No painting this weekend afterall : (

The drywallers were supposed to finish up some stuff end of last week/over the weekend (final touch ups). They never came, so they didn't come until sometime yesterday. So we won't be painting, because after the touch ups they still need to texture it, spray it, and prime it. Then comes time to paint. We are hoping sometime during the week next week we can start painting. All flooring has been ordered as well. I really do not feel confident at all in my choice for the 2nd floor. I wish I would've looked a little more...I think it's too dark and we should've gotten something shorter. I don't think it will look very good next to the runner at the top of the stairs. I'm also questioning my pick for the master bath. There were two of the same vinyl, just different colors. I chose the whiter of the two, now I think I should've chosen the creamier color. Too late now, at least I'm pretty sure it is since we signed the paperwork for it all to be ordered. The only thing I am sure about is the hardwood floor, we are doing that in the mudroom and laundry room, not sure how I feel about that yet. So now we have to go buy the appliances, and I am pretty sure I know what I want, it's a matter of staying under budget. As you can see in the picture, Mike has finished most of the siding on the front of the house. We also have two white roundtop vents that will go above the 2nd story bedroom windows. Now the only siding left is on the back of the house, which Mike isn't quite sure how he will get to it (the very top of the back of the house).

Happy Birthday, Kaycey!

Today Kaycey is 6 years old!! It was so cute when I dropped her off at school this morning. Her friend, Madison, came running into the hallway to tell her to close her eyes when she came into class. Some of her friends were making her pictures & cards. Amanda rushed out and gave her a big hug and said, "Happy Birthday, Kaycey!!"

So the entire house is drywalled, and they've done at least one coat of mudding and taping. They will do 3 coats. Mike spent time trying to get the furnace to work out there (which as of this morning it does). He also put one of the pieces above the windows. Even he thought it looked really nice! I am glad I decided to do that : ) (those crown moulding things above the windows).


I met with the cabinet guy Saturday morning, and it took 2 hours to go over all the cabinets in the house!! Boy, we are going to have cabinetry in practically every room. If I had my way, I would have built ins in every room!!! We aren't doing the built-ins in the kid's rooms yet, but I'd like to someday. So I feel pretty confident about my wood floor color and cabinet color. I am opting against the white island--and not because I want to!! Mike is anti-white island, and the cabinet guy strongly suggested against a white one, but maybe an offwhite with a very light brown tone. I do love that look as well, but since the built in bench in the nook is going to be white, that would've meant changing that to the same color as the island, and I didn't want to do that either. I think that we'll go with all stainless steel appliances, where I thought we'd do a black fridge. I don't want the room to be too dark with the dark floor, but there are so many stinkin' lights in the kitchen, it's almost ridiculous. We have 2 above the island, one above the nook area, and I think 8 or 9 canned lights throughout the kitchen!! I guess I don't have to worry aboout it being dark. And quite honestly, on Saturday the whole house was pretty bright (and it was a cloudy day!). Here are some pics from late last week before they began mudding and taping the walls. The first one of the house is of the moulding thing above the window in the bonus room that Mike put up yesterday.

A layout of Maddie I made yesterday.


moulding above window.


Cal climbing a tree.



Bonus room looking toward the backyard.

Dining room--you can see the stepped ceiling really well in the picture.

Standing in the kitchen looking into the great room. You can see the fireplace, the balcony above, the entryway is the open area, the doorway on the left is our bedroom, the doorway on the right is down to the basement. The halfwall is where the kitchen sink will go.

Looking directly at the fireplace from the kitchen.

Standing in the great room looking into the nook. Doorway leads to the mudroom.

Looking out great room window.

Looking down into great room from balcony




The girls love doing the dishes!! Thank goodness, because I don't!

Painting next weekend?!?!

It's a possibility. The whole house is rocked (the sheets of drywall are up) except a couple areas, because the drywallers actually nailed through one of our pipes. So they had to stop, and the plumber needs to come out and replace it. The water isn't on yet, so it didn't cause a mess or anything. It's really starting to look like a house!! SO now they will tape and mud the drywall. After that's complete, it takes time to dry. SO we've had the HVAC guys over to get our furnaces up and running to have them on to help in drying everything out. Once that is done, they will spray the entire house (just white paint with whatever texture we want). Then a primer will be sprayed over it all. Then....we paint!!! Mike said it's possible we will be ready to paint next weekend. It depends how quickly the drywallers continue to work, and how fast it's all dried and ready to go.

