99% Complete

That's right, the house STILL isn't completely finished.  Yeah, I know...we thought that the great thing about having a Parade house was that it had an absolute finish date.

Hahaha.  The last laugh was certainly on us!  We are still trying to get things finished.  After we moved in & both went back to work, I took another couple of days off so that we could get the subs back in to have everything finished.

We scheduled the electricians, the drywall guys & the lighting store to come finish up their areas.  They all arrived.  However the painters and tile guys haven't come back yet & we are still missing legs to the island that will need to be installed by the trim guys, so there is still lots of little things that need finished.

At least we finally have that silly grounding rod out of the back yard.  After Shane & I spent hours digging and wiggling that grounding rod to remove it, with no success, the electricians came and in about 5 minutes pulled the thing straight out of the ground.

Can you see how long it is? It's about 3 feet taller than the guy holding it...it felt like it was tied to some building in China.

They said we loosened it up. I believe them.

We aren't having a lot of luck with the garden this year.  It's a little pathetic compared to last year, but with the late start, the hotter-than-hades weather and the terrible soil we just didn't have much hope.

One cucumber has managed to survive.  It's about 3 inches long.

We have some marble size cherry tomatoes that have looked exactly like this photo for about 3 weeks.  I am inclined to think they will never turn red.

However, the pink-double-knockout-roses seem to be doing well & I'm enjoying them quite a lot.

We have straightened up the garage and there is now room for two of our cars. I'm not showing you the third car garage for a reason.  It's still on my "to-do" list.

Also in the garage, here is Shane's new workbench.  It has a light and a place to hang all the tools you normally use, as well as several electrical outlets on one side so you can plug in your tools.

Remember I said the drywall guys showed up?  Now the house looks like this. 

Almost every room is currently decorated with white patches and blue tape.  The drywall guys are telling me that the painters need to sand the patch job...the painters are telling me the drywall guys should do it...and yet no one is actually doing it.

I'm getting a little irritated.



Today we found a place to hang our very cool double-sided clock.  (It's in the game room in case you couldn't tell.)  (Mom, there is an OU sign hanging in that doorknob too, thanks.)

In our bathroom, you can see the stool for my make-up area. I love the make-up area and I love having all the space in the drawers and cabinets.  It is this clean every day.  Really.  I'm not even kidding.  Shane can hardly believe it.

 Also, Minnie & Bo have a classy new black & white water bowl that matches the decor. 

We couldn't really expect them to walk all the way to the kitchen every time they needed a drink; I mean there legs are kind of short.

Minnie would look like this after every trek for a drink-wiped out!

Also, in the laundry room we have another new decoration necessitated by Minnie & Bo.  Can you see the red box right next to the flowers?

It's a "Hello Kitty" mini-fridge.

Inside, it's just large enough to hold a can of food for both the critters as well as some of their medicine which must be kept refrigerated.

I mean, you can't really expect us to walk back and forth from the laundry room to the fridge and back to the laundry room every time they need to eat...

It has nothing to do with the length of our legs, we're just too lazy.

Furnishings...

Today was another busy day...

Last night we installed the doors for under the grill and sink...

...and this morning the stucco guy came to finish things up.

It's all finished and I can't wait to eat a steak grilled out here!

The rest of the day consisted of picking up a chair for the living room and having the pool table taken apart and delivered and put back together at our place.  I felt badly that the movers had to take the table downstairs then upstairs, but they said most pool tables sit upstairs.

I'm going to quickly post pics of both of those things because we are going to play our first game of pool as soon as I'm finished with the blog...

In this pic, you can also see the blinds...

Here's the living room as complete as it is now...

It's coming together and we are still loving it!

Getting Settled

We are loving living in our new house!  There is so much room and it is beautiful yet comfortable and cozy. 

On Sunday, we took down our original window coverings in the master and mother-in-law bedrooms. I know, I know...it was such a waste to buy new ones, the paper ones were just fine...

...and installed the room-darkening roller shades which we had ordered.  We'll worry about curtains at a later date.

We also installed black wood blinds in the game room.  I must not have a pic, I'll upload one for you later.

Shane went back to work on Monday and I have been here at the house unpacking and sweeping the floors....and sweeping the floors...and sweeping the floors.

The good news is that I can see the dirt and promptly remove it from the floor.  The bad news is that I feel like my middle name is "sweeps-the-floors."

I think I've dust mopped every. single. day.

Here are a few pics of how things look at this point:



This is how the couch looks-Minnie is completely loving it.

Today, the iron guys came back to install the iron for the game room window...

It looks so much better with the iron and the cast stone trim above the garage doors.

Inside, they also installed the new wine room door.

Here's the original door and fleur-de-lis...

Isn't the new one nicer?


Sadly, it has a chipped tip, which will have to be fixed.

