Hallelujah...

We have electricity.  I only took a year thanks to the town and the electric company...

Now if we can continue the forward motion and get heat....

Our first official guests...

This past weekend we had our first official guests (besides our parents and my bff Alli). We met up with my parents who brought my Grampy and my niece Eva and nephew Collin.

 

The kids loved posing...

 

And screaming...NEW HOUSE!!!

 

Admiring the dirt...

 

Playing peek-a-boo...

 

 Testing the strength of the floors...

 

And basically being maniacs.  But that was OK with me:)  I can picture what it's going to be like once it's all finished when they have sleep overs.  I CAN'T WAIT!

 

 

House update

The plasterers have been working away this past week along with the finish carpenters, the driveway guys and the deck guy.  Finally the house was swarming with workers...it only took a year...

Here are some shots as of yesterday...

The drivewas has been laid out and stamped.  We expect it to be finished Monday.

The deck has been completed!  We are so excited about this...however...we realized that it will get zero sun...great...

 The inside is completely plastered and all the doors are hung.  It makes everything so much brighter...and smaller...

The girls favorite game.  I need to get door guards stat before they put holes in the walls...

 

 

We ended up having the extra space above the garage (through our closet) blue boarded and plasters while they were there.  Dave figured it would take them 2 hours vs. the 2 months it would take him.  Money well spent...

 

 

The week ahead is supposed to bring a driveway, front steps, kitchen, bathroom vanities, flooring and more finish work from the carpenter.  We'll see how much the holiday derails things...

 

Blue Board

I love blue board.  I love how symetrical it is.  I love how it makes it look like there is so much progress.  I just love it.  At this point...I think I'd love anything that looks like progress.  Here are a few pictures from today.  All of the blue board is up and they are almost done plastering the 2nd floor.  I would think by next week we'll be able to start the finish work!

House update

I haven't posted a status update in a while because nothing major was happening (that you could see and take pictures of).  It's been super frustrating.  Between inspections, utility issues and weather conditions...things have been delayed.  We had another talk with the builder and now we're thinking more of the last weekend in November or the first weekend in December to close.  PLEASE GOD LET THAT HAPPEN.  Here are some things that have been slooooooooooooooowly happening over the past month.

We have outside light fixtures!  So what if there is still no power to light them up...it looks pretty at least.  And we have a footing for the front steps.  Olivia isn't going to be pleased when she realizes we won't have a pirate plank for a front entrance permanently...

Garage doors...and lights...

Lights where our deck will be...

Footings where our deck will stand...

A garage floor...

 

A fireplace...with the wall built out...

 

A copper pan for our shower in the master bath...

Insulation...

More insulation...and my star helper...

 

And blue board.  WE FINALLY HAVE BLUE BOARD PEOPLE!  We've been told that things really start to happen super fast at this point so we are really excited about this shipment.

 

Don't they look thrilled?

This was last weekend.  Since then, we know that the street has FINALLY been dug up in order to bring power over to the house.  Hallelujah.  Thanks to a little Nor'easter...it's still not fully connected.  Obviously.  The blue board is completely up.  And they are working on finishing up the plastering.  I wonder how they are going to feel when I walk in there tomorrow with my camera and 18 month old?

She's got legs...

During my kitchen cabinet escapades, I came across islands that had furniture legs on each corner and knew I wanted them.  Here an actual picture from the cabinet company. 

The problem was...the kitchen cabinet guy wanted to charge me $100 per leg. Riiiiiiiiiight. Seeing how I wanted 4 legs for the island and 2 separate legs for the sink bump out...that certainly wasn't going to happen.  I happen to come across these little beauties at Home Depot and think they'll be perfect.  Even better looking than the $100/leg ones above.

To make them even more perfect, I actually got a quart of the exact stain of the cabinets.  How genius was I?  But...what I didn't realize was that the cabinets are actually sprayed with stain and the quart I bought was meant to be sprayed as well.  Who the heck knows what that means and what the difference even is?  So I went ahead and brushed on the stain like normal.  Yeah...not good.  Here is a picture of how different the color is because sprayed stain comes out super fine. 

Not to be deterred and furniture legless in my kitchen...I picked up another leg at Home Depot and a can of wood stain.  The labeling had me at hello.  Dries in one hour, achieves color in one coat and enhances wood grain.  Yes please.

Here are the kitchen island legs after one coat (true to it's label!).  I had also picked up a can of spray poly and these will get a few coats of that to protect them from normal wear and tear.  They are really close to the actual cabinet color now.  Not 100% but good enough.

For the sink bump out, I just color matched the cabinets with a small sample paint jar since those cabinets will be white.  Since the cabinets will have a glaze as well...these legs aren't finished yet.  I didn't want to try glazing for the first time without actually seeing my cabinets so I'll wait to finish these once the cabinets are in.  But I already have the glaze on hand...I just hope it survives the move and I know where it is when I need it.

As for the installation on these things...I think the cabinet installers will probably hate me.  The legs will most likely stick out further than I want since the largest ring is pretty big.  So the lucky installers will have to figure out a way to shave off some of the back to make them sit further in.  No biggie...right?

The original legs would have cost $600.  My little project cost me less than $100...the stain from the cabinets that I didn't end up using was $40 alone...so much for that genius idea. 

So all of this...for furniture legs that no one will probably notice except for me:)

Sunburst mirror and lamps redo

I've been on the hunt for the perfect mirror to go about our bed in the new house.  I scour homegoods each and every week with Sophia while Olivia is at school.  They must think I'm weird to come in each week on the same day and time...little do they know I'm homeless and have no place to go while Olivia is at school.  There will be an updated post on that shortly.

So I found this sad guy.

 

It was on clearance because of all the dents and scratches and was the perfect size.  I would have loved it in another room as is (minus all the wear) but I thought it would be perfect for our bedroom with a little update. 

I sprayed a few coats before I realized that I probably should have used a primer first.  So after a quick trip to the hardware store and about 10 coats later...I had this!

Pretty...right!?!? 

I can't wait to actually have walls in a house to hang it on...

And for the lamps...I had a set of old ones that I figured would also look good painted white.  I'd really like clear glass looking ones for our bedroom...but figured this might due the trick until we can upgrade. 

Here they were before...nothing special but perfectly working.

And here they are now with two thin coats of primer and around 10 coats of gloss white.  I know...10 coats seems crazy but I made the mistake of not priming first on these as well so I had to keep covering them until they were finally covered.  Live and learn...right!?!?

And for any of you that might have noticed all that over spray...  Yeah...my dad did too and has officially banned me from spraying in his barn unsupervised.  For the record...I asked him if he wanted me to cover everything and he said that he didn't think the over spray would be that bad.  Oppsie.  This leads me to think about what my future grass will look like when I'm in project mode.  Dave will be less than pleased I'm sure.