Thursday’s projects

Exciting things happening!  The stone arrived and the fireplace was begun. The decorative faux beams started going up in the Great Room. What a difference it makes! Lighting continues to be installed and the painting is looking great!

Here is a picture from the hallway looking towards the kitchen from last night.

The stone mason arrived with two assistants and what a major production this is!

There is a real skill in laying the stone so it is level and looks right with the seams. We are so happy with this stone because it looks like we wanted: lots of variation in size both width and height. This is real stone from a quarry in Crossville, TN. When it arrived some boxes were soaking wet from the rain and the color of the stone was very dark. Others were almost white like the photo above in the wheelbarrow. Whew.

Other things were going on too with painting. We changed the trim color in Ben’s room to a darker version. The guest bedroom was started and the theater as well.

The theater was completed last night and the carpet and rubber exercise flooring is going in on Monday. I can’t wait to see the tiger stripe carpet on the platform!

We decided to change our move date to Wednesday next week. That way we give the team another weekend and a few more days. It will make our move in much more comfortable! I think everyone was happy with that change.

 

Random pieces from today….

Another big day at “the ranch” with lighting and plumbing going in. Loads of painting going on also.

One thing that Mike did that made a HUGE difference was to remove the iron fence that was outside the main windows overlooking the rear yard. Here is the gate in it’s new location.

Now if feels much more spacious!

He started working on the faux wood beams for the Great Room and did a mock up of the size. The stain will be darker.

Lighting was really getting going today too! Ceiling fans were also installed.

These pendants are the ones we will use for our island

 

Yes, the master bedroom has a gold ceiling.

Be sure to put your sunglasses on to see the laundry room! It is a bright coral color. I think it will look great when the lighting and table are in place.

(I don’t know why spots are showing up on my camera lens sometimes!) It is a solid color, I promise.

Bob painted miles of crown molding today!

Ben’s Gray bedroom. The trim is painted a darker gray now and I will get a better picture tomorrow!

I was super excited to see the faucets going in place. This faucet is the Delta Touch 20 where you can touch it anywhere on the handle or spout to make the water stop or start!

Tomorrow the cabinet folks come and will put the doors and drawers and make it really look like a kitchen! The electricians will continue to install light fixtures and the appliances too.

Counting the days now!

Painting and Mantel Installation

The painting has begun! We love the Balanced Beige color from Sherwin Williams and it turned out just perfect!

The ceiling and walls will be painted the same color. In a couple of days the decorative faux beams will be installed on the ceiling.  The beams will be stained the same color as the floors.

This afternoon I stopped by and got my first look at the mantel! It is perfect! Awesome! Great in proportion to the room and the fireplace. It just feels “right.”

You can even see the special grooves that John put in it for us to give it that old world scraped look.

The stone will be installed beginning on Monday. What an amazing sight that will be! Remember the stone? It looks like this:

We are still working on the hearth stone.

Mantel for the Stone Fireplace

What an amazing project! I am so happy that John was able to work with us on this critical piece of our renovation. He really knows his wood.

Here is the raw red oak beam we purchased from a reclaimed wood dealer in SC. Oak beams are NOT common in the area since pine was most abundant. John went down to check it out.

Close up of the end.

Then John got to work on the beam. It is about 12 feet long. Our mantel will be 7 feet wide  7.5″ high and 12″ deep.  John will also make some corbels for us.  Hi John!

Look at the wood curls!

 

Here is where the mantel will be installed! It is framed and ready for the inspections. Next, it will get a stone veneer. Seems like years ago that we picked out the stone that is being used on it.

Drywall is up in the Great Room & Theater!

What an amazing feeling to walk in and see the drywall up on the ceiling and in the new tray ceiling of the kitchen! I had to walk outside and cry! You know how it is to have a dream of what something could be like, but not sure if it really will live up to your expectations? What a relief to see it actually happen.

Here is the theater! The support beams are still to go in and the brownish red metal poles will be removed then. We also are having the heating ductwork relocated behind the wall.

A video really helps you get the feel for the space. Hope you don’t get dizzy!

Lighting

60 days until we move! Selling furniture and appliances on Craigslist! If you need something, let me know…I may have it for sale!

Lighting plays a huge part in the comfort of a space, and we are making sure that we are adding enough can lights to illuminate Fort Knox. Thank heavens for dimmers!  Plus, the atmosphere is really determined by the various levels of lighting – upper/mid/lower.

Most of the lighting we have on hand, though we are being temped by some of the new trendy looks such as the rectangular lamp shade for over our dining table!

Of course the prices are just not something I can consider….so, I am thinking of jazzing up this 42x10x10 fixture!

It’s the same shape, much more reasonable price!  I think it would look so cool covered in a natural fabric to let some light in, don’t you? Here is an example of of the look from Lampsplus.

I saw a cool post yesterday about how to cover a lampshade with fabric, and I think I can do it. Took about a million clothespins to hold it while the glue dried, but that is probably a small price to pay for sanity. I am off to the fabric store to look at burlap and price clothespins!

