Closets and more

The girls’ bedrooms now have organized closets:

Even though so many closets nowadays have those plastic-covered wire organizers, our closets are pretty much old school.  I spent months and months looking at various systems, trying to figure out how to best organize the closets.  Since the girls’ bedrooms are small, they won’t have dressers, so their closets have to hold everything.  I looked and pondered and shopped and sketched designs.  Finally, I realized that simplicity is my friend.  I’m just going to put small dressers IN the closets to hold some clothes and then the girls can hang some clothes on the bar and store some on the shelves.  The hanging bars are only 54″ high, so each child should be able to reach her clothes now, but nothing will drag the ground later when they’re fully grown.

I’m sure you noticed the buckets of paint in each bedroom.  I think that the guys have finished touching up the paint and that the rooms are now officially done.  Of course, they won’t be really complete until we’ve moved in a few dozen stuffed animals and dolls…

On a completely different note, downstairs in the Man Cave, the floor is done:

Yes, the concrete has been stained a creamy pumpkin color.  And, yes, that was intentional.  For a while, we talked about staining the floor to look like terracotta tiles, but I wasn’t feeling it.  Then, we talked about going with a slate gray, but Pete wasn’t feeling it.  We realized that we needed a brighter, lighter color since the room doesn’t get much natural light, so we chose a color that complements the wood stairs.  It’s vivid now, but I think it’s going to look great once we move in some furniture and roll out a rug in the middle of the room.

Looking ahead to next week:  It’s still cold here, so I’m not sure when the driveway will be done.  Also, we’re expecting the garage doors, possibly as early as next week.  I’m hoping the kitchen counters will arrive too.

Have a good weekend!

At long last!

The stairs went in today!

Obviously, we still need to put in the railings and all that, but at least we can go upstairs again.

Jeff the Builder said it was a real challenge to get the stairs in place because they’re really heavy and the space is tight.  It might not look it in the photos, but those stairs are solid.  For anyone worried about the openings in the risers, they’re less than 4″ and our children are old enough to know not to do something stupid.

And, speaking of the upstairs, I’m sure you’re curious to see what’s been going on up there in the past month.

Here’s the view down the hall from the top of the stairs:

Oh yeah, that looks much better than the last time we saw it.

To refresh your memory, the opening down there on the right is for laundry and linens and, just beyond it, is the door to the master bedroom.  On the far left is the opening to the girls’ bedrooms.  See how the light looks pinkish?  Remember that.

At the top of the stairs to the left is the  girls’ toy room:

The back wall is going to be finished in plywood similar to the floors.

At the top of the stairs to the right is craft room:

It’s a small little nook built around the stair well, but it’s large enough for the girls and me to do all sorts of crafty things.

Here’s the hall bathroom:

A close-up of the tile:

And now for the girls’ bedrooms.  Remember that pink glow?  Check out the younger girl’s room:

Yep, it’s PINK.  This photo makes it look darker than it is, but not much.  I had matched the color chip to one of the bedrooms in our current house AND THEN went down a tone, just in case.  Apparently, I should have gone down another tone.  Lesson learned.  All the same, the 8 year old in question is going to be *thrilled* when she sees it this afternoon after school.

As for the 10 year old’s room, here it is:

It looks darker than it really is.  It’s actually a soothing lavender, which is exactly what the girl wanted.  She’s already planning to put her desk by the window so that she can write in her notebooks and look outside when she needs to ponder.

Somehow, I forgot to take photos of the master bedroom, but it’s white like most of the rest of the house.  Instead, I can show you our bathroom:

I like how soothing those pale blue walls are.

Okay, so heading back down the stairs, here’s the view down to the foyer:

I love the way the stairs and the floor look so good together.

In the living room, Jesse was sealing all the baseboards and trim:

That’s poplar and it’s going to look so GOOD.

The electrician is coming this week to finish his stuff, so I should have photos of light fixtures soon.

