It POURS!  And it has been pouring for the last couple of days. Progress on the house was slow last week but LAWD HAVE MERCY we have a lot going on today!

All the interior doors have arrived as well as the trim pieces for the windows and door frames.

The scruffy little antique door will go on the closet under the stairs. (kitty room). We found it in a junk store in Atlanta. Jim finished it with a sealer to preserve the worn paint and nail holes. It’s short, only 6 ft.

Some of the trim is going up now and it really makes such a difference in the look of the windows.

The little part that sticks out of the bottom like a tiny window sill is called an “apron”. This blog is so educational. You’re welcome.

Ricky is pouring the carport and driveway tomorrow WHILE WE’RE GONE TO A FAMILY REUNION IN PENNSYLVANIA!  We sure did want to be here to watch that, but I know it’s going to turn out just the way we planned it.

Thanks Ricky!

This area off to the side will be the storage shed and golf cart bay/

Both bathrooms have been tiled so far. They’re still applying the grout though.

Downstairs guest bath. Green onyx subway tile around the tub and light green mosaic on the floor.

Upstairs master bath. Random 4 x 4 tiles around tub and burgundy/white mosaic on the floor.

We love the random tiles but it wasn’t easy to achieve. Jim used a random number generator to place all the tiles in a grid on the computer. Then I spent the next three days FIXING the pattern in places where it bothered me. I’d look at it three or four times daily and move the colors around until it looked “peaceful” to me. I can’t describe it any other way. We finally agreed on the final placement of the tiles and printed out the pattern for our tile guy. I do love it, but I’m sure someone with severe OCD could not live with this.

A final word about this tile…I was able to just pick up a box of white from the Home Depot, no problem, but TRY to find pink or burgundy tiles ANYWHERE in the surrounding area. We special ordered these from two different tile warehouses and they took weeks to arrive. When I picked up the pink tile from the store one of the fabricators said he had just ripped out this exact color from a home build in the 1950s. 🙂 Yes, these colors are not on the designers’ lists for sure. We wanted a retro bathroom and I think we achieved our strange vision.

The kitchen floor tile is finished today! We ordered terra cotta tiles from Mexico and I think they look so warm and homey.

And that’s all I’m gonna say about that! 🙂

The last thing that was happening at the end of the day was the installation of the the doors.

French doors separating our master bedroom from the “sitting” room.

The sitting room will be where we have our little wet bar and sink. We’ll also watch movies in here, plus it will act as an overflow guest room when needed. These doors will always be open unless we have company.

Whew! I hate to leave tomorrow with so much fun stuff happening to our house. But I know we’ll enjoy hanging with Jim’s wonderful and crazy family so I guess I’ll try to be patient. I look forward to seeing more surprises Sunday night when we get back. Till then!

Sorry, I’m fresh out of clever titles. This is the best I can do today. So my kitchen cabinets are installed. It will be a while before the doors, knobs and granite counter tops are added, but for now I am so happy with the progress.

The’ll be the same color as the interior trim (cotton white) except the hood and island are green. Same green as the house exterior (recycled glass).

We were a military family for twenty four years and we’ve lived in some not-so-great houses. We’re not complaining! They were provided for us on Air Force bases (Reese, Keesler, Columbus, Nellis, Pentagon (twice) and we enjoyed living on base housing. (Thank you taxpayers)

But one thing we knew we really wanted in this house was a GREAT kitchen. Jim and I both like to cook (and eat!) The kitchen we had in the yellow house was pretty good, but living there twelve years made us realize that we could make a few improvements.  I think we really nailed it this time and I can’t wait to get bizzy in the kitchen with Jim! (Did I just say that?)

Our kitchen in Lubbock TX was so small you couldn’t open the fridge and oven door at the same time. I don’t think that will be a problem here.

The tile guys were here today too and you can see they’ve begun putting down the backer board for the kitchen floor. They should start the floor tile tomorrow and I CAN’T WAIT TO SEE IT!

