It's happening, almost

It's been hard to post because while we've made some steady progress, the amount of mess in the room has increased, making things look more unfinished than they really were. Over four days a couple weeks ago, the crew came in and cleared everything off the floor (no easy feat itself), then sanded, stained (twice), and applied a top coat to the floors. I meant to get a picture but then they promptly put paper back on top of it and re-made their mess (after giving it three days to fully cure).

Then they wallpapered (YAY!), but the floors were such a mess that it was hard to capture the effect. At one point or another, it got cleared out enough that we felt it was safe to let the cats explore the new space in the evening, after the work crew was gone. But it still didn't feel picture-worthy.

And then, FINALLY, they cleared everything out. And we are...done. Ish. We have a small to-do list with the crew of small things that need adjusting and, biggest thing of all, one of the last items to be installed turned out to be broken:

This is the wall panel controller to the steam shower, which, unfortunately, goes IN the shower. So having it not work and removed means that the entire shower isn't usable yet (note the big hole with wires coming out). It will delay our inspection and full completion of the project. And, well, we HOPE that it's the controller that was faulty. Because otherwise it's something more serious--the wiring or something? So let's hope that once an identical controller arrives and the electrician comes to install it, we are back in business.

In the meantime, besides our "punch-list" of (mostly) little stuff and the lack of inspection, the space is done. So while I continue to be bummed about yet more delays, it's worth finally taking a moment to show you this beautiful space.

First, the bathroom (again, with non-usable shower):

The blue vanity isn't as blue as we envisioned and the medicine cabinets will continue to mock me with their chrome finish until/unless we try to dull it, but it is really lovely. I started cutting drawer liners and setting up the shelves in the medicine cabinets to the right heights, and thinking of what to put where.

The toilet room/WC/powder room was wallpapered and we couldn't be happier at our choice (and how it complements the paint! The paper is Rifle Paper Co. Peacock wallpaper in periwinkle.

The closet hall has four PAX units (one is on the wall next to the camera). Right now they are completely empty inside, waiting to be customized, so I'm sure we'll write a longer post on that as we begin work on it. I'm absolutely delighted by the chandelier that I insisted we install there (we had to find a tiny one that wouldn't interfere with the door swing, though it turned out we could have gone bigger in the end).

It's hard to see from this angle, so here's the stock photo (Edvivi Arietta from Lowes). It has real glass crystals that we quite enjoyed fastening to the metal frame.

And finally, the main attraction, our bedroom itself:

The wallpaper was the one we decided on in March, A-Street Prints in Arian Silver Inkburst (I don't see ink bursts, I definitely see something more organic like dandelion fluff).

We've taken to heart what they said on Thursday and, since this picture was taken, have already set up the bed and hung curtains. We hope to be sleeping here by the end of the week, inspected or not.

Steps forward and steps back

The last few days have been a flurry of activity. We have outdoor lights and outlets and they painted the concrete. We did our best to match the roof gray, to avoid having a lot of extra grays since we already have competing tones in the siding and the deck. It's hard to tell how well we did. We picked Benjamin Moore's Deep Space which looks very neutral gray in the swatch but seems a tad blueish to us in person. We had to pick relatively quickly so did not have a chance to test it out with a larger swatch:

Even this picture of foundation concrete, metal roof, and paint swatch shows a very neutral gray, and. yet the foundation definitely gives off blueish vibes. 

Inside, we have a ceiling fan now, with a proprietary down-rod. We loved this Generation Lighting Orbis fan (52'') and of COURSE it apparently had to have an incompatible down-rod diameter to every standard "just grab one off the shelf" one. So we had to special order it. We picked up a 2' and a 3' rod. And then the box with the 2' rod in it was...empty! I guess 3' it is! We also have our hardwired smoke detector and all our recessed lighting. We have also discovered that our vault is high enough that we need to find a new ladder for if we have to actually reach any of these things...

