Photo Update: April 28

The stone is done:

The basement is mostly insulated and almost ready for drywall:

The rest of the drywall is taped and mudded:

Photo Update: April 22

Photo Update: April 20

Here is a photo of the brick progress and a close-up of the stone. I think it's already starting to lighten up since yesterday.

Photo Update: Drywall

The entire second level, other than Samantha's room, is dry-walled.

Photo Update: April 19

It's hard to tell from this picture, but they started putting up the stone today.

The small part they had completed looked so dark, and was very different from what we had pictured.

But, after the brick experience, we decided to trust that once it is all on and dried out it will look good. The piles of stone sitting in front looked great, so hopefully it will look like that in a few days.

Our house number is up too. We had never discussed this with Rick or Ron, so I guess this is their standard type.

I would have made it bigger, myself, but I think the contrasting stone colour makes it easy enough to read.

Photo Update: April 16

Basement Electrical Walkthrough

We met Ron, Joanne, and Stan this morning for an electrical walk through of the basement, now that it is framed in.

Rick was at the site too, for a bit, and we discussed the columns under the porch. They are going to be stucco, with stone at the bases. We also changed the plan from 3 columns down to 2.

Insulation

It took about three days to insulate the house. Amazing!





This is the spray foam insulation for Samantha's room, which is above the garage.

And the powder room is the first place in the house to have some drywall up (just on one wall).

Brick Update: April 15

Back and sides: done

Garage Doors

Our builder sent us to Doors Plus to pick out our Garage Doors.

We already had a colour and style in mind before going in as we had driven around and looked at a bunch beforehand.

The ones we like are upgrades (of course).

But, we had anticipated that and had already set aside budget for the doors. We don't have final numbers yet, but it looks like they will be below our estimate, which is good.

The garage doors are pretty prominent in the front of the house, so we want them to look nice.

Stubbs Basement Walkthrough

We met with Allen to walk through the basement today.

He marked out the places for speakers, etc. for the media plan we had put together earlier when we met with him back in February.

Should be a pretty sweet setup when it's all done.

Patio Palace: Fireplace Selections

Scott and I went out to Patio Palace today to choose the fireplace inserts.

We chose a traditional log setting for the great room.

For the basement we went with a stone kit. I hadn't seen that before and thought it was different but pretty.

Brick Progress

The brick is looking good!

One side of the house is totally done and the other side and back are coming along. I also saw a pile of stone today, which is exciting.

Basement: Framing

The basement is framed in now:

Photo Update: April 9

We've had a lot of rain and thunderstorms lately, so the brick laying progress has been slow going.

Scott and I were shocked when we first saw the bricks. We had expected them to be more brownish in colour as opposed to the peachy-taupe colour they looked at the site.

Ron assured us that the orange hue is normal for new, wet, clay bricks, and that it will lighten into a browner-sandy finish once they are on and dried.

We were still a little skeptical, but took his word for it. Today it was drier outside and I noticed that once the bricks were actually on the house they did look a lot better. I hope it all comes together when it's done.

Sacwal Flooring: Part 2

After our initial meeting at Sacwal, I came home to tell Scott about the flooring. I was trying to describe the cork for the basement, and we decided to stop back into Sacwal to see it in person.

Scott really disliked the cork once he saw it, so we started looking at other samples. Since they were getting ready to close, we made a plan to go back and look another time.

But in the short few minutes we were there, Scott found this maple hardwood that we hadn't even looked at earlier and we both fell in love with it right away.

We decided to switch the original selection and go with this one instead:

http://www.kentwoodfloors.com/ca/originals/products/30191

I had been second guessing the original hardwood ever since the first meeting, so I was thrilled about the switch.

John said he'd try to work it into our allowance.

Today we went back in to choose a cork for the basement. After a lot of deliberation in store, we took some samples home, and agreed on one that we both really like.

I think flooring is really done now.

Photo Update: April 2

We went out to see the house with Scott's parents. The boys had fun fooling around in their future bedrooms and bathroom. And in the dirt pile out front.