September 19, 2012 - Ready for Floor Finishing

Wow, it sure has been a long time between posts!  We've been busy making finish decisions, helping with cabinet assembly, and all the rest that comes with a home-building project that is nearing completion.  We know we have to pretty much stay out of the house now for the next week as floors are being finished, so I wanted to share some photos of how things are looking these days.  We are thrilled with how it is all turning out!
 

On the exterior the grading is pretty much complete, walks and driveways have been poured, the patio is in progress and the front porch material is on order, hopefully due to arrive this week.  Here's what we're looking like these days:

The Front

The Back

Obviously there are still a few things left to do (grass and landscaping might be nice?) but this late in the season we're probably just going to try to get some grass in and leave the big planting until the spring.  There have been a lot of things going on inside too.  Tile and unfinished wood floors were installed several weeks ago, but for some reason I haven't taken pictures of most of the tiled rooms since the install, so here are a few older photos:

The basement bathroom (where we used some beautiful leftover tile from my parent's cottage)

And the Master shower floor (my favorite)

We've had lots of other projects happening on the interior too.  The stairs have finish treads, most of the cabinets are in, and the finish trim is substantially completed.  We are moving people!  Here are some photos of the current state of things:
 

Here's the Living Room/stairs

Another view including the front door and part of the Kitchen island

 

The Kitchen (and some Living Room)

 The Kitchen/Dining Room

 Dining Room/Front Hall

 Front Hall/Powder Room

 The already-messy Mudroom

My wonderful Office nook

The upstairs hall

 The Kids' Bath

Master Bath

 Master Bedroom

 Master "Closets"

The stairs from the upstairs hall

 The beautiful Rec Room

 More Rec Room

The stairs from the Front Hall (can you tell I love them?!)

So, what do you think?  I know it may not be to everyone's taste (or you may still not be able to visualize how it will all turn out) but we are so excited, and can't believe this will be our home in about six weeks!  Can't wait to post more pictures as we get a little closer!

August 5, 2012 - Drywall

Wow, it's finally looking like a real house inside! By August 5 drywall had already been hung on the first and second floor, and everything was looking great.  Here's the view from the front door into the Living Room: 

And here's a view from the Living Room to the Kitchen/Dining Room:

Here's the mudroom:

The little boy's room:

The kids' bathroom:

My office nook:

The upstairs hall:

The "big" girl's room:

The Master Bedroom:

The Master Bath:

The stairway:

Here's hubby's office/studio before drywall.  Do you think it will be soundproofed enough to work while the kids play?!

 After the weekend the drywall was hung in the basement, and the taping and mudding was started.  Here is a shot of the office/studio after its special sound-dampening drywall:

Here are a few shots of the Rec Room

And here's the fireplace wall all framed up and drywalled a few days later:   

Now that everything is starting to look like a real house, we can't wait for all the finish details to start falling into place!  MY guess is we won't have to wait long, this place is flying!

July 30, 2012 - Siding and Insulation

Well, as usual, things seem to be flying along!  The siding is as finished as it's going to be until after the roof goes on.  Due to a longer than expected lead time on the roofing material, that's not going to be for another week or two, but we're loving the look so far. Here's a view from the back: 

And the front: 

 

 And here's the house-side of the garage:

Also, our garage now has a floor! We're pretty excited that someday soon we'll actually be able to park in here!

 The guys also added some special self-adhesive insulation to bridge the gap between window frames and wall framing, seen here:

After that step, any additional gaps were eliminated with expanding foam sealant.  (That's the yellowish substance you can see oozing out toward the bottom right in the next photo.)  After living in drafty older homes, we are thrilled to know our new home will be so seriously air-tight!

Finally, we were delighted to arrive at the house on Saturday just in time to watch the insulation get blown in!  It was a pretty cool (and very messy) process in which the insulation was supplied from a truck via a giant hose (seen in an earlier picture of the front of the house) and sprayed onto the walls.  This alone was pretty messy, and the result looked like the top of the wall between the door and the window in this photo:

Then one guy went over each wall with this spinning metal roller that scraped off all the excess insulation to prep the walls for drywall, leaving giant piles of "snow" that the kids were dying to jump in.

When that step was complete, another guy came along behind him to vacuum up all the excess fill.

When the job was done, our house looked like this:

I'll leave you for today with a close-up.  Can't wait to see what it all looks like when the drywall goes up!