Door Pulls

Combined with the pirate ship birdhouse, I believe the kitchen is officially complete!

Victory!

Well, more of a milestone, but we got a certificate of occupancy, so we're legal now!
Woohoo!

Spooky closet

Cool side effect of an awesome color selection by the firstborn.

Railings

Are in!
Well, the interior railings on one side anyway.
Hoping to get a certificate of occupancy by midweek and railings will be one of the biggest hurdles.

Visitor

This guy showed up the other day when I was working from home.  Of course, I was on a conference call with a client when he arrived, so had to restrain my excitement and stop myself from dropping everything and sneaking outside. Luckily the camera was close at hand!

I was particularly excited because we see him (her?) fly by, or at the far end of the pond, but I've never seen him land on our side of the pond. 

According to my handy dandy reference book, he ought to be heading south soon for the winter - although the skim of ice that was on the pond over the weekend has melted away, so it may not be too soon.

And I always thought the advantage of working from home was more kid time -- turns out more creature time is another benefit!

Last Kitchen Piece

Can't wait to line the kids up and get some homework done!

Cabinet Doors

Are in!
Handles somewhere en route.

Drawers and Shelves

Kitchen shelves and drawers are in...doors should appear tomorrow, as well as an upstairs bathroom countertop.
Can't wait to throw something out!

Appliances are in!

And we're just as excited as when we bought them! Actually I'm wondering if I can just run a load of dishes just for kicks.

Hall Light

Plus railing in progress. Honestly, I think we're so used to trekking around with no rail, the rails start to feel a little claustrophobic!

Spider Light

An unexpected bonus: in addition to lighting the closet/bath passage, and having a rather elegant glass shape, this light also gives that comforting protective mother spider feeling.

We call her Charlotte.

Shadows and Fan

The electrician has been busy!
Fan-tastic!

April through August in Four Minutes

An expanded version of May's video and a good reminder of just how far we've come in the last six, oops nine, months.

Sadly, August through November will be omitted due to unforseen technical difficulties.

Bathroom tile

Yep, spent an hour sorting through tiles the other night - we'll be burying some of the super-pinky ones way under the vanity. 

I'll admit to having some anxiety here - after all if we unwittingly put a really garish or ugly tile in the middle of the bathroom, it will be staring us in the face every morning and evening!  But really that's overthinking it.  Plus, I'm still liking the tile that we choose a couple months ago, so that is a good sign!

 Next big question: what color grout?!

Finished Floors

Ok, we're going a little out of order here as this actually was completed while I was travelling about 10 days ago.  But what a thrill it was to be away and get this photo:

View from the other side -- I really like that you can see where the old walls were.  Certainly makes it easier to describe the 'before' condition!

A little bit of patching around the edges of the pantry, but, again, I think it's more character than flaw!



Wow it looks great with all that construction stuff cleared out.  (Good thing, too, since I'm not sure whose furniture exactly we'll be using to actually occupy all this space!)

Further Kitchen Progress

Significant progress over in the kitchen -- counters (well not the stone) are in and the hood is up. 

I am particularly excited that the appliances have arrived - probably could have waited another week or so, but they are all shiny and new and just make you want to cook and buy food! 

Upcoming this week: cabinet doors, the backsplashes, and the stone counter!

Another Shot of Color

One more color to share, this time in the front hall. 

 Our previous homes have had a lot of color in every room, so having the majority of the space be all white seems very calm and conservative!  Lucky for us the kids are carrying out some happy colorful selections.

Not Glamorous but Good!

Particularly as some of the nights start to get chilly, the sight of a boiler and hot water tank really warms my heart.  A lot of the radiators are in already, and the rest should get completed this week. 

Another nice piece of equipment that appeared last month is this baby.  Water softener and radon removal....things feel clean now, which is wonderful!  As an aside, it's amazing to me that there is such a range of allowable radon - we technically were below the legal limits in MA (although just barely), but not in NH or RI.  Go figure. 

One less thing to worry about now.  And, don't worry about those extension cords in the picture, it's all wired to actual legal plugs now!



Before and In Progress

As I get impatient to be finished already, it's a good opportunity to stop and think about just how far we've come in the last five months! 

It's amazing how I think I'm taking pictures from the same spot, but when Igo back and try to actually make a coherent series, it turns out it's not even in the same ballpark!  You'll have to pretend you're stepping from side to side on these.

Here's a before photo of the kitchen area - you can see the former stage beyond. 



Next, an intermediate step from late summer. The wall to the stage was opened up, and the old propane heater removed. The columns that are to remain have been moved further apart, and the ones in the middle of the room were removed, along with that nice ceiling.

And the most recent view with windows in and cabinets starting to be installed.    Even this is outdated - all that trim on the floor in the foreground is already mostly up, the doors are primed, and the island cabinets are installed. 

The Fun Stuff

This may even be better than Legos....opening up a box of tile, moving it around to make patterns.  How fun is that? 

