Stucco

Today they applied the second coat of stucco to most of the house.  I am pretty fond of the dark color of the wet stucco.

...and here's what we learned today-stucco is full of tiny little fibers.  At first we thought an animal had rubbed against it, but as we looked around, we noticed that the fibers were a major part of the mix-at least part of this second coat of stucco.

Here's a guy mixing up some more stucco in the front yard.

...and there are piles of excess stucco which was scraped off the house-everywhere.  What a mess.

Here's Shane walking up the front walk.

Here's what the front walk looks like when you are standing on the porch.

I don't think we'll make a habit of hanging coats on the front walkway.

These guys are all over the place in stilts.

...but looks like someone must have been taking a break.

The kitchen and harvest room with all of the stucco hung.

...and looking from the kitchen into the living room.

This guy is placing the drywall into the archway of the studio.

I didn't mean to get his face, but he turned his head right as I snapped the pic.

We had to go back to the house for a second time this evening and the archway had been completed.

Here's why we had to drive back over after dinner-we have a work area in the garage and when we were there after work, we didn't see an outlet, or a light above where the workbench will be.  How can you have a work area without a place to plug tools  in?  Later, we decided that maybe they just hadn't cut through the drywall-which meant we had to go back to investigate.

They did remember to wire for a light and outlet.  Whew.  Sure glad we figured that out so we can sleep tonight!

Up the stairs...

Here's a pic of the gameroom with all of the drywall installed.

...and right outside the gameroom, looking down the stairs.

...going down the stairs...

The living room-that archway leads towards the master bedroom and the TV will sit on the right side of the fireplace.  (Mom, does that answer your question?)

In the back corner of the yard, Shane sketched out where the raised garden bed will go.  We are going to have sod installed around it so I don't have to fight the grass coming up, and we need to measure it so we can get enough stone.

A couple of days ago, they had to jackhammer the curb so our driveway could be poured.

But they've done a nice job blending in the new curb.

I can't wait until we get to pull into this driveway each night.  My Rover won't know what to do when it gets to spend nights in the garage.

...and just because there aren't enough pictures in tonight's edition of the the blog...check out the great pic I got on the way home from our second visit to the house.

Concrete Trucks Galore

I was not going to stop by the house on my way to work this morning.  But right as I drove past the exit, I remembered that they were going to pour some more concrete today...

So I exited on 71st and circled back around to check things out.  Our neighborhood was super busy with concrete trucks coming and going.  I counted at least 8 concrete trucks and one pumper truck furiously trying to  trying to get concrete poured while the weather was dry so it could cure over the weekend.

It wasn't quite 8am and they already had our driveway almost completely poured.

By the time we went back by after work, here's what the house looked like.

Driveway, sidewalk & front porch-all done!

I was just certain that they would pour the back patio with the pumper truck.  I'm not sure how I thought they would manage around the roof of the porch, but apparently the house is too tall for that.  When Shane drove by on his way to work, he saw some poor guy slepping a wheelbarrow full of concrete around back.

Oh. My. Gosh. It must have taken him most of the day.

They also started the second coat of stucco today.  In these pics you can see the texture it will have. 

The drywall crew worked today, as well.  Apparently, they had to jump over the corner of the wet driveway into the garage in order to work.

This pic was taken while standing in the kitchen looking at the fireplace.

This next pic was taken while standing in the archway that is in the picture above; looking the other direction- a view from the hallway into the living area.  We have opted to cover up the nook that was originally at the end of the hallway-no matter how it was framed, it was off center.  Instead, we will have just a flat wall with an art light.

This cute little archway is the entrance to my studio and the super-awesome pantry. The fridge will be installed on the left of this arch, the oven will on the other side.  In the ceiling you can see the can lights, vents and speaker holes.

Turning around the other way, here we are looking at the harvest room with the vaulted ceiling.

You can better see the arch above the tub now that they have it partially drywalled.

...and the door on the left is where the toilet will go, the door on the right is the walkway into the shower.  You will turn a corner to actually get into the shower, it won't have a door. Yay-no shower door to clean!

They brought in scaffolding to hang the drywall in the front entrance.

Here's another view of the scaffolding, but from the upstairs.

...and looking down into the wine room from the second floor.

...and here is the gameroom-I guess they'll finish the raised part of the ceiling later.

They are planning to have the drywall completed tomorrow and our flooring has been ordered. 

Things are moving along rather quickly-it's the very end of March and we should get to move in during the first week of July!

Rushing Around the Weather

The weather here is cold, overcast & dreary...with it has come a slight case of the winter blues.  At least we've got some cool things going on with the house to distract us.

Today we snuck over before lunch to meet the builders for a bit & the construction guys were busy preparing the front yard for the driveway.

They were moving dirt and you can see that they have started the frame for the driveway.

Inside the house, the workers were hanging drywall. 

Check out his stilts.

I guess working on stilts is easier than going up and down a stepstool a gazillion times.

Maybe the stilts are fun, too?

I was standing in our master bath when I took this pic & the workers are hanging drywall in our laundry room.  It looks like they hang the drywall and then cut out for the doors-I guess that eliminates a lot of measurements.

Standing in the mother-in-law suite, looking towards the hallway.  It's interesting that they are hanging the drywall from the ceiling down.

The top half of the garage has been drywalled.

By the end of the day, they had the concrete forms for the entire yard in place.  Hopefully, tomorrow morning we will have concrete trucks lining the street pouring all of the concrete for the yard.

In this pic, you can see the rebar grid for the driveway.

...and the molds for the neighborhood sidewalk will be poured.

...and here the form has been built for the walkway from the driveway to the front door.

Here's a pic of the back patio.

...and a different view of the front yard.

Do you think the neighbor is annoyed by the port-a-potty being on his sidewalk?

I'm just wondering.

Okay, the best news of the day is that our fabulous builders have saved us about $2,000 on tile.  Apparently, we have really good taste; but Dana has worked her magic and got us to our budget point.  She has been talking with different vendors to get some upgrades for our wood floors as well as working with the iron guy so that we can have custom iron railings for our stairs.