Pink

The guys are working on the non-white paints on the second floor.  Yesterday, they painted our older daughter’s room her desired shade of lavender.  Today, they are working on the younger girl’s room.  Jeff the Builder emailed us this photo this morning:

Anyone want to guess what her favorite color is?

It’s green.  You’d never have guessed that, would you?

She wanted green walls, but since her rug is emerald green with pale pink roses, we suggested that she go for the pale pink instead.

More updates next week!

Jen wants a paint sprayer for Christmas

Guess what’s happening inside the house this week?

Today the guys are priming the walls.  Tomorrow, they’ll work on the ceilings.  Then, the walls on the first floor.  Their paint sprayer is SO COOL.

BTW, the NO-VOC paint is truly almost odorless.

(P.S. to Pete:  I don’t really want a paint sprayer, so please buy me something else instead.)

Friday update

This is what’s going on at the house today:

• Our guys are working on siding outside.  The side to the left (in the photo above) is nearly done and they’re finishing up the side on the right.
• The concrete footers for the front porch’s support posts were poured this week.
• The power company came over and hooked up electricity to the inside of the house.  We have power!  I feel the urge to take a blow dryer over there just to test it out.
• Some cement guys came over to do the cut-out at the bottom of the driveway.  But first, they had to dig out the sidewalk in that spot.
• The drywall guys have been hard at it since last weekend.  The drywall has been up for days, but it’s taking time to mud the walls, sand, mud some more, sand more…  I’ll be glad when that’s done because every. single. day. I’ve stepped in a plop of drywall mud and gotten white goo stuck to my shoes.  You’d think I would have learned by the second or third time in ten minutes.
• Jeff the Builder is going to Ikea (two hours away) to pick up the cabinets tomorrow.  I know, on a Saturday, but he says he’s going to hit the road early and be there when the store opens.  I’ll be here on standby with the computer at the ready, in case he calls with a question.
• Since the Home Depot near us doesn’t carry Glidden’s low-VOC line, I went to the Sherwin Williams store and picked out colors from their Harmony line.  It’s considerably more expensive per gallon, but in the grand scheme of things, doesn’t add that much to the bottom line.
• Painting starts next week.

That’s all for now.  Have a good weekend!

Using low- and no-VOC paints

One thing Pete and I have been adamant about is using low- and no-VOC paints, stains, and other materials in the house. We don’t want volatile organic compounds out-gassing in our house for years, especially since we have children.  We discussed this with Jeff the Builder early in the process and it turns out that he was already using low- and no-VOC products in his work.

A large part of this equation is the interior paints.  Months ago, Pete read Consumer Reports‘ latest research on paint.  They only liked three low-/no-VOC paints, only two of which are available in our area.  I checked online where I could buy the paint and then made a drive to the closest Home Depot this summer, which is 30 minutes away.

I wanted to match some colors that we have in our current house  so I picked up lots of color chips and taped them to the walls I was trying to match.  I looked at the colors for several days and eliminated colors whenever one didn’t seem right.  Eventually, I made my choices.  For months, I’ve been waiting for Jeff the Builder to ask for the paint chips.  He asked a few days ago and wants them soon.

A couple days ago, I drove back to Home Depot in order to pick up duplicate copies of the paint chips we’d chosen.  That way, Jeff the Builder would have a set and I could keep a set for our files — with two active children in the house, it’s a certainty that we’ll be touching up paint within months of moving in.

