August already!

A PICTURE OF THE FIREPLACE BEFORE IT WAS FINISHED

So the fireplace people we went with were very reliable & fast. It was done when they said it would be done. It looks really nice, not exactly what I asked for (I had imagined square pieces of brick making the arch instead of the rectangles, and then squares of brick surrounding the fireplace itself) But it does look very nice. I am happy with the outcome and color. Now I have to decide whether I want the mantle to be stained to match the wood floors, or painted white to go with the woodwork (I am 85% sure I want white).


Mike, his Dad, and brother-in-law JP have really been putting the hours in over there. I've been there alot, too, but usually with the kids so I don't really do anything. I've cleaned up alot of garbage, sanded railings, did some staining. But thankfully Mike's Mom came over the weekend and got the staining done (she's really good at that kind of thing). Tomorrow is cleaning day...I actually don't know what that entails entirely; but the painters (the guys who will be painting the doors and woodwork) are coming Weds. and there can't be dust or dirt anywhere. Thankfully we have some helping hands (Mike's Mom, sister Jill, and me) to get it done. This will be the second painter to come into the house for the job. The first one came last week, and Mike's Dad went to the house and I don't know exactly how it went down, but the painter was asked to leave, because he was doing such an awful job. Our plumber ordered some items incorrectly, so now we are waiting to get the right items for him to finish installing (nothing much appears to have been done; no sinks or toilets are installed, no faucets are in. I don't think I mentioned the plumber failed to plan for outside water--that's right, no plan for hoses. Luckily there are spots that it was figured out we could connect to the outside from inside, so as of now, hallelujah, we have 3 spots for hoses. The electrician, well lets just say our lights in the great room are permanently on as of right now. Yep, no switch turns them off. Two of our kitchen lights and the light over the dinette doesn't go on at all. What a freaking headache. Good news, though...we have a completed porch floor and white posts on the porch!! No railing or ballusters yet, those will need to be painted. It'd be nice to paint them before they are put on, but it doesn't look like we have the time to paint before hand if we want to get in ASAP. What's left?? Well, besides the electric and plumbing fiascos, the carpet is being installed next Monday. The runner down the stairs is set to be installed next Thursday. As for appliances, I haven't heard. Electric needs to be done first. Oh, and we are missing doors to our cabinets, though we don't need those to get our occupancy permit, but it would sure be nice to have a house that looks finished. Hopefully the house will actually be ready for carpet come Monday. Our yard has been completely graded, so it is nice and flat. We have to get someone to come out and power rake it to get rid of large sticks and lots of rocks and stones that are out there but the yard looks really nice, and big without the big piles of dirt and rocks all over.

Hard to believe school starts up in 4 weeks. We still haven't decided whether or not we'll put Maddie in the 3 year old program at the Lutheran school down the road from the school the kids go to. It's only 5 hours a week, it would be lots of fun I'm sure; but 3 is so little...baseball is over for the summer. The kids were very excited to get trophies. Fall means soccer for Kaycey and Football for Cal. I am contemplating whether I should sign Maddie up for gymnastics, dance, or both. I figure both, if she doesn't do the 3 year old school program. We'll see....

Not too much else to report. I'll be back with more pictures after I upload them.

in the homestretch??

well, Mike says we are anyways. 3/4 of the lights are in, several of them even turn on!! Supposedly the fireplace will be done by this coming Saturday, which means the carpeting can be put in after that. Porch is supposed to be started this weekend, waiting for materials. Then the final grading can be done around the house (which the guy came and did start, so in front of the house is relatively flat instead of mounds of dirt and the big hill dipping to one side). Countertops were put in last Thursday, and the plumber is supposed to be around this coming Thursday to do sinks/faucets/toilets. I am really disappointed in my counter choice in the laundry room. I chose not to do white thinking it would be too white in there with the white cabinets, and went with a grey instead. Should've gone with white. We got laminate throughout the house, so it wouldn't cost much to replace it. I kind of would like to the tile the countertop or do something fun to it in there someday.

The kitchen countertops are really nice looking; I chose something that looks like granite, without the price of granite (you can get laminate for $10-20/ft, I've seen some granite/corian for $100/ft!). It has beveled edges to look even more like granite. It's hard to tell in the pictures, but the counter is speckled and has a shinier finish.

The master bath counter is kind of plain, but it has beveled edges, too, and somehow seems to match almost perfectly with the paint color. Laminate is so much cheaper; it's something if you are redoing a room or building a house and you want to save money somewhere, that would be a place to start. And it's something that is relatively easy to replace down the road if we ever want to do granite instead.


Yea! The balcony is done, I just need to get the stain so I can stain the bare wood to match the hard wood floors.

I am a little disappointed; not in the house, but my choices for the house. While the first coat of yellow in the kid's bath seemed okay, it now seems to be Packers yellow (not exactly what I had in mind). As you can see in the pic.... I don't know what color to do this room!!!!

I am also beginning to think I should've gone with black finish on the lighting in the kitchen to go with the black fridge. I don't care for the red in the entryway, but it's so dark it would take forever and many coats to cover it up. I don't feel like everything ties together like I envisioned it would, and it's all on me, since I'm the one who picked out most of the stuff.

