framing almost finished!

here is the current tour of the home! A little wet from the rain/snow we just got but here it is still!

Pic 1 is the living room on the right moving into the screen/glass porch on the left. That entire opening in between will be a glass door. Pic 2 is the view from our master currently :). The ceiling will be left vaulted with exposed beams..but not this exposed. Pic 3 is walking up the stair well from the basement to main floor. It juts out about a foot from the rest of the house elevation which is pretty awesome and makes for an open stairway with lots of light! Pic 4 is the

living room from view of kitchen. In between the seriously large windows will be the fireplace. Pic 5 is the screen porch. Below the railing will be tempered glass and above will be screen. What a view! This is shaping up to be one of my favorite rooms in the house. This view is from the living room and you can also enter on the left through the kitch/dining through a sliding glass door as well. Pic 6 is standing on the screen porch looking through the sliding glass opening into the kitch and dining. Dining extends out to right and kitchen extends left.

Enjoy! We are so excited as it gets closer to us being able to be in it and share it with others!

Weighing in on Island Pendants...

Ok so we need a vote going on here.... I am looking at island pendants...keeping in mind my previous post or two ago that the random light by Moooi will be in the dining here are my pendant light choices for the kitchen island (which is 9 feet long, will probably hang 3 of them). Leave a comment with your vote!

1. Conic Pendant 83$ from Eurway. It is a knock off of the FLOS pendant which is over 300$ each!

2. Burst pendant 95$ from Eurway.

3. Ball pendant from One stop modern 125$. Also Robert sonneman globe pendants at ylighting for 100 which look similar

4. ET2 caps mini pendant 56$ allmodernlighting.com

5. Et2 mini pendant in white 46$ from allmodernlighting.com

what a wall

So framing is almost totally done with the exception of the master bathroom and one wall on the 3rd floor and the stair bump out (seen here). It looks ginormous to me! The only room that seems small to me so far is the playroom but that's ok. Snow has now fallen on the house and J spent the day today renting a chainsaw and cutting down half fallen trees in the back. Saved a whopping 1000$ we were quoted and just spent 50 on the rental of the chainsaw. Hopefully this thing will be roofed in a little after Christmas! The next challenge will be pouring concrete over the garage for the floor of the screened/glassed in porch on the main floor. Our builder is up for it so we are moving forward, it is going to be awesome! Can't wait to see a roof and some drywall and siding on this bad boy!

a framing we will go...

FINALLY! Walls are up in the basement and framed in and the first floor/main floor is framed as well! It passed the flooring inspection for the floor over the basement and the playroom/kitch/living/dining is all framed (or lack there of). It is so open which is nice. Not a lot of interior walls on the main floor which i love. I learned a lot of things about the house now that it is actually 3D or 4D or whatever you call it now. THE WINDOWS ARE HUGE! Which is great... The playroom is not as big as it was in my imagination but they don't need a lot of space. The living room is wayyy bigger than I imagined and the Kitchen Dining is going to be my favorite place in the house for sure. Pretty pumped about the mudroom too. The screened in porch is going to be awesome. Hopefully the 2nd floor (3rd sort of if you count the basement) Will be going up tomorrow or Wednesday. This is the first week in 3 months that we have no forecast of rain for the weekdays. I don't have pics of the 2nd floor yet so I'll post soon. There were so many workers around today and i am sure they think i am Loco with my huge camera out there all the time, so I will wait until theyre gone today ;)

So pumped this thing is taking shape!

light decisions still in process....

so i think we have decided to do 4 inch cans instead of six. The six inch ones jump off the ceiling a little too much for us.... I LOVE this Moooi Random light in white for over our dining room table. I think it is very "modern natural" ish and a conversation piece for sure. I think it won't distract from the glass wall behind it and the view, so it would look awesome i think! I've included a pic of the dining room table I will get from Crate and Barrel (the Big Sur) but I would love to find a woodworker in the area to make something like this, so if you know anyone in NC let me know! Otherwise I'll suck it up and not buy locally...

fixture decisions

AHH it makes me nervous that we have started deciding things! We went to the plumber today and selected our fixtures. Here is what we came away with

