Stuart Construction - Week 20

Week 20 - April 1-7, 2013

So, this should have been the week that we finished up the house (according to our original deadline that we set about a billion years ago!) Even though the house isn't totally finished up, we are getting closer.  The finishing work is getting done and I am getting more and more excited as the time for our house to be done approaches.

Doors and trim went up this early week...they look awesome, can't wait to see them painted!

Master Bathroom Doors

 Pantry Door

Door on L: Hall Coat Closet

Door in Center: Laundry Room 

Door on R: Powder Room

Glass doors are to the study - HUGE surprise that we got glass, we weren't expecting this!

Small door on the left is our front coat closet

Door on far left is the front door

Shelving in the closets and pantry went up.  Amazing.

Shelving in the pantry...lots of shelving!  Yea!!!

 Master Bedroom Closet.  So excited to get some more organizational things for the closet too!

Poor Jerry, our trim guy, had a heck of a time with our banister.  Love the detail of it, and the color, although I am not thrilled about the finished product.  I am hoping we (I) can have a conversation with our Site Super;  the staining just doesn't look finished and I'm not thrilled about it, so I'm hoping they can stain it again.

 Pre-Stained Banisters

Stained Banisters....see how in the picture on the right, that front banister just doesn't look like it's stained evenly?!  Just not thrilled with that.

Another look at how disappointed I am in the stain - the picture on the left - looks like Zebra stripes!  Not a fan.

Perhaps the biggest interior change that occurred at the end of this week was the entire house getting painted!  B and I didn't really talk about the interior colors.  We knew we wanted white trim, and we knew we wanted a warmer color in this house.  The Clarkson house was basically white walls with oak everything....after 7 years in that house, I am soooo over oak and white walls!  When we went to the design center in October (yep, about 5 months ago!) we told our design lady helper what we wanted and looked through a paint book.  She pulled out the color for the trim (who knew white could be so easy for the designer chick to pick out?!  We have NEVER been able to pick a white!) Next came the warm brown color....perfect.  We hadn't looked at our paint choice since we picked it out, so we decided to get a sample and paint before they put in the cabinets.  This color after all is going on every wall and ceiling - I needed to like it!  Thankfully, I LOVE how the color looks.  It's a very warm and cozy color, perfect for what we wanted in this house.

Prepwork for painting....

Crappy I-Phone Pictures....

Big exterior changes this week as well.  The stone guys finished up the stone work, we had to get considerably more than our original budget allotted for (thank you zoning department) but we are so thrilled with the finished product and it looks amazing.  Honestly, I probably would have had a conversation w/ B about wanting to add more stone if we weren't forced to.

They also did the rough grading.  What does that mean?!  Buh-Bye huge piles of dirt that have been sitting next to our house since November.  It is such a huge change, the house finally looks more like a house and less like a construction site.

 

They also poured the driveway and sidewalk in the front of the house.  They didn't pour it how we wanted, so once the snow melts from the spring storm we got (April 9th) and the dirt dries out again, they will go in and fix it.

Picture on the left shows how it is now, the picture on the right with the white shows what should be taken out.  It was supposed to be a separate sidewalk.

The goal is to have the house and our CO (Certificate of Occupancy) by the 15th (yes, of this month - April).  We are hoping to actually move into the house on the 20th, and use the time between the 15th and 20th to get the last minute punch list completed.  It seems so crazy to have it be this close to being done!

Easter...

We had a pretty quiet (yes, this weekend was quiet, despite how it sounds!) Easter this year, which was nice since we are without our house and usual routines.

On Saturday the neighborhood we are living in had a community egg hunt for all the kids.  It was free and the weather was nice, so we headed over there in the morning.  There were a ton of kids and it was HILARIOUS to watch the kids run out and pick up all the eggs (literally in less than 3 minutes!)

After the egg hunt we decorated some hard boiled eggs....

We went to B's parents and had lunch and then an egg hunt with Grammy...the kids are too fast to take pictures of when they are in the house, so I didn't get many shots that turned out.

Kids with their cousins.

Love how fancy schmancy C looks in his tie!  He called this is fancy shirt and has been asking to wear it for weeks!  Wear away little man.  LOVED H's dress, she has a coat to match the dress, but the weather was amazing on Sunday, so we went without!

I have some good friends who have a daughter a year younger than C, so we asked them over to Easter dinner at my parents house.  They are great people and Lena is so adorable and LOVES playing with H and C.  We hid eggs in the backyard for the kids and watched them hunt all over the place!  We almost lost 1 egg; who knew how hard it would be to keep track of 36 eggs, but thankfully Umpa looked harder than the rest of us and no eggs were lost!