Cabinets are in and Granite is underway!

Whoopee! Things are really hopping this week! Yesterday the cabinets were installed. Got the base cabinets and uppers installed. The doors and drawers will be next. Can’t wait to see them. The color is so pretty. Tomorrow the appliances are scheduled to be delivered.

Aren’t they gorgeous? We love the way the color turned out. We have a bit of tweaking to do to finish up the cabinetry, and Claude and Lori Morgan of Morgan’s Cabinets have done a fantastic job! They look awesome with the floors too, don’t they?

You can see the guys starting the granite template process. Casey and Chris worked very hard creating a custom template so the granite will fit perfectly in the space.

After the templates were created, we all headed up to Fox Tops in Mooresville. Fox Tops is the fabricator we have used several times in the past and they always do an excellent job. They also sell remnants, so if you are looking for a smaller piece at a good price, check them out! Elaine is just super to work with and very competitively priced. Call her at 704-799-7007.

It took four pieces of granite and lots of patience to figure out how lay out the pattern and avoid the big green spot on the lower left corner of the first picture.

Casey and Chris were very careful and professional in determining the layout for cutting the seams and making sure that they will flow smoothly. Because the granite we chose shows quite a bit of movement and flow in the pattern, it is especially important to make sure the pattern flows across the seams.

After we completed the templating process, Elaine and Casey gave me a tour of the fabrication plant. It was really amazing. Computers run some of the equipment and they have a water recycling system that is very environmentally friendly!   Plus, it enabled their fabrication plant to continue operating when we had a severe drought and there were water restrictions in place. Many other fabrication facilities were unable to operate. They also save a significant amount of money by recycling the water because they use so much to cool the blades during the process.

Here is the tool that cuts the large pieces of granite and the crane that moves the cut pieces to the next area. The piece with the word YUKON on itis the blade. The horizontal cutting surface has stones in it that actually sharpen the blade as it is used. Elaine is in the picture with the crane. Hi Elaine!

Suction cups are used (near Casey’s hand) to hold the cut stone and move it to the next area.

This area is where the hole for the sinks are cut and edge profiles are created. I understand that it will take 9  hours to do the large ogee edge we selected for our granite edging. Whew!

Elaine will send me some pictures of our granite going through the process and I can’t wait to see them!

Below is a picture of the water recycling system.

Holes will be drilled for the water faucet, filtered water dispenser, and soap dispensers.  Some holes are drilled at the shop and some are drilled at the site. I provided the sinks and faucets for them to review and we discussed placement.

Casey is the shop manager and will actually be doing most of the cutting and also the installation on Friday!

Thanks Elaine, Casey and Chris for all your hard work! We are going to have an amazing kitchen thanks to you and Fox Tops!

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.

We have a winner! Paint, that is….

We have been working hard to select the paint colors for the rooms. We are colorful people, let me state that right now. No white walls for us in the past 20 years of marriage.

The Great Room is quite large and the color will go on the ceiling as well, so we better like it! First we started thinking about the things that will be in the space that won’t change: fireplace stone, mantel, kitchen cabinets and countertops, stainless applliances, darkish wood floor. Then we began playing with color. Stone colors, natural colors, something like that we thought…Not the warm golds we had in the past. We wanted a more modern feel and to do something very different from what we’ve had in the past.

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So, we are trying beige. I know, beige is so boring, but I believe that it will turn out really calm and warm in that room and let the other focal points really shine. The color is by Sherwin Williams – Balanced Beige. A very neutral warm beige without green or gold tones.

There isn’t much drywall in the Great Room right now. Also, the time of day can make such a difference in the color. Hallways with reflected outdoor light really turned the paint green!

We are going with a darker trim. Actually, it is only a medium beige, but in the daylight in the Great Room it looks dark taupe! The paint is Benjamin Moore – Raccoon Hollow

I donated all the sample quarts to Northwest School of the Arts Theater Department. Green – they will use them in sets for their upcoming plays!

46 days until the move….

Started talking to the moving companies yesterday to see about quotes and pricing. So far, I have been pleasantly surprised. I know that we’ll handle most of the moving of pictures, lamps, china, clothing, and valuables. The builder says we are still on schedule, though there may be a few things outside that are not complete.

Yesterday we saw the insulation going in, which we were able to save from the previous ceiling, and it seemed cooler in that Great Room already! Very green, re-using the insulation.  Mike moved the carport door, and the HVAC folks were there moving the vents from the middle of the floor to new locations.

Lots of electrical has been run. One problem we didn’t consider was that when you remove all the walls… where do the light switches go? I had no idea we had so many! There are ten light switches in this location.

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!

Home Theater is begun!

Wow, it was exciting to see it all start to come together in our home theater. Last night, Jeff and Nathan went over to inspect the progress, and returned home very excited about the home theater. This morning I stopped by to see why, and totally agree! It is going to look amazing!

We had a home theater in a previous home and are using as many of the components as possible: drapery, light fixtures, screen & speakers, and some other things I am probably forgetting at the moment. Very green!

The  new part of this plan is that it is also an exercise room. We are planning on using exercise flooring material similar to what you see at the gym on the main floor in there. I found this great rubber flooring company online that will send you samples for free, then extras cost a bit for postage.  It will look black but have tiny flecks of color like this:

We have a treadmill we want to include and a set of weights. The boys also will have a pull up bar installed in the ceiling somewhere. Last I heard, there were plans for 3 pull up bars – so they can all do pull ups at the same time!

Here are a few “before” pictures when it was still the original workshop space. This area is part of the addition that was built in 1981.