Moving to the walk-in closet area, I got my cute little chandelier and the units have been built-in and painted (some discrepancy over the doors being painted to match so they could blend in with the wall--which we wanted, given that we just received a hefty price tag to do that so...we'll be doing that part ourselves). Still, forward progress!

Our powder room finally got a sink today:

And our shower room got overhead lights in the shower and the heated towel rack. There's an issue with the Kohler valve that is BEHIND THE WALL. The plumber says it is leaky and so we're working with Kohler to get a replacement. Which will mean having to bust through the wall and replace it (they claim they can go in from the drywall side at least, and not the tile side). And you can see a hole cut into the wall near the ceiling for the shower lights installation that will need mudding. So many walls to mud and remud...

And so we're making progress. It seems like there is always a step back for every few steps forward, but we are undoubtedly moving forward. I am so ready for this project to be done!

Raise the roof 2

I left you in suspense last week. The roof and roofers did indeed come the following day and worked all that day and all Monday. After that, we had a roof! (Let me just say after watching them work long days in the heat on top of precarious ladders that whatever they are being paid, it is not enough.)

Here was the view after two days of work. We love it! We briefly popped in during some rain to confirm that it does not sound too loud in there, so that's good too. Thicker metal and good insulation will hopefully keep it to a peaceful patter and not a steel drum.

Another few days later, we had gutters. They are visibly slanted, which I guess is how gutters are installed these days? It sort of drives me crazy, but it will send the water in the right direction. We're wondering how much to quibble with the contractors since they agreed to provide gutters and downspouts "to match existing" and clearly our existing gutters have leaf guards on them.

Impatient at the progress in the addition, we're moving forward on our own projects. We bought some furniture to go in there so that we can be ready when it's time to move in (more description of those later when they're out of their boxes). Not too much, as we have to keep finding places to store them in the house and garage, but we do now have bed, mattress, curtain rods, and curtains: the things that really need to be in place for us to sleep there. We've also started trying to find things to do to speed up the upstairs transitions to big-kid rooms despite the fact that we're all still sleeping up there. Here's our first project.

I forgot to get a "before" picture, but just take a look at this post from when we built the IKEA Stuva wardrobes more than 10 years ago and add more mess and flare (some vinyl decals, a ribbon running down the front to hold hair clips, etc). Those three wardrobe units are still in the room--in fact you can see two of them in this picture (one at the far right edge and one in the dormer window area, with some out-of-place kid posters on it just to keep them safe). We can't remove them completely because then where would we put the contents?

Spackle, sand, and wipe-down later, with some drop-clothes at the ready (right after we took this picture we realized we'd need to shut the door to keep a very mischievous kitty out of the room):

There's no question that we need primer on this wall, with that bright green paint. We scavenged the leftover gallons in our basement and used a combination of a few different latex primers (not mixed together, just on various parts of the wall). As per our usual painting MO, D rolled and I cut in:

While having a blue sky ceiling was always my childhood dream, it was not, alas, my daughter's. She requested a white ceiling, so we're using Sherwin Williams Premium Ceiling Paint in Pure White. They grow up so quickly.

But still we're not all dark and emo (yet?). This room is making it's transition to Appleblossom, a pink that counts among Sherwin William's "historic colors" and is sufficiently muted to pass our standard of "will you want to look at it in 5 years?" compared to some of the other pinks on the list that were too pastel or bubblegum and would sicken even a young pre-teen.

The purple corner, repainted from green when we needed the hole repaired after the tree fell on our house, is staying purple. So this room is going to be about as girly as they come. 

Why are we starting on painting while the kids are still living in there? Well we're about to embark on an ambitious home IKEA hack with some PAX units (yes the same kind of units that we're installing in the addition) to give this room the look of a built-in closet and it's going here on this wall. Since it will take some time to construct, we wanted to get started on it now, so it won't significantly delay the eventual kids' moves. This is the only part we're painting until we can get the kids out of the room and the furniture pushed to the middle and under a tarp. At least it feels like we're getting somewhere while we wait for the addition.