The island is small but space efficient. We’ll have granite counter tops. (rain forest green) The raised front will have a wooden bar with room for a couple of stools.

I’ve always wanted an apron-front sink. 🙂

Sorry the photo is dark. I love the little open shelves on the sides and the Juliet casement windows that I’ll open when we have cool weather.

My title tomorrow will be FLOOR TILE!  Unless some creative person can help me out. Until tomorrow then. 🙂

I mean really, can you ever get enough? Seriously!

Standing at the front door looking toward the back wall. The dining table will be situated in front of the French doors.

The kitchen is the large area to the far left, and the door opening beside the kitchen is the downstairs bath.

Downstairs bathroom. Both baths are the width of the tub. Big enough, but no wasted space.

Next to the downstairs bath is a room we call “The Office”. It will act as a guestroom as well, but our computer and book case will be in this room, as well as a sofa bed. Not really a “guest” room, but we can make you very comfy here if you wanna have a sleepover.

French doors separate this room from the living room. Sofa bed will be against the back wall with small end tables on either side.

I LOVE this picture! It was taken from the far corner of the kitchen toward the front/left side of the family room.

Our TV will be in the corner to the right of the fireplace. This way I can make you a nice snack and watch cartoons with Rowdy without having to leave the kitchen. 🙂

Great job Jim! Mission Accomplished. I love the pretty arch too. That was not in the original plans. Thanks Chris!

I gotta say, the guy who actually SANDS all this sheet rock EARNS HIS PAY!  He’s been doing this for three days and he finally finished this afternoon. I hope he has a great Independence Day tomorrow.

Here’s a picture of the back of the house. It’s still messy and confusing back here, but GT’s clean up crew (Thank you Janet & Kat!) really cleaned up the inside and outside of the Green House and it looks so nice.

There will be a storage room and golf cart bay attached to the left of the car port. It’s hard to visualize how it will fit, but trust me, It’s gonna look very cute.

If you’re wondering about this little area under the stairs, it’s probably not what you think. This is the “kitty room”. The only stuff in here will be kitty food, supplies, water bowl, and of course the dreaded litter box. They’ll have their own little cat door to go in and out. You may not be able to tell from the picture, that’s a very small door opening. (6 ft.) We found a funky antique door at a flea mall.  Jim cleaned it up and put a varnish on it for protection. He even found some antique hardware for it and I bought an old porcelain doorknob for a finishing touch. It should be very cute despite the less-than-cute usage for the space.

Meeeeow-velous!

You may be asking, “Why a whole room for cats???” Understandable. But we do have four and we love them. Their stuff is messy and this is a good way to hide it. PLUS…

Rowdy made certain demands.

And this girl usually gets her way.

🙂

Well it is! OK, so this might be super confusing, but I’m going to try to walk you through our master bedroom, now that the walls are up. A little explanation first…

Jim and I decided to make the upstairs sort of like a nice hotel suite–main bedroom, sitting area, master bath, etc. We’ll also have a little mini-bar in in the sitting room where we’ll watch movies in our jammies and have beverages at night and coffee in the morning. The laundry room is just off the master bath too for ultimate convenience.

So we’ll walk upstairs and down a little hallway to the entrance of the room.

Our king bed will just fit between these casement windows with room for small end tables on either side.

The door you see to the right will be a pocket door to the bathroom. You might be able to see a closet door on the left. This is where the HVAC unit is housed, plus there is a bit more room for storage.

Now as I’m standing there, I look to my left and see a little dormer area. These windows look out the front at the Pink House. We’ll have a little fainting couch here and a coffee table. It will be a nice place to read a book or cuddle with a cat. 🙂

The center window is stationary. The sides are casement windows that open out.

OK, so I’ve turned around to face the bedroom entrance. Now I’m looking at the entrance to the sitting room. Our TV will be in here and a fancy futon (no seriously, they actually do make some really cool futons these days). The opening will have French doors. There will be a cabinet against the right wall with a mini-fridge, coffee pot, sink and a mirror. We’re having a small cabinet made for glassware, coffee mugs and other necessities.

