Bathroom Preview

Tile and solid surface installers are hard at work and here's a peek at what they've been doing this week:

Wood and Wood and Tile

This week was flooring week at the Wade house.  We decided on hardwoods throughout the entire house and tile only in the mudroom, laundry room, and eventual kids bathrooms.  Originally I wanted wide plank hardwoods, but the main floor had the original 1928 solid white oak hardwoods that I couldn't bear to rip out so 3 inch is what we went with everywhere.   I also wanted ebony black as the stain color and was quickly talked out of it by, oh, everyone who I talked to.  My sister said she's constantly sweeping hers and my designer said she loved hers so much before she had kids; now, not so much.

It's amazing how quickly the thought of too much cleaning will change your mind.

So a dark walnut color it is.

When we took out all of the walls on the main floor, there were plenty of repairs that needed to be made to the floors.  This shows where some of the walls once were:

 And this shows the incredible "lacing in" that our flooring guys did:

Hardwoods in the master bath was something that was a no-brainer for us.  I don't like tile that much and since we are pretty sure we can keep splashing and soaking the floor to a minimum, we went with it.

 Master Bath floors going in:

Floors done!

 

Master Bedroom:

Dance floor complete.

 

Other bedrooms:

The stairs are becoming everything we wanted them to be: dramatic and beautiful and a focal point.  The bannister posts will be fluted, 6 inch box newels and the support beam will be cased in trim to give everything a substantial look.

View from the top:

  
Mudroom/Upstairs & Downstairs Laundry Room tile

Next up: tiling in the shower surrounds and master bathroom!  

We Have Rooms

Drywall means we have some shape and can see the actual dimensions of rooms, instead of staring at a big space with framing all around.  Here are some of our rooms:

Mudroom

Which will eventually look a lot like this

Kitchen.  That's the pantry on the right....it's the little things that make me REALLY happy.

Living Room, taken from the first landing on the stairs.  Our fireplace looks so sad without her built-ins and mantle. 

The Office 



The office is the room that we kept the most "old" - we loved the exposed brick and the original brick fireplace (once they peeled all the plaster off) so we rehabbed this wall:

And are in the process of having this beauty rehabbed:
 

 
To look a little more like this:

Master Bedroom

 
Bonus in the winter - we can see the mountains :)

 

Slabs and More Slabs

Because my husband is wonderful and he knows that giving me a big kitchen in our new house means he gets to eat VERY well, we designed a 9.5 foot island and a 20 foot wall of cabinets, drawers and countertop.  The cabinets on the perimeter are a pure white and our island is this gray/blue/green that I'm in LOVE with:

  

Stacia and I took a sample of our island cabinet color and our subway tile on a jaunt to the biggest warehouse full of slabs I have ever seen, I found these three beauties:

Statuary Extra Marble

 Macaubas White Granite

 

Carrara Marble

 Which one do you think looks the best?  Time will tell which one we chose.  In fact, they will be in our house in 1 month.

It's in the Details

Drywalling is almost done - and now it's time to see the real details start to come to life!  The past month and half have been a flurry of activity - picking out slab, ordering cabinets, picking out bathroom hardware, sconces, light fixtures, doorknobs, shower glass....you name it, we've looked at it, and we've see it all in 6 different finishes.  And then just when you think you are done, you still have to figure out what kind of trim you want in your house.   So here are some of our selections, thanks to our fantastic designer Stacia Winkler with Vintage Elements - 

Outdoor Lighting and Front Door Entry Set

Entryway Lighting

Stairwell lighting - 3 will hang at different lengths

Kitchen cabinet knobs and pulls

Dining Room chandelier

 Main Floor bathroom lighting

 

Main Floor pedestal sink and toilet

Jack and Jill bathroom Sconces 

 

Jack and Jill Bathroom vanity

Master Bathroom Lighting and Vanity

We settled on white subway tile in the bathrooms and kitchen backsplash

but picked Venatino marble for the Master bathroom

The hardest part of the last month was finalizing all of the trim work with the trim carpenter.  Growing up in the South means I have a love of crown moulding, built-in cabinetry and shelves, French doors, glass front anything, fluted ballusters, arched doorways, and much more detailed woodworking.

Once the pricing came in, half of what I wanted flew out the window.

Oh well.  You can have it all, just not all at once...or something like that.  

At least I get to cook up a storm on this monster!

  

The House on Stilts

It's amazing to think that 3 months of construction are past and we have about 3 left to go before we move in to our new house.  The HVAC and electrical and plumbing have all passed inspection and we've done our pre-drywall walk-thru - so except for a few last minute changes to some speaker and can light placements, we are ready to hang the drywall!  The drywallers come on Monday and soon our house will actually have rooms.  

Here's how far we've come...

 

Goodbye porch...

Goodbye roof...

 

Hello Framing!

And finally....this was this morning.  The outside is almost done - just waiting on the weather to warm up a few degrees so the brick masons can finish bricking the columns.  For now...we have a house on stilts :)  With a really ugly temporary front door...