Brick by brick

Well we are finally getting to feel like we have something to go and look at now at the lot! Today we ventured out to see plumbing, electrical, and HVAC all roughed in. 

Earlier this week we picked out our front door, so soon visitors to the house will be greeted by this front door.

 
And now for the biggest change, we have shingles on the roof and the foundation is all bricked in our choice from General Shale brick “Old Georgian Tudor”. It turned out to be the perfect color!  
    
 Stay tuned in for the next steps coming soon of Hardie Board Siding, which for me was a must when we decided to build a house. 

Moving along

So now it finally feels like we are starting to get somewhere with the house. This week was exciting, first it started with me picking up my beast nasty delta table saw! 

 Then on Monday we went by the house to see it completely framed and wrapped. We did the framing walk thru and made any last minute changes we wanted. Then we were joined by the cabinet maker who was definitely the rain man of cabinetry. He legit walked in and didn’t even hardly introduce himself then started spitting off numbers. Here’s my best impersonation ” we can put a 36″ base there or a 42″ but where do you want the dishwasher? Sink under the window? What about the wall you want 24″ wall cabinets? Hood over stove?”. That’s seriously how he was but you could tell he knew his stuff. So next Friday we will be meeting at his shop and buttoning up the final details so they can get started.

Wednesday we had to go back out to the house and do the electrical walk thru. The electrician was very nice and down to earth who gave plenty of recommendations. I can’t wait to see how it all turns out! But so far here are a few pictures.

   
    
 

Kitch-Inspiration

So here is our next design sheet we laid out for the Kitchen! We think and hope this is going to be the best part of the house, and we look forward to cooking meals and sharing good conversation with friends and family in the future. Enough talking though, i will let the design sheet speak for itself.

DIY Farmhouse Table

So here is my first DIY how-to for a typical farmhouse table!!! I have placed our order for Osborne Wood Company’s “Old English Country Dining Table Leg’s” and decided this would be my first DIY How-To. In my past i have dealt with several different 3D modeling software, my current choice is Google Sketchup! Its free and very easy to use, once you get the hang of it. So here’s the lumber you will need: 2- 2x8x12’s, 4-2x4x8’s, and 4-29″ legs of choice (our choice- https://www.osbornewood.com/1110.aspx) To cut and assemble you will need: Tape Measure, Miter/Circular Saw, Kreg Jig- to Join, and Screws. This is the overall look we are going for!! Step by step pictures to come!!

Antique Makeover

My husband went to our routine antique stores a few weeks ago and found 2 treasures that I love. Not sure what exactly they were used for but we are going to use them as our nightstands in our new master bedroom.

I asked my husband to not wake me up this morning, but I guess he let that go in one ear and out the other and instead woke me up. Even though it was 10 AM, I wanted to continue to sleep until my body would no longer let me. He was rather excited about the day we had planned. Last night we made a list of the things we wanted to accomplish today and we got most of it finished in just about 7 hours!

First I asked him to finally finished our spool table project that had been almost finished for about 3 weeks now. All he had to do was attach the legs. He wrapped that up quickly.

Then we moved on to refinishing our nightstands. After scuffing them up and removing the hardware, I started the painting process. The guy at the antique store gave us good pointers when we picked out the paint last night. We decided on a milk paint called “Lamp Black.” I love it! After two coats they were ready to dry and be put back together. After we reattached all the hardware, I distressed them slightly to add a little imperfection to it. I’m very happy with outcome of them and hope you love them as well!

Jarrod also found some great kitchen chairs that we will be refinishing soon. They are Ethan Allen by Baumritter. Stay tuned!

Last words: my husband works very hard to make me happy and I couldn’t ask for a better “workshop” partner! He’s the best!

-Molly

Solid Foundation

After a week of vacationing in Destin, FL we come back to foundation walls and soon to be brick!

   
 

Footings Finally

So finally I am excited to say that we now have officially started our house. Yesterday the footers were dug and today the concrete footings are in! I went by to meet with the bulldozer guys and got them to give a quote for clearing the back of the lot all the way down to the creek. And now this afternoon it’s being done and will be piled up so we can burn all the brush! Can’t wait to see it cleared, it will make the backyard seem even larger. It’s going to be nice to go on vacation and then come back and who knows what it will look like in one weeks time! 

Here’s the pictures so far:

    
  

Next post it will be cleared off!  

Saturday’s Project

So first off i would like to start off by thanking my wife for the patience it took to make this project turn out as good as it has!

Now, So what is this project? Its an antique glider bench…- the glider+rust+broken frame=Beautiful bench, well we haven’t been able to get the = Beautiful Bench quite yet.

First with the talents of my wife she sanded her little heart out! Then she preceded to tape off the soon to be ‘off-white’  areas, this was accomplished with much success and left me thinking…”OK stop you’re done” but i stopped myself from speaking.

Now since i knew ‘we’ (by we i mean Molly) were on to painting the classic green my ‘OCD’ started kicking in. As i am standing over my oh so patient wife while she is taping i realized how annoying that can be and instead went to work on my project for the day. Enough with the jabbering. Here is the final product.

On to the next one!

Dynamic Duo

Batman and Robin can’t match the team my beautiful wife and I make. Today we met with the Designer that works with our builder and made some difficult choices. However much to my surprise Molly was somehow able to get the decisive Jarrod to show up and help make decisions.

First stop Creek’s Cabinetry. The doors were stacked up all over the table yet the one we decided on was right on top and just perfect. We were able to walk out into the shop and see the faces complete on cabinets they were building for another client. After this we had the tough decision of picking out hardware. Who knew there were so many choices?? after looking around we made a pretty good decision that looks super high end but ended up being still in budget. So here are a few pictures. Drawer Front and Door Fronts.

And here is the same cabinets in one of the homes Waters-Holland has currently for sale. Although we are choosing to stain rather than have painted in the kitchen and the guest bath. We will have the same style in white for the master bath.

Following the visit to Oxford Park we made the journey downtown to the granite warehouse. where it seemed difficult to decide, granite is a big piece of the kitchen! As i was swatted at and told no for my first choice for the kitchen, we walked around hunting granite in the budget…. And couldn’t find non cookie cutter house granite. But for just a tad over budget we found a beautiful Leather rubbed charcoal granite. and decided on it for the master bath tops. We then left with a decision that wasn’t settling well with me for the kitchen. Boy was i thankful when after starting to drive in the car to the next stop that she decided it wasn’t the right one. The one i had my eye on at the beginning was the one we decided on, a beautiful White Carrara marble!

Last stop for the day was at Louisville Tile where i felt like my head was going to explode, until i calmed down and stuck with the plan we had all along. Subway Tile, Subway Tile, SUBWAY TILE!!! As much as i would love to spill all the details here, I’m not. Keep an eye out for all the details but i will leave you with a teaser picture.

And a full month later…

So after a month of putting our builder on hold in order to move the house further off of the road, we have verbal approval from the county septic inspector. I realize already the stresses of building a new home are REAL! I have learned that it seems like no one is in a hurry to do anything anymore, i had to call and follow up everyday for the past 2 weeks to ensure this got done.

Now after a month i just mowed the lot on memorial day, and the builders are going to re-stake the lot….and guess what hits again, a forecast of a week worth of rain again.

So in my boredom i have been planning way ahead so when there are questions of what faucets or what colors we want these decisions will be somewhat already made. Take a look at the first of many, Our design idea page for the Master Bath.