Framing materials

The in-between house

While waiting for our house to be done, we will be living here:

It is just down the street from our current house which is under contract to be sold in 2.5 weeks. Here's a tour:  

Meet the builder/Landscaping

A couple of weeks ago we had our meet the builder meeting with Rick.  It lasted about an hour and he covered the survey, all our upgrades and our landscaping and gave us a brief timeline of what we had to look forward to:

• Week of April 20th--slab--it went in today which is April 22nd
• Week of April 27th--walls
• End of May--under roof
• End of June--electrical
• Construction completion--end of September
• Close--probably early November based on neighbors' remarks that it is taking about 5 weeks from construction completion to occupancy certificates.

He also covered our landscape plan

 

Here are some of the plants we are getting:

April Update

So much has happened since I last updated the blog.  Here's a brief recap that has been 'rose-colored glass'ed :) 

Our permits were submitted December 20, 2013 and were issued March 25, 2014.  YAY!!  Throughout the process my friends who are also building were also stalking the online permit tracking system and would shoot me a quick text if they saw progress before we did.  How lovely to get a text, "you had another permit approved!".  

The first sign that something was actually happening was our box appeared on site. 

 

After that, we started seeing some movement.  First the guys 'planked' the property.

 

Then it was pinned, piped and the rebar was added for the concrete.

Then the concrete came!!

Permitting

We are officially submitted to the city for permitting.  Based on our neighbors' experiences, this is a long and frustrating process.  We are supposed to still be on track for a late August closing :)

Interior Details

Last week, N kindly watched the littles so the rest of us could go pick stuff for the interior of the house.  On the drive over, I told DS and S that I really wanted to pick cool colors instead of warm and that was the one thing I wanted to focus on.  We all agreed and off to the office we went.

So first, we decided to focus on flooring.  Downstairs, the standard option is carpet in the bedrooms (guest and Sarah's) and tile throughout the rest.  I wanted to stick with standard options wherever possible in order to have extra money within my budget to put towards the pool.  After looking at all the standard tiles, we were leaning toward one collection of which there were three color choices.  One was beautiful but very light and I have this thing about light grout getting dirty so I wanted to go darker for the flooring.  This is what we chose:

You see it pictured here with the white kitchen cabinet (upgrade) and the small sample of the marble countertop for both the kitchen counter and island.  Later, this would all change, but the flooring tile remains the same.  So this is the floor tile for the whole downstairs as well as the master bath upstairs.

Then we moved onto the bathrooms. Downstairs there are two, Sarah's and the guest/house bath.  We did them matching using the same floor tile, wall tile, marble counter top and cabinets.

This is the inset within the wall tile that surrounds the bathtub.  The wall tiles are larger versions of the lighter tiles shown in the design.

This is a picture showing the bathroom cabinet (middle), the carpet for all the bedtooms, the floor tile and the countertop in the guest bathroom.  We also chose to have frameless shower doors in the guest bathroom instead of a shower curtain and I think we chose to have the wall tile laid diagonally.  We had planned Sarah's bathroom to have all the same finishes, but that would all change.

 

We also chose to go with solid doors throughout the house, all white trim and a white wooden staircase.  We probably would have preferred the staircase to be mixed wood/metal but you really don't see much of it and we decided to spend the money elsewhere.  We also chose to have a cabinet grade door which matches the kitchen cabinets for the pantry. 

 

Finally, we chose to forgo the builder's washer and dryer and instead have the marble countertop go all the way around the room.  So we will be purchasing front loading GAS w/d once we move in.  We chose white cabinets and this marble:

 

 

Then we moved upstairs.  Upstairs, all the rooms are carpet with tile in the bathrooms.  We used the same carpet as downstairs (pictured above).  Upstairs, there are two boy bathrooms as well as the master.  For the boys' bathrooms, we did the same for both. 

 

We did a wood cabinet, a bit lighter of a floor tile, the same marble as in the laundry room and then the wall tile as seen in the mosaic.  The tile will be 10x13 rectangles of the lightest tile in the mosaic laid long ways and there will be one row of the small darker tiles laid into the pattern.. 

 

 

Finally, we got to our master bath but decided to take a quick break to go for lunch.  We had been there for about 3 hours at that point.  At lunch, Sarah expressed that she might want to switch stuff up for her bedroom and I decided that I really wanted a cool backsplash in the kitchen.  So we finished eating and headed back to the design center.  At this point, I had come to the realization that while I went in thinking I wanted all cool tones, I am really a warm tone person. 

 

We sent Sarah off to come up with a new 'look' for her bathroom while Dave and I picked everything for the master bath.  This is what she came up with.  A white cabinet, blue/gray marble and a lighter floor tile.

Dave and I went darker for our bathroom.  This is the accent tile for the shower (the top one):

And this is the marble for the countertops.  We also went with a lighter floor tile and then a dark wood cabinet.


Finally, we were back to the kitchen.  Here was the problem:  all of the backsplashes that I liked were too busy to go with the very busy marble we had chosen.  Here's another picture of it (this is being used in the guest bathroom): 

So, we decided to start over, by first picking the backsplash and then working forward.  So the only constraint we began with was the floor tile.  We went through stacks and stacks of backsplash and finally settled on this one (middle).  So clearly we needed a new countertop.

 

 This is the one we liked, but CLEARLY, that does not go well with a white cabinet, so we were back to the dark wood.

 We also chose to get the marble below to go on the island.

 Here's the combination for the kitchen:

So you see the cabinet (it will have brushed nickel hardware), the backsplash, the light granite for the counter, the dark marble for the island and the crazy floor tile which is going to hide dirt and not require light grout which will drive me crazy.  We came in under our budget and we are very pleased and excited! 

 

 



Electrical boogaloo

So for 2 hours  today we went over the placement of light switches, outlets, tv connections, junction boxes, plumbing, light fixtures and gfci's.  Aren't you jealous? 

The builder has everything pretty much done but we added:

• extra outlets outside for DS' Christmas display,
• a couple of outlets for the Xbox/tv/cable box area;
• a tv connection in the loft;
• an outlet or two in closets;
• floodlights on the outside;
•  a central vacuum system (we have one in our current house and love it);
• junction boxes for pendant lights over our kitchen island;
• a pool package;
• high hat lighting packages in the loft and bonus room.

It was a bit exhausting and I think I figured out that my communication skills have decreased having hung out primarily with children for the last 12 years. 

Next week is our design meeting to pick interior finishes.