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...)