This room will be an extension of our bedroom, but when we have overflow company it will serve as a comfortable guest room too.

Look thru the room and you can see a separate entrance for guests. The French doors to our bedroom will have curtain panels on them so they can close for guest privacy. The only drawback to this guest area is that they will have to either use the bathroom downstairs or come thru our bedroom to use ours. So who ever stays here will have to be a close friend or family member who would be comfortable hearing one of us snore. (Guess who?)

A closer peek into the sitting room.

Futon will go in the nook. There will be just enough room on either side for end tables with lamps. Secret storage closet to the left of this and beyond view is one of the small dormers poking out the back of the house. There’s also a clothes closet you can’t see with more secret storage behind it.

I’ll show the bathroom and laundry room in another post. It’s so fun to walk around and see actual walls and imagine our furniture in the house!

So here’s a cute picture of my mommy (Peg Peg) and Rowdy. She and my sister, Bob came for a very nice visit this week.

I’m the prettiest right?

Here’s a nice view from the front porch of the Green House.

Think PINK!

And finally…

Exterior painting basically done.

The only other additions to this will be a honey colored stained porch and stairs, plus shutters matching the color of the door.

Stop by and wander around inside. It’s getting really fun now!

More PAINT and completed ROOF!

and then….

THE SHEETROCK IS HERE! THE SHEETROCK IS HERE! THE SHEETROCK IS HERE!!!

Can you tell I’m a little excited? 🙂

OK, only super cool peeps will know where this title came from! (Ren & Stimpy-circa 1995)

Anyway…it’s definitely reflective of my mood at the close of construction yesterday.  Chris’s crew finally lowered the porch rails six inches and they look so nice. The height fits the scale of the small house, plus when we sit on the porch we can see the lake without having the rails in the way. Here’s the before and after:

Before

After

Yes the difference is subtle, but notice that the the original height rails intersect the windows and the lowered ones fall just below the window trim. That bugged me so much. Am I crazy? Yes, but that’s a whole other issue. Plus notice they painted the underskirt! I love how the green colors and the red door look together. We’ll also have working shutters on the two front windows and they’ll match the door.

When we’re finished, the house will have “cartoon” colors and look much like a storybook cottage. They say that the older we get, the more our eyes appreciate bright and varied color. By that rule, I must be 147 years old. Thanks for following. I’m having way too much fun.

Debbie, out house is not the only one under construction at the Waters! (Said Jim about 100 times this week). OK, I’m trying to be patient, but dang it, I’m ready to move in! So here are all the things that have happened so far this week.

More paint.

But as you can see part of the metal roof is off (they had to remove it to finish the chimney) and THEY STILL HAVE NOT LOWERED THE PORCH RAILS!  (Breathe, Debbie breathe). It’s all good. It will happen. Just not on “Debbie time”.

Janet & April worked hard cleaning up the construction debris in the yard and believe it or not, this looks a lot better!

Side yard and retaining wall.

We’ll have sod here, and a small tree. The cinder blocks will be covered in stone that will look a bit like this.

I took this picture by a beautiful house in our neighborhood. I’M COPYING YOU KATHY & EDDIE!

They’ve completed the electric, plumbing and HVAC too, but that stuff is so boring to me. Here’s a picture if you’re just DYING to see the lovely wires and vents…

Snooze-o-rama!

I’m finally happy with how the back of the house is coming along. There has been a ton of junk in the carport and behind the porch, but it’s been cleaned up quite a bit and I can see how it will look a bit better now.

I wanted to drive my Subaru under the carport for fun, but Jim wouldn’t let me because of nails. He’s such a tyrant!

I’m taking this pic from our neighbor Tracy’s driveway. We will have to cut his knockout roses way down when we build the fence and put stone on the retaining wall, but I’m sure they’ll grow back. I’ve tried to kill knockout roses and it just can’t be done.

Ta Ta For Now! Next week…SHEETROCK BABY!

🙂