We have carpet!

Sept. 26th- This is the fireplace on the main level on the office side. They got the rock almost done. They just have the front of the hearth left to do. The fireplace on the kitchen side still needs to be grouted and more rock put on. I am so excited it looks so nice. This is the same rock we have on the outside of the house.

Carpet was installed on the upper level on Friday. This is the master bedroom and it sure looks nice in there now.
Isaac is very excited to have carpeting in his room!
Declan is equally excited about his carpeting!
Their bathroom is also looking good with the lights and mirrors installed!

Sept. 25th

I had not been out to the house until Thursday last week because I was so busy getting our current house ready for the realtor tour on Thursday. I guess it went well, too. It is amazing how anal a person can be about their own house when they are getting it ready to show to strangers. Needless to say, it has been a stressful week trying to get everything done I wanted done, but the house looked nice.
Here are the lights with the vanity in the guest bathroom on the main floor that got installed this week.
If you can see it under all their junk, the hardwood floor has been started on the main floor.
Our lights by the front door are installed. The white electrical things behind the lights look terrible, so we are going to get those painted the green color of the siding so they blend and the lights stick out.
Here are the lights by our patio door that leads to the deck. Again, will be painting the white boxes.

Declan's room has closet doors and an entry door. I guess our doors are extremely heavy, but really good quality. We liked the 5 panels to them, but our woodworking guy does not lik lifting them.
Here are the closet and entry door to Isaac's room.

Sept. 21st

Our landscaper got the retaining wall started. Since our house is positioned where the lot goes down the hill we need a wall here to keep the dirt in place. This is going to be my big area for flowers. I am letting him do all the front flowers and shrubs for us, but I am going to plan this flower bed. I have been saving flowers from this house and thinning things to I don't have to buy much when I am ready to plant next year.

Nephew weekend

We had my brother's kids for the weekend while Brian and Lisa were in the cities. It was a huge power rangers weekend for the 4 boys. Here is Declan in the mask and Isaac.
Here my kids are showing Justin how to put together the mega zord.
Jason and Justin wore the Power Ranger masks the whole time they were playing with the toys. They seem to really like Power Rangers.
I had 2 kids in the bathtub and 2 kids waiting impatiently for their baths. So I took a picture of all 4 of them. It was a fun, but busy weekend. Jeff and I were also trying to take more and more stuff out of this house to make it look bigger to start showing it. Our house was officially on the market Monday the 22nd.

Sept. 19th

Our vanity in the master bathroom has been installed and the faucets.

Here are the lockers for the mud room. I originally wanted 4 lockers and much bigger, but we had to work with the space we had. Plus, coming in this room from the kitchen area is an open doorway so having the lockers on the other wall wouldn't look good from the kitchen. We decided to hide most of the stuff on the wall they are on in the picture to make it look better from the other room also.
This is the doorway I was talking about. You can sort of see the lockers in that doorway. I don't know why there are weird circles in this photo, my camera was being weird that day. The amber aging painting is also done in this area. Now, they just have touch ups to do with this and they are done with the main level. You can see the yellow paint from the kitchen on the right.
Juno loves to go out to the new house and just sit on the deck. I have a feeling she will be spending lots of time there when we move.

More circles, but here is the suede paint in the family room. Our TV will be going above that fireplace you see.
In the picture above, you can see part of the patio door and this is the rest of the patio door wall on the right and then the next wall in the family room. This goldish paint is called Beachside Raffia. We couldn't find the right colors for this room at Sherwin Williams, so we went to Home Depot and found these. Sherwin Williams then color matched these so we could put them on our account. We have a plan on having a picture rail on this wall with pictures hanging down at different levels.

Here is the rest of the back wall in the family room and the color wraps around to the stairs. That little hole you see in the wall under the stairs is there for a reason. We are having our electronic equiment stored under the stairs and anything we need to touch will be in a bracket in that hole. Then we don't have to make the TV area look cluttered. There is going to be a mini wet bar area on the wall up to the hole with a little sink and small fridge on that wall also.

Wednesday Sept. 17th

This is the entry from the garage that we will use most of the time. The vinyl flooring was put in yesterday. You are looking at the door to the garage.
Bruce started putting in the upper kitchen cabinets yesterday. You can see the vent fan for our cooktop. To the left is the walkway to the mud room for the flooring above. To the right is our pantry.

