Home

We've got a million zillion things going on right now (moving, unpacking, sick kiddo, sick me--strep is no fun, by the way, Christmas celebration with my side of the family, packing for our cruise, kids Christmas programs at church and school, and this is always a really busy week for me at school), so I'm not posting much except to say that this is officially our home.

We are beyond ecstatic to be living here and that this really belongs to us now.  It truly is our home on the Lane now:)

3 Days and Counting!

Woohoo! Maybe this house will be done on time, folks! A whole bunch of stuff has happened in the last 48 hours, so let me fill you in.

We'll just start at the front of the house and work our way through.  This is our front door.  Clearly it's not installed yet.  And yes, it's upside down in our unfinished basement.  I'm showing it to you because the paint color we chose a few days ago was just applied today.  We wanted it to look like wood, even though it's a fiberglass door, so we chose a gel stain in a walnut color.  We're thinking this will go well with the classic, timeless look of the exterior. This should be actually installed tomorrow.

Jason, my brother-in-law who did all the cabinetry work, made and installed this bench in the front foyer.  It's perfect--love this little niche.  I can just picture a couple of fluffy throw pillows on here to make it more welcoming.

Also in the foyer we have the railing going up the staircase.  I've always wanted one of these and I adore how it incorporates both the white trim color and the stained wood color.  

To the right of the foyer is the office, which now has carpet.  Yay!  Evan and Marea both stepped on it and oohed and ahhed over how soft it feels.  

The powder room (I'm not really sure that's what they're called nowadays, but that's what our floor plan say) is pretty much complete.  Look how amazing this oval mirror is over that pedestal sink!  A pedestal sink has been in the house of my dreams for a long time and now I get to have one.  Thrilled about that!

 The carpet is also in the living room area.  I love how cozy this room feels now.  Are you tired of me saying how much I love everything?  I'm sorry to be so redundant, but I really, really do.  This is my dream house so for me, there's lots to love!

The kitchen now has a few appliances (still need the fridge).

And we officially have a kitchen sink, too.  The faucet head pulls down to use as a sprayer.  How cool is that? Maybe it will be cool enough for me to the dishes more often (my least favorite chore ever).

And now we head upstairs.  Here's the stairway once you come to the top of the stairs.  This light fixture rocks my world.  It looks pretty dang awesome hanging in our stairway.  Oh, and look! We have electricity now! So we can actually visit our house after 4:30pm (which is when the sun is setting here).  Yay for modern conveniences!

The master bathroom now has a counter, plumbing fixtures, lights, and mirrors.  Check it out! Two sinks with tons of storage.  Um, somebody pinch me now.  I really can't believe that this is going to be my home.

 

The closet shelving is almost all installed--just need to get the racks of shelves up in each closet.

And that pretty much wraps up what's been going on.  Since we got to visit our home on the Lane during the dark, we got to be the only ones there tonight.  For the first time, it felt kind of like home.  I think that was partly because when we've been going there lately, the house is full of workers so it hasn't really felt like the house is ours.  Also, the kids were running around, playing hide and seek, and wrestling on the carpet.  They were making themselves at home--making it into our home with their joy, energy, and laughter.

As Eric said to me today, for the last year we've poured out hearts and souls into creating this house and making this dream come true.  He's right.  Now we are just 3 days away from making this house into our home.  I couldn't be any happier!

5 Days and Counting!

Five days from right this very minute (it's 9:24pm), we'll be living in our new house! We're happy dancing and cheering! This weekend, the electricians worked to put up the light fixtures, hook up outlets and switches, etc. They're not done yet, but here are some of our faves.

The foyer light. It's a drum shade--love this pretty thing.

And a more real-life size for you.

If you stand in the foyer and look towards the back of the house, you'll get this view (minus all the stuff once we move in!):

The kitchen island leading into the dining area.  And look at the gorgeous girl hanging over that dining nook! Here's a couple more shots of this fixture--our absolute favorite in the house.

Looking at the dining area from the other side of the island.

A close up.  So gorgeous!

No photos of the recessed lights in the living room or kitchen area--those are just your ordinary recessed lights.  Same with most of the other lights in the house--nothing special.  But here's the master with the ceiling fan/light installed

It's nice looking, for a ceiling fan, don't you think? We will actually be installing a few fixtures ourselves because the cost for the electricians to do it was insane.  So we'll hang the ceiling fans in the kids' bedrooms and the office.  We'll also be hanging the pendant lights over the island once we're moved in.  

As for other things happening with the house, well, some of the painters' things have been cleaned up. No more plastic covering most of the windows or the trim, but there's still a lot of "stuff" all over, as you can probably see from these photos.

Stuff everywhere! So hard to walk around!

At least we can show you what the kitchen cabinets are starting to look like, with some of that junk out of the way.

I love how these are turning out--just the way I'd pictured in my mind.  Yay!  Same thing for the fireplace--adore it!

However, the painters still have some cutting in to do around ceilings, as well as lots and lots of touch up work to be done.  The electricians need to finish their stuff.  We still don't have any plumbing fixtures (toilets, sinks, faucets, etc). The counters in the bathrooms and laundry room need to be installed.  All of the closets still need to have the shelving put in.  And there are about a million other details to do (like putting the doors back on, putting up the railings, putting on the cabinet door hardware, etc.).  The carpet is being installed on Tuesday.  We have our final walk-through on Wednesday. And, oh yeah, did I mention we're moving in on Friday, which is in 5 days? This house better be ready because we're moving in no matter what!

Paint, Paint, and More Paint

All that's happened in the last 10 days at our home on the Lane is paint. Exterior paint, interior paint. Trim paint. Cabinet paint.  Primer and finish paint. Paint, paint, paint.

