It's hard to get excited

We paid a visit to the house yesterday. The contractor had managed to get some work done on the exterior for a few days last week. There are still no services hooked up, so the plan was to get the exterior finished while we waited for heat and power. Unfortunately, the weather has not been cooperating and there have only been a handful of days (not back to back of course) that the weather has been warm enough to work on it.

There are a few areas of concern to be addressed with the contractor - all of which boil down to him not listening to what we want, and then going ahead with what he thinks is best without consulting us. We're staying on top of these issues as much as possible to ensure that they don't cost us all valuable time and money. It's hard to be excited about the end product when we're so caught up fighting over every little detail during the process.

On the plus side, having even a small amount of the siding on is a relief. I love the colour we chose, and I'm really happy with the upgraded materials. Once it's done it'll be more in keeping with the style of the house. I'm hoping that the weather is our friend this week, and that we can see alot more done when we pay another visit next weekend.

Deep freeze

Progress on the house has, literally, been frozen for nearly 2 weeks! With no natural gas hook up and temperatures hovering near -40, there is no feasible way to make any headway on the house. We now have the house completely closed in, electrical roughed in, and our garage floor poured...all good things. We'll just have to wait now until the weather lets up to get going on the exterior, and then for natural gas to be able to heat the inside to rough in the plumbing and get it drywalled.

What's wrong with this picture?

After a weekend out of town, I headed out to the house to see how things looked since the windows had been installed. Hmmm, going out there and becoming frustrated at the appearance of things is becoming an all too common occurrence. As we approached, the words came swift and sharp, "Why can I see sunlight through the roof?!".


As we got closer, I realized that the windows were indeed installed, the majority of them anyway, but for some bizarre reason the roof wasn't totally sheeted! Call me crazy but isn't that supposed to happen *before* putting in windows and doors? Not to mention the fact that they had installed some fugly white steel front door that was certainly not what I had ordered.


Seeing the windows in made me truly regret accepting the windows the company had shipped...all of them for the front of the house with mullions instead of clear glass. It's just not my style, not my taste, and I should have insisted they go back, but I didn't and now I'm stuck with them.


I am grateful for the manufacturer's error on my patio doors, though. Originally they were to be sliding glass doors, but when they arrived they were two garden doors...which I looooooooooove! So glad for that mistake!


I'm meeting with the electrician tomorrow to set up our interior and exterior lighting plan, wish me luck!

Is that your final answer?

I kept telling everyone who cautioned me about the huge number of decisions I'd have to make not to worry, that I have a vision and I wouldn't have an problems. WRONG!

We have been through more siding, trim and paint samples than I care to think about. And each one left me more and more dewildered. Dallas isn't much help either, telling me that, "As long as it's not ugly", I can select what I think is best. So, after muh deliberation, we've decided on our exterior colours.

We have decided to use a fiber cement siding instead of vinyl for a few reasons. It's longer lasting, it looks better, and it's friendly to the environment. Here's our pick for siding:

Our trim:

Our garage doors:

I stood in my closet today

I nearly froze my tush off today but I managed to spend some time walking through the house and triple checking to make sure that things were coming together as we wanted them to. So far so good, no changes = a happy contractor!


Perspective is hard since the walls are only framed, but here is a tour:


The dining room (view from the living room)
Front foyerUpstairs hall (it will have an open iron railing and be open to the stairs and foyer below) Bonus room

Uh, hun, it' snowing in the house!

Well, no roof. I was *really* hoping that the house would have been closed in before it snowed. Now I have an inch of snow inside! The entire house has now been framed and the roof trusses are just about in. This week the plan is to finish the roof, and to get all the windows and doors installed.

To no one's shock, the dumb-ass developer - who has been months behind on everything, including keeping the contractor up to date on the status and availablilty of service, etc. - didn't let my builder know until last week that we won't have natural gas access for FIVE more weeks! There seems to be a loose plan in place to make use of propane heaters until they can heat the house with a temporary furnace but the heaters will only work if the weather holds out. Fingers crossed people...I want nothing to slow us down now.

I want something special!

We met with our contractor last night and, after several weeks of sloooowwwwww progress on the house, things are picking up.

From the beginning, Dallas and I knew that we wanted to have finishes and products in the house that were different than the average home. After the fiasco with the glass counter top, we decided to look closer to home to get what we wanted. And we think we've found something really special in our choice of flooring. It's a product called Arteca, a man-made product that recreates the look of just about anything and everything you can imagine...even glass! We decided to scrap our plans to install hardwood and slate and have, instead, chosen a couple of amazing finishes for the main floor, and laundry and bathrooms.

Here is a sample of the living room floor we chose.

I am told that we might have (gasp) a roof by the weekend...I'll be sure to post pics and an update then!