Kitchen Plans

The busiest week ever for us on Lot 4! Our Saturday began with a meeting with George to finalize the plans on the kitchen and bathrooms (a couple of small changes in the kitchen and a whole new plan for the master bathroom), followed by a couple of hours making final decisions on all of the tiling (I'll go over that in the next post). Then on to the house to see the siding - the colors are perfect! And a couple of hours with John. Meet John, the electrician. John's the type of guy who says "no problem" alot. I love it. And when we said "we have no idea what to do here..." he quickly came up with great suggestions. A quick walk-through with Mike (plumbing is mostly done, the upstairs tub is installed and half a dozen other tasks are completed). Then on to Sears to buy our appliances.

I can't wait to show off the kitchen!

This view of the kitchen is from the great room. We'd originally planned on no upper cabinets to show off the beautiful windows but George came up with a plan we loved. The two cabinets flanking the windows are only 12" deep. It then steps up to a taller corner cabinet and steps back down to 12" cabinets again on the side walls. It gives a panoramic effect to the view and really showcases the windows (and the view of the future side gardens). It also dramatically increases the storage space!

The rightmost wall contains the cooktop and the oven tower with the built in oven and a shelf above it to hold the microwave. Beyond that are triple sliders to the deck and the area for a dining table. The area below the range hood will be a stone backsplash which I will show in the next posting.

Here is the left wall. Actually this photo only shows the cabinetry. There are actually two doorways between these two pieces; to the right the doorway into the laundry and on to the garage, and on the left side of that the doorway into the library. A narrow wall separates the two doors. Our fridge will have french doors. I love the pantry along the fridge!

Then and Now

Gary's comment on July 21st made me want to go back and take a look at the progress of the lot. We'd loved this property from the first time we'd seen it, tramping through snow and ice in February. It was rough, but it was natural, private, and definitely not a "Monopoly board" neighborhood!
On March 22, shortly after signing the rchase agreement, we met with Mike for a walkthrough. We got to know each other over a couple of hours as he shared his vision and listened to ours. We are gardeners at heart and prefer the meandering and terracing naturalized style of gardening. Mike promised us "interesting" and "functional". These aren't the best example of my photography skills, the perspective is difficult. Suffice it to say that the hike up to where I shot this pic, near the road, and where the guys are standing, near what is now the back corner of the house, left me huffing, and the walk back down had me stumbling.

By April, as he was beginning the excavation for the basement, Mike began to remove huge boulders and smooth out the hills and drops. We had several discussions then about which trees stayed and how many boulders we wanted to keep.

He made adjustments for drainage and graded the natural contour of the land in a way that respected our desire to have a natural appeal and interesting landscape, but still be comfortable traversing the property and have enough "flat" for the necessities.

By May, the lay of the land was pretty clear to see, with gentle sloping on what was a steep hill and a very level area in front. The general shape is apparent in these photos, though there has been a great deal of refining.

This last pic is that spot at the back where the deck will be, the jut-out is the sun room (behind the fireplace). It's all gentle rolls now. With everything happening to the house itself, I haven't taken any good pics of the land in June or July, but I'll rectify that this weekend.

Tiles and more shopping

A great part of last Saturday was spent at the showrooms at Classic Tile in Medway. By the time we were done with our selections the entire floor in both showrooms were covered in tiles! The laundry room (which is also the entry from the garage into the kitchen), 3 bathrooms, the shower and the backsplash behind the cooktop all require tiles. Oh, and that funky ledge in the main entry hall, which can only be viewed coming down the stairway from the second floor (but since were are putting plants up there it needs protection from water spillage). We selected a bunch of tiles and Debbie (our consultant - who threatened to flee if I pointed my camera in her direction!) gave us the samples to take home and live with for a while. We went straight to the house and laid everything out to try and imagine how it would look. From our first try we are keeping our choices for the shower, the backsplash and the powder room. The floor tiles for the master bath turned a chalky color in the light of the room and the pale ivory for the guest bath upstairs washed right out. So we'll be back to try again for those rooms. I'll post pics of the chosen tiles later this week once I drag them out of the trunk of the car!

