Almost there

The railing and stairs got installed today.  

The curb cut was made, and the driveway and approach were poured yesterday.  (We didn't take a picture of the finished driveway- we must be getting tired or something.)

The fire marshall came to inspect the fire sprinklers, and they passed.  Monday the city inspector is coming and if everything passes, we can start moving stuff in.  We still need to finish a little tile work and paint the trim and the doors, but we're just about ready to move.  Hopefully by monday night we'll at least be able to start moving boxes over to the new garage and my parents will be able to park in their garage again.

Countertops and more Driveway

Two more sections of driveway got poured today.  I think there's maybe one more big section and then a small section and replacing the sidewalk and the approach.

Kitchen Countertops- All ready for the dishwasher (and faucets).

Island- I'm hoping Kyle hooks the cooktop up tomorrow.

We had the kitchen windowsill be granite too, instead of cultured marble like the others.

Farmhouse sink.

Hall bathroom.

Basement bathroom.

Master bath.

Kyle loves the countertops.

Alice just wants to move in.

Carpet and HVAC (and fridge)

The missing bathroom vanity got installed.  Now we're ready for those countertops, any day....

We were trying to pick a carpet that would go with gray tones in the basement, and brown tones upstairs (although really it's just the carpet on the stairs, in E's room and our closet, everything else is tile).  We picked a grayish carpet that had brown flecks in it, when I saw it outside in the truck the carpet guy brought it in, I thought it was UGLY.  It looks much better in.  

Carpet on the stairs (yes, that is painters tape on there still...).

 Carpet in J's room

Carpet in the family room.  

Return air vent covers installed.

Air conditioner.

Floor vents.

Toe kick vents.

Fridge!  Kyle also put the washer and dryer in the laundry room, but we didn't take a picture.

Ceiling vent in A's room.

Kyle did these awhile ago, but I hadn't noticed them until recently.  These are little lights in the study nook's in J's and A's rooms.  There will be a built in desk with shelves above at some point in the future.

We could not find the cover for this, luckily the HVAC guy found it by the furnace.  This is our heat exchange unit, it brings fresh air into the house and transfers the heat/cold from the old air to the new air.  Or something like that.

Stuff.

With Kyle being gone the last two weeks, a lot of the house progress felt a bit on standstill.  A little work was done on the cement out front (as you'll see later in this post), but not a lot.  However, he's back now and things seem to be coming together (fingers crossed).

I heard from the carpet guy that he'd be here on Wed (today), yesterday, so last night I went out to mop and sweep and vacuum and get the place cleaned up so we wouldn't trash our brand new carpet quite so fast.  I also bought door mats.  

Several friends came over and helped- I am so sore today, I hope everyone else faired better.  Thanks to great friends for helping out, especially the kids who got busy and did some great work.  P vacuumed up all the dirt piles, and L climbed in the tiny space under the stairs to sweep it out.  They were great.

Now on to the photos.

Back door.  I'm going to call this my Mom door, so "Welcome" mom (and dad).  I'm hoping my mom (and dad) use it regularly since it's a fairly straight shot from their backyard to ours.  I did sweep most of the back porch off, although it still has a lot of construction stuff and cardboard boxes that need to be disposed of before I can really sweep it all.

Front porch mat.  I also swept and cleaned up most of the construction debris from the front porch.  It's huge, so we'll have to find some nice chairs to sit in while we watch the neighbor's chickens run around.

The plumbers came today:  Hall bath toilet.

Hall bath shower.

Master shower.  The toilet is also installed in this bathroom too, but it looks the same as the other one.  We went with the Toto Eco Drake.  Toto toilets are great, and rarely plug.  Great for our four boys.  :)

Front porch steps and planters.  We need some window wells of some sort around the vents to the under porch storage room, and they need to put in a cement wall between the two levels so the dirt can fill in to the tops of the beds, but it's getting close. The little holes in the cement are boxes connected by conduit for Kyle to run wires so we have lighted steps.  That might be awhile coming, but it's going to be really neat.

This picture is from last week, I just forgot to take a new picture today.  

Here's one going the other direction, you can see how the edge of the driveway will curve around.  We've already decided we're only putting grass in the backyard, so I'm already picturing how we'll fill this in with plants and mulch.  Give me ten years and it will be beautiful.

Back inside- here's the kid's tub/shower and toilet.

Here are the plumbers installing the water heater.

Today we also went to the city building and signed the paperwork to get our water connected, and our garbage and recycling cans delivered.  The carpet pads got delivered today, but there was a problem with getting the carpet to the house today, so the carpet guy decided to cut it at the store and then bring it back tomorrow, early (fingers crossed, again).  

The countertops are also supposed to come tomorrow, then the plumbers can finish installing all the fixtures.  We're still missing one cabinet in the master bath, but apparently they can put the counter in first.  (This doesn't make sense to me, but I'm going to let someone else worry about it.)

Hopefully tomorrow I have another exciting update.  We're getting so close.

Progress Inside and Outside

Outside, the cement work is moving along.  The front steps got framed up today.  Hopefully that means a cement truck will come tomorrow.  Kyle put light boxes and conduit into the cement for the raised beds on the sides of the steps, it's going to look really nice.  

The cultured marble place came out and did the master bath shower (it's two sided, so this is half the shower) and all the windowsills.  (There's the trim piece on the floor that hadn't been installed yet when I took this picture.)

The Floor Saver pan that I ordered came, so I stuck it in place.  It sits under the dishwasher and directs any water to the front, so that leaks are discovered immediately.  

The window over the tub has two sills.  The big one and the little one right around the window.  They look really good.  I highly recommend cultured marble window sills.  So much easier to clean than wood, and they just look so good.

This is where the cement pad for our camper will be.  I was really pleased to see this tube attached to the down spout.  We hadn't talked about doing that, but it makes so much more sense when you're pouring cement to channel the water underground instead of having it run across the top of your driveway or whatever.

Kitchen

Yesterday the cabinet installer (Jason, I think) came back and finished the kitchen cabinets.  I was a little worried because the glaze didn't show up on the drawer fronts and we have a lot of drawers, but I think it's going to be okay.  

I didn't take a picture of inside, but the cupboard over the fridge has metal dividers in it to hold cookie sheets and muffin tins (and maybe big cutting boards?).  The cabinets over the microwave and the oven space (which is to the right of the fridge space) are also extra deep, so we'll have plenty of room for storing big popcorn bowls.  Right now it feels like we have so much storage space.  I'm sure that will change once we start unpacking our stuff and aren't living in a house with two households worth of stuff and people.

Trash can/Recycling cans pull out from this cupboard next to the sink.  I'm glad the planner-people suggested this.  I wouldn't have thought of it, because we always kept the trash cans under the kitchen sink, but our under-sink cabinet is a bit short because of the farmhouse sink.

Here's the island. I'm excited about keeping pots and pans under the cooktop (which is in the center section).  

The countertop measuring person should be coming tomorrow.  

Cabinets

Last week the bathroom and laundry room cabinets were all installed.  The master bathroom cabinets were too big, so the installer framed up the center for counter top measuring purposes while we wait for the replacement.

Laundry room cabinets.

Kitchen!  The cupboards above the microwave, fridge and double oven are all extra deep.  

Just for fun we put the sink in the spot where it goes. The cupboard to the right of the sink has our garbage and recycling cans in them, it pulls out.

And the microwave (it looked much bigger in the box!).