Oh, well

Our first meeting today was at Chippewa Stone, to place our kitchen counter templates. Meaning we got to see our slabs and in theory decide which part we wanted placed where.

In reality we asked the stone lady her opinion and went with that.

It was a challenge to take photos of the slabs, as even with the dust layer they reflected the cars in the adjacent parking lot.

See the olive? No? Try squinting, it might help!

We helped place the counter templates on our two slabs, holding the wooden templates in place as they were taped on. There was also white marker being used.

Since I was using my hands for more important things, I forgot to take pictures.
I did snap one of our island countertop though. It’s the whole area above the masking tape. 123 inches long and we were lucky it fit without having to do a seam.
Bonus red car reflection!

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Dairy Queen break.

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The next meeting was with Kevin-the-Landscaper from  Lamphear’s. We met him at the house.

Today’s view ! Another beautiful day and blue September sky.

We have well drilling happening. They just got started with the actually drilling as we arrived.

Taking bets on how deep they will have to go, with us being close to the top of the slope. We are adding an extra  commercial waterpump to amp up the water pressure.
I know this might come off as sacrilege to those in the drought stricken parts of the country, but the Great Lakes area is not known for being arid.

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Concrete moulds and prepping was being done by one very sun exposed, hard working man in the 90 degree temperatures around noon.
Half the concrete will go in tomorrow, and half on Friday.

Also, the paint crew was working indoors, in the AC I might add to show the contrast, doing final paint because all the trim is done!

Walkway shots!

Two stair steps at the front door.
And a _huge_ front bed area.

We are leaning toward having a swoopy part of this being lawn , to break up the hard lines of the walkway and to lessen a threatening mulch desert. Maybe some rock pebbles. We will see what Kevin-the-landscaper comes up with, design wise.

We would like some good bones in shrubs and trees, so I can add perennials for colour to create my own cottage garden idea of pretty.

We gave Kevin pretty free reins for the design, with the exception of not overdoing the yellow. We also asked him to spec out sandstone steps from the garage down to the back patio, and a retaining wall for the west side slope.

The majority of our complimentary 6 pine trees will get to live on the dog door side of the house, to screen the neighbour’s basketball court. The only gap in our nature provided privacy screening.

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Moving on to more concrete. This is the parking pad outside the garage, the swoop of the walkway, and the 10′ deep garden bed in front of the garage.

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Indoors I just took a few photos.

Today’s locker view, white suits them, but also the only ‘hmm’ of the day.
The bottom cubbies here should be for tucking away shoes, but we spotted something on the great room floor that looks an awful lot like a paneled front and side for this.
While the paneling was beautiful, echoing the fireplace and office board and batten, I do hope we get shoe storage. We really need it!

Fireplace. I really like it.

Meanwhile, I think the dining room pillars are a little pretentious. The crown moulding at the top in particular.

I have an itch to square that off.

The office window, taken against the light and really throwing off the wall color. I still took the picture because like how the trim carpenters solved the under window panels.

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The view from the deck, looking down on the patio.
Also starring Kevin-the-Landscaper’s feet.

Another view of the patio, as seen from outside the dog room door.

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Right as we were leaving a dirt truck arrived. Front yard dirt dumping as seen from the car.
Looks like really nice dirt.
We hope to have the lawn going in early next week, even if the full landscape plan isn’t set in stone by then.

Life is a driveway?

Slightly far fetched title to this post, I know.

We met Mike-the-Builder at the house Saturday morning to outline how and where we wanted the exterior concrete.
The driveway and walkway to the front door got some measurements and borders spraypainted

These are the squigglies of the curves of the walkway meeting the driveway. The walkway is mostly straight across the front of the garage, with a smooth radius curve squaring up to the front door, no snaking path but also not all hard angles.
We also made sure to get a deeper than standard  garden bed in front of the garage.

The rear patio was something we had previously discussed and we decided to get a concrete pad poured for that as well.
It will be a foundation pad stretching all the way under the deck, and we will install pavers on top of it, but the slope will be set so it won’t have to happen right away.

Maybe next spring.

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We will meet with the landscaper on Tuesday and plan to bring up possible sandstone steps down the side of the house from the garage to the rear patio.

I also have to look into what kind of fence we can put up around the back yard. I’m thinking split rail, that’s what the development has at the entrance, or vinyl either 3 rail or cross buck.

Plaid shorts clad Parshendi jumping the chasm between the gravel piles who get to stand in for plateaus at the driveway version of the Shattered Plain. Brandon Sanderson’s “The Way of Kings” is our current car ride audiobook. Check it out!

