Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Another short update, but with pictures!

Spoke with the PM on Monday and he is fine with leaving the shutters off the stone.  Woohoo!!

He asked the husband to stop by today because the stain-guy was there, working on our stain for the stairs/handrails.  It looks good, at least from my husband's smartphone photos (see below).  I'm excited to see it on the gorgeous stairs (see further below).



The center bit is our flooring - maple cocoa brown. 
Not a perfect match, of course, since it's two different wood types, but I think it's really close.
Pretty much exactly what I wanted and hoped for.
  
Soon to look even awesomer (as if that's possible).
Apparently the railing for the 2nd floor wasn't delivered, so we're waiting on that.


Other news: upper cabinets are installed, along with hardware.  The hardware's a little plain, but hey, at least the holes are there now.  We can always change it out at some time in the future.  The husband is not pleased with the cultured marble vanity tops in the bathrooms, but I pretty much knew that would happen.  Right now we have a beautiful piece of granite in our main bath (the only full bath in our current house), and we're spoiled.  So, changing those out for granite will be another DIY project on the list (he says sooner rather than later).  [We loved the kitchen granite options that RH had, but not the bathroom ones.  We were rather unhappy to find that we couldn't have the kitchen granite in our bathrooms.  So, we went with the standard cultured marble in expectation of changing it out sometime in the future.]  Also, trim is up - AWESOME!  I cannot wait to see it painted.  We requested the lower trim and wall below the chair rail in the dining room to be painted all white with the trim paint.  I think it'll make it look more like full-on paneling.  Our friends (who recently built with a custom builder) have this effect on the wall beneath their kitchen counter-bar/overhang and it looks super-rich and awesome.  I do like it the other way, too, with the wall painted with color and the trim white - makes the trim pop.  Regardless of color though, the trim looks amazing.  It looks amazing now with just primer on it!  Crown molding is also installed in the finished basement areas - including the half bath down there!  Apparently, it's a super formal half bath. 

Oh, in the picture directly below of the dining room, you can see where the trim installers and electrical guys obviously had a falling out - there's an outlet that has a piece of trim running directly through the middle!  Ha ha!  PM is already aware of it and will be getting it fixed.



Dining Room - upgraded trim package.  Worth every penny.
All of the trim and wall below the chair rail will be painted trim-white.


Dining Room Ceiling - no space for uplighting/rope lighting, but it'll still be awesome.

An example of the rest of the crown molding trim on the first floor (actually in the study).
Will be painted white, including the wall between trim pieces.

The stone on our fireplace that we were questioning will be fixed, and we found a few rough areas on the ceiling where the stucco material didn't seem to be quite knocked-down enough.  All things that I'm sure the PM will handle in time.  Now to wait for everything else to come together.

We won't be able to visit the house this weekend (major bummer for me, since there's no way I can leave work to check out the inside during the day).  Oh well.  Guess it'll be even more of a surprise when I do get to visit next!

*UPDATE for Nadase*
(And anyone else who is interested...)


Below are pics of knock down ceilings and the standard ceilings that we would have gotten.  I know some others have talked about ceilings before, but I don't know if anyone has shown pics of the knock down.  As for the slurry textured walls in the garage - last time I was there the garage wasn't textured yet.  However, we have a similar texture in our closets, so you might as well.

Knock Down Ceilings


Example of Non-Knock Down Ceilings (stolen from a website -source.  Looks strange because it's B&W)
This would be the standard ceiling in my community.


9 comments:

  1. Everything looks very nice! Isn't it a pleasure to see everything coming together!? lol smiley face

    Btw-what is a slurry textured garage and knock down ceiling?

    You are right the trim package is awesome, it really gives the dining room a face lift.

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    1. It's great to see it come to life, finally!

      A slurry textured garage is essentially the same type of texture that's on the inside of your closets. Well, I imagine it's on the inside of your closets, since it's in ours. I'll have to take a pic sometime and post it. See above for a pic of the knock down ceiling - it's similar to the regular stucco-like ceiling, except they smooth it out slightly while the medium is still wet. Just a different finished look.

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    2. Our ceilings are knock-down stipple, and I was the one posting about them (before they were knocked down LOL). I'm ok with them now that everything is painted.

      We don't have any textured walls in our closets or garage. Our closet walls are smooth, and our garage comes partially finished - drywall taped with one coat of mud, unsanded. Hubby asked the other day if he could paint the walls in the garage right after we moved in... Only if you feel like sanding and finishing drywall first :). He didn't realize they won't be finished (all the way).

      Your house looks great! I love the railings! Can't wait to see it all come together!

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    3. Oh and did you check out your fireplace yet? I really hope it looks nice :)

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    4. Aand M - I knew you were the one who posted about your ceiling, but after your post on the perils of blogging, I was reluctant to reference you directly (hence why I went to google to find an example of the ceiling texture). Did they knock down your ceilings afterward?

      I know the slurry texture for us for the garage was an added cost, but there was no way we were going to do that work ourselves! So we decided to have it done in advance. I don't know if it's painted though...that's something to ask my PM.

      Also, I haven't seen the fireplace, but the husband had and he said the mortar is not a straight line but he thinks it looks okay. So...we'll see I guess.

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  2. Looks great and I love the crown molding and dining room trim!

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    Replies
    1. Thanks! It's definitely one of the things we've been looking forward to. One of the reasons why we chose this floorplan was for the formal dining room - my in-laws use theirs all the time and I hope we will as well.

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