Happy Birthday, Jake!

In keeping with our new tradition of making Jake work hard on every holiday when he should be relaxing, Jake spent his birthday pulling low voltage wire throughout the house so that we can have TV, internet and phone. The combo 4 wire was pretty thick and barely fit through the smurf tubes. Jake and I worked all Saturday afternoon trying to get it from the TV cabinet to the stairwell where all the wires terminate. After the connection to the fish tape broke 4 times, all we succeeded in doing was getting the wire stuck in the smurf tube. Fortunately our great friend Bruce came and helped us out on Sunday. Between Jake and Bruce, they got the wire unstuck and ran it all the way. They also ran the rest of the wire. In the picture above, you can see all the wires hanging from the central location. In the picture below, you can see how tight the wire is in the tube coming out of the TV cabinet.


Now that all that Jake has to do is go over every day after work and turn the raw wire, below:


into the nice face plates:


Oh, and put in the panel, and I'm sure a few other things as well. The birthday gift that keeps on giving!

In the Closet

I have been in the closet -- literally, not metaphorically -- almost all week. I installed a great Elfa closet system in the pantry, and worked on all the other closets as well. I still have some pieces to get for Molly's closet and the master closet, but I am almost there. My mom and I went to Ikea and got some bureaus to put in the master closet to hold my clothes, since Molly is getting my good dresser. Once they are all complete, the closets are going to be great. Just look at the great picture at the top of my pantry! The picture below is of my mom after successfully constructing both dressers for the closet -- a nontrivial task to say the least!

House Tour

Since we are almost done, I thought I would do a quick house tour of how great it looks now, before we junk it up with stuff! Follow me on a tour of 124 Laurel:

The front needs some landscaping, but the front porch really made a difference. I think it looks so welcoming:


The paint in the living room is a great color. The tile guy is coming to do the fireplace this week, and I'll be sure to post some pictures when it is done:


I also like the dark green in the dining room. I think at this point, the dining room is going to be the only room in the house without books -- I'll have to think of something.


The girls are both very excited about getting their own rooms. They have each put a lot of thought into color and decoration, and the rooms will be very different. Emily picked purple on the walls, which you can see below, and Molly picked a sunny yellow with her cool chandelier. I think both rooms are going to look fantastic once we get everything in to them -- keeping them that way will be another matter!






Our bathroom and bedroom turned out really well. I love the blue in my room -- the picture doesn't quite do it justice, but it is really blue! The bathroom is simply wonderful. I love the tile that the designer chose and the way we used it as the back splash around the sinks.




My desk area is great as well. Enjoy the below picture, since it is the last time the surface of the desk will be clean! I have promised to try to keep all the flat surfaces (of which there are many) in the front of the house free of piles of stuff, but I have to have one place for piles of paper and my desk will be it. Fortunately it is out of the public area, so no one will be bothered by the piles except me and Jake.


Finally, of course, there is the kitchen and family room. Here are a few more shots of the room and the built in cabinets:




Jake and I are so happy with how the house looks. It will be a great place to live.

Table Trouble

Our beautiful table for the banquette was too high -- when you sat down it felt like it came up to your chin. The problem was that it had already been finished, and I was worried that fixing it would mess it up. Fortunately Mike, the guy from Roth Cabinets, was fantastic. After adjusting all the cabinets for us, he pulled the table apart from the bottom and cut off three inches. You can see him working on the table in the picture above. It is amazing how much difference such a small change made -- both visually and when sitting at the table. It looks great!

Don't Fence Me In!

Now that we have passed our final, the fences came down on Wednesday. It looks so great without them, as you can see in the picture above. I remember how excited I was to see the fences in the first place, since it meant that we were really getting started, but to see them come down is even better! I have actually driven on the driveway -- amazing how the little things take on so much significance when you get to do them for the first time!

The painters have been here touching up the paint and finishing the baseboards, and the place looks really nice. The painters are coming back on Monday to paint the front door, finish a few touch up spots and paint the downspouts. Todd and Matt still need to add the base shoe around the cabinets, but the painters already stained it, so they should be able to do that on Monday. They will also hang all the doors back up then. Of course, we won't have interior door knobs until the middle of November, but that is just a small hiccup. Todd installed all of the new cabinet hardware on Thursday, which you can see in this picture:


Also, the cleaners came on Thursday. I think it was a little premature, but you should see how great the place looks. They cleaned everything (except the freezer), including the windows -- of course, it rained last night, so I only got really clean windows for two days. The picture below I took standing on the banquette, so that you can see the clean kitchen, with the clean windows right behind it.


Here is another shot of the built in bookshelves in the family room:

We PASSED!

We passed our final inspection on the first try -- something almost unheard of around here and very exciting for all of us. The house was like an anthill today with lots of trades bustling around to get ready for the inspection. I was there installing the last couple of light fixtures in the rooms where we redid the wiring. Molly's chandelier looks really nice in her room, although she will be the first one to know if there is an earthquake, because the pieces hanging down from the light make a musical noise when they move and they are on a flexible piece of wire, so they will sway with the house in an earthquake. I put a super cheap fixture in Emily's room, since I have her fixture on order.



Without all the stuff covering the counter tops, the kitchen is back to looking like a real kitchen. I had forgotten how beautiful the counter tops are. The dishwasher is installed and the refrigerator is on -- all that is left is to install the stove, which they will do tomorrow now that the gas is back on.



The water has been turned on as well. Jake's faucet selection, shown below, is totally awesome! The touch technology really works. As long as you leave the faucet on, you can turn it on and off by touching the top, which will make clean up with messy hands really great.



Todd finished installing all the baseboards today, and the painters are coming tomorrow to finishing painting the trim and stain the base shoe that goes around the cabinets. Todd and Matt are going to put on all the cabinet hardware tomorrow, rehang the doors and just start making it look like a house. We still won't have all the door knobs, but at least we'll have doors. I am starting to walk around the house and look at it like a house, rather than just the different parts that I have been focusing on all these months. We are all getting really excited to move in soon! I'll do a virtual tour of the house on the blog after it has all been cleaned. Next stop, finishing the casita!

Floor Show, Act 2

So, the floor guys finished the second go around. There is still a little bit of waviness in the finish, especially in the front room, as well as a few places where the stain was applied unevenly, but overall it is a vast improvement on the previous job. I like the new color as well. They took the old color and added Royal Mahogany to make it a little darker and redder. I really like the new color. It blends very well with the cabinets. In the pictures above, the top picture is the old color and the bottom picture is the new color. Not a huge difference, but just enough to make the two wood colors a little more harmonious. With such a dark floor, I'm going to need to buy stock in Swiffer!