Time for another room! Finally...the morning room!

We've had the  morning room furnished pretty much from moving in.  You'll see a photo in one of the previous posts.  We refinished the old table that I love (it's even on casters and has huge leaves to seat probably 12 or more).  We had the beautiful antique china cabinet from my mother-in-law.  We had older chairs that came with the table-I had planned on refinishing them but they didn't turn out to be in as good as condition as I thought so we changed to new blue chairs to match the wall color.  And I recently made a cute burlap rose center-piece.

BUT, the morning room was the hardest room for me to decide window treatments.  I don't really care for blinds and we don't have them in any room of our house.  But, since the golf-cart path is at the end of our backyard we needed something for privacy.  I love floor length curtains but I wanted a way to have privacy without feeling like I was closing in the room.  The other big thing is we LOVE our backyard view. 

So I went back and forth a MILLION times.  We tried out blinds in stores.  We bought blinds.  We returned blinds.  And we repeated that over and over!  I thought I had decided on faux wood but I didn't like how much of the window it covered when closed(again don't want to block that view!).  We thought we had decided on roman shades outside mounted above the window to not block the view...but that didn't work for me either.  Custom cornices and faux wood mounted up higher?  Nope.  AND FINALLY the light-bulb hit.  We need top-down-bottom-up blinds! 

The top-down-bottom-up would give us privacy from golfers while keeping our view and light coming in.  We ordered color samples and then took the plunge!  I love how they turned out and we are just now trying to decide if we should have two sheer panels added on one long rod.  I say yes...Need to convince the hubby.

So here is the long awaited pics...and a quick shot of the mudroom (since it's not all that exciting to get it's own post!)

Don't mind our gate still on the slider!  Hopefully they'll take that down at our 10 month coming up.

 

 

 

Paint colors are the same as in the Family room.  Here's a shot with the blinds half up.

 

 

 

 

Here's a pic of the blinds open. The cellular shades barely take up any space!

 

 

 

There will be no pretty rug!  This is one of the things I was most excited about moving (we had carpet in our old dining room).  We have 3 kids so easy clean-up floors is a must!

 

 

 

 

 

The view we can't get enough of! (except for our yard that 10 months later still has not been finished!)

 

 

 

 

 

Our mudroom- The coat hooks are for guests.  We keep our jackets and shoes in the chest.

Less than 2 weeks until closing! Progress pics and shopping trips!

We had a great productive 3 days this weekend!  Saturday, Dan's parents took the kids for a few hours so we could do some appliance shopping.  If you've ever been appliance shopping you know it was a looong few hours! 

I hate how some stores are like car-dealerships.  The sales-people pounce on you as soon as you walk in and they never leave you alone!  Then the negotiating begins..."let me talk to the manager", "ok, let's check online and see what prices you'll get elsewhere",  "well, how much do you think this is worth?", "this is our best price.  Oh it's not good enough?  Let me talk to the manager again.".  Seriously?!  Just give me your best price and stop wasting time!  So anyway, we knew what we wanted, checked a few stores, and ended up with a great deal from Best Buy.  I highly suggest going there for appliances.  No high-pressure salesman, no screwing around, just "how much do you want to pay? Ok let me see if we can do that?". Done.  We ended up getting a Samsung 29cubic feet, stainless-steel, french-door with ice in the door.  Love it!  Bigger than we expected to be able to get and under our set-budget because we got $1200 off!!!  Yes, you read that correct.  I'm a good negotiator;) 

Then my Mom came to watch the kids for Sunday and Monday.  We did a ton of shopping.  It was so nice to go just the two of us and really be able to take our time and think without all of the kids.  We got all of the curtain-rods, all of the curtains for down-stairs and the master-bedroom, new bedding, the morning-room light fixture, and a couple lamps for the master bedroom.  The best deal of the weekend was the china-cabinet for the craft room.  I've been looking for one to store craft supplies and homeschooling stuff for Connor.  We wanted to get something second-hand and paint and refinish it.  I found one the perfect size for the wall with great storage space at Seconds City.  It's a second-hand store by us that drops the price 1% for every day the item is there.  Well, since we've been so crazy busy when I looked at the date the china-cabinet got there I was thinking it would be 60% off.  But, when I went to pay the cashier said "$17.80 including tax".  I had to have them repeat themselves and thought they meant "$70.80".  Nope, I just bought a china cabinet for $17!!!!  Apparently, it's July not June (see what I mean I don't even know what month it is!).  It was 90% off not 60%!!!  Super-score! 

Also, on Sunday we took my parents out to the house to see the progress.  We were excited to see the flooring had been started!  It wasn't supposed to start until Monday so this was a nice surprise!  We chose Armstrong Sedona-Cherry for the foyer, hall, mudroom, powder room, kitchen, and morning room. That was all complete! The carpet will probably be put in the beginning of this week.  We also met a new neighbor!  The lot next to us just got sold and they were checking out the stakes when we were there.  It is a retired couple that is building a PISA.  They have four adult children so I'm hoping for visiting grandchildren sometimes!

A HUUUGE thanks to our parents for all of their help! We had a great weekend and are feeling much better about the few things we still need to do.

And lastly, in our current house news...Our house was listed online last Tuesday afternoon.  On Thursday we got a call to do a showing on Friday.  The people that saw the house Friday loved it and filled out the application.  They also asked to move in early (right after we move instead of Sept1) and to sign a 2 or 3 year lease!  We found out on Monday the application/background/credit check was approved!  So now, we are finalizing the lease and if all goes well we should have it signed this week!  What a huge blessing!  One showing and not even a week of being listed!  Moving in early so we get a little extra income and signing a long lease so we don't need to find renters again for a few years!  It couldn't have went better (as long as the lease gets signed!).

