Week 16_While we wait....

So today was supposed to be the final inspection...Did the inspector come by?? Did we pass?? Who knows...We have not heard yet, leaving me wound a little tight right now...Can you imagine that, me wound tight??...because I am usually such a level heading, go with the flow type gal...*watch the sarcasm drip from your monitor here*

So while we wait, I thought I would share a couple more pictures of my kitchen with yall...Below is the view of the kitchen from the front door.


...I had hoped to be sharing photos of a completely finished kitchen by this point...but the cleaners did not show up on the weekend so
A: The blue plastic on the appliances can't be removed yet
B:And the corbels should have been stained to match the espresso cabinets , but the painters will not do the final little bits until the cleaners have been.


The white power outlets will be switched out with black ones...I did not even think about them until after I saw black backsplash in place...oops...So right now the remaining 2 are on special order and should arrive any day now...Another thing with the black splash, it actually cracked while being installed, so will be completely replaced by the end of the week...Since this is only cosmetic it has no baring on the final inspection.

As you can see, we finally have the fan inside the ceiling tray installed...I think it looks really pretty...though the glass is white and does not match the kitchen/dining glass, I will have to shop around to find a suitable glass light shade to replace it, but this was the only fan that I like the style and the metal finish matched the rest of my fixtures, never know I might learn to live with the mix of white and amber shades.

Bath vanities are in place and looking very nice. Really glad I opted for the espresso cabinets in the bathrooms, I think they needed the darker color to ground the space...The cultured marble tops are "light coco"...wonder if the mix of the 2 make my bathroom Mocha?? (ok...that was a lame attempt at humor)
Besides being on edge about the inspection, it has been a pretty stressful couple of days around here....The baby has been sick...Nothing too serious, but a sick toddler is never fun...and then this weekend really provided me with good photos to show you why we are so anxious to get the house finished and move out of the mobile home.

We had a severe storm move thru the area and our place took more damage during it that when the hurricanes came thru in 2004...Below shows the south side with the skirting torn away, the table and BBQ's where all around the corner, behind the house before the storm.


You can see here the buckling in the skirting along the back of the trailer...All in all made for a pretty scary Sunday...Worst still the baby and I were not home, but at Church when this took place, leaving Mic to have to ride it out by herself....She was cooler about the whole thing than me though...even while I was calling her to check she was ok.


I am grateful this is all that took place on Sunday, and in no time at all David had it cleaned up and the skirting back how it should be...I count us very blessed.

Week 15 - Under Ground Power - Counter tops

I am happy to report that the permanent underground power has been put on at the house. I am told that when the electricians come back to do their final stuff they will take the temp pole with them. YAY no more ugly power pole to mare my landscape..

Other super exciting news is my gorgeous Uba Tuba granite counter tops got installed yesterday...Lots of pictures to share because they are just sooooooooo pretty....


I guess I should mention the floor since I forgot in the last post and you can see it in this photo (though they are covered in dust right now)...Very pleasantly surprised on how good it looks, and the installers did an amazing job matching up the edges so you can not tell at all where the joints are...We chose to go with vinyl (lino for you aussies) through-out the house for a couple of reasons...the first one being cost...with the money we saved in the floor budget, it allowed us to afford to get the granite counters in the kitchen...Later we intend to up-grade the floors to a floating wood laminate floor and this brings us to the second reason for our current floor, it will act as the moister barrier between the cement slab and the floating floor system..saving us a step and money down the road..Third reason being, that having a toddler, we do not want to be worrying about her damaging expensive flooring..In the mean time it does not hurt that the vinyl turned out looking pretty too :)


But back to the counter tops...Is that not a thing of beauty...Note we have an under mount sink...It is also a full 2 inches deeper than my current sink...yay.


As suspected the counters really did help to define the cabinets against the wall...Going to see how it looks after the range hood and the fridge are in place before making the final decision on painting that wall.


For the island (and bathrooms) I chose these delicious espresso cabinets. The gaping hole is where my dishwasher goes..


And finally, last night we went over to check out how the lights look...Not all the fixtures have bulbs in them yet, but we did get to see how well the recessed lights in the kitchen illuminate the space...and though I did not take a photo the ones in the living room ceiling tray are also very pretty...As David said last night, now we can the light switch, it feels like our home.

Week 14 - So close to the end now...

PLEASE CLICK IMAGES TO SEE THEM LARGER...

Just 12 days to go to meet our deadline and Leon is doing everything he can to keep everyone on track...We now have soffits and fascia, giving it a nice finished look...All that is left now is to add the porch lights and the door bell...at least I think that is pretty much it for the outside...Well besides landscaping, but that will come later and be done by us.

On the inside, I am LOVING how the french doors into my workspace are looking, and the wall of built in closets look great too...I am so excited to get them filled with fabrics and set up my sewing machines and get back to work...I knew I would miss working but this is about driving me nuts...Watching Project Runway is like torture right now. :(

As I mentioned in my previous post, all the lights are installed but for the one in the living room, we needed to find a 1/2inch diameter, foot long extension rod for the fan inside the ceiling tray...This proved harder than it sounds, though we found one, it was the wrong color and had threads at both end so David had to grind them off to make it fit and then painted it black to match the fan.