Saturday was an exhausting 10 hour day. Besides the tiles, we shopped, unsuccessfully, for lighting (more on that later), ran to Sears to get one more quote on appliances, met with Mike to discuss the changes to the bathroom. Success, the toilet has a new location, the doorway to the master bath is framed for a pocket window and the kitchen wall will be extended to fit a full sized refridgerator instead of the cabinet-depth fridge I thought I wanted. It amazes me that we have a builder who accepts my ever-changing opinions and says "no problem" and then makes it happen! We straggled home at 7pm then sat up half the night working on the decisions left to make. Tom, who has the serenity and patience of the Dali Lhama, is still patient, but maybe not so serene. We called a hiatus on house decisions on Sunday and tried to catch up on the rest of our lives! These couple of weeks will be the worst of it. I do have to admit, as frustrating as it is, it is also great fun!

Windows!

The windows make a wonderful statement! A few left to install and the front door and half-light are still being milled. Should be here for next week. Siding to begin (if there are enough breaks in this weeks rain.)










A view of the future deck in the photo on the left. the sliders on the left lead to the four season room and the sliders on the right will lead into the kitchen. The doors to the basement walkout are georgeous! Above that is the big window for the master bath. There is a half-light to go above the windows. And to the right another pic of the four season room.

A Milestone

These photos from Saturday show the roof installed in front. They were working frantically to get the back done that day (they did). The chimney base (yea, sorry Mike, what DO you call that?) in the basement is now in as well. Sorry Donavan, your idea for an elevator in the fireplace hole was very cool, but we decided to stick with a fireplace! Siding and windows are ordered and will be here next week sometime. POST POST CORRECTION Gary says the windows are here!!

Back again on Sunday to do a walkthrough with Mike. He was able to work out additional storage and we were thrilled with that. We were thrilled with everything! Well almost… We were in the master bathroom and I’m chattering away about doors and lighting and such when Tom, very quietly says, “um, I have a question…” Uh oh! Turns out while I was designing our glorious European shower, I hadn’t accounted for the full swing of the pivot door. It was going to hit the privacy wall alongside of the commode. A few panicked minutes, some options tossed around, a bit of sketching and we have what looks like a new plan. Mike will have to run it by the plumber and work out some final details, but it looks good, and we like this layout even better.

Busy week to come – it is decision time. George will have the kitchen and bath designs for us to approve any day. We meet with the tiling company next Saturday to select all of the tiles. We will be doing a walkthrough with the electrician soon, so we had to sit with the floorplans and decide where switches and sockets and such were going to go. I thought that was going to be easy, but it was a lot of decisions to make. Low voltage or solar along the drive? Do we need a light in that closet? Where exactly are the track lights going and how do we place the switches? The basement – but we aren’t finishing the basement! Oh yea, I suppose overhead lighting makes sense, and outlets too. When I said I always wanted that big spotlight on the front of the house at Christmas time, Tom decided it was time for bed…

Progress

In spite of even more rain a lot was done at lot 4 this week. We have the beginning of ceilings and walls and the fireplace begins to take shape.

More visitors to Lot 4

Patrick, Donavan and Abigail (my nephews and neice) are up from Florida on vacation. They were excited to come see the house being built and gave it a thourough inspection! They all rated it as very cool and were excited that we had a guest room for them to stay in when they came again.

Coming from Florida, they were amazed by the basement. Abigail decided to wait to see the upstairs until there were real stairs there. Donavan wants to know why two people need three bathrooms. Patrick noticed more detail and asked more questions that I ever thought of!

A treat at the ice cream stand finished the day wonderfully!

Meet George

George is our kitchen designer and we met him at his brand new, still being assembled, showroom which is less that 10 minutes from our apartment. George is another one of those people passionate about his job who we've been lucky to meet in this house-building adventure. He spent a couple of hours with us on Saturday asking all kinds of questions and showing us dozens of samples - including a few that he pulled out of yet-to-be unpacked crates. This chore that we were dreading actually quickly became fun! We discovered we knew more about what we wanted than we thought we did.

We've selected a cherry wood cabinet in a medium stain and an Arts and Crafts style. George didn't bat an eye when we said we really didn't like granite and he showed us some beautiful high-end laminates that we really liked. We've worked out a layout that we think works and he is getting together some sketches for us to look at. He's also working on some ideas for the bathrooms. We should have something to look at by the end of next week. Now lets just see if we can keep it within the budget - or at least close enough!

We've also done shopping and research on appliances and we are gathering pricing on that as well. So all the tough decisions should be done pretty soon. All we wiill need now is for the rain to give us a break, not a day this week without heavy rain. All we need is a few days for the wood to dry so that they can finish the roof.