Cabinets and Ceiling

The cabinets are pretty much set up, not necessarily all fixed in. The stain looks good. In the kitchen, the island cabinets have a black glaze, darker than the peripheral, and will look great with the stone tops. The ceiling turned out as good as we hoped. Once it's stained it should really compliment the look.


Kitchen view out the back. The sink will be under the middle window




Cooktop wall. The tall cabinet on the left is for the fridge. A stove hood goes between the wall cabinets




Bathroom cabinets. The tower cabinets aren't up yet.











Some boulders were moved to set up retention walls. This will help keep the hill from sliding down. More boulders planned. This is the south side of the house.

It's a Laugh

He asked "How long did this house take?"

Trimwork Starting

After some more delays and slowness, the trim guys restarted upstairs. We're waiting on an order of wood and supplies. The kitchen ceiling isn't started yet. Lori and I got the appliances for the kitchen ordered yesterday. We also started looking for hardware for the doors and cabinets. We saw a front door handle/lock that we liked a lot for the style and quality, until we found out it was $1600. We figured that was somewhat excessive for our needs.

Outside, some boulders got moved around and a few were placed in the driveway circle. These will be in an "island" in the turnaround with plants and trees. They also fortified the slope on the approach with boulders as retaining walls. I'll update with a picture later on that.

Footers were poured for the perimeter of the front patios, with concrete blocks layed out to hold in the patio. The concrete will go up to the bottom two levels, and above will form a sitting wall. That will be fronted with stone to match the other veneer.



Patio off the dining room, looking across the front entry


Front covered porch


The patio areas are larger than we pictured, which was a nice surprise. Blocking out the layout gives a different perspective, and it has turned out better than I initially was expecting (so far).

Inside, the upper level doors are mostly installed. They look good and should look great with the stain. Lots of glass in the doors keeps it open looking inside and keeps the light throughout. It stays very light.


These doors are viewed from the hall looking into the dining room. A fireplace is to the right and another set of similar doors on the other side. They swing in.



This view is from the hallway looking to the master bedroom. A set of double doors opens to a "vestibule". Looking straight through are the double sliding/pocket doors for the bath area. To the left is the bedroom.



From the sitting room into the master bedroom



Double door into the study from the front foyer. Behind me is an identical set into the dining room, another entry way than the double long glass doors.

The master shower tile work is moving along. Grouting has to be done. The light tile is travertine. The diamond tiles are "rain forest" marble, along with the seat and the border trim. Looks very nice so far.




The tape is holding up the upper tiles until the mortar dries.

The counter tops and tub deck will have the same rainforest marble.

While waitng for the wood delivery, they started installing cabinets. This is the laundry room. The wood is alder, same as all the rest will be. These cabinets are a little lighter than the rest, as we went with a downgrade model in the laundry and it didn't come with the black highlight stain that we used on the rest.


Coming up, more trim around windows and doors, kitchen ceiling and cabinets.

Tile and Doors

The tile floors are going in. The nook and mudroom is layed out, and the master bedroom floor is done except for a small section. In the nook, we put the fossil slate. The color looks a bit washed out. Once they're dusted the color comes through, and we'll finish them with some enhancer. The front foyer will get the same. The bathroom has travertine tiles, and it look pretty good, I think anyways.


Travertine Master bath floor



Mudroom above, eating nook below



The carpenters also started setting the doors. The doors come in their frames and jams, and they install them into the openings. The basement is first, and they made some adjustments to the headers to fit them evenly. They've also started fitting the trim, with the top trim boards already placed on most of the doorways.



The doors are 7' to give perspective. Above is the lower level hall to the guest master, which is the doorway to the right of the 2 closed doors. The wood is alder.



Above is the long hallway to the guest bedrooms, downstairs laundry and equipment room. Below is the center meet closet doors in a guest room.

Kitchen inspiration

This is a photo that served as the basis for the original kitchen design. We won't have the upper cabinets along the window wall, but there will be a counter and sink along the back wall with the windows above. We liked the wood ceiling in the pic. It turned out well in the great room, and so we decided to do the ceiling in the kitchen as well. Mom was worried about too much wood, but it goes along with the feel of the house well.

Happy Easter Everyone!

We hope everyone had a nice celebratory feast and get together. We miss you all.

Here's the updates: Lori ordered the sinks and they were delivered this week. We're going to have copper sinks in the kitchen, dining room "bar" sink, and a couple of the bedrooms, and one of the powder rooms. We also decided on a natural stone sink, which is rough stone on the outside and polished in. It should compliment the rest of the house style well.