(I'm tagging this room as "nursery" because I always have before, but clearly it needs a new label...)

Almost there, except not

It's been a slow few weeks, all things considered. We have several more coats of paint and a floor, and lovely doors and windows (that absolutely will need covering with room darkening curtains.

The IKEA Pax closet unit are up and starting to be drywalled into the closet corridor. We had to adjust some of the lighting in that corridor that didn't match what the plans said--they were installed centered on the original walls and not taking into account the closets themselves, so there was some extra patchwork that had to happen, which will require yet more paint. (If the picture below doesn't make sense, don't worry--it's a lot of confusing lines and angles--I'll devote more time to it later.)

The pocket door to the hallway was fully reframed and patched back up. It's more level with the rest of the doors and the trim is more symmetric, so that's back on track too.

AND we have a deck. We love our color choice, though now that we see it together with the paint on the siding, we realize that we paired two different grays that fall in similar brightness levels, but with one cool (the deck) with one warm (the exterior) and it's...maybe a bit odd? I don't think it's bad though, and I don't know what our other alternative would have been (a dark gray deck would be hot under foot, we don't really use browns or other colors anywhere else, and our exterior matches the rest of our house). We still do not have railings because of a complication there that happened when we switched from wood to metal, which is a story for a different post.

But the biggest thing we are still missing is here:

It's hard to feel like we're getting close to the end when we don't have a roof. We had estimates and then we had revised estimates and then it was supposed to come last Wednesday but then it was supposed to ship last Wednesday and our poor contracting lead has been on the phone with the roof company every day.

We've been told it's coming tomorrow. We shall see.

Cooling in Color

We're not quite in the homestretch, but things are starting to feel a lot more finished. To pick up exactly where we left off last time, we do indeed have a new hole in our house and stairs leading into the addition. It's tarped off so the only way the kids can get to their toy closet is to go into the addition and up these stairs.

Utilities have been connected to the sub panel, mounted near the forgotten bathroom in the unfinished part of our basement, and the outside condenser unit to our mini-split. Power is still off, but presumably can be turned on now at any time!

Inside, we have PAINT! And we don't hate it (always a risk, despite our attempts to preview as much as we can):

We went with Benjamin Moore Mulberry Wine, which does indeed match its description of "dusty rose undertones mellow out this medium purple." I really like it--not too bold and bright and not too dark either (for a while, we had been considering much darker shades, but ended up chickening out with something more in the middle, and I think that was the right call. Also telling us that we're at the beginning of the end? Wood flooring! Here it is just waiting to be installed:

There are still a lot of steps to go--more painting of course (both inside and out), assembly of the built-in PAX units in the closet area, and, probably most significantly, a roof (scheduled to arrive next week, we hope). But it does feel like we are getting close.

 

Getting it right eventually, sort of

It's been a busy month and yet progress seems incremental, in part because of the slowness of certain things (like tiling) and in part because of some adjustments that have had to happen that set us back a bit. But we are closer than ever now.

First, they did our board and batten siding. But didn't add enough battens to the specifications:

Here's the crew confirming that we wanted the every 6 inches instead of every foot (I truly did not care about this and think it looks fine, but D and everyone whose opinion he sought felt strongly that they should be more tightly spaced).

And so they added some more. But...not all of them were actually straight. And so...now they're fixing them again...Here it is primed and with a first coat of paint (in the same color as the new siding - James Hardie Pearl Gray):

We got all our trim added around the doors and windows:

But absolutely hated the janky way they did the trim to the bedroom door (see how it's not very centered and the left side barely has any trim? it's very noticeable especially at the top/mitred corner) and also noticed the door was almost two inches lower than the doors to the side (the excuse being that it was heavier and needed more framing but that just meant they had to plan better and start it higher to begin with).

