Friday, September 30, 2016

Late Summer Showers

Our Precious Daughter will be marrying her Handsome Beau in just a few short weeks!  We are so excited for the both of them!!
This summer has been very busy for them and especially for our daughter.  She finished up her doctoral program in Plant Science and defended her dissertation the first of July.  By the end of that month, she was offered a position as a scientist at an agriculture company in our area.  She's been finishing up wedding plans, preparing her house to sell, starting her new job and looking for a new home.  Her hubby-to-be has been wonderfully supportive and helpful and quite busy himself.  They will be married in the same city where she attended college.  He continues to live there for now.  He is in agriculture chemical sales and his area encompasses both the city in which he lives and our area. 


Even though she's been extremely busy, she has taken a few moments to celebrate.  She's been the guest of honor at two wedding showers.  One in St. Louis, MO. and one in Collierville, TN.  I wanted to share some photos from each.
The STL shower was hosted by my sister and cousin at a beautiful country club.  
It was just family and the bridesmaids who were in town.  (She will be having 6 attendants!)
     

The second shower was in Collierville, TN this past weekend.  There were many friends and relatives in attendance and was hosted in the lovely home of a good friend of the Mother-in-Law-To-Be.  We were glad that Grandma could make the trip with us!
Precious Daughter with her MIL-to-be and Almost Aunt
A quick selfie with Mom.

The Bride with both of her moms!
I think this lady feels pretty special after being SHOWERED with so much love and 
so many lovely gifts.
  We are all wishing these two MANY years of happiness!

Thanks for visiting!

Zenda


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Sunday, September 4, 2016

A Little Drama and a Whole Lot of Progress

These last two weeks have been eventful and a bit stressful but we continue to make good progress on the new house.
We had a bit of drama this week.  I received the updated counter top bid after the final measurements.  The price literally doubled from the original bid in January!  We hadn't signed a contract and it wouldn't have been valid after so many months, however, I was shocked the increase was so dramatic!  We spent the next day finding a different supplier and the new Silestone quartz choices are quite similar to my original choices.  The perimeter counters will be Arabesque 
Source
and the island will have Calypso
Source

These won't be installed now until the first week of October.  Hopefully most of the other work will be complete by then and we won't be delayed too long.

 The exciting news includes the fascia, soffit and gutter work was completed  and now the exterior looks more finished. 
We've had a lot of storms this summer and J had been worried rain might blow up under the eaves.  Now that this work is done, he just has to install the underground guttering to drain the rainwater away from the house.  He's been 'itching' to do some dirt work so that will probably happen this week.

 The soffit guys also installed the pine boards in the ceiling of the grilling patio.  
They did a great job but J and Favorite Son finished the trim work.  
Now all we need is the concrete poured.

 Inside work included installation of the cabinets!  I just love them!! Here, the cabinet guys are installing them. 
The kitchen cabinets are a soft white and I love how they look with the wood floors!
The base cabinets in the great room were installed and will be painted white when the shelving units above them are finished.  This room is a lot bigger than I originally thought.  I will certainly have plenty of storage space!
The cabinets in my craft room were also delivered.  These were built by a different craftsman and I will paint them myself.  (Look how dusty my beautiful floors are!  Yikes!!)
Our shower stall was added.  Although we really like it, we noticed a couple of problems and will have the installers come back to fix our concerns.  I'm pleased with the over all look, though.
The last addition this past week was the accent wall in J's lodge room and WOW, is it stunning!!
J tore down an old barn years ago and has always wanted to use that wood some way in our new home.  He decided this room would be his so our finish carpenters worked on his wall this week.  We think it looks almost like a work of art!
I've been doing a little furniture shopping, as well.  We're planning on replacing the"existing seating" with something a bit more comfortable!!  Lol!

Thanks for stopping by and seeing what we've been up to.  I hope you are having a fun and safe holiday weekend!  We are planning to spend Monday on the lake with family.  Enjoy your first full week of September!
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Sunday, August 21, 2016

Brickwork Complete and Stained Floors

Our new house is really starting to come together.  This past week, the wood floors were installed and stained and the brick and stonework was completed. We hated to say "goodbye" to the masons as they have been working on our home for almost a month and J has enjoyed chatting with them.  Everyday, he would come home with several interesting tidbits they shared.  They have done a beautiful job, too, and we just love the exterior of our home!

You've seen the front but here it is again.
The walk-out basement was covered in stone veneer.
We like this look better than leaving the concrete exposed or painting it.  The masons had to attach a wire mesh into the concrete wall, then mortar the stones in place.  It took a few extra days but, in the end, I think we will really be glad we chose this option.  I can't wait until we get some landscaping in!

 This shows the rear of the house.  You can see our grilling area on the left with the outdoor fireplace.  J is really excited about this space!
J will build a new mantle for this fireplace.  The one in our current home is too long.  He has plans to cook in this fireplace, as well as use it to warm the area on cool nights.
The masons helped him set this fir beam.  The pine boards we stained several weeks ago 
will be used to create the ceiling for this outdoor patio.  We hope the gutter/soffit/fascia guy comes this week to finish this up.  We still need the have the rest of the concrete poured.