The stone is rough on the outside and polished in. It's about 18 inches across. The colors came out much more then we expected, and looks pretty cool





The "pond sink" depicts pond flora and fauna, of course. The relief on the figures is prominant and the whole look is prettiy unique. It's about 18 inches across and will sit atop an antiqued cabinet.






This sink is a prep sink and will be in the kitchen island. It's about 20 inches across interior and will be an undermount. The pine cones were thrown in for free.





The great room ceiling is finished up. It looks good, and staining should dramatize the effect nicely. The beams will match the other woodwork (cabinets, doors etc) and the tongue in groove will be lighter and match the floor.



Great room ceiling back to front above, front to back below.





The floor is started, and in fact about 2/3 done. There are some nice wide plank pieces. So far the great room floor and hallway are finished, as well as the master bedroom, and they've started into the sitting room, kitchen and dining room. The wood in the finished areas is being covered with protective matting, so a full view is not available.



No good views for the floor, since it gets covered wherever the wood has been finished up. Just imagine the few boards you see across the whole floor.




The interior doors also were delivered. They should start installing the lower level doors this week, and finish up the wood floor. Tile floors upstairs come next I think, as well as the fireplace mantle, built ins and then stone.







Chapman likes his yard and doesn't care when we move.

Ceiling and Mantel

Carpenters have been working on the ceiling. That's included tongue-in-groove boards and placement of the "beams". It's surprising how much time goes into setting up the scaffolding, unfortunately because of the room dimensions it can't always be simply rolled and has to be reassembled. The ceiling is 24 feet up. The beams are really boxes built around the boards already set into the ceiling. So far, we're pretty happy with the look.


Above is a view of the ceiling towards the front, finished on the right. The left section is the only section left without the tongue-in-groove.



Above is the view towards the back of the room. Finished beams are on the left side of the picture and down the length.


The mantel beam also was delivered. This is a real beam, 16'4" long and 10"X10". it weighs about 350 pounds. The columns adjacent to the fireplace will be notched and the mantel set in. Once that's in, the carpenters will start on the built in cabinets, and then the stone goes on.
The floor boards start getting placed this week as well, and into the great room once the scaffolding is out.




The mantel will sit about 20-24" above the top of the fireplace. Building code will set a minimum clearance above the FP opening.

I've Been Non-Political So Far

but Dad sounded like he thought Obama was unstoppable when we last talked (must be those Chicago newspapers). But as many commenters on the Web have already pointed out, for a guy who is running a campaign of Hope and his ability to be a Uniter, he sure has an affinity for apparent America haters, including his (never been proud of America) wife and his spiritual influence for 20 years minister.



He is toast. I just hope he makes it through the nomination.

Something Different

Tiled showers and Supplies

Today we have snow, 4-8" expected. It's sloppy wet stuff, and seems to be melting fast already. Max seems to enjoy it! Yesterday, we had a record 74 degrees. Just a teaser for springtime. Below is a view from the great room on a warm late winter day.



Lots of materials were delivered. The wood flooring was delivered a week ago. It sat in the trailer for a couple of days until it was unloaded. Lori and I didn't quite like how it was stacked so we spent a couple of hours ordering out the stacks by size. It looks pretty good, and will be very rustic looking when the finish is applied. There were a lot of wide planks, some as big as 12-14", and quite a few up to 20' in length. The wood needs to sit in the house stacked so it doesn't deform (crown or cup)while it drys with the radiant heat.





Most of the tile has been delivered as well. Below is the sandstone/slate that will be in the entry foyer, laundry room, nook and mudroom. It looks a little orange here but has lots of browns, reds etc and compliments well with the exterior stonework. The sandstone is stacked against the wall. About 500 square feet in total. We lucked out on the price, at about 75% off. In front of the sandstone is the "rainforest" marble that will go in the master bath as decorative pieces in the shower and on top of the tub deck. The sink counters will have slab.



We did see similar tiles at another dealer, but this sandstone has the interesting feature of having fossils showing nicely. Lot's of plant leaves with an occasional shell. It also was considerably less.



Also stacked in the garage and just waiting for a worker or 2 are the ceiling slats. These are pine tongue in groove that will be nailed and glued to the ceiling, with the "support" beams built out as well.



Tiling has started downstairs. Below is a guest bedroom bath. The tiles are porcelain. 2 bathrooms have the same finish, and the exercise room has a different tile coloring but similar style.



The guest master shower is below. The tiling will extend out over the bathtub deck to the right ( sorry no pic)


Also in storage, the master bath travertine, a little darker here than the coloring that we expect.. 16" X 24". This will go on the floor only.