And so we demanded the doors be the same height and the trim be more even, so we're back to this:

Unfortunately since it was all framed out, having to take the pocket door out and redo it is a significant effort (and requires a completely new door):

The bathroom has come along nicely and we're very happy with the tiling. 

There was a moment of panic when D let the contractors know our paint color (Benjamin Moore 708, White Rain) but accidentally texted it with a typo and asked for 608, Erin Green. They are...pretty different and it would have taken another layer of primer to fix the mistake that would have required turning this:

Into this:

Fortunately, we saw the purchased paint can before they started painting, so it was just an error that cost us a can of paint. Another more permanent error that is our fault, is that despite all our agonizing over what kind of metal finish to use in our bathroom, I somehow managed to order chrome-framed medicine cabinets instead of brushed nickel ones from West Elm. No idea how I managed to put the wrong thing in the cart. And of course we ordered them 6 weeks ago and they just got installed, a couple weeks after the 30-day return policy.

This will probably bother me more than anyone else, but we still might try to "brush" it using some scouring pads to see if we can take some of the shine out. 

Despite that oops, I do really love how the bathroom is coming out! Here is a view of the inside of our shower:

In the main room, we've had to work on picking our paint color:

We're trying a new stick-on sample called Samplize, which definitely makes it easier to try out more colors than buying tiny testers. We've pretty seriously decided to go with a shade of mauve and almost had one picked out in Sherwin Williams when our contractor requested we go with Benjamin Moore instead. Shown here are (right to left, top): Aplomb, Mulberry Wine, Sleepy Hollow, and Mauve Mist. Below it is Soulmate by Sherwin Williams. I'll leave you in suspense over which one we picked (and, funny enough, the paint will go everywhere *but* on this wall, which is going to have wallpaper on it).

And then, yesterday, the biggest update of all--our long back-ordered and awaited door panels (and transom windows, above) have arrived! Our addition is now sealed to the elements. 

This means that utilities can start being hooked up and flooring can be installed and...

Now that we have a door that seals the addition to the outside, you know what comes next???

Dry Walls

The addition really started to feel "finished" recently, as we were approved to continue progressing a bit further without a door and without being truly sealed in. First, they came in to blow insulation in a truly terrifying process that sent all our air filters ramping up into high speed. We were warned to stay away for the day and the few times we had to stop by, we found the crew suited up in what were essentially HAZMAT suits. We didn't come back (including the dog) until our air filters went back into calm mode and our air quality readers were down at normal levels. None of that is pictured, because we really did not want to stick around long enough to get some snaps.

The next day, they installed traditional fiberglass insulation on all our outer walls between the studs as well as in the eaves.

To our surprise, they insulated the floor as well, even though it was encapsulated, i.e. conditioned and brought "into" the house. It does make a nice muffled thud now when we walk on it, so I wonder if it's more for sound than temperature regulation.

Within the span of a day, someone came and reframed the wall where the bathroom vanity will be, for our medicine cabinets.

At our request, they also put up particle board alongside the pocket door--this will allow us to install a towel rack there, since the screw can grip into the particle board instead of just empty space behind the drywall.

More framing (and plumbing) was done in the other bathroom (toilet room) - they framed another rectangle for the medicine cabinet there, and had to reroute some plumbing in the process. (We know very little about plumbing but this one seems to be going up and out so maybe it's some kind of air hole?)

With that done, it was time to start putting up drywall. The crew spent several hours just carrying in giant quantities of sheetrock.  Then, quite quickly, it appeared on the walls.

Drywall all up:

Then the skim-coating began! We now have a lovely patchwork of rectangles and covered-up screw holes.

The pale gray walls really make everything seem huge. It lightened up the whole place after all those dark wood walls.

There's another pause coming because without doors, we can't seal it up and begin on the floors. But there's progress in the bathroom (saved for another post)!