Walls n' windows...

Liam peeking through the guest room window!

The boards are off and we officially have WALLS!

Starting from the far left: guest room window, craft room window, playroom windows

Making progress...

Here's where things were at yesterday:

Slowly moving along...

Last week, we got some footings, pipes & gravel... but it kinda stayed at this stage all week. Miles was out there today & the gravel has finally been spread around, so maybe something new is about to take place! On Friday, we took advantage of our babysitter not having school & booked her for a few hours, while we picked out all our plumbing fixtures (taps, sinks, toilets, towel holders... you name it), followed by a complimentary appointment with an interior designer, where we picked out carpet, tile, paint colours etc! Very fun!

The nicest hole you've ever seen!

Happy Mother's Day! You can't imagine how thrilled we were to drive out to our lot today & discover that they had DUG THE BASEMENT! We are officially starting the whole building process! Yay! The boys had fun getting dirty, and as you can see Miles had some fun too! This will be the only time that the truck goes in the basement!!! Stay tuned for more progress! I think we came to a conclusion on hardwood and rock today too (the Teton Soft Rock)

Tuesday

On Tuesday, when I looked at the different rock options, I also took a drive out to the lot (with 'hopeful' thoughts of course - but still nothing started!) and since I had the camera with me, I decided to take some pictures of the bare lot.... where it all started! Good thing I did because TODAY when we drove out, the basement had been DUG! Very exciting!

Kitchen cabinets... maybe?!?

Last summer, while camping, I bought a Kitchen & Bath magazine
and found my dream kitchen. Miles agreed, loved it too and it was 'happily ever after'... well, until we actually need to finally make a decision that is! All of our accent wood is going to be a dark stain (the entertainment bookshelves around the fireplace, the bannister etc) so I made the mistake last week of saying, "do you think we should do dark cabinets? what's the rule of thumb on this?" NOW, he loves the dark cabinet idea and I'm once again leaning back to my original plan but I'm thinking of ways to compromise or maybe tie the two woods together. My friend just built a house, 20 mins out of town, and while we were talking at the Mother's Day Tea, I asked her about her kitchen/house because I knew she had gone with white cabinets with a glaze on them. She told me how they had tied everything together with the crown moulding. It actually looks quite nice and there are a couple other things I can do as well. Hopefully Miles likes it when he sees it cuz I've decided to stay with the lighter cabinets! Less dusty! Our 'dark' colour will be darker than this though, our appliances are stainless steel & I think that the hardware will be brushed chrome/nickel... the wall colour is similar to what we have now though and like! We will have 9' ceilings, not vaulted...

Stucco & shingles & doors & more...

On Sunday, we met with the builder to discuss doors & windows.... we came away from there, having accomplished so much more! We picked the exterior stucco colour, the soffits & facia etc, the shingles and narrowed down the rock. It's quite amazing actually that we can compromise and adapt so quickly when we need too! We had everything picked out color-wise for the exterior (a deep olive green stucco with an accent colour that was two shades lighter, neutral harvest shingles, earthy coloured rock, white trim and railings) ONLY to discover that cement stucco doesn't come in those colours and if one wants acrylic stucco (commercial quality) it's a $12,000 upgrade! Um - no thanks! So... in about ten minutes we completely changed the look of our house! This is a decision that takes some people months to decide! The new look: 'slate' stucco, black railings, black shingles, 'sable' soffits etc (anything metal cladding related) and the garage doors will be a slate/sable combo. The only thing that stayed the same is the black front door & shutters! This morning I went to look at the rock we had picked out (Dakota Top Rock) but found one that Miles might like better (Teton Shadow Rock) because it's a bit more rugged. The company gave me a couple addresses to go check out that have used this rock - actually seeing a house is a bit more realistic than looking at a sample in a square box or a catalogue! Surprisingly enough, I'm almost sure that the house, that I took a picture of, is the one that we drove by last week & Miles really liked the rock on it... to the point that he was going to go back one of these days & knock on the door to ask what their rock was! Maybe we can avoid that step now!? One of the sample pictures was taken outside & the other was inside with a flash, so don't judge the rock on the colour quality of my photos! We had to move away from the earthy tones though due to the new stucco colour - both of these are neutral but more on the gray side with some black in it.

DAKOTA - TOP ROCK

TETON - SHADOW ROCK

A house with the TETON rock (the exterior isn't finished yet)