Moen 6100 Level for the sinks (which we will attach to a basin). Toto dual flush Aquia with soft close feature and with removable lid and seat (WOW) for easy cleaning! Only 300$ which was surprising! We went with the Danze Parma commercial looking faucet for the kitchen sink with the pull down handle which i am so pumped about! It was also under 300$. We went with the Artisan sink basin shown here in the chef pro series, undermount with a single HUGE basin, 30x17 i believe which was WAY cheaper almost 1/3 cheaper than going with the awesome Blanco sink which is basically identical. For our master shower we got a 7" rainhead ceiling mount and a handheld showerhead on a bar that can double as a body spray if you lower the bar. I don't remember the manufacturer of those. It is coming together and I hope all of our selections work together! Doing a fiberglass basin and standard faucet in the laundry and just a single basin and standard faucet in the basement. It is scary making these final decisions but lots of fun. Our 3 year old did great in the 3 hour meeting and thanks be to the iPhone with movies and games that kept her happy as could be!

here we go

SO the forms are off and the concrete is looking goooood on the basement walls which is good because they will be exposed! The door that the bulldozer is in front of, I didnt realize how huge it is until you see the opening for it! 8 feet of a glass door is going to be nice! I know the garage is going to turn out cool but I just learned how it works (didn't i tell you plans make no sense to me?) There is an overhang which is what the rectangular opening to the right is but that is not where the garage door will go, it is set back a few feet! I had no idea, but i am pumped to see how it turns out. We are going to put some recessed lighting in between the opening and the garage door so that will look cool.

Hmm... i am ready for framing :)

Taking shape

Finally! A footprint of our house is in the ground and starting to take shape. The forms are up and as you can see in the first picture, the concrete is pouring in as we speak! I am so so excited! Even though it looks like a bunker at the moment, it helps me (the non visual one of the two of us) see what it is going to look like a little more than the 2d plans! J and I actually braved the red mud last night and walked all around in it and outside of it! I cannot wait!

On another note, the windows and slider doors are ordered! We went with casements from Integrity by Martin and Sliders by weathershield. We came in about a penny under budget so that is good too! That is my goal in this project. I have watched so many HGTV home reno's where they go 10, 20 50K$ over budget! Are you crazy? Not this project! can't wait to see the framing start!

Front Door

So I really want a cool front door, it is the first experience of the home moving from the outside in so it should make a statement I think. Now, we don't want to go with the cold/modern/steel doors like the gorgeous ones from Neoporte. They are a little tooo modern for me, and not to mention almost $10K!! Here are some pics of ones I like. What do you think? How do you go about getting doors like these???

The Glass house

So until I met with the window guy I didn't quite grasp the amount of windows in this house! In our current rental home, I am sitting on the couch (there are some windows behind me) but from where i sit right now I can see NO windows looking into the foyer or kitchen. It is going to be culture shock when we move in. There is pretty much windows on most walls in the home. And I am not just talking windows, I am talking 6 foot windows, 9 foot windows, and 1 foot sliding glass doors. I might have to start calling it the glass house! That is J's dream, I am adjusting to it! Ha. I always tell J that I am not good at looking at 2D plans, I need 3 d pictures, well it appeared so when the window guy was like ok and for these 9 foot windows? I was like wait, 9 feet of windows? WOW! So I learned a few things, 1. I am about to live in a fishbowl 2. we will have great views of the trees. 3. I cannot understand scale in regards to plans. 4. I need to start saving for blinds :)

In other news, the house is totally gone, it is a huge dirt hole that is all leveled out at the bottom. The well is being dug this week and several trees were taken down and it really opens up things a lot (while still keeping a 360degree view of trees.

and the walls came tumbling down....

the long awaited demo! We went out to the property today hoping to see them widening the drive so that the trucks could start coming in but we found this! Within about 30 minutes most of the top floor of the split level and kitch/dining/living was in a heap. Pretty awesome to watch!

natural modern: tree project

So our theme for the house is natural modern. We want to blend elements of modern but not the all concrete steel modern, but a warmer modern. Also due to the lot style and "tree house" feel, we want to bring outside elements in. So we have to cut a few trees down to work with the house. One HUGE tree is a three pronged tree that is leaning so it will have to go but it is HUGE, i mean HUGE. So we wanted to do something cool instead of just have it hauled off. We would love some outdoor benches made and possibly even some cool side tables/short stools made out of it for outdoor or indoor use. Check out the pics. Anyone know anybody in NC that could do something like these pics from a big hunk of tree?

case closed!

long awaited closing at 9am tomorrow. FINALLY. I am ready to get this thing rolling!

the day of cabinets....