While I was there, I talked to the store employees in the paint department.  It turns out that they don’t actually carry the low-VOC version of the paint, even though the website said they did.  Grrrr…

Luckily, the store does carry a no-VOC paint that’s made by the same people — but it hasn’t been rated by Consumer Reports yet.  So now I have to decide whether or not to go with this brand.  I went ahead and picked up paint chips and am going to another store here in town that carries the second brand that Consumer Reports said tested well.  Since I’m matching existing colors, it shouldn’t be too difficult for me to finalize my decisions quickly.  But still…

In terms of what’s going on at the house, the drywall people have been finishing things up there and the walls look great.  The guys also worked on the walls inside the Secret Attic.  Drywall won’t fit through the opening, so the guys are using a light-colored wood to finish the walls.  And, since Jeff is picking up the kitchen cabinets in a few days, he and I went over his diagram of the exact layout and configuration of the cabinets and drawers.  It’s going to be gorgeous!

Decisions, decisions

This part of the construction process is seemingly quiet. There doesn’t appear to be much going on, as there’s nothing going on over at the construction site.

It’s too soon to get the construction permit from the city, but we still believe that we’ll break ground in a little over two weeks. The builder has also filed the application to have the meter hooked up for water and sewer as quickly as possible. There’s some urgency to this, as we just found out a couple of weeks ago that the fees will triple on July 1st — going from around $2,000 to $6,000.

In the meantime, Pete and the builder are meeting with different local companies to get bids on the HVAC system. The plumber and electrician are also on the list, although I believe the builder may already have taken care of those.

Now on to the fun stuff (for me) …

We have a lot of decisions to make about finishing details inside the house.  Cabinets, lights, paint colors, and so much more.  I have an opinion on pretty much everything, including the outlet and light switch covers.  We’ve been shopping and researching for months and have started to make some decisions.

First off, we finally chose our kitchen cabinets, which involved a lot of thought.  We’re going with birch cabinets that are very sleek, with no moldings or ornamentation of any kind. We’ll have an almost unbelievable amount of storage space in the kitchen, including an 8′ long peninsula and wall cabinets that will go all the way to the ceiling (9′ tall). Oh yeah, and the 5′ x 10′ pantry. Mustn’t forget to mention that little bit of Nirvana.

We’re still debating different counters, including Fireslate and a good quality laminate. Fireslate is a counter that is used in labs and is very durable. It looks like slate, but costs less. The laminate we’re looking at is a dark gray/almost black. It looks really good with our cabinets. The up side is that it’s a fraction of the cost of Fireslate. The down side is that we cannot get a piece of it large enough for the peninsula (3′ x 8′). We’ve thought about using laminate everywhere except the peninsula and then using Fireslate there, but I need to do a side-by-side comparison of how the two materials would look in the same room. Picky, I know, but for a project like this, we have to be.

We’ve also chosen almost all of the light fixtures. We’ve found most of the lights for the kitchen, including over the peninsula, but not over the table. We’ve also chosen lights for the foyer, living room, study, and children’s toy room (very fun!). We’re putting sleek chrome ceiling fans in the bedrooms.  What remains is some task lighting (pantry, laundry, etc.), sconces for the halls, and lights for two of the bathrooms. I know what I want and have good candidates for most places, but want to search a bit more before deciding.

We’re still working on paint colors but think that we have most of it decided. The exterior of the house will be grey and we’re thinking about cobalt blue for the front door. Inside, most of the rooms will be a creamy white. The girls are still planning their bedrooms but right now the older one is leaning toward lavender and the younger one prefers pale pink. Their bathroom and ours will be some shade of pale blue, but I’m waiting to pick out tile before I decide on the paint.

Ah yes, the bathrooms… We chose a sleek glossy red cabinet for the half bath on the first floor. Very sexy. Upstairs, the two bathrooms will have glossy white cabinets with glass and chrome doors. The hall bathroom will have some sort of mosaic glass tile for the tub surround, and I’ve ordered several samples. We’re leaning toward mixed blues, but just haven’t decided which ones yet.  We haven’t picked out tile for the master shower yet.  Well, that’s not true.  We picked out some but then got an estimate for the project and decided we’d look around at other options.  We might use the fun tiles for the floor of the shower and then basic white subway tiles for the walls.

So that’s where things stand for now.  We’ll post again when we have more to share.