day 121

It's snowing up here.  Again.  And that really wouldn't be a big deal, except there was a bit of a mishap with our garage door on Monday.  We still have no idea what happened, but the large door is partially off the track on one side and the track on the other side is bent and detached from the wall.  So, our garage door is currently stuck wide open.  Luckily, the snow has been drifting in the opposite direction of the open door, so our garage isn't completely filled with snow.  Yet.  Our Construction Manager called the garage door guys Monday evening so hopefully they'll be out to fix it soon.  Better now than in 18 months, I suppose.  (Update: finally finishing this post on Thursday - door was fixed on Wednesday and the garage door openers and keypads were also installed)

The carpenters have been hard at work inside the house this week installing our cabinets, trim and doors.  They still need to assemble the master bathroom vanity (which I'm beyond anxious to see), but the kitchen cabinets, drop zone and main bath vanity are in.  And I love them.

[Tolani by Merillat in Maple Chiffon - looking north]

It's crazy how much I adore this kitchen already - and it's still missing important things like crown molding along the tops of the cabinets, hardware, granite counters and stainless steel appliances.  So excited to see it all come together.

[Tolani by Merillat in Maple Chiffon - looking west]

[Tolani by Merillat in Maple Chiffon - looking northwest]

[Tolani by Merillat in Maple Chiffon - looking northeast]

[Tolani by Merillat in Maple Chiffon - looking east]

[Tolani by Merillat in Maple Chiffon - looking southeast]

The fun part about the cabinets?  They have upgrades I'd forgotten about.  Always a nice surprise!  I didn't remember for certain if they would be soft-close (they are!) and I wasn't sure if the drawer front under the sink would be functional (it is!).  Which brings me to another question.  For the main bath vanity, should I put hardware on the two non-functioning drawer fronts under the sinks?  Currently, I have pulls for the three middle drawers and knobs for the two cabinet doors.  Decisions, decisions.

[Portrait by Merillat in Maple Sable - main bath vanity]

[Tolani by Merillat in Maple Sable - drop zone]

I can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to having a set place to put mail and school papers and everything else that currently clutters my kitchen table.  I even picked up a few organizers for the drawer at Target tonight (Have you checked out their Clearance lately?  It's everywhere!)

Besides cabinets, the crew has been hard at work installing trim, putting in closets and hanging doors.  I'm not sure I'm sold on the dark hanging bars, but that's an easy enough fix.  And eventually we plan to do custom closet systems, so I'll probably just wait until then to change anything.  It's a bit crazy to already be talking about changing things and upgrades.  I suppose that's part of working within a set budget, though.

Know what looks even better than the closets, though?  The doors.  I. am. in. love.  It's amazing how big of an impact such a simple, non-standard selection can make.  When we were sitting with the designer, making selections, I remember casually mentioning that it would be nice to do something other than the standard.  He knew I liked the detail found in older homes and, when he pulled out his deck of alternatives, I was immediately drawn to the traditional three panel Craftsman style door.  I think our exact doors are the Crossmore by CraftMaster, but no guarantees.  Aren't they lovely?

On Monday evening there was still a stack of doors and trim to be installed, but as of tonight, the piles are almost non-existent.  All doors have been hung (including the pretty French door below) and trim is almost complete.  It's looking so much more like a house.  Our house.

day 83

Happy Saturday!  I, for one, am beyond glad the weekend is here.  Besides desperately needing to get caught up on laundry (um, we have zero diapers clean and are about out of disposables), I'm really looking forward to some time with my boys, some meal planning/grocery shopping and maybe even a long bath/facial/nail-painting session.  Oh yeah, and handling some house stuff.  Exciting, no?

I mentioned that my dad came up last weekend, so Hubby and I had a chance to get out a few times by ourselves without the little dude tagging alone.  It was amazing.  We don't have family close by and sitters get expensive, so it's usually always the three of us.  We really need to make date nights a priority again, though.  It was so refreshing to get out and actually have an uninterrupted conversation, hold hands and just leisurely run errands.  Anyway, when leisurely browsing the aisles of Target (let me reiterate - uh-mazing), Hubby came across a glass lamp.  He knew I'd been on the look out for a pair and I casually commented "too bad there aren't two".  Well, he made that his personal mission and was able to uncover a second one.  I'm not sure I totally love the shape, but for the $14.98 price tag, I was sold.  These babies were originally $49.99 each and I ended up paying $15.82 total, thanks to $5 and $10 Target gift cards I found in my wallet.

Ignore the lamp shade; it's the only one I had in the condo that had a harp.  The one downfall to IKEA lamps (which we have quite a few of), are the unique shades.  Anyway, I'm holding off on purchasing shades until I decide which room these are going in. Right now, I'm thinking they'll end up in our bedroom, but it's possible I'll use them in the living room.  I tried a linen-colored herringbone shade on it at Target and it looked pretty sharp.  They had grey ones, too.  The possibilities are endless!  I can't help but think the lamps look a little like old barrels, which is a tad more rustic than my taste, but I can't get over the price.  I'll let you know if I end up returning them.

This weekend, we started our festivities at 6 am with a little dude that was beyond ready to get up and play.  I don't understand why he struggles to get up at 6:30 during the week, but is wide awake and perky at 6 am on the weekend.  I was hoping for at least another hour of sleep.  Maybe tomorrow.  After a diaper change and an episode of Dinosaur Train, we decided to make breakfast for Hubby.  E's really into cooking lately, so it's been a lot of fun to have him helping in the kitchen.  I came across a breakfast ring recipe on Pinterest the other day and immediately pinned it, hoping to surprise the Hubby this weekend.  Well, he was stalking my Pinterest boards to look at faucets I'd saved and came across the recipe pin the next day.  I got an e-mail at work that read something like: "MOST DEFINITELY, YES!!!!", along with a link to the recipe.  So much for that surprise!

Despite having to go back to the store this morning because the crescent rolls I bought last night were crusty when I opened them, the recipe was a big hit!  I snagged the recipe from The Kitchen Life of a Navy Wife but the original source seems to be Bacon Time with the Hungry Hungry Hypo.  I'd highly recommend adding it to your breakfast rotation.  I didn't have cheddar cheese on hand and ended up using a mix of American cheese slices and shredded mozzarella.  Next time, I might do 6 or 7 eggs instead of 5, but, otherwise, I followed the recipe as written and it was delicious.

After our bellies were full, we headed out to the house to check out the latest progress.  Our first discovery was that our garage doors were hung.  Verdict is?  I love them.  Now I'm even more anxious for the siding and stone work to be finished.

This is the first snow we've really had this winter and E loved bundling up in his snowsuit and getting a chance to play on his new sled from Christmas (thanks Papa K and Gram-Gram).  He and Daddy took a couple rides around the house and the giggling was contagious.

Nothing else had changed on the inside, but we discovered our bathtub had been unwrapped.  It's just as pretty as I remember!  I'm guessing the plumber wanted to take a look to see what he was up against?  Hubby and E decided to check it out and make sure they still liked it as well.

[promise they're not dead - just pretending to sleep!]

E had a lot of fun running around the basement and jumping on the leftover wood scraps.  It amazes me what kids find entertaining.

I also had to take a comparison shot of when our foundation was first poured.  It's still fun to be able to hang from the beams!

I also took a few shots of the insulation on my big girl camera and made sure to document that we had indeed passed our inspections - woohoo!

We ordered our cabinets on Thursday and are now just waiting for the drywall work to begin.  So exciting!