Thursday, October 30, 2008

Ready to Move In -- Wk 70, Oct 26 - Nov 1, 2008

Did you think you'd never hear from us again?! It has been about 5 weeks since the last update. During that time I took very few pictures because I realized that they all looked alike. Now we are truly ready to move in, so I thought I would document the empty but finished house.

So here we are as you drive in the driveway.


I drove into the shop yesterday using this entrance. Even with the truck inside, it felt really big in there. I wanted to drive on through, but Trout didn't want to open the other door.


These pictures were taken late in the day, so you can see the difference in the color of the shop on the east side and here on the west side.

Trout decided to paint his entry doors blue like the house, so I followed suit with blue for the garage door. Making it the same color as the wall was just too plain.


Our landscape designer, Scott, met us out at the house yesterday and we went over his design. It's not exactly what we had in mind, but there definitely were elements of it that I loved. The best part is that the walled area that will need to be maintained is pretty small.

Note how purple the wall to the left (west) of the fireplace looks in this picture. This is pretty accurate to what I was seeing when I took it.

Yes, this is the same green all the way around. Somehow I lost this picture when I was typing, so I had to add it back in and move it so you won't be able to click on it to make it bigger.
Now it's time to go inside. One of the first landscaping things we need to do is stabilize the front driveway. This is to keep as much dust out of the house as possible. The floor is the color of the dirt, but not of the dry dirt, so it really shows footprints. We don't plan to ask people to take their shoes off, but we do plan to have plenty of options for them to walk off the dust before they come in. When the gas guy came, he stomped around on the porch to get some of it off before he came in -- just like you do with snow.
The horny toads greet us.



The curtain rods are up over all the house windows waiting for me to make the curtains.

The office is waiting for me to order the furniture for it.

The kitchen is waiting for something to fill the drawers, refrigerator and freezer, and Trout's anxious to use that dishwasher.

These pictures were taken late in the afternoon.

The floors are almost ready for some sofas and chairs. They were resealed on 10/24 and 10/31 is the magic date for starting to abuse them again. The key is to not drag stuff over the finish and to baby it for awhile like you would with high end wood floors.


The fireplace could use a TV and the log set up inside. And Trout could use a chair.

Now we shift to the master bath. I have a few mirrors on my vanity walls, but that's just the beginning.

Trout's vanity looks great just as it is, but this style of house can never have too much in the way of decoration. It may be awhile before he completes the new door for the linen closet.

This is the view from the master bath. I guess I'd better work on the curtains for here pretty soon.

There will be lots of room for art on the walls of the master bath.

This tub and toilet area are a good place as is the long wall opposite the toilet.

The shower turned out great. I can hardly wait to use it.


This is the door to the master suite -- closed.

And here it is open.

This is what we will see out one of the windows.

This is the other window from a different corner of the room.

And what we will see from the bed out the other window.

This pantry in the back hall way is waiting for oilcloth, Katrina and food.

This is the door into the laundry -- closed.

These are all laundry pictures. I should have enough light to see in here, I think.

We will remove the head banger protection once we get the washer and dryer in. They stick out farther than the shelf, so people should naturally go by there without hitting their heads.

There should be plenty of storage.

This is the door into the laundry from the garage.

The garage is pretty well cleaned up and ready to use as a staging area for moving in. The stack in the middle there is the IKEA closet pieces ready to be installed.

This is the mechanical wall with my gardening work sink.
And this is the shop, all ready for Trout to move in.

This shows the double doors from the shop into the garage.

This is the other end of the shop with Trout's stealth shop office.

And this is the finished shop bath. The mirror is an antique. It was from my parents' house and is at least 60 years old.


If you ever have problems installing one of these showers, be sure to try turning the door upside down. Magnets hold it closed and the builder simply couldn't get it to close. It cost him about $200 to find out that the positive magnets were pushing each other apart.
So we actually have 3 bathrooms. Trout will be responsible for keeping the shop one clean. The guest one is my responsibility. It's waiting for soap, towels, a few more skeletons and you.


The guest bedroom is also waiting for you. I guess I'd better work on these curtains, too. So far we are only booked for December 11 - 26, 2008.


One of our builder's trademarks is that he always provides an address monument. He didn't tell us what ours would be like. We love it. Those critters are horny toads, of course.


Things are wrapping up with the bank and we should be signing papers in the next few workdays. The floor is curing and we should be able to move some stuff in over the weekend.