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???