Update: I went by Lighting Outlet and it was awesome! I explained what I was looking for to Mr. Blankenship, the owner, and immediately found me a light I love and can buy for $149! Wow! No website, but here is the contact info:

Light Fixture Outlet

4637 Nations Crossing Road

Charlotte, NC 28217-1813

Phone:(704) 523-6462

Now, isn’t that a coooooool light? I didn’t like the wobbly wires and talked to The Lamp Place today and Octavia was incredibly helpful! She suggested I purchase the light since it was a great price and then bring it to them to put rods on and make sure it will work with the angled ceiling. Plus, the wiring it comes with is not long enough and they can correct that at the same time. Thanks Octavia!!!! They don’t seem to have a website so here is their contact info!

The Lamp Place

3108 South Blvd
Charlotte, NC 28209

(704) 523-4339

Also, one has to consider the other lighting that is happening in the same space. We have a large chandelier (36″) that we’ll be hanging in the middle of the seating area centered on the new fireplace. Sadly, I don’t have a picture of it. It’s a pretty iron and a bowl type with candelabras around the edge. Light will go up to illuminate the beams and ceiling and softly down.

The kitchen area will have two pendant/chandeliers with one on each end. The center area where the sink is located will have strong task lighting from above. The chandeliers may be what we already own:

I love these. Lots of light too.

The desk/office area will have three tiny pendants. Those we’ll select last since we want everything else to work together. There are loads of options for pendants. Here are a couple of my favorites!

Wood Mantels

Today I got the great news that we may have found someone to make our mantel! Remember we are using stone as the veneer…

We want a big substantial wood beam for a mantel. The size is 8 feet for our fireplace. We want the mantel to be slightly narrower – say 80″ with a smooth surface that looks hand scraped.

Here is some wood flooring that has the look…

We love the color of the darker stain, the grain showing, and no knots or cracks. The ridges are soooooo cool.

I found a few pictures that are sort of what we like, but they are not exactly the look for one reason or another.

Here are a few…

The one below is too narrow to put anything on top of it. Plus, I love putting Christmas garland with LIGHTS on my mantel which means I need electricity.  So, the best thing would be a thicker mantel that allows me to plug my lights in on the top!

According to the article where I found this, this mantel is a 10×10, but looks really dried out and is too close to the ends.

This one looks pretty close, but seems to stick out too far from the fireplace and looks like it has pretty deep indentions.

Of course the stone veneer will be about 4 inches thick (real stone) and so you install the mantel then stone around it. The mantel will be embedded 4 inches in the stone on one side, right?  So if you use a 10x 10 beam, it will be only 6 inches sticking out. Do I need a thicker beam? Maybe a 14×10? Do they make such a thing?

This one is a little to rough for us…

Here are a few more…
 

More like this texture…

Not like these:

Well, we shall see! Hope to meet with John, of www.johnpingpong.com this weekend and figure out the details!

We are also being GREEN by using an existing beam from somewhere!

Kitchen Beam Arrives and the Ceiling is Underway!

When I arrived at my home the other day I saw a HUGE surprise in my front yard!

This beam is 737 pounds. It is angled on one end to slide into the angle the roof makes with the walls. Nice touch, eh? You too can own a beam like this one for only $1250. Not sure if that includes delivery!

They are using only two men and some cool engineering tricks to get this up and in place. The mechanism is called a “come along” or a ratchet lever hoist.

Here’s a little video of how it works. Sorry, I don’t know what the music is in the background.

Success!  Here is the beam in place!

Labor Day was definitely a LABOR intensive day

Whew, we spent two days straight at the new house figuring out our lighting plan. Nothing drives us more crazy than a light switch put in upside down or in the wrong order. You know you will always go for the switch that SHOULD turn on the light, have to back up and do it again to get the right switch, if it is not done right.

So, instead of hiring an architect to design our lighting plan, we decided to do it ourselves using the handy post it method. You know, those slightly sticky yellow post it notes?

This seems to work really well and so far, our electrician has been quite pleased with it. The problem we ran into was that we ended up having to actually figure out where the furniture would be placed so we put the lights in the proper location on the wall or ceiling. Then,  we had to figure out what made the most sense for placement of the switches.

In the end, we felt really happy with the design and it was exciting to see the start of the wiring yesterday. Of course, last night we decided to change our entire home theater system concept, and will need to add one more switch. Thankfully, our builder is quite flexible when we do this kind of thing!

We also were thrilled to see the start of the tray ceiling in the kitchen!

You can really get a sense of the room this way. The left side of the tray looks a little skinny right now because of the temporary support wall.  The steel beam is scheduled to be delivered on Tuesday or Wednesday of next week, it will be installed, then the additional level of the tray will be built. Quite an improvement over our initial plan, thanks to MICHELLE!

 

Here are a few more pictures of canned lights going into the ceiling of the study. See, we are calling it a study now instead of gameroom!  I really like the placement over the boys’ desks which will be in front of the windows. We had them center the ceiling fan, which for some odd reason, was not centered, remove the hanging pendant in the far right corner, and add a few more cans. Guess we better find some ceiling fans for the home quickly!

Smote detectors are scheduled for this room and also the florescent lights were removed in the two offices. We’ll re-use the florescent in a closet being green.

Ok, watch for the next post to be about brick! You know how much I dislike it. Well, I am about ready to tackle that project.