In other house news, I bought all of the lights Tuesday. I was there for another 2 1/2 hours (which makes I think around 8 total hours I spent looking at lights and fans in the past week). And quite honestly I just couldn't do it anymore. The longer I looked at the everything the more I considered changing my mind on things. Not just a fixture itself, but the color of a fixture, too. Finally, I said I'm done with this!! SO I think I am still one light and one ceiling fan shy but I think I did well. I even stayed under budget (and I didn't even know what the budget was at the time!!) I did realize after the fact that the lights I got for the entryway and hallway going upstairs do not match the door handle on the front door (color). I don't know if this will be a big deal or not. I totally went against decorating rules and bought stuff in all different finishes instead of staying with one color of finish for the whole house. Oh well. I think it'll be fine. The fixtures that were on the expensive end of my spending (which really were not all that expensive) I know I am keeping. There are a couple smaller ones I am not sure about, but they can be returned or exchanged. SO on to flooring!!! I went to a flooring store that very same day, and got to bring home samples. I found a wood floor I love, but it's so dark it almost looks black when it's not in the light. SO I may have to reconsider that one, and go a little bit lighter (though I know I still want it to be dark). I got some vinyl samples too and they look like tile. I think that's what we're going to do instead of tile, for a few reasons--the vinyl floor will be warmer than ceramic tile, it will cost $1000+ less than the tile, and it looks like tile!!! I took pictures of the samples though the wood floor sample looks darker in the picture, so I'll have to see if I can lighten it up. Once painting is done, the floors go in, so we have to get moving on finalizing the floors!! We are meeting with the cabinet guy Saturday morning to go over specifics. Mike is sick over the fact I want to do the white island. He was bugged enough by the white woodwork and the white/stained staircase. More white to him = : (

I scrapbooked on Friday night, but it's been so long since I've scrapbooked I feel like I forgot how. I would like to set a goal and make a page a day, but I don't know if that'll happen. I have most of my stuff with me, but it's a mess. It'll take me days just to organize it again from packing it up when we moved to my Dad and Maria's house. That would be a good project, except that it's been so nice outside this whole week, so I'd rather do outdoor things. And as if I don't have enough to do!! We have a school dance to go to Friday night, I think it'll be fun. It'll be a good chance to meet more parents, too, seeing as that's been a hard thing to do since most kids take the bus. Cal has been sick for a couple days, even home from school. Hopefully he feels much better and will be able to come to the dance with us.

I'll post drywalled house pictures and samples ASAP!!

Drywalling Monday!!!

For some reason I can't upload pictures to the blog unless it's in the blog I type up. It says internal error if I try to put the pictures elsewhere on the blog. And when I put pictures in my post, it takes 2 minutes for each picture!! Then every few that I try to upload to a post, it'll say internal error. No idea what this means.


Yikes, now things are moving right along! Okay so while all this is moving right along, the cabinet guy still hasn't even met with us about details or measurements. Kind of ridiculous if you ask me. I am rather certain he will be the hold up in moving into the house. Mike is out there alone all this weekend working to clean the house up (the house needs to be cleaned up for the drywallers). He also was planning on getting some siding done. We got the pieces that go above the outside of the windows, but he isn't sure how to install them. So siding on the front of the house will have to wait. Painting could start in a little over 2 weeks!! I've been diligently looking at paint colors, and the only room I haven't figured out at all is the mudroom. Most of the other rooms, I think I at least know a color, maybe not a particular shade yet, but a color!! But the mudroom, I have no idea. The laundry room is a little up in the air as well. I bought 2 quilts from Target for the girls' room (they were on sale and I've wanted them for over a year). But now I'm just not sure...it's from the shabby chic collection (I tried to find the picture online but can't, so I'll have to take a picture of it). It's adorable--pinks, whites, and pale green. I think it's perfect for little girls, but it may get dirty very easily. But at the same time, I thought that pink would be great in the laundry room, with the white beadboard cabinets!! I thought about doing brighter colors in the girls' bedroom...I'm just not sure. The alternative in the laundry room is bright--red, orange, and yellow perhaps--if I keep the pink/shabby chic for the girls' room. Not sure what to do....


