Camo?

The exterior of the house is looking a bit camoflauge - perhaps that's the look we'll stick with... 

Look at these greens, they all looked so similar in the swatches - but look how different!  There are 5 different colors - can you find them all?  THIS is why it's so darn hard to pick a color!

Color Crisis

It feels like things have slowed down a bit lately.  But, they are picking up again and we should be in the semi-final stretch.  Tiling the bathrooms has started.  Here is the hall bath - basic subway tile and travertine floors (still needs to be grouted and the shelves put up). It's a bit hard to take a picture since there is no electricity/lights in the house, but you get the idea

The main thing we've been dealing with lately is a color crisis.  We had about 8 color swatches put on the house and the whole family agreed on one (Tom's parents and Hank were even with us).  Well, we paint the whole house that color and....it's way too light.  It's not a bad color, but much lighter than we wanted, especially since we want the tan accents around the windows and on the brackets to stand out.  Right now the colors would be too close.  It actually looks a bit darker in this picture than it does in person since it was cloudy:

So, we did the logical thing and chose one shade darker and tried that out...too dark!  Argh!  You can see the darker shade patch here, on the left side of the window:

So around town I drive collecting paint samples from various stores.  I selected 4 new colors that are somewhere in between these two and I guess we'll see how that goes.  We almost just settled on the original color, but decided that the outside color is kinda  a big deal.  We don't want to drive up to our sparkling new house and regret the color every day.  ...And we haven't even started on all the inside colors yet!

Besides that mess, the trim has been put up around doors.  You can see it on all the doors at the top of the stairs here (not yet painted) - along with Lilah's little dungeon door where we'll put her when she's bad (actually it was a utility closet for the water heater, although that got moved elsewhere) :)

Also, I don't think I mentioned, but the original slate tile put on the back porch had to be removed.  The guy laid down 3/4 of the tile and then realized he didn't have enough in that color, and a new palate would be a different color and look weird.  So they had to drill it all up and start over.  We are almost done with the new tile, and I think it looks great (still needs to be cleaned up, so it wont look swirly when it's done).  Just ignore the contractors butt in the right side of the picture...not the most flattering shot for sure.

I'm REALLY hoping we get a move on from here.  Kitchen needs to be built from scratch so that's a big project.  I shouldn't complain because we're still ahead of schedule...but....let's get a move on!

Floors, Floors Everwhere

We got walls, and now we gots floors!  They just need to be finished now. Soon to come:  Tile, Tile Everywhere!

The patching in the living room and the kitchen area:

The landing area upstairs, into the master bedroom (left door) and hall bath (right door):

Lilah's room, with another guest appearance by a constantly running Lilah;

Tomorrow we will be looking at some colors for the outside.  Fun fun!

Walls, walls, everywhere

It's very strange to go upstairs in the house and see walls!  It seemed so closed in, since I was used to it being wide open.  But the second day I went, the shock had subsided and I got excited that we actually have real walled-in rooms - which means we are one step closer to done!

From the front door (obviously there will eventually be a railing up the stairs and on the landing):

As I've mentioned several times now, LOVE Lilah's room.  Here it is with walls (from the doorway).  There will be a built-in window seat under the window you see here:

And a shot to the right of the one above (the window w/ window seat would be on the left side of this pic).  Lilah's crib/bed will go on the right side of this picture:

Our master bedroom:

The other bedroom upstairs:

The downstairs area got walls too - even though it still looks like a giant mess. You can get an idea of how much the ceilings were raised also.  Oh, and Lilah and I  are posing in our pool-wear:

And the back (eventually screened-in) porch is getting slate floors put in:

We're moooovin' along!

Finally, something picture-worthy!

The outside of the house has been getting a good amount of work lately - siding is up, shake is up, brick is up.  Here is the new outside of the house - all that remains to be done is painting.  The brick will stay natural brick color, and right now we're thinking of sage green for the main upstairs surfaces with tan accents

To get a closer look at the materials, here is the front gable.  Staggered shake material was used, and cool hand-made wooden supports which I think provide a nice custom touch.  The shake will be the sage green and the wooden supports and grate will likely be the tan.

The same shake material was used on the dormers in front also

Here are the new front porch columns with a guest appearance by a constantly running Lilah

Here's a more close-up view.  You can also see the beadboard ceilings a bit.  We're trying to figure out what color to paint those.  A light blue is kind of a southern thing we've noticed around here, but we've heard that's a Victorian style and this house is more Craftsman.  So do we want to buck traditional style guidelines and pick the color we like anyways...hmm, we'll have  to see...

Here is a view of the new back porch - notice they harvested enough brick from taking down the fireplace and the walls covered in "Lowes" batting that they could wrap the bottom back in the original brick. I like that it's brick and not siding, I think it makes it look more original.

Other side of the back of the house (to the left of the porch picture above)

After we looked at the house, we went out for some Mexican food, where we learned that Lilah inexplicably already knows how to perfectly dip chips into salsa.  Who knew? She loved it!  Quite the double-dipper though, that girl...gotta teach her some party manners...

Anyone getting bored yet?

We need some serious work to happen so I can get some exciting photos soon (well, and also so we can keep this ball rollin!).  This week we had a gas leak and brick work done.  No pictures of the gas leak - and luckily it's been solved.  Here is the front of the house, which you'll notice has a new brick fireplace extending out of the top.

Little steps, right?  Speaking of little steps, here is Lilah looking goofy/adorable (her signature look) in front of the house while loving her ritz cracker

Windows to the World

The past two weeks have been all about plumbing and electrical, so still no really exciting pictures.  However, we do have windows in, and so since I'm being continually harassed by fans to update the blog, I figured I'd post those just to give the fans a little bit of what they want.

Front of house, with windows:

Side of house:

Lilah's room might still be my favorite, and the windows have made it even better.

The other side of Lilah's room - love the angled, high ceilings:

Master bathroom, sans window.  Guess that one hasn't arrived yet.  But the tub is in, and you get the idea.  The far wall will be the shower.

I love looking out the windows and being a tree height.  I don't know why this is so thrilling, but it's just an interesting new perspective.

The second guest/kid's room upstairs:

That's all for now.  After a few inspections I think walls are going up this week and so I can take some pictures of that.  After that comes tiling, so then we'll really be getting something picture worthy!  Edge of your seats, I know....