Exterior- starting to wrap

The other day I was walking on the side of the backyard that's closest to the privacy fence, and I noticed this...

The builder had started putting some of the exterior wrap up!  Mike said that happened a few days before, but I just hadn't walked over there or noticed.  Oops!


Then I came home from work to find this...  more wrap AND scaffolding!

Third day, had more wrap, and you can see he's starting to get the trim work started under the eaves!

They are now getting the back steps built.  It'll be nice to get in & out of the back door without the balancing act we're currently doing!  Can't wait!

Shopping Trip- Lighting

Getting more shopping done, and having fun making selections!

Here is the light that will go over the kitchen island...

 Here is the chandelier to go over the table in the kitchen...

We almost forgot about getting a light to  hang in front of the coat closet in the hallway.   It will definitely be dark in that little nook.  We were trying to find something that would compliment our front foyer light.  Here's what we ended up with:

Of course, we still have the dining room chandelier that we bought AGES ago...

I picked out a crystal chandelier to go over the master bathroom tub, but the electrician informed us that it's against code to have over the tub.  Oh well- that's getting returned then!  

We picked out very simple light fixtures for the butler's pantry, laundry room & back foyer.

Cabinets delivered!

The cabinets have arrived! 

There are a total of 84 boxes!

They will only deliver the boxes to one location- fortunately we have an empty barn to put them in, since the kitchen isn't ready for them yet! I don't know what we would have done otherwise.

I took a sneak peek into one box... and I am loving the gray!

We also have this big HEAVY box in the barn... our 650 lb tub!

We're still a ways off from these to coming inside, but at least the workers won't be waiting on us when they are ready for them!  

We still have some more tile that we need to pick up, and also ordering the kitchen sink.  I hope to get that done this week.

Plumbing- roughed in

From the kitchen, you can see the plumbing work that goes up to the master bathroom.












In the downstairs half bath, it looked like the hole for the toilet was placed too close to the sink fixtures.  We already have the vanity & toilet, so we brought them in o check the placement of the plumbing...

They had to move the hole a few inches to the left so that there would be enough room for both pieces.







Master Bath plumbing isn't as far along... they ran the pipes to the second floor but needed to check the shower & tub fixtures and placement of them with us.




The laundry room is looking great...











For the new drain pipe to connect to the septic system, they were going to run it through the basement.  But the pitch that was needed meant that it would cut right through the middle of the "room" and we'd have to be ducking under it.  We don't plan to have much down in the basement, but we still weren't crazy about the sound of this.  Mike talked to the plumber and they decided they could connect outside, but it required a trench to be dug and a bunch of our forsythia bushes to be moved... but we are happy with this solution!

They have a few odds & ends that need to be finished up before the plumbing inspection can take place.  It was supposed to happen Thursday... delays, delays :(

Good news is that the inspector did the rough electrical inspection on Thursday and we passed! 

Once the plumbing gets done they can inspect that and the framing.  Once we pass that, they can start working on the exterior siding & interior insulation!

Shopping Trip- Tile

It seems like we're making runs to Home Depot or Lowes at least once a week.  Here are some of our purchases...

We fell in love with this tile for the master bathroom shower floor (just inside the shower):

The floor of the bathroom we plan to do a white marble, but we haven't picked that up yet.  The white marble will also go up the walls inside the shower.

Here is the tile that we picked out for the laundry room...  

And here's what we picked out for the back door foyer & the half bath downstairs.  We decided to do these two areas in the same flooring since they are so close to each other.  We needed a tile that could handle the mess of the kids & dog, and also needed something that wouldn't get slippery when wet.  I'm excited about this, because it looks like real stone!