Day 58 Pictures of Progress

It's hard to believe that in just 3 weeks we will have our keys.  In about 4 weeks we will be living in a new home.  So exciting and bittersweet at the same time.  We love our current house, and the more work we do to get it ready to be rented, the nicer it seems.  It's a little sad going for walks with the kids and knowing that the streets we've walked on the past 6years won't be there for us to walk on anymore.  There are just so many memories of the kids growing up here.  We've outgrown it though and we know it's time to move on.  We love the new neighborhood and we know it's going to be so awesome, it's just a little sad to leave this stage in our life behind.

The new house is coming along and looking gorgeous.  We really love everything about it!  The siding was supposed to be complete on Thursday so we thought we'd see that when we drove out Friday, but unfortunately it still wasn't complete.  The majority was though, and it looked like they might finish the rest by the end of the day.  The painters said they would be finished up on Saturday (I'm not sure if they are painting the door and pillars or if someone else does that).  I think next on the schedule will be installing the Kids/Guest bath cabinets and mirror and then all of the plumbing, door, and light fixtures.  We'll also probably be having the flooring and shower/bath tile installed soon.  Other things on the list are paving the driveway and walk-way and landscaping.

We were so excited when we saw the front of our house now with siding, some shutters, and trim.  It's exactly like we pictured if not prettier!  We love the look of fresh, clean, and traditional.  I love shabby chic and cottage style decorating and I think this house fits us so well!  It's pretty and traditional and seems so fresh and welcoming.

Sorry in advance for the bad pictures.  The camera was picking up a lot of the dust in the air and so the pictures are spotty.

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Here's our new home!  We can't wait to see it with the rest of the siding and shutters, and the front door (dark green) and pillars (white) painted.  Hopefully next visit it will be all done!  I am so glad we decided against the stone because this looks exactly how we would want it!

We were so happy to see the second coat of paint has a cream tint to it!  It's not just stark white like we thought!  You can tell with the trim painted white the slight difference in color.  I think this will be so great since some of the rooms won't be painted right away.

The trim is all in and caulked and painted.  The painters were working and said they would have it all finished up on Saturday.

Our handrail has been stained.  I think it was called Scandia Teak.  It's a little darker than we remembered but we actually like it more this color.

The doors are starting to be painted a brighter white.

The kitchen cabinets and countertops are now all installed.  We love the beveled edges on the straight counters and the breakfast bar.  The supports under the breakfast bar and island look nice too.

Cute little supports!

The gourmet island is even bigger than I remembered.  We love it!!!

We checked to see the color of our knobs/pulls with the cabinets.

We also checked out the faucet height and size with the sink (this is just the base).  The color of the stainless steel looks more off here because of how dirty the sink is.  We were happy that they agreed to install our faucet for us so we wouldn't need to change it out right away from the standard.  We chose the Moen Lindley Pull-down faucet.

The upstairs really is looking so finished.  The walls and trim look so nice!

The vinyl has been installed in the upstairs bathrooms and laundry room.

Master bedroom-showing trim.  It was a nice day out and nice to feel the breeze coming in the windows.  I just love the view of all the trees!

Master bath-mirror, cabinets, sinks, and granite installed! 

The wheat granite has more yellow than the samples and model.   I'll just probably work some yellow into the decorating colors to pull it all together.  I'm actually not that crazy about any of the granite colors Ryan offers.  Dan really wanted granite for the bathroom since we have it in our current one so this was his splurge!  I think the wheat granite in the model looks good from afar but up close it reminds me of bird poop splatters!  Sorry I know that's gross.  Even though this one is more yellow I think I might like it more because it's less poop-splatterish.

Our pretty house!  I asked Dan if he thought everyone would think it's the prettiest house they ever saw and he laughed at me.  But hey, my mom said it was the prettiest house she ever saw so maybe I'm right;)

Up close

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.

Final Choices

Tuesday we met again with our sales rep to finalize everything.  We had to choose locations for hosebibs outside, an outlet in the garage, and where we wanted light "rough-ins" vs "complete lights".  We also made a couple changes.  We decided to upgrade to "oil rubbed bronze" door handles and light fixtures (instead of brushed nickel).We decided to upgrade the padding in the family room to the next level (6lb pad) since the carpet had a longer warranty we wanted the padding to last.  We also decided to add in a basement "rough in" for the bathroom plumbing for when we finish the basement.

The biggest change was to the outer of our house.  We originally planned on doing elevation "a" with partial stone.  I had been getting a little hesitant about it because I wasn't sure if it would look right.  Elevation A is basically all flat in the front so I thought it might look weird to just have half the house stone and half siding.  We also really liked the siding color we chose and it would only have a small amount of siding in the front.  Here's a picture to give you an idea...

It would be like that but the peak of the house over to the left (instead of middle) and there wouldn't be an overhang on the door.

So after going back and forth about it we decided to switch to Elevation "C" and do all siding.  It would save us some money and we liked Elevation "C" better.  We'd also get to have more of the siding color that we really liked.  So here is a picture of Elevation C (but ours will be all siding)...

It essentially gives us the two peaks on the roof like above and the decorative top, overhang on door with recessed light, and the windows on the left are basically double wide windows vs two singles.

The siding color is Spanish Olive (pale green) with white shutters and trim and Ripe Olive (dark green) door.  Here is a picture of similar colors...

And I tried to take a picture of our floor plan so hopefully this worked...

So all in all, decisions are being made and we are one step closer!  We are still waiting for our loan to finish the underwriting process and we have a meeting scheduled for April 27th to meet with our Project Manager and we are set to break ground on May 9th!!!