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.

17 days until we move! Appliances are delivered!

Ok, time is rushing by!  There are only 18 days left until MOVING DAY!  Thankfully we have selected our mover – China Cat Movers, and I started packing things last week. We are moving the 19th and have until the end of the month to complete the move process. I think we’ll leave all the art on the walls until we have moved then shift it to the new place.

Our appliances were delivered today!

We went with stainless steel and a mix of brands. We wanted to pick the one we liked best in each category. One of our favorites is the Electrolux Icon Refrigerator and Freezer. These are gorgeous and I hope will eliminate the need for a separate freezer out in the workshop!  They are counter depth so they do not stick out into our space like most refrigerators do. Here is a promotional picture of how they look installed. The left door is the freezer and the fight  door is the refrigerator.

We also chose a Wolf gas cooktop. Enough said: Love gas & love Wolf’s reputation.

The Electrolux double ovens are going to be wonderful! They are both convection and there is something called a “perfect turkey” button! I hear it works every time!

Another of my favorite things is the Delta Pilar Touch 2o faucet we chose. I really really hope it works!

Unfortunately, two of the appliances were damaged and had to be reordered. The double ovens and the refrigerator were scratched. The sales person said they would be immediately re-ordered and he’ll let me know on Friday when they will be in.

Miscellaneous stuff going on while the contractor is out of town

Yes, Mike had a family vacation scheduled before taking this job, so he’s off in the islands somewhere having a great time! At least, I HOPE he’s having a great time.

25 days until we move!

Meanwhile, back at the ranch….  (10 points to the first person to tell me where that line is from!)

I got busy and painted the bathroom cabinets in the hall bathroom a lovely chocolate brown. Remember how much I hated that bathroom?  well, now I think of chocolate when I look in there and that is not all bad, is it? In fact, I think I may end up actually liking this bathroom by the time we are done!

Pictures will be soon, I promise!

Bob, our second in command, is also busy with repairing the outside wood siding we ripped through to move the kitchen door.  There was white vinyl siding up all across the back.

We moved the door closer to the bay windows, and we saw that it had the original boards underneath.

 Brick red paint!

So, we decided to have them make it look like it did originally. It will also match the workshop are a bit better.

Here is what it looks like now…

I am really at a loss about how to hide that giant gray electrical box we had to put outside to the right of the carport door.

Right now our plans are to replace the door with one that has more glass and is without dividers. We’ll also be adding a third pane of glass from to the slider from floor to ceiling to let more light in that room. The siding will be painted for sure, probably in a neutral gray, taupe, beige-type tone? We’ll paint the trim white to continue what is going on elsewhere on the house. The workshop should be painted to match too. The brick area is a 5 foot wide strip from the side yard to where the sliding door opens. I think the grill will end up living there.

Other things happening…

Motion sensing flood lights went in!

The electrical work for running power to our gate started.

The fireplace was starting to be covered in durock in prepration for the stone!

Starting to feel more like an entry now.

I know you really want to see pictures of the chocolate cabinets, and I promise….I will get some pictures for tomorrow’s post.

Before and Current Picture of Great Room

35 days until we move.

Before we started construction, we had multiple rooms. We had a living room, dining room, kitchen and family room.

Now, we have one large space that will contain the same rooms. We will not have a formal dining room, just a single large table overlooking the backyard window.

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!

Ceiling Work

I find the ceiling in our new house completely amazing. The way that the baffles are going in to direct the hot air up and out of our home, wiring the lights and speakers for the sound system, and supporting it with steel beams…just awe inspiring!

Here are a few pictures showing the various stages.

The tan baffles lead hot air up and to the ridge vent on the top of hte roof.

Insulation covers these. It’s already much more comfortable in this part of the home! We were able to use loads of the old insulation, so we felt good about recycling. We did have to purchase a limited quantity of new insulation too.

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!

More Electrical in the Renovation

The electricians are working hard to complete the electrical work. We are adding lighting in all the ceilings. Guess it just wasn’t the thing to do in 1958. Plus, the addition area needed the florescent lights removed and new lighting added.

Here is our master bedroom.  On the left side will be the headboard of our bed. We’ll be placing two reading lights in the ceiling also.

Nathan’s room was the insulation storage area. But now, it is getting some lighting!

The painting was started too. We’ll be painting all the trim and doors. Except there are some lovely stained wood doors in the hallway that are too gorgeous to paint. We can paint them later if we want, but thought we’d love to keep them if we can. In the addition area, they did not use pretty stained doors, so everything will be painted. Mike is going back and caulking every joint and filling every nail hole. They did not do that when it was built. He also is pulling up the baseboard to paint it. If you don’t, it will have paint down to the level of the carpet and you run the risk of painting your carpet. Yuck!

Mike says we are still on target for our Nov. 19th move date! Hooray!