WOW. 9am - 3pm. 2 cabinet distributors and 1 woodworker. I am pretty pumped because we are narrowing it down and have decided on the dark grey like before but with a woodgrain showing. We are going to do an oak (veneer) with a dark gray stain with a vertical grain, i think it is called a rift. So it is not the swirly wood grain look but a linear grain, similar to the picture. I AM PUMPED! Waiting on quotes from 3 people and i hope the little woodworking shop we visited works out. I am all about helping the local guy who is literally cutting our cabinets 20 miles from our house! Love it.

got mail?

So I know this decision is way far out, but I found myself looking for mailboxes tonight and landed on the jackpot of coolness. Our house is on a curve of a residential street so we need something that stands out a little bit. As well as the fact that the mailbox is essentially the first thing you see about the house, so why not make it cool? Here are a few mailboxes i found. You pretty much have to go to New Zealand to find the modern ones, but luckily they are cheap comparitively and they ship to US :)

http://www.mailboxes.co.nz/ Check it out. The solar one is at Chiasso.com, we would just have to get that guy on a post, but that would help night visibility of the drive with the glowing numbers. Just thought you might want to see. The ones from new zealand are under 200$ surprisingly and you pick out of several colors the accent color.

schooled in pools

Wow, we have 3 days to finalize our pool bids. We have 3 on the table, 2 we are waiting for finalized specific price. We have been seriously schooled in pools. Here is some of the cool advice we got that is definitely being considered

• Don't do a dark bottomed pool in the woods, you want to be able to see the snakes if one gets in there (point well taken by me).
• Why do a 3-6 ft depth pool? What can you do in 6 ft deep other than tread water? You have to have 8 feet pretty much to dive which our space doesn't really allow, so who has ever heard of a sport pool? Well that is what we are shooting for. It goes from the sun ledge to 3 ft to 4 1/2 feet then the center of the pool is 5-51/2 feet and the other end of the pool goes back up to 41/2 feet. Perfect for volleyball, basket ball and minimal water treading.
• These 1ft deep areas of a pool everyone has a different name for: sun ledge, tanning ledge, mommy ledge, sun deck, lounge area, etc. Whatever it is called, we like it and it is going in! (4th picture is an example)
• Ever heard of scuppers? not me. Basically small shooting off fountains off the raised wall of the pool. Have to decide on scuppers vs/ water trickling down stone veneer wall. (third picture)
• You can add underwater stools, umbrella holders in the sun ledge, volleyball net anchors, and all sorts of craziness to your pool.
• Firepits are really inexpensive for pool guys to do and easy to "trick out" because they are already there with the material and a gas line running near the pool. YAY. I may be more excited about that than the pool.
• Lots more about salt vs. low chlorinated and heaters and lighting etc.

Second picture is a typical modern pool. We are trying to yet again blend modern and functional/natural. This picture although very clean and nice, it is not family functional or fun for entertaining. Plus for our space, it is very natural. So we don't want to overdo it in the sense of huge rocks everywhere and waterfalls but we want to blend clean design with functionality and a modern natural look. (first pic is pool design)

When it all comes down to it, we are super excited about the pool. We feel like this is going to be such a neat place to entertain and raise the kids and them enjoy having friends over. I think it will be a neat element that we can really share with others!

Now just to decide! There is only about a million ways you can go with even the same design!

First signs of progress...

