Building with Carolina

House Update: Week of June 27- July 3

noreply@blogger.com (Cassandra Hill) — Sun, 04 Jul 2010 01:29:00 +0000

We closed on our house on June 30!

Here are some photos of the finishing touches from June 27-30 (mostly cleaning).

Front entrance way / stairs:

Kitchen backsplash is done now:

All the dust before it was cleaned up:

After cleaning & ready to move in:

Trying out the laundry room:

Finished Kitchen

noreply@blogger.com (Cassandra Hill) — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 02:25:00 +0000

The kitchen is now complete!

There were a few glitches with a couple of things along the way. I think they were partially due to our inexperience coupled with some miscommunication between the designer, kitchen builder, the home builder, and ourselves.

The last 4 weeks before closing we were out of town several times for work so that made it difficult as well, as we weren't always on site as things were happening.

In the end we decided to just go with how it turned out instead of delaying closing to go back and change anything.

Nevertheless, it's a beautiful kitchen. My favourite part is the island. I love it so much that sometimes I wish we had done the whole kitchen in the dark stained maple. But I suppose if we had, the island would no longer stand out as a focal point.

Cooking in this kitchen is a dream. After unpacking every kitchen related item from our old house I still have empty cupboard space. And I had a lot of stuff in our basement, including seasonal and decorative serving ware, as well as several appliances such as our bread machine, large roaster, slow cooker, rice machine, blender(s), food processor, electric grill/griddler, deep fryer, etc.

I'm looking forward to many years ahead of making lots of good food and memories in this kitchen. After all, it's where I will be spending about 50% of my time every day.

House Update: Week of June 20-26

noreply@blogger.com (Cassandra Hill) — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 02:19:00 +0000

Some pictures from the week of June 20-26. The wire shelves were installed in all closets. The stairs and railing is complete.

We have decided to leave off the carpet runner as the stained oak is so beautiful the way it is.

House Update: Week of June 13-19

noreply@blogger.com (Cassandra Hill) — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 01:55:00 +0000

Some photos from the week (June 13-19):

Bathroom (Clara)

noreply@blogger.com (Cassandra Hill) — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 03:55:00 +0000

Just a couple of pictures of Clara in our bathroom...

She and Nathan LOVE to go see the new house and run around in the open spaces.

Now that the house is getting closer to finishing, it's pretty safe for them to explore now, as there aren't as many hazards as were present a couple of months ago (loose nails, open stairways, etc.)

Its hard to believe we close two weeks from tomorrow. Our builder actually asked us if we would like to move the closing date up to June 25, as the house would be ready then. We declined, as we will be out of town in Newfoundland until the 28th. But we were pretty impressed that he asked nonetheless.

Countertops

noreply@blogger.com (Cassandra Hill) — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 03:48:00 +0000

We had some of our counter tops installed on Monday. The powder room, ensuite, and kitchen are all done, as are the coordinating sinks.

The rest of the counters are scheduled to go in at the end of this week.

More Flooring

noreply@blogger.com (Cassandra Hill) — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 03:38:00 +0000

The hardwood has been completed on the rest of the main floor (office, study, foyer).

For the main room in the basement we chose a cork flooring. We thought this was a good compromise since I didn't want carpet and Scott isn't a big fan of laminate.

Cork is naturally warm and insulating, durable, absorbs sound, and looks cool. It's basically great in every way except that it's a little pricey, so it was an upgrade above our inexpensive carpet allowance.

I love how it turned out though. You can really see the sawdust in these photos:

Fireplace & Surround

noreply@blogger.com (Cassandra Hill) — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 03:06:00 +0000

One of my favourite places in the house is our fireplace & built in surround. Our builder has used this same setup or similar in several of his homes. He designed this into our floor plan from the beginning and I think it has turned out really well.

Down in the basement, we opted to put the fireplace in the corner to make room for Scott's media system and the windows, and just so that it would look a little different.

Here are some pictures of the various stages:

Garage Doors

noreply@blogger.com (Cassandra Hill) — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 02:11:00 +0000

We now have doors on our garage!

The power wasn't on, so Scott pulled one down by hand so I could snap a picture today.

We had ordered them without the decorative hinges on the sides but somehow they got added.

We're considering leaving them on instead of having them removed, as we don't want to be left with holes from the screws.

I'm not sure, but they might be growing on us.

Lighting Fixtures

noreply@blogger.com (Cassandra Hill) — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 02:07:00 +0000

Our house has a lot of pot lights. A lot. So when we went to pick out lighting fixtures, I was surprised how many we still needed.

All of the lighting fixtures and all of the pot lights went in last week. The house looks so much more finished now and we really love the light fixtures.

Stucco

noreply@blogger.com (Cassandra Hill) — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 13:01:00 +0000

We designed the exterior of the house with stucco in two places where brick would have required additional reinforced steel to support the weight, and a change in our front elevation to accommodate the steel.

