Monthly Archives: January 2016

Week 34: Wall Colors & Wall Texture

Posted in Countertops, Flooring, Great Room, Kitchen, Paint by

This week we had to finalize our wall color selections.  My mom and I ended up going to check out the slabs (which we hadn’t seen in probably a good 5 months) to see if the wall color looked good with them.  We brought up a few different samples – the flooring color, trim/cabinetry color and a couple different wall colors.  And after our trip up to Woodinville to see the slabs we ended up selecting Farrow & Ball’s Cornforth White @ 50% for the main wall color.  We’ll have a few rooms painted different colors, but wanted a neutral gray for the rest of the house.  We have a winner!!

Trying to decide between paint colors and ended up choosing the one on the right - F&B's Cornforth White @ 50%.

Trying to decide between paint colors and ended up choosing the one on the right – F&B’s Cornforth White reduced to 50%.  Light & Airy!

The flooring we selected is Plank's European Oak - with the wall color, and then our slabs as a backdrop.

The flooring we selected is Plank’s European Oak – with the wall color, and then our slabs as a backdrop.

At the house this week, the painters were there and taped/plastic’d off all of the doors and windows which now makes the whole house feel REALLY dark.  Thank God we put in all the windows that we did to bring in lots of natural light.  And by Friday they were done with all of the texturing on the walls.  We ended up doing a light texture – nothing heavy.  Now it’s all ready for them to start painting on Monday!

The windows and doors are all covered in plastic - and spray texture!

The windows and doors are all covered in plastic – and spray texture!

It's so crazy how dark the rooms feel now - I can't wait to get all the plastic off the windows.

It’s so crazy how dark the rooms feel now – I can’t wait to get all the plastic off the windows.

Of course all Spencer wanted to do was rip the plastic off the windows! Not so fast buddy!

Of course all Spencer wanted to do was rip the plastic off the windows! Not so fast buddy!

Week 33: Drywall Taping, Tile Selections & Paint Colors

Posted in Doors, Drywall, Great Room, Great Room, Insulation, Office, Paint, Tile by

Drywall Taping & Mudding

This week, Matt had subs out there taping and mudding the drywall.  The house feels like a total disaster zone – there’s drywall mud EVERYWHERE.  So happy there’s all that paper down – can’t wait for that to get balled up and thrown away!  My mom and I were out there on Wednesday morning to drop some stuff off with Matt and after both of us putting our hands in wet drywall mud we were ready to head out of there.

Tile Selections

While the guys at the house were taping & mudding the drywall, my mom and I were busy running around Seattle picking out tile…for the 4th time!  We’ve really been struggling with the tile for the house.  Matt has us working with a design firm which has a rep who meets us to write things down when we make selections at the stores, and then sends us a quote.  This rep woman has been 100% atrocious to work with though.  In person she’s fine – she doesn’t really give us much advice and really just watches me flip through racks of tile sample boards and waits for me to pick things out.  Every once in a while she finds something that’s a contender…a bit helpful.  Tile is one of the things in the house that I really don’t care to spend extra money on.  We got an initial bid from the rep to create our budget and I want to stick to that as much as possible.  The major problem now is that every time I meet with this woman in the stores she says that things are “definitely within my budget” then when she gets back to her computer and sends me an updated quote based on our selections it’s over-budget….EVERY TIME!  It’s been beyond frustrating.  So instead of taking one day to pick things out, we’ve met with her 4 different times.  And it’s super annoying because I have to take time off work and drive all the way up to Everett to the large CFM store to meet with her.  Luckily I have my mom as a partner in crime because I honestly don’t know how I would have done it without her.  My mom started calling her the “tile queen” and after last week when things were still over-budget, we said, “off with her head”!  😉

On Wednesday this week I took another day off work to re-select tile with my mom and the tile rep.  But before we met up with the tile queen, my mom and I headed to Georgetown on our own to find a tile design to be the inset backsplash detail behind the range in the kitchen.  We had a lot of fun shopping around at Ambiante and seeing all of the beautiful tile.  It was such a relaxing break to look for tile on our own and just work with the awesome sales associate at the store.

