The Finishing Work Begins

Our closing date has been set for March 7 which means the finishing work has begun. All the subcontractors are on a timeline ending with carpet installation on February 15. So in effect, the house will be finished in just under five weeks! I am as excited as the day they started digging, it will really start coming together quickly now. All the walls are up with the finishing texture applied. They started to lay the floor tile and by the end of next week will be done with all tile. This makes it ready for cabinets, then interior trim and paint. That brings us to the end of the month, so there will be much more to see soon. On the exterior, they've finished hanging the limestone accents and laying brick around the column out front. The next step outside is to paint the siding. While we have had a bit of unwelcome Canadian air lately, we'll be back in 50's by next week. Hopefully that will help the outdoor work. So onto the pictures, enjoy!

The street view, they will soon install wood planks on the underside of the overhang around the post.

A close-up of the limestone detail.

As you walk in the front door, you enter the living room. That is the fireplace and uber-modern mantel.

The view from the living room into the kitchen. 

Looking back into the living room from the kitchen. The bottom section of the large windows are casement.

Looking up into the wedge. The rail will be finished along the side and open onto lofted TV area.

Entering from the garage you walk through the mudroom and into the kitchen.

The first floor tile went down in the mudroom. Colors are deceptive here, but we chose a light grey which will blend will with the white washed ash hardwood to come.

Now upstairs into one of the bedrooms. This window faces south and is larger than it appears here. We'll need to come up some good window coverings so it's not steamy inside!

The same floor tile we chose for the mudroom is in the jack & jill bathroom. In the background you can see the tub that was installed when the doorways were more open for easy maneuvering, now it's covered in protective blue coat. Also sketched on that wall is the future wall tile layout: vertical brick set.

The loft which is above the living room. Matthew has lots of speakers planned for this room, so let's hope it doesn't disturb anyone who happens to be reading in the living room (hint hint!)

The other half of the loft taken with my back to the three casement windows. We'll hang the TV in the middle of those windows.

Across the hall from the loft is the master bedroom (you can see the rail on the right). You enter the bathroom on the left past the first doorway and the bedroom past the second doorway. We plan to hang a barn door on the inside of the second doorway.

The next three pictures are of the master bathroom taken from the closet looking out. Here  you can see the interior transom window visible in the previous picture and the window in the background is in the bedroom.

The steam shower is coming along! We spoke with the tiler and this will be a little tricky, but we have chosen large, textured tiles in a straight-set (see the red box outlines). They will run onto the ceiling and around that top edge. Then the whole space will be surrounded in glass. We are very excited about the progress here!

Next to the shower will be the double vanity under the window. We are looking forward to seeing the cabinets installed  to start filling in the space.

Well, that's all for now. In the next few weeks will be some fantastic progress where we will finally be able to see all of our choices around finishes come to life! 

Until the next step, Lynne 

Super Sheetrock

It has been so fun walking through the house during the last few days. We've learned the process of hanging sheetrock quickly starts with the ceilings and then the walls to eight feet which requires no cutting of the large 4x8 boards. Then they go back to cut out the windows, outlets, recessed lights and finish the walls to the ceiling. The days of seeing through the walls is over which really transforms the house. We finally have a sense of the way light will hit rooms and were surprised at how bright it is even with late December sun. 

Thankfully they've installed the furnace so our walk throughs have been quite comfortable. In fact the only problem we've had is discovering the front walk that we optioned to make wider than standard was poured at the standard width. We'll see how they remedy that situation!

As Christmas 2012 comes to a close we are thankful for the chance to build this lovely home. We hope you've had a wonderful day and feel peace tonight. Merry Christmas!

  

The front of the house taken after our Christmas snow!

All the siding is on and the windows are framed. The white house wrap on the corners is where they will hang limestone.

Matthew standing at the front door. Behind him to the left is the office.

The office shows they hang sheetrock in full sheets and cut later. The window on the left still needs to be trimmed.

The living room where you can see the insulation that was blown in before the sheetrock went up. Each room has a giant scrap pile in the center making this one of the dirtiest times on the job site.

The view into the kitchen from the living room.

The kitchen with a small stack of boxes full of sheetrock compound. They will need that for the next step of mudding all the joints. The black wire you see coming from the wall is the 220v for the double oven.

One more view of the kitchen and living room this time from the staircase.

The garage is sheetrocked too, pretty different than the garages we grew up with! 

Now some views of the open staircase. This is coming in from the garage.

Climbing the stairs, the giant west facing window floods the space with light. 

View down the stairs from the second floor. All the white construction railing will be open, iron handrail.

The master bedroom, all the windows on the front of the house really made it bright today!

The master bath, the skinny doorway leads to the walk-in closet. It's partially covered by sheetrock at the moment. We added two transom windows here which you can see on the left and right sides. The one on the left is the interior one bringing in morning light from the east facing hallway.

The framing for the shower is clear here, the glass doors will go all the way to the box on the ceiling.

The view down the hallway from the doorway to the master bedroom. 

The loft which is has alot of trimming that still needs to be done. An entire front window is covered and you can barely see the others. The eight foot ceiling in here makes it feel so cozy.

We opted to finish the staircase leading to the basement. Here you can see the half wall around that will lead around the corner. You've got just a glimpse of Matthew as he goes down to check the furnace.