House is GUTTED! seriously gutted. Apparently the 50 year old hardwoods in the house were oh so desirable and Habitat 4 humanity said if that is all they got out of the house the day would have been worth it! So H4H comes with a team of about 20. I would say a good 3/4 of these people were closer to the seniors population, which is awesome. From 8am-4pm they removed all appliances, all cabinetry, countertops, hardwood flooring which was through out the main and top floor, mirrors, toilets, doors, a few windows, fixtures, bathroom cabinetry, washer dryer, etc! I was impressed for sure! There were decades of wall paper behind the newer cabinetry. You could see as the decades progressed; 60's 70's and stopping in the 80's :) love it.

John and I have thought from the beginning of the project that we would like to use something from the old house in the new one. I think we have landed on the brick. It is pretty easy to get out (maybe since it is so old) but we considered where to use it; options were outdoor firepit surround, interior exposed brick wall, etc. I think we have landed on the entrance to the driveway to be a strip of brick from the house. We have not run this by our builder yet ;) but we think that would be a neat piece of old as you transition into the new.

Either way, I am glad things are starting to move. Demo permit CHECK. waiting on building and well permit. Hopefully demo in T minus 1 1/2 weeks!

roof dilemma

So john and I have been going back and forth over the roof. When the project began, we were going metal roof all the way. Then when we got into budget, we nixed it to spend that additional cost elsewhere. After seeing some pretty awesome houses with it on, it is back on the table. We go back and forth about it. My thought beyond that its gorgeous, is that since we are in such a wooded lot, would it help the leaves/sticks to slide right on off instead of stick right on the shingles and collect (which is what the current shingled room looks like-covered in leaves/pine straw/sticks). Also I think it lasts longer and is more durable. We are still going back and forth though...Do people other than us even notice roofs? Is the money more well spent on the interior? Any thoughts? Sadly, this decision has to be made sooner than later...

waiting game: OVER

Seriously I was getting done with the waiting game. Getting a construction loan was slightly painful after going through the whole process with one bank and finishing that process one week before demo date only to discover they decided not to do construction loans any more due to the market. UGH! So FINALLY process completed with bank #2, approved and start this week! Habitat for humanity will come Wednesday and take anything that is salvageable from the house. They take anything from doors, cabinets, windows, fixtures, appliances, etc. I am so glad it will be reused. Some of the stuff is in very good shape too! Sadly, the orange shag carpet in the basement that smells like 50 year old mildew will not be reused ;).

So take a good look, this lovely, 1950 split level will hopefully lord willing, not be there in one week!

Backsplash help!

Ok, so i have posted the kitchen inspiration pictures so keep the grey cabinets and white solid countertops in mind... We are totally torn when it comes to the backsplash, and by totally i mean totally. So please cast your vote, add your input and give us some advice!

1st pic is a grey glass mosaic from bourgetbros.com

2nd is a light blue liner glass mosaic from costco!

3rd is a grey subway tile that we could do in white or light blue

4th is a porcelain tile mimicing glass from Best Tile in the porcelainosa line.

Last pic is a soft blue tempered glass solid piece.

HELP!

playroom ideas

Now the playroom is one of the rooms I am most excited
about. It is about time to get all of these toys out of our living area!! Plus it will be fun for the kids to have a place where they can play together, create and enjoy. Now the playroom is currently set for hardwoods since it is on the main level and a future office type of room but I don't want the hardwoods destroyed by trucks, paint, sliding chairs, whatever. Any ideas for how to protect? I thought FLOR tiles which are a little pricey to do across the whole room, but may be worth it. Otherwise i guess just rugs. I love doing this square painting idea on the large wall. Love these colors too, very unisex for boy and girl! The next pic is the storage system I am looking at. Lastly, my only worry about how it will work in the house is the modern sliding "barn door" at the playroom. It is two barn doors sliding together for closure perpendicular, not parallel. I am just hoping the kids don't destroy it. But David- the architect- said we can put a lower track on it and make sure it doesnt slam together when it closes and it should work! Maybe we could even mount a chalkboard on the back of it for inside the playroom, or just paint a wall in that chalkboard paint which is pretty awesome! Should turn out to be lots of fun. Taking our kids into consideration, we may do half of the room in those foam blocks and mats! That would be pure heaven for them, now I just have to locate those!