The Home Stretch

I'm not going to even bother with making excuses this time as to how long it's been since I've blogged.  Bottom line: it's been a while and a lot has happened.

On the outside the brick and stone are completely finished.  The stone seemed to go up even quicker than the brick did and looks great.  It's a small thing, but I especially like how the chimney turned out with the stone.  Something most people probably wouldn't notice, but I really think it ties everything together really well.  They also managed to get all of the board and batten siding installed.  This siding has the look of wood, but is actually a composite material that will stand up better over the long run and is easy to install.  Now the only thing left for the exterior of the house is to paint the siding and install and stain our cedar shakes for the gables on the front of the house.  We're really excited to see it all come together.  You might also notice that the garage floor and patio have been poured.  I believe they'll be pouring the driveway and sidewalk this week.  Oh! And our deck is finished.  I can't wait to sit back and enjoy some cool nights on that deck.

On the inside essentially the entire house has been primed and painted.  We opted to let the professionals paint the majority of the house with my dad and I just painting the bonus room, Zeda's room, upstairs bath, and master bath.  The reason we chose these few rooms is that the color scheme for those was drastically different than the rest of the house.  When you hire professional painters they charge a fee anytime you switch from one color palette to another.  So, rather than paying the fee a few different times we just stuck with a couple of colors for the majority of the house and painted the other parts ourselves.
On top of painting, all the tile has been set with the exception of the kitchen, which will be done after the cabinets are installed.  The really exciting things on the interior will be happening the next couple of weeks as the trim, interior doors, and wood flooring were all delivered this week.  A lot is going to be happening in a short amount of time!

Brick Outside, Sheetrock Inside

I didn't realize how long it's been since I've posted until I checked out my last post.  There's been a lot that has been going on, even just this week, but I'll try to cover the big things leading up to this week and hopefully come back to this week in a couple of days.

On the inside dry wall is up.  In just a couple of days the sheet rock went up.  After that it took about a week to get a couple of layers of mud on the wall leaving it ready for paint.  The dry wall definitely adds an entirely different dimension to the house.  Before, with just the studs, you could get a general idea of where the rooms are.  With the sheet rock up you get the exact feeling of the size and shape of the rooms.  It no longer looks like a construction site and now looks like just an unfinished house.  It's pretty amazing the difference.

On the outside of the house the brick is going up and going up quickly.  The back of the house along was almost completely finished in a single day.  Essentially the back and two sides were completed in a week.  I'd actually venture to say that the front would have been finished just as quickly if it weren't for other things that had to be completed before the front could be continued.  It just amazes me how quickly our masons were able to work.  It certainly has made a huge difference on the look of the exterior.