The House - Week 34

Week 34 - June 15, 2016

If you're paying close attention, you'll notice that I've skipped week 33.  Well, that week coincides with our trip to the Outer Banks, so we missed all of the excitement.

The good news is that the house is nearly complete, so I can move onto only blogging about traveling and not this boring house stuff!

Now that our issue with our rock retaining wall was resolved, our driveway was poured.

Exterior lights.

Security cameras were installed (and a random junction box that nobody is sure what it was for, so now it just has a cover over it).

Front porch.

Light fixtures are all installed.  We got the fixture above from Lowe's for $200. Similar fixtures online were in the $1500+ range (yikes!).  We have 4 of them in the house.

Master Bedroom.

Family room.  Notice the carpet? We were most excited to see the carpet installed.  It really feels like we can almost move in now.

The homework nook.

The upstairs bedrooms.

In the toy room/bonus room.

Kate admiring the computer desk in the kitchen.

Our chandelier at our dining table.

The view of the kitchen.

Lyla testing the carpet.

We have two electrical panels, this is one of them.

The basement.

The basement to the south.

Drainage along the side of the house.

The front of the house with walkway.

When we showed up the following day counters had been installed.  We have granite in the bathrooms.

Master bathroom.

Granite in the basement kitchen.

Granite at the theater bar.

The view of the family room.

Alison testing out the granite in the master bathroom.

The view of the backyard from upstairs.

Just a regular countertop in the homework nook (formica?)

We have two tones of quartz in the kitchen.

The following day the mirrors and plumbing fixtures were installed.  The house was very nearly ready for us.

Water softener.

Shower fixtures.  I've since swapped this shower head out with one that has LEDs that change colors based on the temperature of the water.  It's pretty nifty.

Tile backsplash in the kitchen being installed.

A view of the whole kitchen.  Everything but the super heavy fridge is installed.

The brine tank for our water softener is in the garage.  I'm far too lazy to carry the bags of salt into the basement.

One last view.

Next week: Install that fridge and start waiting for Rocky Mountain Power!

Outer Banks - Day 12

Day 12 - June 15, 2016

We woke up in DC and finished the day in Baltimore.

We started our day at the Smithsonian National Gallery of Art.  I don't remember the names of all of the paintings and sculptures that we saw, but here is a smattering of our favorites.

The first gallery had sculptures.

The Thinker by Rodin.

Edgar Degas Little Dancer.

With two additional little dancers.

Monet's Jerusalem Artichoke Flowers

The Capitoline Wolf Suckling Romulus and Remus

A fancy fountain.

Leonardo da Vinci's Ginevra de' Benci.

A sculpture with little people.

I'm a huge fan of Vermeer. The Girl with the Red Hat.

Vincent Van Gogh - Self Portrait.

Yet another self portrait by Van Gogh.

Vincent Van Gogh - The Olive Orchard

Claude Monet - The Japanese Footbridge

They had a few from Monet's Houses of Parliament series.  I just love Monet.

After reaching our limit at the art museum we grabbed our car and made our way to Baltimore.  We were in luck that the Orioles were in town.

Cute girls.

Camden Yards was Major League Ballpark #21 for me. For Lyla, it was #5 (I think)...

Tomorrow: we spend the morning in Baltimore before flying home.

The House - Week 32

Week 32 - June 1, 2015

This week we got cabinets, speakers and more.

Upstairs bathroom.  Green cabinets.

Basement kitchen.

Basement bathroom.

Upstairs homework nook.

Master bathroom.

Small cabinets above the toilet.

The kitchen.

Another view.

Laundry room 1.

Laundry room 2.

We have ceiling speakers in most rooms. We have it setup so that we can have different audio (from the TV, pandora, apple tv, etc.) in every room.

Ada in the kitchen.

We stored the appliances in our garage for about 6 months, but it was then up to us to get them moved up here to the house to be installed.  Thanks to a friend with a trailer we were able to get them moved, but dang that fridge was heavy.

The kitchen.  Lots of boxes of light fixtures.

Kate and Ada.

Another view of the kitchen.

Another view of the homework nook.

We have a rack in the basement with all of the electronic equipment.

I was really impressed by our AV installers.

Ada climbed to the top of her closet to check things out.

Next week: We were out of town on our Outer Banks trip, so we didn't visit the house for a couple of weeks.