Even with having to do all that, I am glad to report that all the agonizing over my light fixtures for months, most definitely paid off, I am loving them all...Pictured here is a mini chandelier with ceiling medallion is in Mic's room and will help capture the French country feel we are going for. You will be surprised to find out this fixture was found on walmart.com...Once the bed is in place the chandelier can be lowered, for the moment it is hooked up so we do not walk into it .

Before I tell you about the cabinets, I do have to mention the 3 pendants over the breakfast bar, because the extension rods that came with them are 12inches long and the kitchen ceilings are only 8foot high, using 2 rods per pendant made them hang a little lower than I had hoped for, BUT having just one rod made them too short, while trying to work out which height would work best, I had the electrician hang one short and one long...and BAM...we had our solution...I love how unique they look now.

Ok, now for the cabinets...I had wanted and "thought" I had ordered an off-white (ivory) cabinets with a caramel glaze for the outer wall...well it seems when you combine ivory with caramel glaze you get TAWNY BIRCH...which would be the color we painted the walls...I have thought of little else this week end but how can we fix this problem of my cabinets now blending in with the walls and still keep on schedule...

Well a couple of things, once the counter tops are added and the appliances, this should help define the cabinets some more...Plus we do plan to add a tile back splash, and this may now happen sooner rather than later....Obviously sending them back is not really a option if I want to have a kitchen when Mum and Nina arrive from Australia...So PAINT...after much mulling over and discussion in the wee hours of the morning, since this is literally keeping me awake...We go with the easy option and paint the kitchen and dining walls a darker color...and if it gets to the point I just CAN'T live with the cabinets this color then I will just have to paint them white myself....ANY AND ALL INPUT WELCOME BTW..

On a happy note... LOVE LOVE LOVE my hardware...after much searching online I was able to find the exact cup draw pulls and cabinet door knobs I wanted for less than 1/3 of the price of the ones at homedepot...So thank you The Knob Store on ebay...http://stores.ebay.com/theknobshop

I had my heart set on these cup draw pulls as they remind me of my Aunty "Loopy's" kitchen and bring back so many fond childhood memories of visiting her on the farm and chasing their many many ducks...

So is it surprising at all how fond I am of ducks now...Here are our 2 new additions, Peeps and Hula at only a week old...they are now more then twice this size and still growing...They are Giant White Pekins and supposed to reach 7lb's by 8 weeks of age...YIKES lol.

That's it for now. Hope to have some exciting counter top news by the end of the week.

Week 13 - Exterior Painting Done

View of the house from the North East, steal blue body, white trim and red door (Not sure what color red because they lost the sample card..oops). Still have to add the soffit, which will be white like the trim and should add the final POP to the outside...That is until until we have the time and money to add the railing to the porch and get some landscaping done.

Talking of landscaping Spring is definitely in full bloom here in Florida...I could not resist taking a photo of the wisteria that drapes the driveway and gives such a pretty frame to our little blue house.

In other news, all but one light fixture has been hung and they begun laying the flooring today...I hope to be able to get inside to take some pictures tomorrow afternoon or at the very latest the weekend. Also meet the granite guy, can't wait to see those counter tops go in...But first we need cabinets (due middle of next week)

I mentioned in my last entry that David had the septic guy use his machine to dig the trench for the underground electric conduit. Yesterday the electricians hung the outside box on the wall, allowing David to run the final pieces of conduit to make the connection from the pole by the road to the house complete. I have a great picture of David in the hole but he said I couldn't use it so this is the only one I have to share :(

David also ran all the phone and satellite lines for the TV and Internet throughout the house. Plus has framed in additional attic floor space the full size of the living area tray, which is about 16x16 square feet on top of what the builder had already made into attic storage space...

So not really house related but "down on the farm"...We got 4 more Chickens this last week...One is already laying and the other 3 younger birds are just pullets but should be laying soon also...For the moment they are still using the small pen to keep them safe at night but have free rain of all 5 acres during the day...though the younger birds seem to prefer the safety of the pen....Not sure if they are hiding from Bravo (rooster) or Sara lol...Actually they all get very excited to see Sara because she always brings them food.

David also brought 2 ducklings today, but they are just a week old and are currently snug as bugs in the old cockatiel cage in the utility room...About the time they are old enough to live outside full time we should have the new chicken/duck pen build closer to the new house and under the shade of the trees for both shelter from the summer heat and also predator birds.

I guess that is about it until I have some pictures from inside the house...I am very excited to see how the flooring looks tomorrow.

Week 12 - The count down begins.

I feel like I have been chasing my own tail all week, trying to make sure everything we need to get done is completed and we are not holding any of the work on the house up. We really need to hit our April 30th deadline and I refuse to be the cause of any delays....Everyone and everything needs to run smoothly over the next 29 days.

So the big things for this week, we have color on our interior walls..Tawny Birch...the best I can describe it as is, a yellowy beige. Notice they have removed all the doors again. They took them away to spray paint them...They will not be rehung until the flooring goes down sometime next week.

With the ceiling tray walls painted the same color as the rest of the walls, the tray really takes on definition. You can also see the A/C vent covers have been put in place, Can't wait to see how it looks with the light fixture and recessed lights installed also.


The septic tank was also installed along with the drain field..While the machine was here they also dug the trench for the conduit to be laid for the underground power line....



Other stuff but not photos:
All the shelves in the closets have been installed today...And we have got an outside color match, so they will start painting there on Monday...They switched and did the inside first so we can get the next wave of sub's come thru in order for us to keep things moving towards the looming deadline.