Tile, Mantle, and Final Inspections!!!

It was a long haul with the tile in our upstairs bath. Walls, floor, and even ceiling got the treatment, and at some points Jason didn't think he'd ever finish! Even Erika was impressed by how professional it turned out! You're also getting a first glimpse of the amazing mantle our friend Shawn built for us. It mimicks the look for the staircase and will be a great focal point for the room. We're in the process of staining that to match the stairs, so more to come on that piece.

The most exciting thing are the inspection stickers!!!!! We know you can't read them and they probably aren't nearly as exciting to you, but we a thrilled! The electrical inspection was completed last week and the plumbing this week. This means that next week, we hope to have our final inspection and Certificate of Occupancy! There is still LOTS of finish work to do, but it will be great to be in the house and pick away at it as we go.

Fixtures

The plumber was here this week for final installations. You can see the kitchen and downstairs bath fixtures here. We can't show you the upstairs bath because we've FINALLY started staining the staircase! It's not even done yet and looks just amazing!

In addition to our plumbing being finished, we've also got hardware on the kitchen cabinets. Now we can open them!!

Downstairs Bath

After many painting and design mishaps, our powder room downstairs is finally finished. Those stripes were NOT easy, but ended up looking nice. We found the vanity on clearance and though it's a bit more Victorian in style than the rest of our home, we think it's pretty cool.

Kitchen (Almost) Complete

I never in a million years thought installing the granite countertop would be that easy!! Jamie H. was kind enough to help Jason and we're thrilled with the outcome. You'll notice our sink is a little different, it's a granite composite sink. We originally purchased a sink from a salvage yard that we hoped to refinish. Once we got the cabinets in, however, we discovered it was much to big for the kitchen and took away much needed counter space. The granite composite sink is very durable and looks great with the counters. We love the kitchen, and can't wait to see the appliances, which arrive this afternoon.

Kitchen Transformation

Jason is excited to be on winter break this week and have time to finish up lots of projects. One thing we're so happy to see is our finished kitchen. Saturday Jason and Jamie K. put in the cabinets, and in the next few days we'll see the granite and appliances arrive. We LOVE our cabinets and how the whole room is coming together. More pics of the cabinets to come shortly...

Shiny New Floors!

To you, these may be too many photos of the same boring floors, but to us, it's a thing of beauty to see them finally done. The pics at the bottom are before the top coat of polyurethane, while the top couple are what it looks like all shined up. They are so great and we are so happy with how they turned out. The floors are mostly heart of pine, but in our mudroom, downstairs bath and laundry room, they are maple.

As excited as we are about the floors, we're still struggling with the staircase. We're tackling that project ourselves and it is NOT pretty. Today, we finished stripping all the old wax and varnish off as of today, Erika is halfway through sanding them down. We hope to have some great pictures of our totally sanded staircase in the next couple of days.