The heating mat has since gone in, so something like this should be appearing soon in a bathroom near us!

Porch Update

The porch is complete -- decking and columns and ceiling, siding and trim.   I can't wait to get out a deck chair and terrorize trick or treaters (not that I'm expecting to get a single one, but if they did wander back through the woods, they'd probably already be half spooked!)

Oh that reminds me - we still need to get the lights for the porch.  So, not quite done, but close.

 

Time to go find the perfect granite step and put the pavers back in from the stairway!

Warms my heart

To see all these trucks lines up outside the house!

Former Palettes

I am stunned that I don't have a 'before' picture of the palettes to share. One more treasure that was revealed when the snow melted last spring -- there were probably 20 or more.   Some are currently being used to keep our stored stuff off the ground in the garage, some are under a pile of firewood.  A fellow freecycler helped us out by taking 4 or 5.  But there were still way too many. 

Happily, we recently put the majority of them to good use building ourselves a compost pile.  A multi-sectional pile to be precise - creating a home for those leaves that are about to fall (or at least some of them!)

Cabinets

The first delivery of cabinets made its appearance last week.  Here you can see the back row of cabinets, with the boxes for the island (between the columns) to the side.



Here they are up close and personal.  That gap is where the stove will go.  The appliances are scheduled to be delivered next week (thank you tax free holiday!) but I will be calling to postpone that - still too much to do and we don't need to be storing them and then trying to move them around as the floors are finished and walls are painted.

I'm very excited about the backside of those shelves -- not only will they be the right height to perch on if you're checking out a show or listening to a bass performance in the stage area, but they have some great drawers as well.  Now that technology has eliminated the need to store cassettes, videos, or cd's, I guess we'll just have to put some warm blankets and extra pillows in there.  

The front boxes and wall are in as well.  Countertop and granite is chosen, so that is all in process. 



Another nice detail I'm excited about is the shelving at either end of the island.  If the kids deign to do their homework at the end counter as planned, it ought to provide some nice camoflage for those papers.

 

So here is the view from the 'back' door - lacking the countertops and back counter, but it's really starting to feel like the final space!

Almost ready to pull up a stool. Certainly ready for that drink!

The mother of all mushrooms

Looks like a delicately detailed ruffle on a ballgown. Certainly
prettier than any of the surrounding plants!

Beautiful Blue!

Just picture that closet wall in vibrant orange!
Now, didn't that bring a smile to your face?

Yellow has landed!

Colors are beginning to appear!

Granite

Now, I could spend weeks wandering from supplier to supplier looking at stones. (If it weren't for that day job). We've been looking at slabs of granite for one piece of the kitchen counter - and boy are there some gorgeous pieces of rock out there.  Thank God for the patience of Jonathan (not to mention Jacques!)















We loved this one.  But unfortunately when we read the label, it was soapstone.  Maybe not the best choice for a family that is slightly on the slobby side and definitely hates to clean.

Luckily other stunning choices were around the corner.  Plus, with a name like 'Stormy Night', how can you go wrong?















Well, except that it was about 30% above our budget.  That's a problem.  Love the gray and red and quartz.  Plus it's from Canada, so the carbon footprint from shipping is lower (but really everything's already in the Boston area, so that's carbon under the bridge.)

Looked at lots of very calm, uniform greys browns and whites, but it turns out we really like the dramatic stuff.  The more quartz, veins, and particles the better.  Really, it's not a huge area of stone, and everything else in the big room is white and brown, so I think pretty much anything could work.

















Loved this one - kind of like a big headcheese made from stone.  Lots of purples and greens.  Definitely stuff to look at and daydream with as you eat your morning cereal.

And, a more restrained version.  Lots of blacks and browns.  It was really this shiny, and looked like you were looking at the bottom of a riverbed.















Here's a beautiful one that looks like veins of huge, prehistoric leaves. 















And, the one we're leaning towards - a nice balance of color and veining.

Flora

Lots of mushrooms seem to be springing up - every time I walk around (picking up the debris from Irene) seems like there's a new one. I'm looking forward to learning about how the land changes over the seasons, and I think this may be a whole new category.

Here are some Indian Pipes (I believe).



They have been well sheltered by one of the boats. 
Here is a particularly massive one, growing right in the right of way - you'd think it would have been crushed before it even surfaced above the leaves.

Others remind me of the Morels and other tasty mushrooms that they sold in the markets when I was in Spain.  Pretty sure if it's growing here, they're not selling it in Spain though. 






































I'm also reminded of a mechanical engineer that we knew in Albuquerque, who would pick pounds and pounds of some sort of mushroom and send them off to family in Poland.  As far as I knew, everyone survived.

The variety of shapes and sizes is amazing.  Also makes me think we need to clear out some of the smaller trees and get more sun on the ground!

Red - I know brightly colored frogs are toxic (thank you Museum of Science) - wonder if that holds for mushrooms as well.