Excited...

and it has nothing to do with the house!! I am leaving for CHA (a huge craft/hobby convention in Chicago) Friday . I will get to drool over the latest and greatest paper, bling, chipboard, and ribbon, maybe make some projects, get some free stuff, and have some quality gal time with adults who also will be drooling over fantastic scrapbooking stuff.

Saw Cracker at Summerfest on the 2nd of July and it was awesome. Front row. So cool. Can't wait till they are back in or near Milwaukee. They have this huge campout in California with other bands in September, man I wish I could go to that!!!

I had so much fun bartending the night before the 4th. Here is my friend Nikki and I. I am standing up in her wedding next May.

The fourth was fun--we went to a parade in Hales Corners with my Mom, a really nice parade. Then fireworks with my sister, Dad, and Stepmom in Greendale at night.

Unfortunately, no house news... : ( No one has been there, and no countertops in sight. Might have our permanent stairs and balcony railing in by the wknd.

More pics....

The more I look at the kitchen the more I love it. I am so glad I went with an island, and I am so glad we did the layout the way we did. If only I planned fewer drawers...oh, well, we'll find a way around that. The pics are deceiving, because it looks like there isn't much room between island and cabinets. In reality, there is 4ft of walkway on either side of the island--plenty of room..

This side of the island with all the drawers faces the cooktop. On the end closest in the pic will be a small sink.

Other side of the island where there will be an overhang and there will be stools or chairs. The empty space on the right is going to have shelves and be a bookshelf.

The cooktop area...the cooktop goes right in the middle on the counter. One each of the upper side cabinets will be glass in the door of the cabinet. The cooktop area itself is bumped out a little bit and has "legs" (that actually match the island's legs). Uh, those are my pots and pans cabinets on the lower left and lower right (out of sight in the picture)...I really was not thinking!! But I love the way it looks anyways.

The built in "L" shaped bench. The back doesn't make sense to us, so we are going to do without it for now. I'll put pillows against the back eventually...now I have to buy a table & chairs!!

I love the laundry room, too. I wish my whole house could be white beadboard!!!! It looks so clean.

One half of the laundry room--

Other side of laundry room.
washer and dryer go in the open space on the floor---

I have pics from the 4th (my favorite holiday!!!), too, but I'll have to post them another time...for some reason it takes for ever to post a picture on here!!!

Things finally coming together????

The kitchen cabinets.....

I told Mike we are going to be in the house by July 31. That doesn't mean living there, but to me that means done with what needs to be done to get the occupancy permit and able to move stuff in. While I am anxious to live there, since we're lucky we don't have a date we have to be out of a house, I'd rather have the kitchen all put away and all the major stuff situated. Whether we actually will be ready by the end of July is another thing...


Vinyl floors were done today. MASTER BATH--

KIDS BATH---

Countertops are what our current hold up is, because no plumbing or setting sinks can be finished until the coutertops are on. Supposedly they may be at the house early next week, then Mike will have to cut them. Electricians were supposed to be out there this morning, Mike went out there and they never came. Supposedly they'll be at our house tomorrow now. We can't do the carpet upstairs until the stairs going up and the balcony railing is done. Hopefully Mike and his Dad will have the supplies to work on that Friday. Mike will be out at the house alone for most of the weekend, though. Just found out tonight though there has been problems ordering it for some reason, so we don't even physically have the stuff to do the steps or balcony yet.

Looks like someone may be out next week to pour footings for the stairs for the porch, as well as move our dirt around according to our final grading plan.

Cabinets were finally delivered last week Thursday night. The kitchen ones look really nice, and so does the laundry room. The "L" shape bench isn't exactly what I had in mind (the back of it looks goofy)But when I saw the master bath I almost fell over. As Mike put it (and he is pretty laid back and doesn't comment on much of anything) he said "It looks like he grabbed a bunch of scraps of wood and put it together." The vanity looks awful. The doors on it don't match the drawers, besides the fact that the bathroom cabs. were supposed to look just like the kitchen ones. Then the lockers---they're fine, but I wanted space for boots underneath, and there is no way boots will fit. That's not a huge deal, we'll just have to leave the boots in the garage, which is fine. The kid's bathroom cabinets are fine; especially now that tonight I repainted the bathroom. The aqua color that was in there did not go well with the color stain on their cabinets. I went and bought a disney color yellow of paint today, and I'm glad I did. It's the perfect color to go with the cabinets, and the shower curtain. It looks nice with the floor, too. I made a huge mistake
with the kitchen design--I believe I counted 17 drawers. Only one is a deep drawer; the rest are normal drawers. So one big problem--no place for pots and pans. I had in my head I'd have a really deep drawer for some of the pans, but I ended up doing 4 narrow drawers on the island instead of a cabinet or deep drawer. So we are thinking either put large pans in the pantry, or maybe a hanging pot rack?? I have 2 cabinets, one on each side of the cooktop, but they are pretty small. So, we are thinking of taking out 4 drawers and making them into 2. We'll see how it will work out though...