Lighting, Appliances, Action

The electricians wasted no time installing electrical plugs and switches, and have already installed most of our lighting fixtures and even a couple appliances! Some lights have not arrived yet but we'll show you pics of the ones that have.

But first...the backsplashes and fireplace surround are complete!

closer view

fireplace surround


We also got our septic system installed. This system cleans the waste inside the tank chemically and then uses sprinkler heads to spray the "grey water" onto the lawn.

Here is one of the three sprinkler heads:


Now on to the lighting.
The guest bathroom is almost done, all we need is a mirror now:

Fixture closeup (the hole in the wall is where the power wire originally came out and will be patched).

This is one of the small little wall sconces in the office

We put ceiling fans in just about every room. We are like the "anti-Trading Spaces Designers" because on that show they are always removing ceiling fans, sometimes to the owner's disappointment.
Anyway, here is an example of the "generic" fan we used almost everywhere:

Here is the light fixture in Vivi's bath:

These are the lights over the master bathroom sinks:

Here is our entry light by the front door:

The chandelier in the breakfast/dining room:

The only exception to our generic fans across the house is this one in the great room:

Here are the appliances installed so far: our Advantium microwave/oven, the trivection oven and the warming drawer (all GE stuff).

There is still a raft of appliances in the garage waiting to be installed:


They weren't supposed to bring the fridge or the laundry machines this early but the appliance store messed up and sent them...so now we just have to hope nobody takes them before this is all over. We are out in the country and all but that didn't stop someone from stealing our copper a few months ago.

Finally a pic of Ian and Angel right before the Foo Fighters concert Thursday 7/17 evening. We are sitting on a little chair we bought for the great room. The house is getting close and we're ready!


Next week we'll be in Austin and hopefully when we return we'll have cabinet hardware, appliances all installed, more light fixtures done and maybe even some patio slabs poured. We'll see ya next week...

Indoor Painting

Back-to-back posts! How lucky is that?!?

Here are a bunch of pics of our indoor paint. It's hard to convey the exact colors here but maybe this will give the overall impression.
Things will look even better when we get lighting fixtures and hardware (next week!) and the wood floor is stained dark.

The family room, guest bedroom, laundry room, stairway, kitchen, breakfast room and bonus room upstairs (pictured) are all painted the same color. It's "White Raisin" from Sherwin-Williams which has a nice gold color; we had extra white paint mixed in to lighten it up a bit (we call it "Extra White Raisin").

The great room/bar, hallway and office are painted "Hearts of Palm." This actually turned out to be a more yellowish green than the swatches looked rather than a brown-type khaki green and it's very bright...but it contrasts well with the dark stain and will look a bit darker when the wood floor is stained.

office

View into the master bedroom from hall

Where the great room meets the breakfast room the green and yellow border is very Sprite-like.

The master bedroom is painted "Interesting Aqua." It looks mostly blue but in the shade you can see hints of green making it aqua. Of course there is no shade here because the camera's flash was used.

The master bath is a color called "Rain" which is a lighter aqua color on the same pallete as the Interesting Aqua.


Vivi's bedroom has a frog theme...she helped pick out the color, called "Melange Green." Yes, it's bright. In this pic the sun was coming through the window making it look paler than it is; the next pic shows the color more. Many of these paints are really interesting, they change character a lot depending on the light.

We used the same color in her bath and it matches the tub tile accent pretty good. The painters will come back later and apply a pearlescent glaze on top of this one just in this bathroom for a different effect.

Today's nature interlude: this deer was eating the weeds growing out of a dirt hill in front of my office. She did not seem concerned that we were a few feet away in the house.


The tile setters returned to do the backsplashes as well. They did all of this in the following pictures in a day.
The master bath backsplash uses the same tile we used in the shower.

The space between the upper and lower island countertops filled with tile (the "Antique Oro" tile from a previous post)

The kitchen counter backsplashes have lots of variety (these are not grouted yet, only affixed to the wall)

The backsplash over the range getting ready for the accent tiles:

The same tile is used in the fireplace surround

Here's a low-light blurry pic of the overall living room so far. We have picked out a mantle too and hopefully it'll be ready soon.


Bonus pics: A couple of Vivi pics from the 4th of July:
her first sparkler

she is swimming so much now! here's a good freckle shot


Next week's update should have some lighting, hardware, and maybe some patio slab pics. Maybe we'll get our mantle too - it's a piece of reclaimed wood from a barn building!

Countertops done

Sorry it's been so long since the last update! Between 4th of July and a busy Summer schedule we hardly have time to sit down and blog.
We have tons of pics, but most of them are work in progress shots. The painting is all done now so we'll skip most of the in-progress shots and go to the finished shots.

But first...countertops!

The countertops were installed in only a couple of days. Here's how they look so far:
The kitchen and island countertops are LG Viatera Quartz product in a style called "Solano"

The kitchen sink is a Kohler steel sink with some pretty deep sides. The left side is extra-long to fit casserole pans and the like for soaking.

Closeup of the countertop

The laundry room counter is Corian in "Granola" pattern. The sink is a cool composite material that seems sturdy and has a little shelf molded into the side that can drain into the sink.

Sink closeup:

The master bathroom countertops are also Corian Granola with built-in sinks

Vivi's bathroom countertop is Corian "Sahara" pattern and also has a built-in sink

The bar countertop is "Verde Peacock" granite.


The guest bathroom is the lovely "Asterix" granite remnant

We just love this granite! Here's a closeup from the sink


Nature break! We get this camo tree frog hanging out on the porch quite a bit; he blends in well on mossy rocks but not so much with the brick. But he's not easily spooked and he let me get about an inch away with the digital cam in "macro" mode. Unfortunately the focus is a little off in the middle but otherwise crisp


This is the wrought iron for the front door, temporarily removed for door staining.

They finally got some scaffolding and stained the beams in the living room and office

The shop has gotten it's own little meter box

They also connected our well to the water supply lines for the geothermal system and house. First they dug around the house pipes with a mini-backhoe

Then switched to the trench digger!

The trench went all the way to the well of course

They had to dig around the giant dirt hill that will soon be spread around the house during the final land grading.

We even got a mini hot water tank!

Here is a preview of the paint and how the professionals mask everything off


Next post-- lots and lots of paint!