Now, in the framing phase:

You can see the elevated seating platform on the right. The two  metal posts will be removed and the heating duct work will be re-routed.

Our plan is to leave the ceiling unfinished for now, but painted black as you see in many restaurants. We will be converting the space above this area into a master bedroom & bathroom suite and want to have easy access to the plumbing and electrical at that time. So, we don’t want to drywall and then have to remove it in a few years.

The screen will be on the left side of the picture where Jeff, my patient husband, is measuring.

Our hot water heater challenge has been resolved. Mike moved it closer to the stairs, and we can now contain it in its own room!

Just to the left of the hot water heater closet is the seating platform. We will have elevated seating and the first step is also the platform for a short bar area. Mike plans on putting some small low voltage lights on the steps. Won’t that be super? I applaud Mike’s angled step idea!!! It really takes this this space into a “high end” feeling.

Here is a view of the screen area. The screen is going to be recessed in the middle.

I think we’ll have a million light switches down here! You can see we are still using our post-it note method of switch placement. I have also started drawing on the walls! Top view and front view of the platform design! Someone asked me what our process is, and here is what we generally do:

• I draw what we want.
• Jeff helps figure out the measurements and we discuss the reality of it actually working and if the design/space will function and look the way we want.
• We give the drawing to Mike and he builds it. He does make suggestions (really good ones!) and we incorporate those too!

Check back to see the progress!

Brick, brick, more white brick

I have to talk about the brick for a minute now. I have been pondering it and even went so far as to buy small samples of paint at Home Depot. Did I mention that in a previous post? You can buy 8 oz. samples of paint to try it out before you invest in a gallon. Hooray! What a brilliant idea. So, I took some bricks up to the paint department and talked to Les, who turned out to be a nearby neighbor!  We talked about my hatred of the amount of white brick and discussed some options.

Actually, I think all the brick has overwhelmed me. Originally, I thought we’d paint the house. Never thought for a moment we’d keep it since it had all this white on it.  But, we really love the “old mill brick” kind of look. Just too much white. I suspect the original owners went back at some point and added white to some places.

There are actually six different types of brick on this house:

1. Main house brick
2. Fence brick (Which may actually be the same as the original brick before the white enhancement. I suspect this because the white shows above where I cut the bushes down to half height and not below that point!)
3. Front step brick
4. Addition area brick
5. Back patio brick
6. Back covered patio brick.

We saved the brick from the fireplace inside to use when we build the front porch and new chimney so those new items will look similar to the front. Green thoughts indeed!

Did I mention that I am not afraid of paint?  I painted a first coat on some of the more offensive white bricks on the covered patio area. Can you see the pieces of little blue tape? I am hopeful that when I am done, you will need them to tell which bricks I painted!

For obvious reasons, I ended up going back to do a second pass at it. Much more to my liking! Showed it to Jeff, and he said it looked fine! Now, I just need a day with a bit of time when I can attack the front, entry and side!

I do like a bit of white on my brick. In fact, as I was driving through Charlotte yesterday I saw the perfect example of this! I wish I’d snapped a picture! What I liked about it was that there was some white brick and that the white trim really set it off nicely. On our home, there is too much white and too much white siding.

Today was the big day! I got started painting it. I must admit I am a bit nervous about how it will turn out. I mean, brick is so permanent!  Of course, it was painted white in places before, so I guess I am just “enhancing” what was previously in place. I stopped before I got too crazy with it figuring that “less is best” since I can always add more brick color paint after looking at it with fresh eyes. Of course, now that I see these pictures side by side, I think it still has too much white!!! What do you think?

Before (Above) & After (Below):

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.

Framing it up

The work continues rapidly!

Yesterday they started work on the laundry closet.

Now they have moved to the basement and are working on the movie theater area. There was a hot water heater in a rather inconvenient spot, so they moved it and build a little room around it. We didn’t really want to see it. We are using a door from upstairs. Mike, the builder, is GREEN again!

Then I saw where he has been busy working on the wall where the screen will be installed.

You can also see the area on the right where he’s been busy framing. There have been water problems down there and they must have had drywall damage or been trying to figure out the problem. I foresee a big dig going on outside before this is over!

Today was also granite research day….so many gorgeous ones to choose from! I went looking for one we saw at Ikea called Titanium. It was a beautiful predominantly black granite with white splashes and swirls with carmel colors in it too. Very dramatic.

Here is the one from Ikea…

The titanium that they had in stock was very boring. No carmel, very little white steaking and very expensive. I visited 3 different granite shops. Good news, I found some others I do really like and they are less expensive! The one below is the picture that Jeff liked best.

The Well

Anyone else have a well? What was your experience with it? We have one. I believe it was used before they got “city” water. Most recently it was used for irrigation and filling their pool. We are hoping to do the same.

Unfortunately, it was quite large and obvious in our view from our main living area. See the corrugated roof on top? Those three windows behind it are looking out on it from the kitchen/family room area.

They got busy today and removed it in 20 minutes flat!

Now, we want to make it smaller and less obvious. Maybe they can build it to look like a doghouse for my corgi, Lucy! It needs to have an access in case we have to work on it, but I don’t know how large an opening is needed.

Then I went inside where the brick from the masonry fireplace is being hammered apart after getting cut by a very cool tool.

Bob seems to really enjoy his job! He’s also helping us be GREEN by using the gray bricks as a floor for his wood storage area!

Also, here is another environmentally friendly thing, we are saving the face brick to use on our next project – the new front entry porch!