We chose to make the pillars on the porch stucco as well to tie it all in. The stucco was completed last week, and I like how the pillars turned out.

Siding

noreply@blogger.com (Cassandra Hill) — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 12:42:00 +0000

When Scott and I chose the exterior look for our home, we based it on another home built by our builder that had the brick, stone, stucco, window colours that we liked. The only thing we changed in exterior appearance was the garage doors.

We were not aware, however, that the siding on that home was an upgraded hardie board siding, and that we would have to pay a significant amount (several thousand dollars) to upgrade to that look.

We decided to forgo that upgrade, and selected a standard vinyl siding in a similar colour. Siding was completed about three weeks ago.

Bathroom Tile

noreply@blogger.com (Cassandra Hill) — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 12:22:00 +0000

Tile is done in all the bathroom shower areas.

I love how the ensuite turned out, and I really love the boys' shower, which coordinates with their floor tile.

The girls' bathroom is so pretty, with light subway tile and a detail band that matches the flooring and paint. I love subway tile - so clean and classic looking.

The basement shower walls were changed about 3 times, as we kept hitting challenges with supplies being on back-order or out of stock or production. The final tile was our least favourite, but I think it looks fine. We weren't even supposed to have tile down there anyway, as it was going to be a tub-surround, but they changed it for us at no extra cost.

Flooring Installation: Tile & Hardwood

noreply@blogger.com (Cassandra Hill) — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 01:07:00 +0000

All of our tile and hardwood is in. Some of these pictures were taken before the grout was complete.

Stairs & Railing - Finished

noreply@blogger.com (Cassandra Hill) — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 01:06:00 +0000

The stairs have been stained to match the hardwood, and the rail and spindles are complete.

Paint

noreply@blogger.com (Cassandra Hill) — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 00:53:00 +0000

Trim & Paint

noreply@blogger.com (Cassandra Hill) — Tue, 18 May 2010 15:41:00 +0000

Our house has trim and interior doors now. The paint isn't done but it's been started.

The basement ceilings are done and the basement also has some trim and doors.

We met with Peter (from the trim place) and made a plan for the built-in shelves surrounding the fireplace and the bench / hooks in the mudroom.

I don't have any pictures to share because our house is now locked up on a daily basis after regular work hours, and we have been so busy with our own schedules that we haven't had lots of chances to go over during the day.

So we just go in the evening and peek in the windows to see what's new.

We have a family of killdeer living in the backyard on the new lot. They have three little babies that aren't flying yet and every time we go back there the parents go crazy trying to distract us from their young. It is fascinating to watch.

Lighting

noreply@blogger.com (Cassandra Hill) — Thu, 13 May 2010 01:35:00 +0000

Joanne and I picked out lighting fixtures today at The Lighting Shoppe.

I thought we had mostly potlights throughout the house, but there were still lots of fixtures to select.

There is so much variety, in terms of styles and looks. As with every selection process so far, I come home excited about what we picked, but a little nervous in hoping that it will look good with everything else.

Ceilings

noreply@blogger.com (Cassandra Hill) — Fri, 07 May 2010 02:25:00 +0000

The main floor and second floor ceilings were done the first week of May, and the house is now filled with trim and doors.

Basement Drywall

noreply@blogger.com (Cassandra Hill) — Fri, 07 May 2010 02:01:00 +0000

Picking out Paint

noreply@blogger.com (Cassandra Hill) — Thu, 06 May 2010 02:29:00 +0000

Joanne met me at Sacwal to pick out paint today. I was a little wary of how long it might take to pick out paint for the entire house in one meeting. It took me about three weeks to pick out a colour for our current entry way & family room.

As usual, Joanne was amazing and had some great insight and suggestions. I think the colours we chose are going to look beautiful, and we were done the entire house in under 2 hours.

I'm pretty conservative when it comes to paint colours but we did branch out of the neutral palette for a couple of rooms.

I feel like everything is really starting to come together and I am getting really excited! The fireplace in the great room was installed today too and it looks awesome.

Photo Update: April 28

noreply@blogger.com (Cassandra Hill) — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 03:33:00 +0000

The stone is done:

The basement is mostly insulated and almost ready for drywall:

The rest of the drywall is taped and mudded:

Photo Update: April 22

noreply@blogger.com (Cassandra Hill) — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 02:38:00 +0000

Photo Update: April 20

noreply@blogger.com (Cassandra Hill) — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 00:39:00 +0000

Here is a photo of the brick progress and a close-up of the stone. I think it's already starting to lighten up since yesterday.

Photo Update: Drywall

noreply@blogger.com (Cassandra Hill) — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 00:29:00 +0000

The entire second level, other than Samantha's room, is dry-walled.