Hardwood, Trim and Doors

Things seem to be slowing down as we are getting closer to the finish line. The hardwood has been laid. Most of the window and door trim is up.

 The interior doors are hung. I'm really loving these doors. I think these are the same doors my Grandma had in her house, on Bellemeade in Atlanta. Does anyone else think these look familiar?

There are two options we are trying to choose between. Here is the one I love. I didn't take a picture of the other option. It has all of the same colors, they are just in a more "traditional" pattern. We had pretty much decided on this one but it is over what we budgeted. It seems like we have gone over on everything and that is drying up the hole I hope to have in my yard. So I may go with the other option just for my pool's sake.

We have also picked out our slabs of granite for the kitchen. I had originally liked the Alaskan White. I love the movement of the AW but it has orange to rust colored spots in it. I thought that would drive me crazy because it looks like stains.  We picked out two slabs of Bianco Antico. It has the grays and whites that I want without the orange.

After the trim is finished we can paint. I'm ready to get the paint on the walls. Having this much time will cause me to doubt my selections. I think I'm better under pressure of a quick decision.

Paint Colors

After a couple of weeks of stressing over paint colors, I have finally made my decisions. We went to SW on Sunday and got some samples of the colors I was torn between. 

The one on the left is Resolute Blue SW 6507. The middle is Ebbtide SW 6493. The one on the right is a color Ryan picked and I believe he was swayed by the name, Blue Cruise SW 7606. I'm looking for a smokey blue but no too dark. I chose Resolute Blue. This will be going in the kitchen and dining area.

Left is Light French Gray SW 0055.  Middle is Uncertain Gray SW 6234. Right is Passive SW 7064.
I chose Light French Gray. It just seemed to be a nice gray. Uncertain was just too blue. I guess that's the perfect name for it. Passive just seemed too light. This color will be the main color of the house.

This is Classic French Gray SW 0077. I am putting this in the gallery. It's just a small room to the left of the foyer. It has a lot of natural light so I think it can pull off this dark color.

This is taken from the kitchen looking into the gallery and then the foyer. On the other side of the doors is a hallway. So it will be the Classic French Gray and the Light French Gray that you'll see this way.

This is taken from the kitchen. On the right is the gallery, on the left is the dining area and in the middle is the living room. Here you will see the blue next to the lighter gray.

This is Carefree SW 6777. I just want a really pale blue, not too far off white. I think this should get it.

Ansley picked an aqua for her room. ChaChi wanted red but I just can't wrap my mind around that one. So, we have compromised on a red accent wall.

Decisions, Decisions

How many panes in your windows?

What color windows?

What kind of brick?

Do you want tumbled or uniform?

What color mortar?

What color sand for the mortar?

How do you want your brick joints?

What color roofing?

What color soffit?

What color cabinets?

Where do you want your appliances?

Where do you want your trash can?

Where do you want your lighting fixtures?

Do you know how you're going to arrange your furniture?

What size trim do you want?

You get the idea. I'm over it.

I think my enthusiasm is curbed by this sinus infection and I just want to sleep.


Sheetrock is up and the mudding has begun. Now it's time to think about paint, trim, tile, faucets and interior doors. Every time I think I'm finished with all the major decision making something else comes up.

 This is what the door looks like that I want.

This is how I want the house trimmed out.

To save a little money but to stick with the same style, I'm thinking of doing this upstairs.

It's just like the downstairs without the extra crown on top. I like it. I just don't want it to look cheap. Please feel free to put your 2 cents in on what you think of the look.

Now I'm trying to pick out paint.

I'm tired of "builder beige." I think I'm going to pick a gray color for the main parts of the house. I want  it to be a true gray. Not green or blue, just gray. Not a depressing, I wanna kill myself gray.  

So here's where the house is now. Hopefully, it won't be too much longer before we can get moved in. I'm ready for my decisions to be as easy as frozen or on the rocks.

Best News Ever...for me anyway

Today is April 12, and they were supposed to close on the rental yesterday. We got the call on the 6th that something came up in the buyers credit that prohibited the closing! I was absolutely beside myself with relief. I really do feel sorry for the seller of the home but living in a hotel was more than I could take. I was actually in denial about the whole idea of it and only recently started thinking about how we would handle the situation. We were planning on getting a storage building for all our belongings on Monday the 9th. Thank God we are such procrastinators. It was kind of a real life scenario of what would you take with you if you were stranded on a desert island. The only thing I could think of that I couldn't live without is gum. As you can see, I didn't make it very far in my planning.