Now for pictures!!!

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Armstrong 5.25 in planks (pretty dirty here!)

Armstrong Sedona Cherry shown in morning room

Flooring next to cabinets!  We love it! 

The step is in the garage now.

The kids/guest bath

Wire shelves are now in all the closets (this is the upstairs hallway closet)

Shelves in master closet

We have toilets in all the upstairs bathrooms now (this is the master/water-closet).  The powder-room will probably be completed soon now that the flooring is in down-stairs.

I had to check the size of the garden-tub!  Can you tell my excitement?  Actually that's my normal smile but I am excited to not have jets anymore!  Our current house has a jetted tub and I can't stand cleaning those jets!

Basement has insulation on the walls now.  We'll be using this for the kids to ride bikes and play during the winter until we finish it.

Our a/c is working now but there is a ton of condensation in the basement.  I'm not sure if this is because the house has been so hot and the a/c was just put in or if it's a problem.  We're going to check on this.

A couple other concerns are: a chip in the master bathroom cabinet, a chip in the molding of one of the windows, floor that needs sanded in a bedroom, light fixtures not installed in bedrooms (looks like they confused which lights are complete and which are rough-ins), our kitchen faucet is missing (the PM thinks the plumber has it), and the cable box still hasn't been moved (they said it will be done this week).  All of these will be brought up with the PM and I'm sure they'll be corrected.

Some views from inside....

Little girly's room-you can see the pond and golf-course green here.

View from the play-room-this window has a view of the golf course/pond/street and the other window is of the cul-de-sac

Cul-de-sac from the side master-bedroom window (love the Cross the window made in this pic!  God is sure watching over us!)

The other two master-bedroom windows are of the yard/golf-cart path/wooded area

Front of the house with garage door down and dumpster taken away (still needs pillars and door

painted)

Some things coming next:carpet, powder room (toilet/sink installed), master-bath (glass enclosure installed for shower/ garden tub installed),  kitchen (appliances and faucet installed), exterior (door/pillars painted,  final grading and landscaping)

Some Shopping Trip Items....

Samsung 29 cubic feet fridge- $1200 off!

Master bedding- but we got burgundy/reddish sheets instead of the teal shown

Bedding next to curtains

Morning room light fixture-Portfolio 6-light dark bronze chandelier

$17 china cabinet for the craft room!  We will be painting and distressing it, knocking out some glass, and changing the knobs/pulls.  We'll be storing the little things (crayons, paint, markers) in baskets on the shelving, paper, books, etc will be in the drawers/cabinets. 

Less than 2 weeks until closing!!!!!

Build Day 55 in Pictures

Here are some pictures of the progress. We decided to go out twice this week since things are moving so quickly (so we'll go back out on Friday).    We officially now are "locked out" of the house and needed to get keys from the model home for the first time.  This is from yesterday, Tuesday, Day 55 in our building process.

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Spanish Olive siding looks complete on the right side of the house.

It looks like they are currently working on siding the back and morning room.  Siding is taking longer than we expected (maybe from the heat?).  They had a small amount of siding last Saturday so they've worked Monday and Tuesday and we have just the one side completed so far.

Front still does not have any siding but they have put in our pillars on the front stoop.

The boys on our front porch/stoop with the new pillars.

The inside now has the first coat of paint.

Almost all of the interior doors have been installed.

We now have trim on our half-wall in the stairway.  I am so glad we went with the half-wall instead of upgrading to the stair rail balusters.  The trim looks really nice on the half-wall and I think the balusters are way too thin for our crazy boys.

We have hand-rails installed too.

Our kitchen cabinets and countertops are in.  It looks like they are just finishing up the island (that's half of it)

Another view of the kitchen.  We chose Rushmore painted maple butterscotch 42in cabinets with Antique Mascarello Formica 180FX countertops.

The standard 8in stainless steel sink. 

This shows how much room is in the cabinets.  As a point of reference I can only reach the bottom two shelves.

All of the cabinets have pull-out shelving.

Morning Room-showing the paint.

Family room

Trim is up around some of the doors.

Some of the window ledge/trim is being installed.

 Master Bedroom from the bathroom.  You can see the paint and closet door installed along with trim along the floor.

We also found some of the bathroom cabinets scattered throughout the house (these are dusty they don't really look streaky like that).  We chose the Wyoming Square Cherry Bordeaux.  This is half of the cabinet for the double sinks.

Shingles, Plumbing, and way too many pics!

We went out to the site today and were happy with the continued progress.  The shingles are now on the roof (not sure if they are finished because while we were there someone brought over more shingles) and it looks like the majority of the plumbing is in (we didn't check the basement).  There is a broken window now in the guest bedroom/nursery.  We're sure that will be fixed soon so we didn't worry about it.  Here are the pics of the day!  Next on the list is HVAC and pouring the basement floor.

Notice someone wanted to say "Hi" to us by the roof...so Hi back:)

Front Entrance

Kitchen is now mapped out

Plumbing in the powder room

Plumbing on ceiling downstairs

2nd floor laundry plumbing

Kids/Guest Bath

Smaller Master Closet-front left

Master Bath looking good!  Love all the views of the backyard!

The boys had to try out the shower seat.

From walk-in closet looking through bathroom into master bedroom

Walk-in Closet

Girly's room has a  surprisingly decent view of the golf-course and pond.  We had thought her view would mostly be of the house beside us so we were excited to see this!

The shingles they use on roof

We love it!

Front View

Back Yard

Back by morning room door

Back view of house