It took over a week for the painters to enamel all the trim, doors, and cabinets and it still isn't completely finished.  And since most of those things were already primed in white, taking photos doesn't really show you much. However, the walls were finally painted yesterday and today, so those I can show you.  Here's the main color in the house:

It's just a basic neutral that's reads pretty warm so we think it will be a nice contrast to the white trim.  You can actually see in some of these photos that the paint was still wet when visited the house today.  The kids had to be reminded about ten trillion times to stand in the middle of the room and not to touch anything.

There is a secondary color we chose for the master bedroom, master bathroom, office, and powder room, which is a little darker and richer feeling, without being too dark and heavy.  Again, the paint is still wet here, so that's why it looks splotchy on the walls.

And that's pretty much the update for the last 10 days or so.  Well, that and the fact that painting is messy.  Check out the disastrous state the house is currently in:

Kitchen zone--tons of leftover food and beverage containers, plus equipment.

Dining area.  The floor is the hardwood floor, covered with the mauve paper which has now been covered in paint.  We are crossing our fingers that when the paper is removed, the floors underneath are in good shape because there is a LOT of paint there.

The hallway/foyer/stairway.  Pretty impossible to maneuver around all of this.

Tomorrow the painters will cut in around the ceiling (I'm sure you noticed in the above photos that hasn't been finished yet), and clean up this mess.  We can't wait to have our windows back.  It's so dreary inside with the windows being covered both on the interior and the exterior.  Again, you could see that in some of the photos.

See how dark it seems at 4pm with the windows all covered?

 We move in exactly one week from tomorrow and today the builders assured us they are on track.  Seems impossible with the current state of the house and how much is left to be done, but we're hopeful it will happen!

A Hodge Podge of Updates

Here we go! Some serious update for you! This is kind of hodge podge and all over the place, but it'll give you a pretty good idea of what's been going on with our home on the Lane.

Let's rewind to when the cabinets were installed.  I showed you the kitchen, but couldn't showcase my brother-in-law's other talented work because flooring was being installed in those areas.  Now the floor tile is in, so here's the rest of the custom woodwork.

The mudroom:

 Yeah, it's dust and dirty from the finish carpenter installing all the trim, but you get the idea.  Mudroom cubbies and bench.  Love this--it's such a pretty place to store all our gear.  In case you're wondering, Eric doesn't want a cubby--he prefers the nearby closet to hang his stuff:)

The kids bath:

Obviously it still needs a counter top, but you get the idea. 

The laundry room:

Jason even managed to build us a folding table for above the washer and dryer.  Amazing!

The master bath:

Again, still need the counter, but this baby is 8 feet long so Eric and I get loads of space.  Just for comparison's sake, the master bathroom in our old house had 1 cabinet door and 2 drawers.  Now we get 5 cabinet doors and 6 drawers.  Smack!

And you may have noticed the tile in all the above photos.  It's pretty dusty, too, so hard to capture the real color.

See what I mean? This is the mudroom. I just can't get an accurate photo with all this dust.  However, the master bath tile is fairly dust-free, plus it's my favorite, so here's what that looks like:

We used the same tile for our master shower, which I tried to photograph, but it's small with odd angles and no light, so I did my best.

We LOVE this tile so, so much! It's actually less "busy" in real life and a bit more muted, so it's perfect.  The view above is when you step into the shower.  Then if you turn to the right, here's what it looks like:

We've got three shelves in the corner and will have 2 shower heads. The wall across from this--the wall to your left when you walk in looks like this:

There's another shelf and a small bench.  I am so excited about this shower I can hardly stand it!  But we're moving on to other things.

The kitchen counters have been installed and they look better than we'd hoped.

A close-up:

And here's the view of the island when you walk in the front door.  I love this:

Next we move on to the fireplace.  The mantel and stone have been installed.

The mantle will be enameled the same white as the kitchen cabinets.  We wanted light stone to keep with the light, white and bright feel of the house, but we like how this stone sill has some shades of tan that will go well with the wall color and the carpet.  A close-up of the stone:

We'll end with an exterior update.  The exterior has been painted, however it is not done.  The second accent color still needs to be painted around all the trim.  And while we love the main color, the paint job itself leaves something to be desired.  With that said, here's what the exterior looks like now:

Wow, that's a blue sky! I didn't even edit that photo, either.  Anyway, we move into this place in 19 days and there's still lots to be done.  In the meantime, we have Thanksgiving, packing and planning for the move, planning and packing for a fun Christmas cruise with Eric's family, Christmas shopping, and the actual move.  Oh, and Eric may be having knee surgery in the middle of all this so I'm not sure how much I'll be able to update the blog with all of that going on, but I'll do my best. 

It's Official

Just a quick update, but an important one! We're officially closing on our home on the Lane on December 13th.  That's just 20 days away! We cannot wait to call this place home.  Yay!

P.S.  We're way past the putting up siding stage, but the siding needs to be finished being painted before the exterior is complete.  We'll post pics of that once it's done!

The Post with No Updates

There's not much to report, but I don't want you to think I'm forgetting to update the ol' blog.  It's just there's really nothing to write about. Last we left off, the hardwood floors had been installed, and shortly after they were in, the cabinets were put in.  Unfortunately, our home on the Lane still looks like this:

The tile floors were being put in last week, but they're still not done, so this is all I've got for you on those.

A few more of these gorgeous doors have been hung, but nothing amazing enough to write a whole blog post about.

The painters were supposed to start, but so far I've only see one small paint sample on the wall and a report from our soon-to-be neighbor that the painter received "bad paint" so couldn't begin today as planned. 

At this point, move-in day is just 17 weekdays away and we are getting nervous that the house will once again be delayed.  I'll update here as soon as we have something blog-worthy!