House Update: Cabinets, Flooring and Brick!

 Hope you all had a wonderful weekend!  I thought I'd sit down and do a quick post tonight with some of the pictures I took over the weekend of our house building progress.  :-)  It's so exciting to be at the stage of seeing what our new home will actually look and feel like. 

Inside, the majority of the cabinets are set.  It feels a bit like a dream every time I set foot into the kitchen footprint.  I'm so happy with how the shaker cabinets turned out.  I'll keep this short and simple tonight, but once the kitchen is complete, I'll do a detailed post!  

 The island isn't quite finished yet, but I was relieved to see the gray paint was what I had hoped it would be.  :-)  My father-in-law has been spending hours making us an island countertop out of reclaimed wood and I can't wait to see it installed!  If there's one thing I could have taken with me from our previous home, it would have been the countertops he made, so I'm ecstatic I'll have something as special and beautiful in this house. 

 The perimeter cabinet color is Alabaster and the island is Cityscape (both Sherwin Williams).  I LOVE the Alabaster... I had read some great things about the color and I can vouch for how beautiful it is in person. 

 The wood floors are also installed throughout the house.  I've only had glimpses where the paper isn't covering them, so I'm anxious to see the full effect once they're uncovered! 

 Bathroom vanity cabinets are also installed... (master bath)

 

(guest bath)

 (girls bath)

 The brick also has started to go up and we are so excited!  The exterior of our home had a slow start, so it's equally exciting to see it come alive. 

 There will be brick on the side of the house as well, but the dormer you see here and the back wall will have 4" hardie lap siding. 

 As I mentioned in my last post, we really felt anxious about selecting the brick.  I had no idea how much even a mortar color or style could affect the color of the brick.  We are SO relieved that the brick turned out to be everything we hoped.  I can't pretend though... I had some majorly anxious moments as pictures started coming in when it was first going up and when I had to make a mortar decision on the spot.  :-)  Who knew building a house could be so stressful?!  ;-) 

 We wanted a brick that had plenty of character, looked old and yet was subtle in color.  We also wanted to select a brick that would complement the hardie lap siding, which will be painted a creamy white, of course.  ;-)  Hopefully the end result will be exterior choices that feel authentic to the style of the home.  

Also, Justus and I are SUPER excited to have a low maintenance material on the majority of the house!!!  ;-D  

(For anybody interested, the brick is St. Louis by Columbus Brick and the mortar color is Light Buff with a messy mortar finish.)

 As I was snapping these pictures, I kept getting distracted with the view.  Everything here is green now and so beautiful.  This is our back yard view, which I can hardly take in. 

 Although nothing quite beats the view on my parent's hilltop... ;-)  Especially a view you enjoy while eating fresh strawberries as the sun sets... the best!  

Happy (almost) May!  

House Update Month 3 - The Inside!

 

Happy Easter weekend, friends!  We are here at my parents this weekend, enjoying some beautiful weather and time together!  I took advantage of the warm spring morning to get some pictures in the house.  :-)

We're on month 3 now... the outside still looks the same as last I posted, but the inside is a different matter!  The drywall and trim have been installed and last week the painters started.  Bathroom tile was just laid and Monday should be a big day with grouting, wood floors being installed, and hopefully brick starting to go up on the exterior.

The past month has been a busy one.  I never imagined all the house decisions that would need to be made and nearly all at once!  Justus jokes that it took me eight hours to pick out three light fixtures and two weeks to pick out door knobs.  While that's clearly an exaggeration (ha!), my picky self has had a difficult time making quick decisions!  ;-)

Anyway, let me show you around!

 The garage is Justus's domain and I haven't made one decision in there, but I love how it turned out!  Justus wanted the bottom portions of the walls to have wood siding instead of drywall and I think it turned out great. It will also be great for helping to prevent some dings in the sheetrock.  The wood will be left natural, but sometime we'll paint the drywall. 

 

This is the main living area... the living room, dining room and kitchen are all found in this large room.  We had wood planks installed to look like ship lap around the fireplace and stairwell wall.  It added so much character.  We will miss the wooden beadboard walls in our previous home, but this definitely helped!

To the left of the stairwell is a little hallway that leads to the guest bedroom and bathroom.  To the left of the front door is the master bedroom.  I haven't decided whether to have the front door painted or stained (it's stain-grade fiberglass)... any opinions are welcomed.  :-) 

 We had all the interior doors painted a dark gray.  Oh my goodness, if you only knew how many times I almost changed my mind!  Justus was the one that was insistent it would break up the white, and I'm so glad we ended up having them painted.  I love the pop of color. If you look closely, you can see the ceiling and crown molding are a different shade of white than the walls.  The walls are only primed for now, but eventually will be painted the creamy white that the ceiling and trim are painted (Alabaster by Sherwin Williams).  

The little nook on the left of the picture was originally a pantry. One of the disadvantages of having an open floor plan in the main living area is that it eliminates wall space.  Despite this disadvantage, I would not trade the open floor plan... I love the idea of these rooms being open to one another and I also love all the light that floods in.  Anyway, I asked our cabinet maker to build me a dining room cabinet and hutch that we could fit into that space (I tried to remove the wall, but it was helping to bear the load of the upstairs, so we left it).  Displaying all my dishes was way more important to me than a pantry... haha!  (I did have him add a pantry cabinet to the kitchen design.)

 

 This is the tile I chose for the guest bathroom.  The vanity cabinet in here will be gray.  It would be embarrassing to admit how much I thought about what tile to put in the house... eventually I went with something that I loved and would be a good fit with the house, and I'm so glad I did.  The retro tiles are just perfect and timeless.   

This is the master bathroom.  Isn't this basketweave tile fun!  It provides such a pop of color!  The walls in here will be painted Sea Salt by Sherwin Williams and the vanity will be white.

The shower is full of white subway tiles.  :-)

 The girls bathroom upstairs is my personal favorite.  I love this black and white hex tile (the girls see flowers in the tile!).  Their bathroom is located in a dormer and it has these three charming windows in it.  The walls in here will be painted pink... of course. ;-)  The color I chose is White Dogwood by Sherwin Williams... I'm hoping it will be a pretty pink, but subtle.  It took the girls and I some begging to get Justus agree to pink walls.  ;-)

 In one of the girls bedrooms here... you can get a better look at the painted doors.  They are painted Peppercorn by Sherwin Williams. 

 And finally, walking into the bonus room...

 This room was such a pleasant surprise!  I guess we couldn't quite comprehend how large and open it was from the plans... I foresee us spending a lot of time in here.  Crafting, relaxing, doing school... there's enough room for a large table and chairs and maybe even a comfy sitting area down the road.  

 We paid our contractor to have the room finished up to this point, but we'll be finishing it from here.  There's not much left to do... painting, trim and flooring.  I definitely think this room deserves a whole wall dedicated to chalkboard paint. ;-)

 Although there hasn't been any change to the outside since I last posted, hopefully that is about to change!  We had to wait three weeks for the brick to come in that we chose, but it's here and ready now! 

I really think the brick was probably the most difficult choice.  When we first went to the brick store, we were both completely overwhelmed by the amount of choices and only a small sample board to look at.  We finally found a house we liked, and the supplier actually came out and found a close match.  Then they gave us an address of a house they had used this brick on, so that we could look at it on an entire house vs. a small sample board.  It's difficult to tell what it will look like at this point, but we're hopeful.  It's called St. Louis by Columbus Brick Company and I love that it has an old brick look to it. 

I think that's all for now!

I hope this finds you all well and that you have a very happy Easter!