Covering Up Concrete

We have spent the last week covering up the concrete on the inside. It has been so nice to get finished flooring down! Carpet was installed Sept. 22nd. We put in the best pad, which makes it a very comfortable. The carpet is a "frieze" which is a short shag - I really like it. Check it out:

The back bedroom.

The other bedroom.

The master closet.

The stairs.

We have also been working on completing the wood flooring. We're making good progress, but it is a time-consuming process.

We finished the wood flooring in the Dining Room.

The Living Room in progress.

The finished Living Room. We ended up doing wood up to the fireplace, I think this is a nice look. The only room left for flooring is the Master Bedroom. As of last night, it is cleaned and ready for the wood to go down, which we'll start tonight.

Handrail for stairs. This was one of the requirements to get the Final Inspection.

We have the final inspection scheduled for today and hope we have everything ready for the inspector. The bank inspector is also due out today. These are both huge and have the potential to greatly help or hurt us. Please pray everything works in our favor.

Marble and Granite

I love seeing all the finishes come together in our house. Let me show you some of the work that has gone in over the last couple weeks.

The mortar on the master shower floor, we got just the right slope and it's ready for tile.

Here is the tile and floor drain (covered with blue tape), everything still needs to be grouted. You can also see the marble threshold that the glass door will sit on.

We ordered the rest of our door trim and base boards. They are already primed, but I have been working on getting a final coat of paint on them so the installation is a little easier. Here’s my work station.

We took the temporary treads off the stairs and replaced them with the final treads – they are MUCH sturdier. We also started doing the trim and baseboards. We’ll be ready for carpet before we know it.

Adam installed this pocket door going from one of the bedrooms to a bathroom. Works great, still needs trim.

I installed all of the glass globes for our light fixtures. Here’s the hall.

The marble countertops were installed in the bathrooms on Monday. Here is the Hall Bath. Ignore the plastic, we're just trying to keep it protected.

The Jack & Jill Bath.

The Master Bath. I love my vanity area!

The granite was installed in the kitchen yesterday and it looks GREAT!! We couldn’t be happier. Enjoy the pictures.

Note the finished crown molding on top and the toe kicks on the bottom.

The cabinet in the corner has a glass front where I will display my fiestaware. We'll install that door later, to make sure it stays in one piece.

The bar is 18" wide and is very long. It'll be great to get chairs here and have a spot to hang out in the kitchen.

We're ready to finish up the tile and install plumbing fixtures. Then, the plan is to move outdoors to do the sprinklers, driveway and landscaping. Then, back inside to finish the flooring (we already have the wood laminate delivered) and trim. Then, it's DONE!! Simple as that.

Catching you up on House Progress

We've been working away on the house the last few weeks. Let me show you what we've been up to . . .

Here's the stairs in some better lighting. They have already been used a LOT . . . what did we ever do without them?

We also have our half-wall up on the top of the stairs. It’s finished now, but I don’t have a “finished” picture.

The wall on the other side of the stairwell is now finished. This defines the rest of the upstairs bonus areas. There will be a closet at the top of the stairs for our air handlers.

Adam added flanges to the tops of our dormer windows. This was a bit tricky because they are rounded. But, Adam came up with a good method and now we’re protected from the elements a bit more.

We also added more metal, bracing, and house wrap to certain areas. But, that’s not exciting enough to get pictures on this blog.

But, this ash tray? It IS exciting! After Clint and I picked up countless cigarette butts off the ground (we were wearing gloves and picked up a lot of other trash too), I decided to buy some buckets and sand to make ash trays for out porches. Hopefully they’ll be used and people will stop throwing their trash on the ground.

We also got a temporary front door. Here, Adam demonstrates how to avoid using the door.

We have a few shear walls on our house. These are walls with OSB over them, providing additional structural support. Here is the wall between the kitchen and great room.

And this is the wall around the breakfast nook. Can’t you just picture me eating breakfast here? Well, I can.

There’s more shear walls, but you don’t really need a picture of all of them.

Last week, Adam gave Clint a big treat. Clint has been asking for months to see the full dumpster taken away on a truck and a new one dropped off. We haven’t been able to take off work to get Clint out there to see the action . . . until Adam got away last week. Clint had a GREAT time watching the truck in action! The driver even let him use the lever to put the screen over the top to keep the trash in.

Here is Clint with our new empty dumpster, showing a pretty happy grin.

We also applied peel and stick flashing to the windows. This makes the window waterproof and goes down before the brick.

This is the first window we put peel and stick. Dining room window, if you’re curious.

Here is the back porch – these windows are ready for their exterior finish (which will be hardyboard siding).

Here’s our front door from the outside of the house. Don’t worry – it’s only temporary. We’ll get a big, pretty wood and glass door with sidelights and a transom put in as a final product.

This is what the house looks like now.

We finished the peel and stick on all the windows last week. Brick is starting MONDAY!! We passed our Dry-In inspection and we have a mason under contract and everything he needs to get going. So excited!! We have also been getting prices for cabinets and picking out a fireplace. We hope to pass another inspection soon, so we can do the roof insulation and get going on the inside of the house.

And just because, here are the pretty roses Adam got me for Valentine’s Day.

We have STAIRS!

We no longer have to use a make-shift ladder to get to the second floor . . . we have our stairs! We started on them this past week and finished them yesterday.

Here is the first run of stair and the landing. The stringers are in place, but you can't walk up them yet.

Here are the completed stairs! They have temporary treads on, but we'll get the final treads and risers in later. For now, they're great for getting up to the second floor. We still need to build the wall/door to the closet below them and the walls around them on the second floor.

Here's a view from the top.

We also finished putting in the exterior doors. You can see the door to the storage room in the garage in the picture above. We had an inspection today on our doors and windows - which we passed! :) Here's a shot of the finished doors on our back porch.

We hope to start brick soon. We have a couple things that still need to be done to prepare for this, like additional peel and stick around the windows. But, it'll be done before we know it. Everything's looking great so far.