Days 61-65 - Dec. 17-21 - trim & interior stone work

Chip had the brilliant idea to trim the house ourselves.  It's not a hard job, but it is time-consuming.  Time is not something we have a lot of right now.  Here's the beginning of the trim (base trim, doors, door trim, window sills).

We also started installing the kitchen cabinets since a lot of them will be painted.

We also got some more stone work done in the interior, including an accent wall and the back of the island.



Last, but certainly not least, Chip installed the front door he made.  It's going to have glass in it.  It's over sized (you're welcome, movers) and we copied it from a house we saw on a Made of Metal job.

Days 54-60 - Dec. 10-16 - sheetrock

This week, we got sheetrock.  They hung, taped, floated, sanded and sprayed texture.  This is when you really get to see what the rooms look like.  Here's the kitchen and breakfast room.

Day 53 - Dec. 9 - stone complete

The exterior stone is complete.  I really like the way it looks with the dark gray paint.

Day 52 - Dec. 8 - stone and TV

Today the stone masons continued to work on the exterior wainscot.  They might have finished late this afternoon.  We also had a day of taping for the DIY show at the house and at the shop.  Chip started fabricating the front and back doors, which I'm super-duper excited about.  Hopefully I'll have photos of those soon.

Day 51 - Dec. 7 - more of the same

More stone.  The painters painted the exterior of the house.  It's a dark gray color which contracts nicely with the white stone.  I'm really happy with how it turned out.  So the painters are done for awhile.

Now we have to start thinking about the metal work (ha!) and the trim since Chip and I are going to be doing that ourselves (ha again!).  I think I finalized the kitchen with the decision to use stock cabinets (and have them painted) and IKEA cabinets, which will be a stainless steel look.  I still don't know what I want to do about the bathroom vanities.

Day 50 - Dec. 6 - stone & paint

The stone masons and the painters started.  We have a limestone wainscot going on the front of the house.  The painters started chalking and prepping for the exterior paint.

The sheetrockers finished hanging the sheetrock (walls).  Next is taping and floating the joints.

Day 48-49 - Dec. 4-5 - more sheetrock

This weekend we got more sheetrock.  The guys are moving faster than we thought.  We also got the exterior stone delivered to the job site.

Day 47 - Dec. 3 - sheetrock

This morning, Chip and I (mostly Chip) installed the frame for the pocket doors.  I didn't know how those worked, but now I know.  You can buy a kit from the hardware store and install it.  It has a frame and the track.  They can put the sheetrock over the frames and we can later install the doors and trim.  There are pocket doors leading from each of the girl's room to their bathroom.

The sheet rockers also started today.  I can't wait for this step to be complete.

At home, I'm working on Mackenzie's room.  Because of her door, closet door, door to the bathroom AND windows, I'm having a hard time with furniture placement (damn architect!!).  I want Chip to make her a new day bed.  I loved my day bed growing up and wanted her to have something new for the house.  It's looking like it's going to be a little tight in there.

I'm also working on paint colors.  My painter is going to be cursing me.  I have 10 colors, different trim colors for different rooms and several rooms with different colors on different walls.

Another thing I've changed a hundred times is the kitchen.  Stay tuned for that...

Day 46 - Dec. 2 - roof

The roofer started today.  We went with a gray-ish colored composition roof.  Since we have such low roof lines, you can't see very much of it.  It should take him about 2 days to finish the roof.

We called our sheetrocker and he is hoping to have the sheetrock delivered tomorrow so he can start.    He'll probably take about a week, but I'm not sure if he's working through the weekend or not.  It's getting really exciting now. 

Day 45 - Dec. 1 - insulation

Since we passed our plumbing inspection, we could move ahead and get insulated.  By the way, I can't believe it's already December.  What happened to, well, the whole year?  Any way, it took them one day to insulate the house.  Time to move on again.

City of Austin also came out today to put up our electrical wires.  The new pole is towards the front of our lot, so we'll go underground from that pole to the house.

It taken a few weeks of using a generator to build, but we should have power very soon.  We joked that we might move in and have to use a generator.  Thank goodness that's not going to happen.  Now we're worried that we might be ready to move in with no water.  Our lovely water district gave us bad information when we met them before we started building.  Now a road cut has to happen and they've informed us that Travis County is really slow.  So we might be delayed by that.

Day 44 - Nov. 30 - green tag and concrete steps

Today we got a green tag...actually, two.  Yay. 

We also got concrete steps in the front of the house.  We went ahead and did those so the guys could start on the exterior stone.   The gap to the left side is for flower beds.  I don't like when I can see slab on the front of my house.  We'll cover it with plants!

Day 43 - Nov. 29 - not much

Nothing happening today.  Since the plumbers finished right before the holiday, they called in for the inspection today.  That should happen tomorrow, so it's just a waiting game.  Last week, we did get attic steps.