Updates

The hardwood floors are stained and finished - and currently they are all covered with cardboard for the remainder of the building process. This picture is of the 'mudroom'.

This shows the kitchen - we love how the floors turned out. The grain is gorgeous and we're pretty pleased with our choice of "Vermont Coffee Bean" stain! The wall is where the island will be.

Most of our window trim is wood, but in the laundry room we opted to paint it.

Downstairs in the TV / theatre room. This little platform will house a few chairs (perfect for "loge seating" to watch a movie!)

Master bathroom - floor tile is laid. Jake is checking it out - mostly he liked when he could get ahold of the spacers to chew on!

This is taken in the downstair "hallway" - it's a lot of doors! A couple are storage areas and the mechanical room is to the far left. The door with the window is to the "wine room" - it's staying nice and cool in there - just as we'd hoped and just waiting for some wine to be moved in and stored.

This shot is out on the covered patio. The white rectangle is actually a radiant heating element which will allow for outdoor dining year round - or at least year round barbecuing out there! We have similar heating in the "casita" and it's pretty amazing how warm it is. . .

Siding is now about 99% done! Just a few little trim touch ups here and there and the front porch to finish. We're really happy with the cedar shake and cedar siding combination.

Also visible in between the two posts to the right is the copper rain chain (in lieu of a gutter right at the front door!) Another one of Peter's good choices. . . .

Check out the flooring --

Somewhere over the rainbow. . . . Samish Island view extraordinaire (This was taken with Peter's i-phone after one of our recent storms).

Courtney, Nick and Katey don "booties" to be able to walk around on the new hardwood floors.

View of the office flooring - before (above) and after the stain has been applied (below).

View of the living/dining room - above, before the stain - and below, during the staining process. We used wide plank hickory - which has a lot of variation in color and grain. The stain really blends it all and it's turning out just as we planned. Yea!!

How can it possibly be November?!!

Oh my gosh - I can't believe we totally missed updating this blog for the whole month of October! So here's a quick "tour" of the latest happenings -- Above shows what will be one of the window seats on either side of the fireplace. I'm thinking it will be a great spot with a good book and a glass of wine!

This is downstairs in what will be our TV/theatre room and it shows one of the hot-water radiators that will be the heat source in the downstairs. You can also see where the TV screen will go. Can't wait for the first movie night!

Shingles are on the front now --

--and we have garage doors!

Here's the 'east' guest room upstairs. The window trim is on and this shot shows the cute little window in the closet - which will not have a door on it (just a bench for your suitcase when you come visit!)

The entry from the front door into the living room. Loving all the wood trim detail!

Another shot from the living room (with Jake in the foreground) showing the wood trim. Kitchen is in the background. Not visible in the picture are two big stacks of the wood flooring. We are using wide plank hickory. It's getting "acclimated" to the house and will probably be installed in 2 - 3 weeks.

The casita is getting shingles (taken today). The little door on the back is for the attached "garden shed" which was a great idea from Peter. Isn't it cute??

Inside the casita - the white squares on the ceiling are the infra-red radiant heat. It should keep this little space really cozy! We were going to paint the window trim in here, but have now decided to leave the wood. We'll be taking reservations in a few months! :-)

We needed to make sure that the middle window trim doesn't impede the "view from the bathtub" so we put it up on the plywood frame and moved it back and forth until it was just perfect! Such a lovely peaceful view in the background . . .

That pretty much catches us up. Leave a comment - we'd love to hear from you!

MK & Peter

September Update!

I looked at the date of our last blog entry and realize it's been a exactly a month since we've updated! How can that be??! Of course we've had a few other things keeping us busy along with the house - Katey & Greg's gorgeous wedding on 9/12 and our 4th anniversary on 9/4 just to name a couple. And then we do have Jake keeping us busy! Above he's enjoying the patio and the fact that he's 4 months old.

So what's been happening on the house project?? Lots of siding for one thing. Here's the (nearly) finished east wall of the master bath - all stained and ready for the shingles to be added.