2016-01-20 11.50.20

Our favorite at the store is this Divinity Tile in their Artemis pattern. The darker tile is Carrera Velato Honed Marble and the lighter whiter tile is White Thassos Polished Marble. All of the little white tiles are cut and placed by hand, the larger ones are cut precisely using a water jet and at $135 per square foot, we’ll be buying just a little bit for a feature behind the range.  They had two sample boards at Ambiante which is why there’s a line going through the middle of the two boards.  If we end up going with this one, it’ll be continuous without any break.

After leaving Ambiante, we met up with the tile queen in Redmond to make some more changes to the other tile in the house (our 4th time trying to pick out tile within our budget with her).  After this meeting, this was the first time that when she said “this tile is more cost efficient” that she was right, and we were able to reduce some tiling costs.  I really hope this is the last time that I have to work with her!  Below are a few of the selections that we made.

Paint Colors & Sheen

On Sunday, my mom, dad, aunt, uncle, and little cousin came out to look at the house.  It was fun to get to show them around and give them a “during construction” tour.  My mom’s sees the house quite frequently because she’s always running errands with me, but my dad hadn’t seen it since we had bare studs – inside and out!  It’s been months!!  And I’m not sure if my aunt and uncle had ever seen it.

The main reason that we were there was to look at paint sheens and colors.  We settled on a satin finish that really looks more flat/satin than glossy/satin at all, which I like.  The paint color was a lot harder to settle on though…and I still don’t think we’ve 100% chosen a color!  For the ceiling, I used the cabinetry color which is Benjamin Moore’s Decorator’s White, so that choice was pretty easy.  But choosing an all-over color for the house seemed a lot harder to do.  I started the day thinking that I really would like Farrow & Ball’s Cornforth White (but at 50% because the color at 100% saturation was too dark for me).  But after putting one of the master tile floor pieces next to the tile I wasn’t so sure about my color choice.  To make matters worse, we don’t have a sample of what our main countertop choice looks like (Absolute White Quartzite), so we were only looking at pictures on my phone to jog our memory.  And after looking at the pictures we’re thinking that it looks pretty good with the Cornforth White (yay!), but that means maybe we need to re-select the master bath flooring tile.  Ugh!!  My mom and I are going to need to take a trip to the visit our slabs up in Woodinville with our paint and master bath tile to really figure this one out.

Other Updates

Besides all of the tile drama, and the drywall mudding, blown-in insulation was added in in the attic and the front door for the mudroom was installed!  The dutch door looks fantastic!!  And it’ll look even better once the siding is completed around it.

2016-01-24 16.28.27 HDR-2

The mudroom door turned out fantastic – I love the X detail on the door and how it’s mirrored in the garage doors. And the dutch door will be really fun when the boys are outside playing. Too bad all that paper is covering up the glass on the door.

Week 32: Drywall Installed

Posted in Boys' Bedrooms, Dining Room, Drywall, Great Room, Guest Room, Kitchen, Master Bathroom, Office, Rec Room by

The drywall installation wrapped up this week and it was Absolutely Amazing to walk in and see all the walls with drywall.  The floors were covered with paper getting ready for  the taping & mudding next week so it looked crazy clean in there too!  Spencer and I visited on Saturday and had so much fun checking out each room.  We also ran some errands including heading to Home Depot for some tools to take off the plumbing fixtures on our bathtub and to Sherwin Williams to check out different paint sheens.  Surprisingly, Sherwin Williams has a great little coloring table for kids to sit at – perfect for Spencer!

Week 31: Siding Complete, Insulation Complete, Gutters Complete, & Drywall Started

Posted in Boys' Bedrooms, Dining Room, Drywall, Exterior Design, Great Room, Gutters, Insulation, Master Bathroom, Master Bedroom, Siding by

I think the word “milestones” is appropriate for this week.  We began 2016 with some huge accomplishments…siding was finished up this week.  Insulation was started and completed, and drywall began!

