The Eleventh Hour...

Needless to say, today was a busy day.  Shane was at the house for several hours today and I had several calls from Dana-one specifically asking me what I wanted to do differently with the kitchen backsplash.  I appreciated the offer, but with everything else left to do, I told her to leave it alone thinking maybe it will grow on us.  We decided that I'd rush over after school to deliver the cork board for the wine room.

This is how things looked when I arrived...

Uhm, seriously?

The kitchen backsplash turned out much better than we expected.  We don't love the white band at the bottom and might still tweak it, but we do like it a lot.  Unfortunately, the tile guys scratched the front of the cooktop all up.  :-(

These guys are trying to drill holes through the granite on the island.

They are cooling the drill bit in that cup of icky water.

Speaking of the island...do you remember that yesterday I had a picture of the island without the granite?  When I showed up at 3:15 today, the island was put back together, with the exact same piece of granite.  As it turns out, the granite guy messed around and didn't call the granite distributer until a week and a half after we confirmed they had three pieces left...and when he called they no longer had our granite.

Neither of us are happy about this.  However, we will figure something out between now and the first week of July.  We'll either locate another slab, or choose another piece.  But we aren't going to lose any sleep over it.

Changing gears, this next bit is very exciting. 

Our mailbox was installed today. (Please forgive that the Parade sign is falling over, the yard was very wet.)

AND, even more exciting, while we were at the house, I recieved my first package from UPS.  If I hadn't have been so shocked and surprised, you know I would have snapped his picture.  Who sent me a package, you ask?  It was a donation for the Pierce Phillips Charity Gala, the children's cancer charity that I'm on the board of. 

What are the odds that we happened to be at the house when the box was delivered?  Well, I guess the odds are pretty good-we are there quite a lot.

The carpet was installed in the rest of the house today...basically all of the bedrooms and the staircase.

Here, Dana and one of the crew are hanging the cork board.

Shane's shower was completed today, but it's really hard to take a picture of, so for now I'll just post another pic of my bathtub. I know, I should really stop posting pics of it.  I just hope it's as wonderful as it looks.

You can see some of the shower in this pic and the tiles are still wet from the guys wiping off the grout.

The powder bath vanity and sink was completed and installed today. 

That's right, I said completed today. Very cool, and definitely one of a kind.

Here's a pic of the back flower bed.  I'm beyond thankful that I don't have to figure out the flower beds by myself.  There are some double-pink-knockout roses, some Texas sage and some other mystery bushes that will also have pink blooms.  Bob the landscaper was kind enough to put some good soil in my veggie garden, too.

The cleaning crew came and worked their magic for a couple of hours.  They'll be back at 4 o'clock tomorrow morning.  After they cleaned the wood floors, we put the furniture and decorations in place.  Here's a few pics of the house after we staged it.

The guys doing the stucco bands packed up shop at about seven tonight.  I'm sure they will be finishing up in the morning-bright and early. Then, they'll have to come back after the Parade and put some banding over the garage doors-they forgot to order supplies for that.

We left at 9 o'clock and the power washing guys were still washing the driveway when we left.  We are scheduled for judging tomorrow morning, hopefully all the other little things will be finished up in time. 

Shane and Jerry the A/V guy will spend tomorrow installing televisions and making speakers produce music.  I will spend the day with two dozen 1st graders and wondering what's going on at the house.

The Parade of Homes Guide will be available at area QuikTrips tomorrow morning (Friday).  If you can't pick one up, here's the online version. Online Parade of Homes Guide 2011  Our house is on page 72.

Whew. We've almost finished...and it's almost time to move in.  I can't believe it.