April 28, 2008

Today I am a happy girl. Several days ago all of the light fixtures and ceiling fans were installed in the house. Imagine my surprise when I walked into the house and saw nasty, rustic, log cabin-ish brown nasty, nasty fixtures. They would be great in a house that was out in the woods, built out of logs with an outdoor theme. But in a house with all light colors, creams, tans, and pretty much everything silver/brushed nickel, they were horrific. The ceiling fans especially stuck out like a sore thumb. I fired off an email to the construction manager. He wrote back to please look at my design center paperwork. There it says "brownstone". I thought brownstone was a style, who knew it was actually BROWN STONE! So, after I lost my mind Frank took over the negotiations with the builder and we will soon have everything swapped out for brushed nickel. Thank you Frank oxoxox. I was going to cry every day until that was corrected. Crisis averted. Some minor changes other than that. The silver framing around the master shower is in, in preparation for the door. The mirrors are in, in all of the bathrooms. The dump truck was there bringing new dirt to level out the back yard. We got a few pictures of the beginning of the process but thats about it. There is an 8 foot piece of wall cut out of the master bedroom wall. That was a nice surprise. Something about the electrical was messed up and it will be fixed, re-walled, painted again. For those of you keeping score on the painting (Bob), the layers and the $$$ worth of paint keep going up!!! On another note, we spent $4000 on furniture today and didn't even get everything we need. Jenny still has no bedroom furniture and we have no barstools for the island. But other than that, furniture wise we are pretty good. They are going to keep it for us until we move and deliver to the new house. That way we don't have to bring it here and them move it ourselves in 4 weeks. Yes, we are moving in 4 weeks!!!

April 23, 2008

Hey look!!! An update!!
The last week has been a slow one at the house. All of a sudden, a flurry of activity again. The concrete was poured around the pool and the floor of the storage shed. Now the only big things we have left on the pool are the cool deck that will go on top of the concrete and the plaster. Add water, swim. On the inside and outside of the house all of the ceiling fans, lights, lanterns, flood lights, and light switches were installed. Some sort of trim was put in around the tile on the fireplace. The jury is still out on whether that is going to look good or not. I'll have to see it finished to decide. There are still a lot of little things that were messed up that haven't been fixed yet but in talking to the neighbors, everyone seems pretty satisfied with the service of the builder so I won't worry about them yet. Lastly, the final picture of one of our two baby birds, sitting in the flower bed with mom the day they flew out of the nest. I'm going to miss Mrs. Howard and Mrs. Lilly (the names Emily gave the baby birds).

April 15, 2008

All of the faucets in all bathrooms and the kitchen have been installed and the backsplash tile in the kitchen is in. So far so good

April 13, 2008

Not much changed today other than the towel rack and soap dish was installed in the kids shower. Woo hoo. Also, they messed up and painted the trim that the staircase spindles go into so they're going to have to fix that somehow because its supposed to be stained, not painted.

On a different note, we are grandparents! The bird that built a nest on the front porch hatched two eggs yesterday. I managed to get a picture of the babies while mom was out and another one of mom and one of the babies. I stop and talk to her every day while she was sitting on the eggs and now that the babies are born she lets me get pretty close and doesn't try to peck my eyes out. Yet. They aren't very cute babies though. Emily wants to know why they still look wet.

April 11, 2008

Today it was all about the outside. The framework for the pool deck and the foundation of the storage shed were prepared for the concrete. I tried to get a picture of the whole thing from the media room windows but the roof of the patio gets in the way. I had to go next door and take pictures out of one of their bedroom windows. They have an excellent view of the pool! While I was taking pictures Emily practiced her jump rope skills on the back patio.

April 10, 2008

Nothing new on the pool today except the light was installed. It sure looks nasty inside of it because of all the rain the last couple of days. The more I look at it though, the more I like the blue tile/oklahoma stone combination. I think it will look really good once the plaster is in. Inside the house they finished grouting all of the tile throughout the house and did the tile around the fireplace. The rest of the granite countertop in the kitchen was installed as well as the marble countertops in all of the bathrooms. The shelves were hung in the linen closet outside of the girls bathroom. Some more weird white high gloss white paint spots all over the house for no apparent reason. Obviously they are going to have to repaint. Lastly, it has nothing to do with the house but check out the Indian Princess patch I drew. We turned it in a long time ago and they finally used it for the last campout. :)