Things seem to be settling down a little. The kids are finished with soccer. ChaChi turned in his BioCube and Ansley had her state parade. She got extra credit for dressing up like someone from her state. She asked the morning of the parade who she could dress up like. Taylor Swift is from Pennsylvania, so we grabbed last year's Easter dress and considered ourselves clever.

Here is ChaChi's school picture. He's just as cute in Mario and camo as anything else!

Things are going well with the house. We had our framing inspection and failed the first time with just a handful of things they wanted done. We passed our second inspection. The brick is complete and we are now on to insulation. I spend most days over there cleaning up. I caught one of the guys peeing beside the dumpster. I pointed at the portable toilet 10 feet away and told him to use that, he just smiled and nodded.  I guess I shouldn't have said anything because now the inside of the dumpster reeks of urine.

We survived Easter with are 2nd Annual Easter Fishing Trip. The kids went swimming two years in a row in freezing water.

Anlsey is showing her friend how to bait a hook with a worm. Too cute!

We let the kids take off in the canoe without any instruction on how to work the paddles. We thought this would give us some quiet. Too bad those kids are so smart, they figured it out pretty quickly and were back in no time.

Look the part.

Tired, I'm so tired. I really would just love to lay in the bed all day, for a week! So much is going on now.  Ansley(I) has to decorate a red wagon to be in a "wagon parade" at school. I don't know who thought this would be a good idea and they had better hope I never find out. I had to get on youtube just to find out what this thing is supposed to look like. I found a kid who did one on Texas and it looked like a yard sale threw up on his wagon. He seemed really proud of it though as the video is six minutes long.  She had to pick a state and decorate her wagon with information about the state. Of course, she wanted Georgia but she didn't get it so she got Pennsylvania. Twenty five dollars later here's what we've got so far... ChaChi also has some ridiculous report due. He is in 1st grade and on the bottom of the instructions it says its lessons were adapted for 3rd - 8th graders. This should be so much fun.

Last week was Spring Break and I took the kids and met some of their friends at the Tupelo Buffalo Zoo.

The boa constrictor was cool but it was not nearly as cool as the tranny monkey. I swear, there is a male monkey with a really nice set of B cups. I had total monkey boob envy. This picture doesn't do "him" justice. You'll have to go see for yourself.

That was the only thing we could manage over Spring Break. At the time we thought we had to be out of the rental on April 11th so we spent a couple days looking at storage buildings and apartments. We were able to get in touch with the buyers of the rental and they are going to let us rent it until May 11th. We still won't be finished with the house and figure we'll just stay in hotel until it is finished.

They finished drilling for the geothermal last week and the duct work is in. The electricians started on Wed. and should finish up by Tuesday. The plumbers should also be finished next week but we haven't picked out a fire place yet. We were torn if we should get a fire place or not because with the Geothermal we should never use it.

I ordered the natural timber roofing but when I went to pay for it they informed me that they didn't have enough for my house. I literally called them before I left to pay for the shingles. Wasn't really too surprised and all I could do was laugh. This is the teak it is a nice dark brown but appears black in this pic. I picked it and Ryan said he didn't like it but now that it's up I think he's Ok with it. Not that is matters but if it would have looked bad, I would have heard about it every time we pulled in the driveway. Let's just hope the brick goes well with it.

I've picked my first paint color it is Sherwin Williams, Blue Click. I have always wanted a haint blue porch ceiling. I first saw this done in Charleston, SC and loved it! It's said to protect the house and the occupants from evil. Some say it's for good luck and when I told my painter I wanted a blue ceiling he swears it's an insect repellent. Either way, it's cool.

Between building a house, running kids to school and soccer (we had 6 games this week) I'm pretty much a haggard mess. You know things are bad when your husband says, "Isn't it time for you to get your hair done?" Yes, yes it is! My wardrobe is basically running shorts (thank you elastic waistbands) and free T's I've gotten from 5Ks. I'm so fat that when anyone sees me I'm quite sure they think that I've purchased my T's from the Goodwill.  My shoes are usually covered in mud from doing the clean up around the lot. I guess if I'm going to be living in a hotel soon in my temporary state of homelessness I might as well look the part.

Not a good sign.