There was a couple faucets installed yesterday. This is the shower for our guest bathroom.
More of the Amber Aging paint finished. This is the stairs to the upper level. To the back to that wall in the mud room is the stairs to go to the basement. It took up less space in the house to do all stairs in the same spot.

Here is the master bathroom and the vanity was put in yesterday. All of the colors are matching nicely and I am so excited! The other faucet that was installed is my whirlpool tub. I cannot wait to relax in my new tub when we move.

Things are cruising now!

Sept. 15- Here is the back deck finished. We are still waiting for our railing stuff to come in, but they were expecting it to come in this week.
It is a good thing we have a big garge because it is filled with all their tools all the time.

Basement level- The plastic for the hockey room walls is completed. Now if they will only get the lights hooked up in there we could actually see it. This picture was taken with my camera flash because it is a dark corner of the basement otherwise.
There was a shop light on for painting so the kids were making shadow puppets on their hockey walls. They are so excited for this room.
This is our sitting room looking at the doorway to the wine cellar. They still have another coat of paint to do in this room, but you get a pretty good idea what Tawny Port color looks like. We found this color at Home Depot and just asked Sherwin Williams to color match it for us.

Main level- The library paneling is on and ready for book shelves. It looks much better than the yellow foam insulation to say the least.
Here is more of the amber aging paint technique and it is done in our entryway.
I am standing in the kitchen and Jeff is walking into the office/library in this photo. Behind him is the red dining room. You can see the big window of our formal living room. The yellow part of the stairs will also be the amber stuff and Jeff said they finished that yesterday. They were working on it when I was out there, so I will get more pictures today of that.

Upper level- The guys started putting up our window trim this week. This is Declan's room. We went to a Parade of Homes in Fargo last spring with a list of things to look at for ideas. One main thing on our list was window trim and baseboard. Out of 15 houses that day, this was the only style we liked. So, we took a picture of it and gave it to our cabinet guy, Bruce.
The trim in Isaac's room.
I really like the wood trim with our cool leather finish paint in the upper level of the turret. The ugly plywood you see is the temporary railing for the open area to see into the office/library below.
Here is the master bathroom again with the floor finished and grouted. He stained the grout and it matches really well. I was talking to Tyler the other day and he said this is by far the best bathroom he has ever done. We were glad it was our bathroom that was his best. Most of the tiling designs were his idea and we liked it.

One water heater is also installed, but I spared you the photo of that. Also yesterday, the excavating guys started leveling out the lot. The house is going to look totally different without the ugly dirt piles in the front yard. I am taking pictures of that today.

More stuff finished

Sept. 12- Here is one of the vanities for the kids' bathroom with the countertop. I am guessing sinks will be put in this coming week.
They finished the railing for the stairs up to the garage attic.
Here are the front posts built and ready for the rock to be put on. Our contractor told us the plan is to start the fireplace first so the floors can be put in and then they will start the posts.
This little dirt pile was made when the guys put in the driveway. Declan and his friend made this tunnel in it when we were showing his friend's parents our house.

Here is what the giraffe paint I mentioned below will eventually look like. It is 2 yellow colors on sponged on the wall and then the brown is actually a stain. The technique is called Amber Aging. This technique will be on the stairs up to the upper level, main entry walls, and the walls in the open areas that will lead to the dining room and living room. The fireplace will have the same rock as the outside of the house with a mantle when it is finished off, hopefully this week.
I am not sure why I took this picture diagonal like this, but here is some of the tile in the master bathroom. He is doing an awesome job and we are very excited about it.
Here is the tile in the master shower with a shelf he made in the wall.
Here is the tiled walls and the floor of the shower. He still have to grout in between, but it is looking really cool.

Lights

Sept. 12- Here are a few of the lights that have been put up last week. There are 3 of these lights in the wine cellar. The walls you are looking at around this light is the concrete block that will eventually be stained a red wine color.
Here is our dining room chandelier. You can see the red paint called Salute for this room. The yellow behind it is not finished yet.
This is our main entry light. Yes, the walls look like a giraffe, but they are not done. You will see in the post above this one what they will look like when they are done.