August 21, 2013: Sneak Peak

Ryan was in Nashville this week for work and drove by the house to see its progress.  Here are some of the pictures he took:

A view of the back of our house

The garage from the alley

Another garage view

Side of the house

Front yard with our new landscaping

Front of the house from the street

A sneak peak of the house from the front door

And from the back door

Ryan's office above the garage

A view into the garage bathroom

Looking downstairs from the garage office

Where our cars will live

We are headed "home" (or at least back to Nashville) tomorrow.  We will stay in a hotel until we can move in on the 31st!!!!!  We are so close!  Monday is our home inspection, so expect lots of pictures.  Then, Tuesday we have a walk through of the main house with the builders, so that means everything should be officially complete on Tuesday in the main house.  Friday is the garage walk through with the builders.  And, Saturday is moving day!!!!!  They are a little behind schedule (big surprise, right?), so we won't close until the following week, but they are being extremely generous and letting us move in before we close.  Hey - a home and no mortgage - we aren't complaining!

August 6, 2013: Less than a month

Can you believe that we are going to have a house in less than a month????  Jenn (the builder's representative) was nice enough to take some pictures today, while she was waiting for Lowe's to take measurements for our blinds (by the way, we went with cellular shades).  The house is really coming together.  We couldn't be happier with our finish choices:

Here's the covered back porch.  The yellow building is our garage (to be painted soon)

Here's the butler's pantry.  A wine fridge will go in the open spot.  You can see the grey color we chose for the walls.

Here's the dining room.  Besides another coat of paint, it looks pretty complete.  Through the door you can see the butler's pantry

A close up of the dining room light fixture.  

The fireplace with built-ins now complete

We thought we might put our TV in the built-ins instead of above the fireplace, but that's before we knew what they would look like...we'd have to get a pretty small TV to make that idea work.

A closeup of the kitchen countertops.

The downstairs guestroom with ceiling fan installed.

The staircase all stained and finished

Upstairs guest bathroom.  I was a little worried it would look to white, but I love it!

Upstairs bedroom with 1st coat of paint

Kitchen and living room

A nice view of the sink, faucet and lights in the kitchen.  A dishwasher will go in the opening by the sink.

The tall opening to the left will be the frige and the other openings to the right will house the oven and microwave

Our cooktop and hood...Isn't it pretty????  you can also see the floating shelves.  The entire area behind will be tiled up to the ceiling with white subway tiles.

As you can see, plenty of seating area at the island.

Master bedroom

Master closet built-ins

And more master closet built-ins. After living out of a suitcase for 9+ months, it's going to be a shock to be reunited with all of our clothes.

Master toilet

Master bathroom.  

Mud room built-ins

Baxter's playroom

A view of the staircase with light fixtures.

Upstairs guest bedroom.

July 25, 2013: It's starting to look pretty!

Don't get me wrong, seeing an empty lot turn into a house is pretty amazing...especially when you've been houseless for over 8 months.  But, drywall is only so exciting.  And, plywood -  even less exciting.  But, tile - now the fun has started!  Ryan was able to go by the house yesterday, while he was working in Nashville, and here's what's happening:

This is the flex room, which will be Baxter's playroom.  The wood floors are all installed.  They still need to be stained and finished, but much better than plywood.

Here's one of the spare bedroom closets.  3 bedroom closets will look like this (the master is different)

Another view of our floors.

The staircase.

And the staircase again

Living room, with the newly tiled fireplace

And, a close-up of that gorgeous fireplace

The downstairs guest bath.  If you look closely, you can see the hex tile hidden beneath the protective paper.  

The upstairs bathroom.  We used the same tile combo in this bathroom.

The master shower and bath.  We used a slightly larger subway tile here.  Originally, we were going to do grey subway tiles on the tub/shower and grey penny tiles on the floor, but switched to white once we saw the price.  

Here's a peek of the penny tiled floor.  

Here's the laundry/mud room, getting some built in storage.  Good timing, since Baxter's new backpack arrived this week...it now has the perfect home.

Our last look...for a while

Ok, so here are way more pictures that you want to see, but I took them, so I thought I'd post them.  We are headed to North Carolina tomorrow, and will be there until the house is complete (August 30), so this will be it for a while.  Ryan will be in and out of Nashville, so we might get some stray photos during those trips.  But, as you can see, we have drywall,so the house is really coming together!

Here is a view of the living room from the kitchen.  As you can see, the living room overlooks the back yard (or the garage, which takes up the majority of our backyard)

Another view of the living room.  And while you're looking at all these lovely windows, I'd love some ideas for blinds/shutters.  We are thinking maybe plantation shutters in this room only, but are open to any and all ideas.

Another living room view.  There will be built-ins on either side of the fireplace.

Here's a view of the kitchen, from the living room.  You can see the exhaust pipe - this is where our stove will be.  On the wall with the window, we will have oven/microwave combo and refrigerator.  And there will be an island with sink and dishwasher where the buckets are.

Here's a view of the kitchen looking into the dining room.

Here's our laundry/ mudroom, which will get built-in storage on the wall to the left

This will be Baxter's playroom

Another view of the playroom, looking into a nice size storage closet

And, the playroom from yet another angle. 

Here's a view from the back of the house, looking towards the front door.  The doorway on the left is the powder room.

Check out this huge pantry!  One of my favorite features of the house!

And, across from the pantry is this butler's pantry, which will house our wine fridge

And, right through the pantry / butler's pantry is the dining room.

Another view of the dining room

This is the ceiling in the dining room.  Our chandelier will hang from the very top.  This lets in a ton of light.

Dining room

Here is the hallway, looking from the front door back.  That is the dining room on the left.  And guest room to the right.

First floor guest room

Another view of the guest room

Guest room closet.  To the left you can see the guest room bath.

A better view of the guest room bath

Staircase...anyone have some good baby gate ideas?  There will be a breadloaf ??? railing on the left.  I hate to drill into the railing for something so temporary, but I'm thinking it might be a necessity.

Here's the top of the staircase and our GC.  I'm soliciting baby gate ideas for up here too.

Baxter's room

Baxter's closet

Another view of Baxter's room

Baxter's bathroom

Linen closet??? I actually don't remember what this is.

Upstairs guest room

Upstairs guest room closet

This is a picture from the back of the 2nd floor looking towards the front.

Our master bedroom

Geez, our neighbors sure are close...window treatment ideas?

View from the master bedroom into the master bath.

Master bath (toilet)

Master bath

master bath

Master bath

Master closet

Ryan's office above the garage

Garage office

Garage office

Garage office

Garage office

The framed out space to the right will be the garage bathroom

Here's another view of the garage bathroom

So, let me know your thoughts on window treatments.  And, baby gates.  And, any other thought you have....
I've got 1 1/2 months in North Carolina to organize all my decorating and finishing ideas.  We want to get settled as quickly as possible, once we are able to move in.