28 Days Sooner

Windstorms, hail, and termites? Not a chance against this house:

Pretty!  I think we get shutters too, but I might be hallucinating.

To be fair, termites could technically get to the 2x4s and floor joists, but whatever.  We won't tell them that.

Here are a couple of pictures of the house in transition of getting fully bricked (them not being in chronological order is irritating me very much right now, but I'm too lazy to reword my entire blog post so that I'm not cringing momentarily).

That scaffolding is scary as heck.

The back of the house.  Nolan's sand pile was used to install
the bricks. 

While the bricklayers have been busting their butts getting it finished, I've been on the inside painting (although it's important to note, NOT at the same time as them).

Living room.

The same living room.  (Note the fireplace on the right)

I decided it was probably worth investing in a plastic drop cloth
to cover the new cabinets.

It is much easier painting in the daylight than by floodlight.

Front foyer (I think this looks great just the way it is).

Today I painted for about seven hours. I didn't get as much done as I had hoped I would, but I still made significant progress.  When I showed up this morning, I was pleased to see tile in the bathrooms and laundry room.

Master bath.  I think that by having diagonal
tile and the little strip of glass fancy tiles cost
us an additional $600.  Ouch.

Master bath cabinets.

Master bath.  Clever idea to lay cardboard
down over the floor tile.  That probably could
have helped me when I was laying tile in the old
house (it would have saved a LOT of headaches
and blood and sweat and tears).

Guest bath.  The standard lay of the tile (what
comes with the flat price) is either staggered like
the lower half of the wall, or checkered.  Adding in
any kind of extra tile, or even switching the direction
from horizontal to diagonal cost extra.

Do we get to remove this after we're the homeowners, or is
this like those warnings on sofas?

Detail of the guest bathroom.

This is the pattern we chose.  We both had
to initial it.

Guest bath cupboard.

Underneath that piece of cardboard is the tile
in the laundry room. (or a trapdoor leading to
a tunnel.  I forget what our contract states.)

Sophie and Nolan's bathroom cabinet.

The same tile work upstairs as downstairs in the guest bath.

 Before I left, I took a picture of our outside brick by the front door.  So pretty!

Outside brick by the front door.

Follow The Brownish/Grayish Brick House

Yay!!  Our house is starting to look pretty!

By pretty, I mean it's getting bricks installed.  Huzzah!  Actually, this photo was taken four days ago so they're a lot further along now.  Double huzzah!

Back of the house (obviously).  You can see blurry scaffolding
on the left side right above the white van.

Because the inside of the house finally is painted, it means that I can get in there and re-paint it.  Beazer Homes paints the entire inside of the house--walls AND ceiling--one color.  Boring!  I want to get it all painted before we move in (and before the flooring gets installed, if possible).  This means some late nights as I can't/won't work there during the day when the construction crew is working.

Saturday night, Nolan and I headed up to Little Elm to get the party started.  In here.  Let's get it started.  In here.

Not painting above the fireplace because that will all be stone.

 Imagine our happy surprise when we saw what had been installed in the kitchen!  Actually, Nolan could care less, but whatever.  He's three so his opinion doesn't count.

Goal:  Do NOT get paint on pretty new cabinets before we've
even officially purchased them.

Pretty cherry-colored 42" cabinets.  Triple huzzah!

 The cabinets have also been installed in the three bathrooms, but I didn't take pictures of them because I was limited by my shop lights and the length of the extension cord.  I think we got them in a different color than the kitchen, but I don't remember.  I do know that the cabinets in the guest bath and Nolan and Sophie's bath are the "normal" height, which is annoyingly low for people who are taller than 5'.

Here's another shot of my our painting handiwork.

I found this super cool color scheme from Sherwin-Williams that dumbs it down for folks like me who have no clue how to mix colors from room to room.  Basically, there's like twenty colors that will all mesh so you can put them all over the house and it will still look harmonious.  Or something hippie-dippie like that.  

I picked up five gallons of "wool skein" to paint as much of the main floor as possible, plus (hopefully) the upstairs loft area.  After we move in, I can paint over it with accent colors.

The plan is to go in a couple more evenings this week and get the main floor finished.  Next time, Tsunami will stay at home with Daddy so I'm not battling a 3-year-old, a bucket of paint, and a not-yet-purchased house.

Nolan in the dining room. He helped by watching movies.
And then he got sick of watching movies, so he helped by
unrolling the brown paper and paper towels and racing his
trucks on them.  And then he got sick of that, so he found some
broken glass and started playing with that.  And then Mommy
got sick of that, so we went home.

Stay tuned for more updates!

PS:  I'm tempted to paint the tray in the living room ceiling.  Not the flat part that's actually the ceiling, but the walls of the tray.  I think it'd be cool to do a bold color that matches an accent wall.  Thoughts?

Nolan's Sandbox

Greetings, faithful readers!

Nolan and I made a trip up to the house yesterday and got some great pictures.  We had a little incident getting our feet sucked into the mud, but we managed to escape.

Other than that, there's nothing too exciting going on.  The builders are putting in the wrong closets (which they will fix), and Nolan finally got to play in the sand pile which has been tempting him for several weeks:

The thing I find interesting about this whole house-building process is the order in which things are done.  I was very surprised to see the trim up and the closets getting installed, yet none of the electric outlets and switches have connections.  It's not a bad thing; it's just interesting.

The home builders are prepping these lots behind our house.  I think
all of these will be built next year, or the year after.  Nolan is going
to love watching the construction crews work.

Outside of the house (obviously).  The windows in the
foreground are the windows to the eat-in kitchen.

This yard will look so nice once there's grass and a big ol'
swing set installed.  Oh, wait...

 

Another outside shot; the windows look into
the master bathroom.

"Hurry up, Mom!  Let's go play outside!"

"Let me outside, Mom!  I want to play in the sand!"

Door to the garage

Fancy stair rail.

Looking through the master bathroom into
the master closet.

Pantry door

Hand rail on the stairs.

Upstairs bedroom

Oh, good.  More scary attic stairs. *shudders*

Closets.  We're getting something much fancier
than this.  I am very excited (which officially
makes me a grown-up, I think).

New trim on the window and the floor.

Laundry room with the wrong shelving installed.

Nolan trying to figure out a path through the dried mud ruts.

Upstairs bedroom.  (Notice the little boy peaking
his head in through the door?)

Nolan in the guest bedroom.

Literally right after I clicked this picture, we fell over.
Nolan was proud of himself for knocking Mommy over.

The closet shelving we're going to be getting is this:

I am obviously VERY excited for that.  Hello, organization!