)

So a lot has happened since my last post. Soon I'll have pictures to prove it!

Not much to report

We haven't seen much change these past few days. They do have the boards in place so they can pour the front steps. We have an appointment Tuesday to pick out the lighting fixtures. That should be fun. The house on our left side (facing the front of the house) is now completely framed. So we can see what difference it makes in our view. It doesn't block very much. So that is good news.

Siding complete

On Saturday, our house was the only one they were working on. It looks (from a drive-by visit) that all the siding is up, including the siding on the roof-top deck.

They are dehumidifying part of the master bedroom suite. So we are guessing that they are getting ready to do something in there.

We had several nice days in a row, but now we are having lots of rainy, wet days.

Most of the wiring

Most of the wiring was in place last night. One guy was working on the siding all by himself, it was getting late and I think he was about to pack it up for the day. There are still some wet spots on the floor in a few places, but I don't think they will be hard to dry out. We have some very good weather forecast for the next few days, too.

Furnace and electric outlet boxes

They have started putting on the siding already! That will not be the finished color. They put all the siding up in that neutral color and then they paint it. We need to make a decision on the siding colors really soon.

Inside, we found the furnace in place and the first step in electrical wiring--the outlet boxes, the switch boxes and some receptacles for lighting fixtures.

The roof is now completely sealed and there are very few wet spots inside now.

Again, if you click on this picture you open my Picassa Web album and you get the other pictures plus captions.

Electric outlet boxes

Almost water proof!

We had some dry days and they were able to get the polyurethane roofing applied. It wasn't completely sealed, but that was a big improvement. I wrote a post on the 11th, but had trouble with "Blogger". There was no way for me to publish my draft. I couldn't even copy it to paste it into a new post. I guess "Blogger" was having issues. Anyway, I will post those photos today and then the new ones that we just took.

For some reason, you can't get the slide show without opening my Picassa Web album. It used to work either way. More "Blogger" issues????

Status of the house

It rained! Yuck!

No pictures this time. It is too sad to see standing puddles of water all over the floors. They didn't get the roof sealed with the polyurethane and they didn't seal over the holes for the vents in time. Sad, but I'm sure it will be fine. It has been rainy for two days and the forecast is for more of the same for the next few days. Now is when building in the Northwest gets interesting! :-) It seems like they will need several days of sunshine to dry these wet houses out. And days of sunshine are going to get rare over the fall and winter. We have to hope that they know what they are doing, though.

Our shower is in. The hot and cold water pipes are in.

We have met and chatted with the buyers for the "Metro" model home. They expect to move in at the end of this month.

Floor on the roof-top deck

We just got back from a week at Hilton Head Island. Our first order of business was to check out the progress on the house. Here are a few of the pictures we took.



You can see the captions I wrote by putting the cursor on that little talking bubble icon. You can also double-click on the slideshow and it will take you to my Picassa web album.

We need to pick house colors soon. As you can see the houses next to us already have the siding on, so ours will probably be next. The two model homes have been painted, but those are the only two so far. By the way, both models have already been sold, so they are probably going to make one of the others a model, now.

Optional Upgrades

Yesterday we had a meeting with our realtor to decide on the optional upgrades. We had to make decisions sight unseen again. They needed to know about extra plumbing or electrical as soon as possible.

Then we drove up to take a look. They were working on the roof. And the windows were in! There is a hole above the fireplace. I'm not sure why, because I don't think a window goes there. It must have to do with how they install the fireplace. I guess we'll find out.

According to the realtor, they are on track for delivery in January (but probably not any sooner.) Leslie provided me with this nifty "ticker" to count down the days.

Pictures taken on Saturday, September 13th

Our windows and doors are stacked in here.



















This is looking down our tiny side yard.















This shows the direction of the setting sun. These are living room windows.




















The roof is obviously not finished.
















This is a view out of the living room windows and the patio doors.




















This is a view out of the patio doors looking in the other direction. You have to get close to the door to get this view.




















Here's looking at the stairs going up to the second floor.















This is looking out our bedroom windows.

First walk through

Yesterday Gregg and I got a chance to visit with the tile and floor supplier. We didn't need to make this trip. We could have just selected one of the "themes" that the decorator had already selected for the Overlook homes. But although we liked most of what was selected, we had our own ideas about some of the choices. By going up there and seeing all the other choices, we were able to tweek the "themes" to our liking. We chose everything in neutrals--off-white, beige and brown. I don't have any pictures at this point. I felt that this gave us the most options as far as decorating went. We can add color with window treatments, pictures, area rugs, etc.

Then, after the (very disappointing) Purdue game, we drove up the hill and were able to take lots of pictures this time. Most of them will appear in the next post.

First floor walls

I took this picture this morning (Wednesday). You can see the walls are up on the first floor. Those three windows sticking up are the windows in the future stairwell.

Framing has begun!

We drove up Saturday morning as we were leaving town and took these pictures. The garage floors are done and they were starting to frame the first floor. We didn't get too close to take the pictures since there were people working. That's our neighbor's house already framed and roofed in the background.


















Then we drove up again on our way home today from our camping trip. It is Labor Day, and we were sure that no one would be working. Wrong! It was a beehive again! Now they are framing the second story. I'll get pictures soon.

Working late

I just love going up there to see what's happening on the house, so we went up again today even though it has only been a few days (and two of those were weekend days). But once again we didn't take pictures and we didn't stay long because there were a lot of construction workers still working away at 6:00 pm. There were some men installing siding on the model home, and there were people doing the wood framing on three of the houses next to ours. There was other activity too, but I'm not sure what all they were working on.

The only visible change on our house is that they have started filling in the foundation with dirt and they have cleaned up some of the mess in front of the house in order to do that. Not really worth a new picture.

Foundation of walls

They are putting siding up on the model homes. It was past 6:00 pm when I took these and they were still working away. When I talk about what has been done, I'm using my own terminology. I'm not a builder, so I don't know what to call some of this stuff. First they poured concrete into the outline of our walls. Then they set up taller boards, closer together, on top of that outline and poured more concrete between them.





This is the layer that gets the air circulation vents. You can see them on the back wall. I have no idea what the flat metal things are that are sticking up. Maybe somebody can enlighten me.









Just a slightly different angle.

decisions -- 1

Gregg and I went up to see the house and pick out the color of metal siding that will be used on the upper story front. They have to order this siding from China, so they needed to know our color preferences early.

We met one of our new neighbors. Her house will not be ready as early as ours, but she was also picking out colors. We have to choose the metal siding (vertical lines) and then a pair of Kelly Moore colors from the list the builder supplied. We couldn't decide on the paint colors, but we have lots of choice with the pewter siding that we chose. They won't need to know the paint colors until much later.

Gregg and I agree that we would rather have them contact us each time there is a decision to be made, that way we know how things are progressing and it gives us an excuse to go back up there.

First steps

Well these are the first steps on our house and also my first steps as a blogger. Gregg took the first pictures of our lot and later of the boards outlining the foundation.



If it seems kind of anti-climatic or out of sequence to see pictures of our lot and then also see the advanced state of the model home, it does to us, too. We have already toured this model home several times. I suppose it will still be exciting when it is actually OUR house that reaches that stage, but we already know pretty much what it will look like.