A jobsite necessity which we always found resting in a different place. Matthew asked for a laser level for Christmas, but sometimes old school tools do the trick!

And we couldn't resist adding a fun, snowy picture of Astrid. Merry Christmas!

After sheetrock seams have been sealed with mud, they will be sanded. And when we return from a quick trip to MN, we have our walk through with the designer to confirm our finishing touches. That will be alot of fun, so until the next step! -Lynne

Not for lack of progress...

It's been a while since we've sent a post, but the house has been moving forward! Electrical, Plumbing and HVAC...things Lynne REALLY loves! Okay, not really which is why these pictures may not be the most exciting you'll see. In the past few weeks workers have installed all the HVAC, electrical and plumbing.  The front stoop, back patio and driveway concrete was poured.  Siding is being installed as I type this. That's some major progress, but Lynne is holding out for the hardwood floors and tile. Now that stuff she does find interesting and therefore picture worthy.

The front of the house with the protective wrap.

The back side to which a garage door has been added. We never did figure out why that big piece of wood was pushed up against the back??

On the job plans to build from.

View of the kitchen with the island from the back entrance. You can see duct work on  the left wall and recessed light boxes in several spots in the ceiling. The little black boxes are for outlets.

The jumble of wires going to the indoor breaker box. We still can't believe it's common in Colorado to have the breaker box outside. Lynne's vivid imagination had her trudging through snow to flip a breaker and thus the decision to pay to have it inside.

The view from the office all the way through the walls to the back of the house. You can see the red and blue water lines. It won't be much longer before all of this will be dry wall.

The stacked washer and dryer plumbing. It looks so clean and modern compared to what we  grew up with.

The guest bedroom tub. For some reason this was brought in very early and they will cover it for protection before dry wall starts.

One more finishing touch complete - the mantel. Yes, it's that thin! But we can see it will be sturdy from the brackets they used to mount it.

After a few inspections we will move onto drywall. They are targeting the end of next week for that to begin. With it will come dust, but I'm sure we'll brave it to show you some pictures. Until the next step, Matthew

And We Have a House

With progress moving so swiftly, we were in fact able to walk upstairs this week. Being inside of something we'd been experiencing in two dimensional paper plans was very cool. I've seen many construction and remodeling blogs where looking at interior pictures of just framing can be very confusing. We can visually imagine everything, but I'm guessing it might be hard for anyone else. So we tried to pick some pictures where you weren't looking through too many walls! 

Given that it's Thanksgiving, there will be no work done today. A little birdie told me that windows are now in, the house has been wrapped and roofing has started. We'll have to take a break from cooking and eating for a brief tour. Happy Thanksgiving to you!

View of the front, you can see the iron beam holding the cantilevered roof. The welder was working on it while we were there. He'll return later to install the iron work for the railing along the stairs and loft.

We're proud to say we haven't built a house with one side void of windows. Almost half of the windows you see here were custom.

The view from the alley where they have started to work on the roof.

Now for those confusing inside shots! This is looking into the kitchen (see the island framed in) from the living room (see the metal sheeting for behind the fireplace). 

After walking upstairs you come to a hall. At each end are bedrooms with the laundry in the middle. We love the large windows running along the side filling it with light.

The future site of the steam shower in the master bathroom. The bench will be covered  with counter top material and tile with it all being enclosed by glass walls and door. 

A neat modern feature is a triangle cut-out where you'll be able to look down from the loft (TV room) to the living room.  The orange spray paint signals where iron railing will go creating an open feeling to both rooms. 

This is the same triangle cut-out viewed from the living room. It makes my head go swirly with all the lines, but you can get the idea.

The artsy shot of the day. We found the architectural plans rolled up by the fireplace. 

Watch here for the next step! - Lynne

The Walls are Rising

While away on vacation for a week, we kept wondering, How does the house look now? Well, we came home to the framing well under way. We took some pictures on Friday as the sun was setting and Saturday morning during a snowfall. Both times, our lot was buzzing with activity as it seems it's always a race against Mother Nature this time of year.

The walls for the first floor are nearly complete and the second floor is about half done. I like how they cut out the window holes which really helps give us a sense of the place. I can already imagine Astrid staring out the front windows at the people walking by. 

Yesterday we went to a furniture auction at a nearby model home. It was kind of weird to see a perfectly decorated house be stripped, even down to the towels in the bathroom! We walked away with a teak bench that we plan to put on the front stoop. It's been fun to think about how we'll refresh our furnishings. Onto the pictures...enjoy!

View of the front of the house, the five windows that wrap around the corner will be the living room. The other front room is the study.

This was taken Friday night when they had just started the second floor.

A pile of wood and rebar used in the foundation process. Two other foundations were dug on the block during the last week.

Saturday brought snow, but by the time we came by at around 11am all this progress had been made from the night before. The room above the living room with the four wrap around windows is the family room. Finally no more TV in the living room!

These beams will installed under the front roof canopy on the exterior. Our neighbor that is always one-step ahead of us gives us clues that these will go in after the framing is finished.

This giant hole is where the stairs will go. Apparently they slide those in because there is no exterior wall framed in on this side.

The view from the stairway hole into the small room which will be the wine cellar, yes, Matthew is excited!

The view into the house across the dining room to the large cut-out for the patio door. That will face east and flood the kitchen with morning light. 

Looking forward to being able to walk inside and up the stairs. Maybe another week? Until the next step - Lynne