Built-Ins!

After only 17 months, we are finally getting the built-ins in the living room and dining room!

I got quotes/estimates from 3 different places. Home Depot wanted $7500 for stock cabinets (for both rooms) and basically just hoped they'd be able to figure out a way to make the floating shelves with the materials they could get their hands on.  Another local cabinetry store wanted $6k, again for stock cabinets for both rooms.

Looking online, I found a local cabinet maker whose day job is custom cabinetry for celebrities' private planes.  Assuming he'd be completely out of our price range, I didn't contact him for a while.  Then someone convinced me to at least call and ask, and I am SO glad I did!  We ended up with fully custom, gorgeous cabinets, complete with full-extension drawers and pull-out shelving (and, most importantly, the floating shelves I'd been envisioning for two years) for just over $4k. 


First, the Living Room - Before:

Luckily, modifications to the original house plan included the small wall on the right to anchor the built-ins.  I've long had a vision for exactly what I wanted here (thick floating shelves above base cabinets with doors and possibly drawers), but no one seemed to understand what I was trying to describe/draw/model for them.

We had to wait a couple of extra weeks on the countertops, but it was worth it!

If you squint hard enough, you can envision what this will look like with a flat panel TV above the fireplace with a floating shelf mantle and glass tiled fireplace surround.  We'll get there.


Aaaaand, the Dining Room - Before:

Then we had to have a soffit built (I'm still very anti-space-above-the-cabinets.)

And finally, the cabinets went in, a little bit at a time.

I decided I couldn't live with the natural finish in the glass-doored cabinet, and the cabinetmaker was kind enough to redo it.  We got our wine and wine glass racks in, too!

 Still waiting on the countertop - a nice remnant of Ghibli granite.

Update: The granite finally arrived on December 17!

Curtains!

After 17 loooong months, we finally have curtains in the living room and breakfast area!


Before:

During:

After:

I originally had some really fabulous ideas about creative window treatments for these windows.  Then reality kicked in a little, and I downgraded the idea to something more feasible.  Then reality REALLY kicked in (in the form of winter sun shining directly into our eyes) and we settled for plain brown panels.  But hey, they work with the room and should be pretty versatile. And, most importantly, no more sun-in-your-face at 2:00 every afternoon for the entire winter. (Let's face it, winter is miserable enough without blinding sunshine that you can't even enjoy, you know?)

Shower enclosure, trees, and a new sofa!

Master Shower Enclosure

It's been brought to my attention that I have not yet posted a picture of the now-finished master shower enclosure. So, here it is. :) I'm really happy with it. The original design included a LOT more framing. (Why? I don't know. That was cheapest; I guess that was the appeal.) So far, it's a big pain to keep clean. We put Rain-X on the inside, but it's not really helping it stay clean. I'm trying to use the squeegee (sp?) after each shower, but there are still streaks and water spots on the inside, plus regular cleaning streaks on the outside. So, I'm not sure how this is going to work out long-term.

(Note also the beautiful temporary bath mat. I'm trying to decide what color to get. Also, thanks to some fine strategic placement of the floor vent, getting a good-sized bath mat is going to be quite the challenge. )


Trees

We always knew we wanted to put some trees along the front property line. Home Depot had fruit trees on sale, so we figured we'd just go for it. The best part was that Dennis got to dig 7 giant holes in the yard. (outside + digging + dirt = happy Dennis) We have 2 apple trees, 2 peach trees, 2 pear trees, and a crabapple tree. We think we did a pretty good job digging the holes, watering, fertilizing, mulching, and protecting them from all of the wildlife around here. To top it off, we had a big thunderstorm last night, so they got even more water. Here's hoping they all live and we end up with some great fruit in the years to come!


New Sofa

We knew long ago that we were in need of a new sofa. But we held off until the move for various reasons (get a good sense of the new space, avoid moving things twice, etc.). Over the last month or so, one or both of us has been to Room & Board, Rothman, Weekends Only, Macy's, La-Z-Boy, Ashley Furniture, Peerless Furniture, Peerless Leather, and Bassett. And that's on top of extensive online shopping. Everything we found was either too soft or too hard, too expensive or too big, etc.

I'd found a potential sofa online at Crate & Barrel, and we were going to go try to look at it on Sunday. But, at $1800, it was still pretty pricey, so we wanted to double-check a few inexpensive places first. Weekends Only rotates their stock often, and our "requirements" had changed quite a bit as we continued shopping and realized more and more that we were not going to find what we really wanted.

So, we went back to Weekends Only. We found this sofa (a floor model) for $825 and just jumped on it. It's not our "forever" sofa. We really wanted the chaise on the other side. We really wanted real leather (this is "durahide," which is a fancy word for "vinyl). We wanted a slightly more contemporary look. But hey, no one was willing to put up the extra $3200 for the one we really wanted at Bassett, so we got this one instead. Hey - it's easy to clean, the sections hook together, and there is plenty of room for people to sit down.

Next up: ottoman and side tables for the living room, desk for the office, dresser for the baby's room, barstools and breakfast table/chairs for the kitchen. I'm almost glad we can't buy rugs for a while - I'm quite furniture-shopped out!

I can't believe *WE* get to live here!

Long time, no updates... mostly because we've been too busy doing stuff over there to actually post about it. But I've been taking pictures!

Terry has finally conceded that he won't be finished by May 28. Good thing we knew that a long time ago, or we'd be very disappointed. We're now shooting for final trim-out the week of June 16 and moving most of the big stuff the weekend of June 20. So, another month.

There's SO much to update... I'll just throw in a ton of pictures and (mostly) let them speak for themselves.


Photos from 5/10
Wow! What a world of difference some plaster makes! The rooms seemed incredibly small with the dark gray drywall. When it's all white, it seems much bigger.





Photos from 5/16
On this day, we began priming. It's so much easier to paint when there is no flooring or trim to mask off. Dennis painted from 6pm - 6am.




Photos from 5/18
Really, we worked all weekend in the house. Bud even came over and helped on both Saturday and Sunday. We managed to get everything primed except the hallway, half bath, 2nd bath, and closets, and we got one coat of "real" paint on the living room, kitchen, breakfast, entryway, and laundry room. Sadly, I am still investigating paint colors for the office, nursery, 2nd bath, master bath, and master bedroom. And I think I went too dark in the laundry room, so that might require a do-over. :(

Thankfully, the hardwood floors still won't be in next weekend, so we'll have a few more days to paint.

We have ... LOTS of stuff!

Thanks to a full week of gorgeous weather (temps in the 60s or so, with no rain or snow), a LOT of progress has been made on the house!

Our roof is finished! (shingles and everything)

Our doors and windows are installed! (and we mostly even like them)

Our fireplace is installed!

All of the residual framing inside seems to be finished! (kitchen island, soffits, half-walls in the master bath, and coffered ceilings)

In the next couple of weeks, utility work will begin, and the bricklayer is supposed to show up. WOO HOO!!!!!


(as always, click on the photos to see the larger version)