This weekend some friends came to visit and brought us a housewarming gift:

...and we've stocked the wine room a bit...

In the backyard, the cable line has been buried and this morning some land guys came to fix the swell where our land drains on the neighbors (you can see them in the background), and the stucco guys came to work on the outdoor kitchen.

 This afternoon the stucco guy was back to apply the color coat of stucco; he will finish up bright and early tomorrow.  Tonight, Shane will install the stainless steel doors underneath.

Tomorrow we will have more changes-I'm going to get the accent chair that goes with our couch & our pool table will be delivered, so look for more pictures tomorrow night.

Now I'm just going to relax a bit on the couch.

That is if Minnie will share with me.

Furniture

This morning Shane mowed the yard for the first time.  I'm sure our neighbors are thrilled-it was needing it!

While we waited for our furniture to be delivered, we had just enough time to make another trip over to Lowe's for some more shelf liner.  I have now bought all of the black liner they have, hopefully this is all we will need.

Finally, Mathis Brothers arrived!

First, they brought in the chair and couch cushions...

Next, the couch...

Yes, there are a gazillion pillows on it, but if you move them around, there is also room for people to sit.

...and ooh the pillows are soft, they are down-filled.  I'm about to fall asleep as I type this, however Shane has beat me to it. 

We think Minnie is tired of being put in the bedroom only to come back into the living room to have things change again.  But she seems to be happy with the latest change-she's really been missing sitting on the couch with me.

In other news...the stucco guys won't be here to work on the outdoor kitchen until Monday or Tuesday...but we aren't worried about much now that we have a comfy place to nap. ;-)

Getting Settled...

This time last week, the house we were living in had mauve and country blue wallpaper, curtains & blinds.  I don't think I'll miss it.

...and our garage had this larger-than-life poster of Alan Jackson on one wall. Someone even went to the trouble to frame it, that still makes me giggle.

 Now our living area is much calmer.  Well, it's calmer except for all of the boxes.  Here's what the island looked like this morning....

...and here's what the living room looked like this morning...

But we've been hard at work all day, and I mean hard at work.

We went to two furniture stores and found a couch and extra-large chair and ottoman for the living room, then we went to Sam's and bought some necessities like French bread pizzas and watermelon.  I mean, what't the point in having all of this freezer and refrigerator space if we aren't cooling things?

When we arrived home the granite guys were working on the outdoor kitchen.  We didn't intend to have a granite countertop, but remember our too-small island? That granite was re-fabricated to be the countertop for the outdoor kitchen.

We couldn't believe how long it took them, I know they were out there for at least six hours, maybe more.  Tomorrow the stucco guys should come back and apply the stucco so it will match the house, but tonight, it looks like this...

I feel as if this is where I've spent the last five days...standing behind the island cutting shelf liner mats.  I keep running out and having to run back to the store.  I thought the first batch I bought might be too much and I intended to return some, but I think I've been back five times.  I've saved all might receipts & when I'm all finished, I can't wait to total it up and see what I've spent on that silly stuff!

Back to the hard work we've done...we are able to park my car in the garage, with room to spare-I predict tomorrow night we will have two cars in the garage.

But wait until you see this...here are the end-of day pictures I have for you today...

The game room bar: 
Shane did all of this organizing, doesn't it look great?

...and the game room:
We have a pool table and two bar stools on the way, and a gazillion football decorations for the walls that will be on the walls soon.

The upstairs spare bed room:

The sheets are all clean and ready for visitors.

The upstairs shower:

The office/storage room (for now).  It still needs some work:

The wine room with a few bottles on display and lots and lots of empty storage places:

The laundry & Bo's bedroom:
We discovered a couple of nights ago that you can't put him in here for the night when the dryer is going.  He whines and whines-maybe it hurts his ears? We certainly won't do that again.

...and the living room:

All of the boxes are gone, the paper has been pulled off floor and the floors have been swept. We are ready for our OU chairs to go into the garage so our furniture can be delivered tomorrow.

Here's a view of the island at the end of today...

It looks 1,000 times better than this morning, doesn't it?

...and the cooktop area...

Both sides of the vent-a-hood have been decorated with some items we happened to have on hand.  The glasses are champagne flutes that I carried all the way home from Prague in my backback almost twenty years ago.  I know they will collect dust, I'm just glad they are finally out of their box.

Well, we are loving the house and Bo and Minnie are, as well.  Minnie had a rough time with the floors at first, but she's doing fine now.  We still  have tons of work to do, but it's coming together. 

We had movers who moved the big furniture, but there was still a lot that we moved ourselves.  By ourselves, I mean Shane & I and our families. Thanks to both of our families, this was the easiest move I've ever had.

...they lugged our stuff over and even baked us homemade cookies (among other things).

You can't beat that!

Thanks so much to all of you!