Itch, itch, itch, scratch, scratch, scratch

Yep... the insulation is in! They cannot poly the walls until all electrical and plumbing inspections are complete, so they sit insulated until the good folks at the City of Regina come out to pass our installs.

The exterior is coming along. Because they’re using a new product, it’s been a long process, but the end is in sight. The guys have been working weekends to finish up, and I was thrilled to arrive today to see nearly the entire front façade completed. Yay! The shingles are 90% complete, as is the fascia. Once the siding and trim is done, we’ll have to wait for the spring, and warmer weather, to have the masons install the exterior stone.

Kitchen:

Living Room:

Dining Room (due to some issues with running ducts to the 2nd floor, I no longer have pocket doors here, they'll be double french doors):

Bonus Room:

Spare Bedroom:
Dressing Room (this is what we are now referring to my closet as cause it sounds expensive!):

Master Bedroom (door to the dressing room is visible in the 2nd photo):

Landing:


This is by far the most to-the-point sign I have ever read (gotta love electricians ha ha):

Colour, colour, colour!

Anyone who knows me knows that I love colour. My wardrobe is a rainbow of shades, and I love to incorporate colour into my home.

Anyone who knows Dallas knows that his world consists mainly of gray and blue. It takes alot of persuading to get him out of his little, tiny, light-deprived box.

I am happy to say that Dallas has vowed to embrace colour, and has been a huge and very vocal help when it came to picking paint colours for the house.

We tried to stay "neutral" for the main areas of the house, but decided to have some fun with the rest of the place. The laundry room, in particular, is going to be a very girly girl, glammy room...just for me!

We plan to use Benjamin Moore paints, and have been encouraged to use their new Aura line. The cost is nearly twice that of regular paint, and we are still trying to decide if the cost is worth it, or whether this is a good time to try and shave a little from the budget.

Living Room, Kitchen, Dining Room, Main Floor 1/2 Bath, Staircase and Upstairs Hall, Guest Room, and 2nd Floor Main Bath - 'Limesickle 2145-50':

Master Bedroom, Walk-in Closet, En suite Bath, and Mel's Dressing Room - 'Black Raspberry 2072-20 and Slip af-605':

Bonus Room 'Brown Sugar 2112-20 and Palace White oc-100':

Laundry Room 'Autumn Red 2087-40':

Heat...glorious heat!

After many delays, and months of waiting, we finally have both heat *and* power in the house! This is great news as it means that work on the interior can commence. This week they worked on the insulation...while work on the exterior (and the temperamental product we chose) carries on, and on, and on.

Due to high winds, the shingle install was delayed...hopefully they'll have them in this week.

We now have a new helper on the site. I love him and think he's way cute, the workers are beyond that and now consider him a total pain in the arse - always underfoot! He belongs to a contractor working in the area...and just loves to come by to say "hi".

I just couldn't help but share this photo of a house being built nearby to ours. I find it hideous, and am convinced that a man came up with this design! Ha ha ha.

Who knew that knuckles were so complicated!

Last week I was assigned the task by our builder to select our railing for the upstairs hall and the staircase going to the 2nd floor. I dutifully visited the suppliers website and came up with a sound design plan. It went a little something like this: double knuckle, single knuckle, double knuckle, basket, repeat!

Sadly, my inspired design would have looked a sorry mess once installed. So much for my vision! My contractor (wisely) talked me into reconsidering and we came up with a very simple (if a bit 'in the box') design that will look alot better. That little ditty goes like this: double knuckle, single knuckle, double knuckle single knuckle, and so on.

Stain colours have yet to be determined, but here are the posts, spindles (ours will be done in oil rubbed bronze), and handrail we selected:

The cats have made their decision!

Since Friday, we have had two carpet samples at the house trying to decide which one we wanted for the 2nd floor of the house.

Once I had them home, I set the samples on the floor. The cats didn't bother with one and were literally fighting just to sit on the other one! Of course they liked the expensive one. I tried picking them up, one by one, and setting them on the cheaper sample...but they couldn't get off it fast enough.

Thinking there had to be an obvious reason that they were drawn to it, I got down on my hands and knees and smelled them: they both *smelled* the same. I kicked off my shoes and socks and walked on both: they both *seemed* equally soft. I read the content: they were both made with the same materials. Once Dallas had a chance to take a good hard look (at a variety of angles that made me laugh), we decided to go with the cats and choose the 'Murano' in 'Smoke'.

Here it is:

313 days and counting...

The odyssey that is our new home construction has now hit the 10 month mark. In 2 months I will officially be at my wits end! The good news is that 2 months from now we should be living there...here's hoping it works out that way.

In the meantime, though, I have undertaken the overwhelming task of selecting finishes for the house.

All of our plumbing fixtures will be upgraded to oil rubbed bronze. It's not cheap, but it's definitely the look we were going for. Here's what we chose...



Kitchen:
Main floor 1/2 bath:Second floor main bath:


Master en suite bath:We've also selected our flooring. Here's our picks...

Main Floor (living room, dining room, front entrance):

Kitchen and Half Bath:

Main Bath and En Suite Bath:

Laundry Room (a girl's gotta have her bling). This photo doesn't do this flooring justice. It's *covered* with silver and metalic sparkles. I loved it because it reminded me of this fabulous shoe from Christian Louboutin:

After a very long wait, we finally have power and natural gas at the house! Next week the house is sure to be buzzing...the furnace is being installed, the siding is being completed, the drywall will arrive, the shingles are being applied, and I could very well have a (temporary) front step!

And, as if all of the above wasn't exciting enough, we have an address! A for real street address...and it only took 10 months!

Unfortunatley for our pocketbook, all of this progress has come at a price and we are a whopping $$$ over budget. Not to fear, I have every confidence that I can pinch my pennies from this point on so that we end up as close as possible to our original budget!

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.