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With the concrete taken care of, we could go check out what had happened since our last visit.
Inside we met our painter from Schreiner Painting working on the window trim in the great room, to prepare for the spray gun.
Yes, on a Saturday.
He had some wicked taping skills, and the areas he had already finished looked flawless.

The powder room bead board. Sink to the left, toilet to the right.

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Doors too!

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Here is the very big, and very white pantry.

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Just outside the pantry door, the beverage center cabinets have found their living place.

This was the very last change we did to the kitchen plans. We originally had drawers on each side of the under counter fridge, but as we moved the pantry door over and shrunk the beverage center area 2 feet, the drawers were very narrow and it looked cramped.

Now we have bottle storage instead.

Not that I remember us ever having more than a couple bottles of wine in the house at one time.  But fear not, now those two bottles will have somewhere to live!

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The arched transoms of the front door, the dining room and office windows have their arched trim in place

Formal dining room, aka future reading spot.
Has lots of natural light. Needs big, comfy reading chair and side table.

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Moving outside again.

This is today’s front view. Notice anything new?

A closer look at the shutters (still to be painted), rain gutters and downspouts!

Well timed as we finally had some rain the evening before, after a month and a half of next to no precipitation. (To make up for the constant downpour that was June and half of July I assume.)
Anyway, it helped set and pack the dirt around the foundation a little.

Mike assured us there will be more dirt brought in to shallow out the front swale, and the steep grade on the west side of the house.
No riding mower tipping hazards.

That’s it for updates until Tuesday!

Primed and proper

First things to get investigated today were the porch pillars. The 4x4s got dressed up!

The porch ceiling is finished, as are the arches and the outside trim, apart from the top part of the pillars and the shutters.

We walked along the outside of the house, following the stone wrap all the way to the back. The exterior really is finished all the way around!
Also, as a nice surprise: the deck is in place and so are the deck stairs.

This is mostly a picture of our natural drain (green pipe, red flag by lower left corner. You just happen to see a part of the deck as well.
 

More deck, and future railing in boxes.

Basement rec area has floor. Of sorts. =D

Master bedroom tray ceiling. Urbane Bronze has a warmer tone than the photo shows and doesn’t come off quite as dark in real life.

Here is a corner detail, because I liked how it looked… It’s in the office where a built in bookshelf will live once the trimmers are done.

The master tub area, with Kerdi board in the shower to the right.

The kids’ bathroom floor tiles were patiently waiting their turn. The tilers were doing the laundry room when we visited so no pictures of that since they were busy and we didn’t want to interrupt.

On the way out we saw, and used, the shiny new garage entry stairs!

This is today’s front elevation view.
Front steps, shutters and pillar uppers missing.
Simply add tons of dirt, literally, and it will look done!

Paint it Black!

Paint selections happened today!.
As with all the interior decisions, we were meeting with Katie at the Interior Design Studio.

I like gray.
I have plenty of gray walls now.
I like it.
We’re going with Sherwin Williams Stamped Concrete in the foyer, hallways, formal dining room, the great rom and the kitchen.

This is the kitchen cabinet white, above samples of the backsplash (Pratt&Larson Watercolors W42, 43 & 45) and next to the Stamped Concrete paint chip.

The trim throughout the house will be the same colour as our kitchen cabinets, classic white.

And these are the rest of the paint colours.
Wheat Grass will go in the office, with white board and batten wainscoting.
Copper Harbor will brighten up the east wall in the rec room in the basement, with Stamped Concrete on the other walls.

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M picked Aloof Gray, as a green tinted gray for her room and bathroom. Since she’s the basement dweller, and her window is located beneath the deck, it will be dark in there.
She wants some swirly patterns on an accent wall, right now she’s leaning towards a sagey green. It will be a winter project.

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The boy’s bedroom and the master bath will be painted Gray Clouds.

T wants a red and black accent wall, with ‘circle things’. After some browsing I showed him this picture of ‘funky wheel’ stenciling (Cutting Edge Stencils) and he loved it. In caps.

We’ll see how that decision evolves from now until the time comes to make it happen.

C is leaning towards different width chevron stripes in turquoise, blue and chartreuse.

Sounds like a painter’s tape job.

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The boy’s bathroom and the powder room (with white bead board) will get the darker Foggy Day colour. I see some silver or pearly iridescent stenciling happening in the powder room at some point.

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Finally the master bedroom.

Right now our bedroom is a submarine gray and we really like it. We’re going even darker in the new house with Urbane Bronze.