We walked through Mike's aunt's house (it's awesome, by the way!!) late last week to check out their drywall texture (they are building, too, and just finished painting). We decided to go with the drywall texture they are doing. There are so many texture options it's ridiculous! I wanted something kind of subtle, nothing too noticeable. So our insulation is done, and I took some pictures, but it's really hard to get the picture without actually being in the room. I would love a camera that can capture most of the room. I can't really do that with my camera. It's weird to talk in the house now, everything used to echo. Now it's so quiet. We have almost every wall soundproofed (something extra we did because it's recommended when you have first floor open to the second floor). So it's kind of cool how they do the insulation. I think they put this sheet over the walls and poke a hole in it and use some thing to fill up the walls with the insulation. Now you can get a feel when you walk in what everything will really look like since the walls are covered. The window sizes in the master and dining seem okay afterall, it seemed to me they were too small (not that it could be changed anyhow!!) It would have been nice to have the windows go to the floor but oh well! The dining room window isn't centered in the dining room, which we knew designing the plan, it's more noticeable than I thought but it's not a big deal really. It's going to be the playroom temporarily anyhow!


So it was supposed to be really crummy on Thursday and Friday, and it ended up being beautiful on Thursday and not so bad yesterday. Thursday morning after I took the kids to school, we ended up going over to play with Lauren (she is Maddies age and her big sister is in Kaycey's class). They live in walking distance to the new house (about 1/2--3/4 mile maybe??) We went for a walk...and oh my, I thought I was going to fall over. First of all, it is very hilly around there. I was pushing this huge double stroller thing that Maddie was sitting in. Second of all, we walked for nearly 2 hours!! It was 2.8 miles I think (I drove the route when I left to see how far we walked!). I am going to take a picture of the hill we went up, because it is like a mountain. Hopefully I'll be able to upload it to show you this hill nearby! It'll be nice to have someone to play with who lives nearby!! So then all of a sudden it was lunch time, so we stayed for lunch. Then I had some things to do before I picked up the kids from school, so she offered to keep Maddie till after school. The 2 girls played so nice!! It is great that Maddie will have someone her age to play with, especially while the big kids are at school.

Well, hopefully I'll figure out why I can't get pictures to upload well all of a sudden. By the way, the exterior picture of the house is no different--other than there is no snow anymore: )



DINING ROOM LIGHT I BOUGHT (not 100% sure I'll keep this one...)



DINING ROOM (at the top of the picture you can kind of see the stepped ceiling)

INSULATION IN THE NOOK

MASTER BATH

MASTER BEDROOM WITH INSULATION

PART OF THE GARAGE-INSULATED (we are drywalling the garage).

Insulation underway

A majority of the house is insulated. It looks so different with the walls filled with insulation and covered with this sheet thing. Next is drywall!!! We went in Friday night after the Art Fair at school. I did take pictures, but 1-it was raining and there must have been drops on my lens, 2-it was pretty dark outside. While they turned out ok, I think the pictures would look better if I take them in daylight. So we had another awful weekend. Cold, way too much rain, and even a little snow. Is it November or something??? At least this week is supposed to warm up alot, they are forecasting 70 for Wednesday. That would be great!! So I drove by this morning and the insulation guys were there. I'm not sure how much longer they'll be working, maybe a few days?? The yards out by us are pretty swampy with "streams" running where the ditch by the road is. But one nice thing, all the grass is green out there! Mike worked all weekend, I think did some siding, some inside work that needed to be done before drywalling. So if the restriction is lifted, it's possible to be drywalling next week!! That means we are getting close to painting, and that's a little scary to me!! My plan for today is to go purchase some, if not all, of the lights for the house. Also I want to finalize paint colors since it's right around the corner!! We'll be painting before the finish work & flooring is installed, this way we don't have to worry about painting around the trim or floors. I have been looking through lots of books & magazines again to get ideas on decorating specifics. I am really leaning toward two different finishes in the kitchen. I know Mike really doesn't care for this look, but I absolutely love it. I think he's more worried that it's trendy and in 5 years I won't like it anymore. So what I mean by 2 finishes--I want to do the main cabinets in maple, and stain them a warm color (brown) and then do the island cabinets in white. We are having a built in "L"shaped bench in the nook area, and that will be white. I think by doing the island white, it would really bring the whole kitchen together as well as give a little contrast to the floors, which will be a dark hardwood. Part of me would like to do tile instead in the kitchen, but we've talked about doing wood floors in there from the start, so I think we'll just leave it as is. I am struggling with countertop color. I've seen alot of pictures where the island countertop and rest of the kitchen was 2 different colors. It seems more often than not if people have black appliances at all, they have a darker counter as well. I prefer a neutral/tan/cream colored countertop. Some pics I have found of kitchens that have a look I love: