Exterior photos

Newly installed sidewalk (designed by Tyler at Phillps Garden) and sod just before the Parade opened.
View of the house from the city sidewalk.

Late night planting of the Little Bluestem against the house. We tried to plant the trees ourselves as well (with help from Mom, Nate and Lucas) but quickly realized our limitations to plant trees on a slope. Luckily, Phillips Garden was able to come out the next day to plant the rest of the trees and install the edging.

More photos....

Polygal installation day

Kitchen view from the breakfast bar

Kitchen view of the inset cabinet with metal tambour door

"Mudroom" area with laundry and wardrobes. At the end of the white wardrobe is our creative solution to hide the support beam. The white cube opens up while the orange is fixed to hide the pole. The black door is a chalkboard.

Finally...new photos!

Sorry to all for not posting in over a month! We were so burned out with house details that I didn't want to write about them. The Parade of Homes started on Sept 6th. This weekend will be the third already. We say ALOT of activity in the days before the Parade open. Everything turned out well, however, there are many tweaks left to make before we close and move in.

With the house on the Parade, we have had time to work on our landscaping with Tyler Grissman at Phillips Garden. Our goal is to work in stages, starting with the front yard. We planted Little Bluestem along the front of the house, edged in metal. We also planted 5 Autumn Brilliance Serviceberry trees along the sidewalk to create a "screen" from the neighbors walking by. We didn't realize how exposed we would be with the big windows so the trees should work out really well. They also fit the house style perfectly. We are currently planting gro-lo sumac underneath the Serviceberry to fill in that space. Should be very low maintenance.

We painted the existing garage to match the house, including the blue window detail. Unfortunately, now all you see is the red roof....especially when you are in the house! We have been told by the builders that everyone coming through on the Parade comments on the roof. In due time.....

Master bedroom wardrobes....We should never run out of room to store blankets and pillows!

We tried to do something different with the basement steps. Both Jason and I love rubber commercial stair treads and our builder (Aaron) suggested covering the risers in stainless. Our neighbor, Corey (who did our roof and entry way) did a fantastic job....it looks fantastic. Very excited not to have to vacuum the steps!

Metal in the entry way

Both the bedroom doors and the front entry closet doors are birch with inset frosted acrylic panels. Its has a soft transluscent feel like the polygal over the second bedroom.

Cabinets are in and floors are stained

Master bedroom wardrobes waiting to be installed and master bath vanity

Master shower

Master bath floor

Kitchen cabinets - view from dining room

Mudroom wardrobe with the custom piece to cover the support post (the black door is chalkboard paint) An orange door will cover the post.

Overall, we LOVE the floor color and the cabinets really stand out in the house. Its taking shape....just in time since the parade starts on Sept 6th.

Many thanks to Chris from City View Hardwood and Rich and Lori at Alpine Woodworking for their excellent work!

Floor sanding...and tile

CityView Hardwood sanding the floors

Preparing the floors by slathering on wood putty to seal all the open areas

Our master bath supplies arrive today. Dennis - the tile guy- had to pick up some extra shelf inserts as we all forgot about the shelf in the master shower.

Next week will bring huge changes! Cabinets will be installed by Tuesday or Wednesday, the floor will be stained and finish work should mostly completed. Can't wait to see the cabinets but am also really nervous...hopefully the colors will turn out. That's my worst fear...

Landscaping plan

In order to get the most out of our small yard, Jason and I interviewed a few different landscape designers, all having more of a modern esthtetic. We settled on Phillips Garden design Tyler Grissman - a fellow northeaster - who seems to really get what we are trying to accomplish. Of course we weren't influenced at all by their incredible office space complete with a Wee House addition and custom metal staircase!

Since the Parade of Homes is rapidly approaching , we met today to discuss the front sidewalk which has to be poured with the next few weeks. Tyler's idea was excellent...it gives us some space to hang out in the front and an offset sidewalk to the house. The rest of the plan isn't complete yet, but its off to a fantastic start. Hopefully we won't have to make too many compromises on the front concrete plan due to budget constraints or can make it work with a "modular" concept of completion.

http://www.phillipsgarden.com/

Progress...

Not much has changed on the exterior but most of the siding is complete as well as the roofs

Mike, the siding guy, created a "dog house" to cover the electrical box that sticks out on the side of the house.

Here is the "dog house" with some possible exterior siding colors. I love all of them but Jason is not favoring the brown stripe in the middle. The green at the bottom works well with the brown....but the house next door is a golden yellow and i want something totally different than the immediate neighbors. So we decided to use the blue (ICI Skywatch) as the accent and a medium gray (ICI Icon Gray) for the rest of the house.

Floor is finished

The installers finished laying the white oak hardwood yesterday. It turned out beautifully! The dark color stain will come this weekend I believe. At least get one coat on this weekend they are hoping. We were set back by the cabinets not getting installed until next week so they wanted to get started on the floor now.

Cabinets

I visited the cabinetmaker today to approve another color for the master vanity and drop off our recently purchased Ikea door hardware. The trip was worth it....Rich showed us our completed cabinets! They were awesome! Painting starts today and installation should start sometime next week. The house will feel more like a house when they are installed. I hope the kitchen looks good when its all said and done....As usual, I am second guessing myself until the last minute.

Last minute changes to siding

Its been a crazy week with siding again. Originally, the front and back corners of the small box were going to be metal, but when our neighbor Corey (who is doing the roof and metal siding) stopped by to discuss how he was going to put the metal, we quickly figured out that the metal was not going to work. The front area is too small and would look chopped up. So Jay and I collaborated on a concept we think is pretty cool. We are still going to use some metal but its only going to line the inside of the front entrance. To create some texture and visual interest for the front, we are going to wrap the front corner in 12" cement board back to the kitchen windows. Mike, the siding guy, already has most of it done. We are really happy with it but it took awhile to make the decision. The neighbors must think we are crazy since we visit every night and usually just hang out in the front yard pondering the house.

Master Bath

There hasn't been much progress in the interior this past week but today we noticed that the master bath is being prepared for tile and wire for in-floor heat. Despite our budget being really tight, we decided not to cut the heated tile floor for this room. Its a luxury I am looking forward to as fall and winter near.

Siding

Galvanized flashing on corners

Horizontal fibercement w/z-channel and recessed corners

View of siding from the corner

So this week they started the siding. There was a misunderstanding of what we expected and what was on the plan. All along we wanted siding like some of the other Hive homes (modern, flat, using z-channel) but somehow a lap siding detail got onto one of the drawings. Our builders saw that and had me thinking thats they way it was on the plan so it would be hard to change. But Jason and I knew we never agreed to do lap siding. Its was an option we kicked around with Hive but Jason didn't like it. Nonetheless, it somehow got onto our plans.

When we got to the house after the siding sub-contractor started putting the corners up for the lap siding, I knew instantly that is was NOT what we wanted. That resulted in another dramatic phone call from me to our builder Aaron. He suggested meeting at the land the next day with Mike (the siding sub) which was good because I was almost in tears!

Lets just say Mike is my favorite sub so far. He noted that our plans have detail drawings for both siding styles, which only confused everyone involved, not to mentioned wasted time and materials. It turns out the z channel (for the modern look) was already at the site so Mike could get started right away. This way of installing it is much faster. Mike also came up with a fantastic way to finish the corners; he is using a recessed technique with the fibercement overlaying a galvanized corner leaving a small reveal. The reveal looks OUTSTANDING with the z-channel! I am really happy that we were able to work this issue out. It was pretty stressful but seeing the results today made it worth it.

More exterior color options...

Here are some more color options for the exterior....The blue and gray are the same as in the garage photo but the green is new. We requested a few more colors from the painter but they are all in the same green and blue family. Any thoughts?

Exterior color dilemma...

There are way too many color choices and at this stage in the game, making choices is really difficult. We really like a medium to dark gray with a bright or soothing color for accent. I need your help! Other colors we have considered are lime green, orange, yellow. Here are the current choices painted on the garage:

Any ideas?

First Coat Primer

From the living room looking towards the kitchen

Master bedroom - headboard wall

Living room looking toward front entry

The first coat of primer is on the walls. I really like the color white of the primer. Its actually not primer but a coat of paint. I think we are going to keep this color throughout the house except for the master bedroom. It would be nice to have a really light green-blue color in there with maybe a bright accent for the headboard wall.

More photos

The first piece of sheetrock up...