We started off the day with a wedding. As I was getting dressed I sang, "Oh woe is me, I'm as fat as I can be." My loving husband says, "Well, at least you have a good attitude about it."  I have gained fifteen, yes fifteen pounds since we sold our house. I have the worst metabolism! I have to watch everything I eat and get in some running in order to not gain weight. I picked out a pair of pants I haven't worn in a while and continued to get dressed. When I got ready to put my shoes on I heard a popping noise. Holy Crap! It was coming from my crotch, I'm so fat I'm splitting the crotch of my pants! I was running late (as usual) so I didn't have the time to change nor did I want to subject myself to wiggling into different pants. I continued to the car and when I sat down I checked my crotch one more time. The first row of stitching was gone, just gone. I went ahead and wore the pants, I had on a sweater and I figured if they split any further I could just wrap that around my waist (I use the term loosely) to hide my embarrassment along with the split. I figured if I dropped something I could just kick it back to the car. There was noway I would be bending down for anything! My pants survived the wedding and it's a good thing because if I would have taken off my sweater you could see that it's hiding the fact that my back is so fat it looks like a can of half opened biscuits. My point in all of this is to say that building a house is fun. It really is, it's just very consuming. So, I'm getting fatter, my hair is falling out and I'm pretty sure I've given myself an ulcer. Also, I forgot all about picture day for ChaChi. Guess what he wore for pictures? If you guessed camo pants paired with a nice Mario Bros T-shirt, you are correct. Ok, so I hate to admit this but it's the second time he's worn that shirt for school pics, maybe I've just always been scattered.

I'm really questioning my judgement on renting a house that is for sale. Honestly, the market is so bad I didn't think there was ever a chance It'd sell. I guess if we would have started building right away we wouldn't be in this mess! We showed the house five times in one week! That in itself will bring a sane person to the edge. I was hoping since it's under contract that at least we wouldn't have to show the damn thing anymore. Wrong. Tuesday a home inspection was scheduled with an inspector and the home buyer. They were supposed to get here at 4:00. We had two soccer games that night so I thought that would give me enough time to get the kids home and dressed for their games and out the door before they got here. Wrong again. I got home at 3:30 and they were already here. It's just weird having someone in "your" house where you keep all your stuff. At this point, messy stuff. Really. Messy. Stuff. Thursday the realtor wanted to come by to check out what the inspector found. Now they have to repair what ever was found and also do a termite letter. To top it all off this is what is in "my" yard.

That is just a subtle reminder of our impending eviction. Thanks.

Don't worry though, we are getting prepared. I think we have enough boxes to make a lovely fort to live in for a while. It also reminds me of my favorite movie, Friday "How you gonna get fired on your day off for stealing boxes. What you gonna do build a clubhouse?" Still makes me laugh!

After the wedding we decided we needed to relax so we took the kids fishing. Ryan really had to make me go because I wanted to finish cleaning up at the lot because I don't want it to get out of hand. I'm so glad he did because we had a great time!

He got skunked. Poor baby.

Back to the house, we have the cornice completed and now we have to get it painted. I went the cabinet place and this is the way I'll probably go:

Our kitchen is in an L shape so the light gray will make the L and the dark brown will be the island. The granite is called Alaskan White.

This is the style we've chosen. The lighter brown in the middle. It is really similar to the gray but the trim is wider. Now this is the fun part!

Framing complete!

Framing is almost complete! Herb keeps saying he'll be gone by lunchtime but he's been saying that since Monday. I guess he is eternally optimistic.

The plumbers started yesterday and the cornice started going up today. 

I called to place the order for brick yesterday and I literally started to sweat placing the order. I am starting to think that I have commitment issues.

We are now looking at shingles to compliment the brick we have it narrowed down to two: 

Natural Timber

Teak







Not to much excitement in this task. I like the teak but this picture just doesn't do it justice. I wish the people at the roofing supply were as helpful as Katie. I called them to get addresses so I could check out some roofing and it went like this. Me, "Hi, can you give me some addresses of homes with these shingles? Them, "What area are you looking in." I tell them and he says just drive around and we probably did it. I say, "Well, how am I supposed to know what color I'm looking at?" Them, "Well, just come by and we have samples here." So not too helpful...

We have pretty much decided to just get the Natural Timber.

Since I began this post, Herb has finished framing. The windows are set and the cornice is being put up. We just have to find someone to paint it and then the roofer can get started.

We found out last week that the house we are renting has a contract on it and are supposed to be out April 11th. Our house...as you can tell is nowhere near ready so some fun times should be coming our way.

This was just too cute not to share.