Let’s start with siding…or really end with siding!  It’s very exciting to see the entire house completely done with siding.  There’s only a couple of little things that are still missing – the corbels to add a bit of detail on the gables and the mudroom front door still need to be done.  But realistically, it feels like we’re done!  The top of the great room gable on the back of the house was completed this week, and the siding on the backside of the garage was finished as well too.

On the inside of the house, insulation was added which included insulating all of the walls – exterior and interior.  I walked through the house on Wednesday and it was amazing that they were done with it – they only started on Monday!  It’s pretty wild now to walk through it because it feels so much darker than it did before.  Light used to penetrate into every room because it was just studs.  Now the rooms without windows – like the powder room feel sooooo dark.  Which is probably half because the light can’t enter the room and half because all of the insulation is brown.  Once the sheetrock goes up, I’m sure those rooms will feel a bit lighter.

And drywall was started!  On Wednesday, they loaded all the drywall into the house and they started working on it the next day. By the end of the day Thursday our entire master bedroom was completed.  And by the end of the week there was so much completed!  All of the ceiling are done and so are all of the walls in the boys’ area.

Finally, gutters were done this week too! I originally wanted the half round gutters, but apparently they hold less rain and considering the amount of pine needles and rain that we have in the northwest, I opted for the more practical solution.  Regular k-style gutters it is!

Week 30: Siding and Last Minute Electrical Changes

Posted in Electrical, Exterior Design, Siding by

The majority of this week was spent on siding the back of the house.  The lower level was sided first, and then the upper level.  They got an amazing amount done.  I guess that’s because it’s really just a whole bunch of lap siding and not too much detail work – actually I don’t think there’s really any detail work downstairs.  The upstairs on the back gable of the great room will have some detailing, but they haven’t even started that this week.

Check out all the progress on the back of the house! Just a little bit more left to do.

Check out all the progress on the back of the house! Just a little bit more left to do.

The scaffolding's there for them to work on the great room gable next week.

The scaffolding’s there for them to work on the great room gable next week.

This is the backdoor to the mudroom with the windows to the mudroom and the mudroom bathroom.

This is the backdoor to the mudroom with the windows to the mudroom and the mudroom bathroom.

Here's a view from the mudroom back door to the back yard - the covered porch here is where the BBQ will end up going.

Here’s a view from the mudroom back door to the back yard – the covered porch here is where the BBQ will end up going.

From the backyard, here's what the covered BBQ area looks like. The electrician convinced me to put a can light in there - I think it'll work great!

From the backyard, here’s what the covered BBQ area looks like. The electrician convinced me to put a can light in there – I think it’ll work great!

The deck still needs to be built, but the outside of the kitchen is all done!

The deck still needs to be built, but the outside of the kitchen is all done!

The top part of the garage has siding, but they still need to work on the part below the belly band.

The top part of the garage has siding, but they still need to work on the part below the belly band.

No real changes on the front of the house, but I had to include at least one photo of it!

No real changes on the front of the house, but I had to include at least one photo of it!

Besides the major progress outside, I think I practically drove Matt crazy with all of the little last minute details that I had to ask about (or have him change) before the insulation goes in next week.  Last week we went to a friend Hans’ birthday party and his wife Jenni was showing me the awesome new Dyson that she received for Christmas.  It’s 100% amazing…super tiny, light weight and cordless!!  Whoo hoo!  Isn’t it sad that at parties we’re now having fun looking at vacuum cleaners??  So sad.  Anyhow, I immediately told Joel that we need to get one.  Only problem…the cabinet in the laundry room that I was planning on storing the vacuum doesn’t have an outlet to charge a cordless vacuum!  So that was priority numero uno to talk with Matt about this week.  And well, you know, since the electricians need to come back, why not add an outlet to the pantry?  And add a ceiling fixture in the mudroom bathroom?  So a couple hundred dollars later and now I’ve got my outlet where the vacuum is stored…I’m blaming Joel for this one – if his buddy didn’t have a party I never would have seen the vacuum! 😉

See that outlet on the right...yep, my future vacuum will plug into that!

See that outlet on the right…yep, my future vacuum will plug into that!

 

And one panoramic of the backyard - have I mentioned how cold it's been here?

And one panoramic of the backyard – have I mentioned how cold it’s been here?