All the sheetrock now has been taped, mudded, primed and textured. And the ceilings actually have their final paint color applied. It's hard to see in the picture, but there is a color on the ceiling - Palace White. This is taken from the east end of the living/dining space looking toward the door that goes out onto the covered patio. We've just about nailed down all the other color choices - NOT an easy task!

Here's the 'exercise/pool' building - all sided and stained.

And this picture shows the back of the house (with Jake nearly getting into the picture in the lower left corner). Currently they are working on the garage and front of the house siding. Shingles will be next along with the last few doors and finishing up the window trims.

Inside, things are really shaping up. We've made the final selections on the wood trim for windows and the doors and are madly trying to finalize tile and counter selections and patterns. The cabinet and cupboard construction is underway and I think our next assignment (aka weekend homework!) are the inside door handles and all the various drawer and cupboard door pulls/handles. Yesterday Peter talked with the landscape architect about prepping for lawn. I guess if we can get it in by Halloween we'll have green grass in the spring! It's all getting very exciting watching the myriad of decisions we've made over the past 2 and a half years coming together to create our home!

What a difference sheetrock makes!

Sheetrock arrives! I guess it's better to get it upstairs through a window than having to carry it up the stairs. . .

This is kind of an odd angle - but basically looking from the window that the sheetrock came through into one of the guest bedroom. In the middle are the back to back guest closets. Obviously that's now a sheetrocked wall. Everything's been sheetrocked and the upstairs has been taped. You can really feel the space of the rooms - and we love it!

Sheetrocked garage.

Yup - we have a puppy door. It's a BIG step down right now! Need another step I think.

Current view of the back side of the house - all windows are in and shingles and siding should start next week!

We are insulated!

Over the past week or so they have been putting in the insulation. The first step is shown in this picture where they blow what ends up looking like light yellow plastic on all the outside walls . It's all non-toxic though and will keep us airtight! Then all the walls are encased in a sort of webbing like fabric and the insulation is blown in (see bottom picture). This is, of course, not the technical description of the process!

It really made a huge difference in how QUIET the house is now.

Installing the flagpole

My brother Kurt and his buddy Bruce came through on Friday evening, returning from a (successful!) week of fishing in Canada. Great to have the extra man-power to get the flagpole up. It was definitely a 3-man job!

Puppy 'Jake' was on hand to ensure it was set straight! It looks great and will handle at least a couple of flags . . . we're thinking it will be an excellent way to keep the family Husky/Cougar rivalry going. I wonder if there's a flag that's purple/gold on one side and crimson/grey on the other??

Flooring Process

This is one of the manifolds for the tubing in the floor heating system. We're thinking this spot in the hallway might the warmest place in the house!

This shows what the entire main floor and upstairs looked like with the tubing winding its way through each room.

Here's Peter in the downstairs 'mechanical room'. Note that this has our very first finished wall! Lots of levers, faucets, tubing, etc. The boiler will be located here - which will heat the floors.

And this is what all the floors looked like today! All the tubing is now encased in concrete - ready for the plywood and final flooring!

Finally! An update . . .

Okay, okay -- I know I have been VERY remiss in keeping the blog updated.  So since I completely missed a June update - here's a quick recap of the current happenings.  The above picture is my "Banker Girls Book Club" enjoying a quick sip of champagne on our way to our book club event (aka wine club) at Mt Baker.  

This was taken a few weeks ago - but shows that we are fully roofed!  The last little piece was the connector breezeway between the house and the pool/exercise room.  We are really pleased with how it's all come together!

There has to be miles and miles of wire throughout the house - every size, every color!  This is in the garage.  Electrical work is pretty much done - once the windows are all in the inspection can take place.  The light cans are in and places EXACTLY in the right spot - Peter can see a quarter inch variance!  

Yahoo!  We are currently in the process of window installation!  This was taken today (7/16).  The big window on the upper level over the front door will be the last to go in as that's where all the sheetrock will be coming in through.  

Casita is fully "windowed" - really make it feel cozy!  All the windows and exterior doors should be in in the next week or so.  Whew - that pretty much catches you up on our progress!