The other milestone completed this week was the staining of the wood floors!  I am so pleased with the color!!  It's a warm brown and will be a good contrast for our golden oak dining room furniture.  I just can't part with it.  :)
This is the great room
and this is the kitchen.

On Monday, the flooring guys will be back to install the vinyl in the bathrooms, laundry and the finished rooms in the basement.  We are having LVT (luxury vinyl tiles).  Vinyl flooring has come a LONG way in 25 years!  And then Thursday the cabinet maker will deliver and install the cabinetry!!  Stay tuned!!

Thanks so much for joining us on our journey!  I appreciate your comments and encouragement.  It's a long process but slowly, steadily, we are getting there!  I'll post again at the end of the week and hopefully have some more goodies to share.

                                                      Zenda


Joining these great parties:

Amaze Me Monday
Dishing It and Digging It
Metamorphosis Monday
Make It Pretty Monday
Tuesdays At Our Home
The Scoop
Home Matters
Share Your Cup
Thoughts on Home on Thursday
Home Sweet Home
Sweet Inspirations




  
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Sunday, August 14, 2016

A Garage Door and New Floors

Progress continues on our new home.  Late last week, the garage door installer did his thing and here's the finished product!
The picture below was taken later in the afternoon and it's a bit brighter in the sunshine.
It's so nice to be able to close the door at night and not worry about the rain damaging anything that's being stored there.

 Also, the wood floors went in this week!
These pictures were taken after the first day of installation.  

 The brick layers have finished bricking the exterior, too!  
The large Douglas fir beam wwill set into place in the patio grilling area.  J plans to use some of his heavy equipment as the men steady the beam onto it's supports.  The masons will then brick the beam into place.  They plan to finish this area this week. Finally, they will add stone veneer to the walkout side of the basement.  Those guys have been here so long, we've gotten to know them pretty well. We'll really miss them when they're done!

 J did have a mishap Friday afternoon. He stepped off the front porch and twisted his ankle. He was lucky it wasn't worse but his ankle has bothered him a bit.  It's hard to keep a good man down!
Finally, J and I worked in his 'lodge' area this weekend putting up the particle board that his barn siding will be attached to.  He is pretty good at measuring and cutting and the boards went together perfectly!  I hope the siding goes up as well!  We still need to clean the boards before we bring them in but that will be a project for later on.  

 This weekend is Precious Daughter's first wedding shower.  Her Mother-in-law-to-be will be coming in so we plan to spend time doing fun things other than working on the house!!  

 Thanks for visiting and I hope you are enjoying these last weeks of summer!
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Tuesday, August 2, 2016

A Leak?!

Last week started with a driving rain storm.  It hit in the wee hours of Monday morning and sent Wonderful Hubby to the new house making sure the doors were secure.  While there, he noticed a small amount of water in one of the craft room corners.  He called the roofing man (yes, at 2:30 in the morning!).  Roofing Man came right out and they figured the water must have come in through an unsecured piece of flashing.  He came later in the morning (when it was light and not raining!) to add more flashing.  We are so fortunate to be working with good people who stand behind their work!  There was no damage to the drywall or paint and, thankfully, the wood floors won't be installed until next week (August 8).  

 The exterior work continues.  The brick layers had to move to another job briefly but have returned and are working on the back of the house now. The Gutter Guy will come and add the gutters and soffits when the brick layers finish, hopefully next week.  This addition will also help keep the rain out. 

 We met with our finish carpentry men.  We discussed my vision for the built-in bookshelves in the great room.  It was decided to have our cabinet maker build the base cabinets and the finish carpenters would build the shelves above.  Our cabinet maker is pretty booked up but thought they could get them finished (unpainted) by the installation target date of August 25th. This is what I'd like them to look like.

Another milestone that happen last week was that the air conditioning was turned on...and it works beautifully!  Our system also has a humidifier/dehumidifier attached.  We can set the temperature we want AND the humidity level and the system takes care of it!  This is especially helpful for the installation of our wood floors.  Missouri summers are quite hot and humid and this summer has been especially humid.  This July was the fourth wettest on record in our area. Our installers had a humidity goal for us to work toward before they would begin putting the wood floors in.  

We also had another reason to get the AC up and going.  After the last rain, we noticed a lot of moisture on the basement walls.  Since the drywall has just been finished, it was very important to get that extra moisture out!  We purchased a portable dehumidifier to help speed up the process and it is so much nicer in the house now!  

This weekend, J decided we could stain the wood planks that will be on the ceiling of the grilling patio.  So, that's what we did.  We just finished this morning and I must say, they look pretty good!  
The Garage Door Man comes tomorrow so hopefully, I'll share that next post!  I'll be placing the order for our lights this afternoon.  

 We continue to have our home on the market and have had a few showings.  Several have come back for a second showing but no offers as of yet.  

 August will be a busy month for the interior.  I'll try to find time to keep up with my posts.  Thanks to those of you who visit and leave a comment.  

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