House Update - Apr 10

And here's the finished product on the front porch.  It is ready for some underlay and wire mesh before stone is applied.

The upper window trim is finished.  Sadly, Julio (our trim guy), pointed out that another of our upper small entry windows was broken.  Good thing we opted for the replacement warranty.  We have three windows with broken glass and a few others that have some mechanical problems.  Not terribly impressed with Milgard.

House Update - Apr 9

Blaine, one of the workers, started working on the wood structure for the front porch so that the stone guys could finish applying the stone.

House Update - Apr 8

The stone was finally started on the exterior of the house. 

Here's the final grade from the vantage point of the deck.

The built-ins along with the mantle are coming along.

And the painters have begun taping off windows, caulking, and filling nail holes.  A few rooms have been primed, but it is a slow process.  One of the painters, George, made a point of saying that they were moving fast and suggested that the trim guy was the one holding up the process and slowing things down.  HMMM.  I think you all are!

House Update - Apr 7

The final grade.  The final grade.  It opened up the backyard quite a bit so that the view is even more beautiful.  We'll have to shorten that green sewer pipe sticking up.  That would make for quite an eyesore!

Our trim guy Julio has spent hours working on the window trim, baseboards, and built-ins in the living room.  He has to make a few changes to accommodate for tv size.  It is not my favorite place to have it above the fireplace, so I let Chris make the changes that would best fit.

We finally got the extra tile for the master bathroom "versaille" pattern.  The tiles that were initially ordered were impossible to make work, so I had to spend some time coming up with a versaille pattern with the tiles that we had.

Spring Break - Thursday

Misha was just as happy for me to leave her home again today, but I pretty much made her go swimming.  Amy had her friend Allie along, and Kristen's friend Estee joined us.  I tried to convince Misha to invite a friend, but she was anti-going to begin with and wasn't in the mood to concede.  But...she had fun.  I know because I was watching for that smile on her face.

We drove down to Broomfield to the Paul Derda Recreation Center.  The slides and pool area were most impressive and the girls spent most of the time tubing down the slide.  They would switch back and forth from the slides to the lazy river to the hot tub.  Once they got tired of that, I pulled out my underwater camera and the fun began again, because how cool is it to take selfies while tubing down the slide?

So, not sure what kind of pictures I've got as I am just uploading them now.

House Update - Apr 3

It took a little digging, but the workers were finally able to find the piers for the deck stairs.  They kind of messed up the window well in the process, so here's hoping they will put it back together.

The cabinet that was meant to live next to the shower was finally moved from the vanity area in the girls' bathroom.

The master shower had the accent tile applied.  Unfortunately I noticed that they used the tile meant for the kitchen accent tile.  There are days when I sigh and just keep moving past the mistakes.  This was one of them.  The tile used was a mosaic tile, the tile that was supposed to be installed was of the same color but a linear style instead.  It wasn't worth the effort and cost to change.

Brazil

Chris has the opportunity for a lot of international travel in the coming months.  This week he flew to Brazil and Argentina.  The drawback is that the time in each country is limited with long flights in between.  It will be a tiresome whirlwind of landings and take-offs.

The first flight to Brazil got off to a rocky start as his flight to Houston was cancelled as well as the subsequent first-class flight to Brazil. He was to meet up with is boss and co-workers in Houston.  He had to scramble to make new arrangements.  Talk about frustrated and furious.  And United was no help.  Because the flight to Houston was cancelled, they decided that he wouldn't make his Brazil flight and cancelled that ticket and sold it to someone else.

He tried to get another flight through Chicago, but they put him in a very undesirable seat and said that was all that was available.  (Not so, since he moved to an aisle seat once he boarded).  Plus this flight would get him in to Brazil 45 minutes later than his co-workers. 

By the time Chris landed in Brazil on Monday morning (our time), he had slept a little and was late to the gate, only to find that his luggage was still back in Chicago.  Aghghgh!  He was supposed to have meetings in a couple of hours.  His attire consisted of sweat pants and a t-shirt. 

He headed off to the mall where he quickly bought a suit and other clothes for a hefty little sum.

Ahh the life of a world traveler.

Amy's Letter

So proud of my girl who has been taking honors classes her first year of high school.  She surprised us all by lettering in Academics.  Now, if she only had a jacket...

Spring Break - Wednesday

Our mornings are taking on a lazy, relaxed pattern.  That's fine.  Next week we'll be quickly thrown back onto our early-morning schedule and fast-paced life before breakfast.  The weather wasn't quite so nice.  Our plan for the day included miniature golf at Gateway Park in Boulder.  Misha did not want to go and was happy and content to stay home and play her Wii Epic Mickey game. 

The other two girls and I hopped in the Pilot and headed out after lunch.  Boulder area schools had their Spring Break last week, so Gateway Park was rather un-busy.  In fact, we chose to ride the go-karts first and the three of us were the only ones on the track.  Kristen couldn't drive herself and Amy couldn't drive both of them together, so I got to ride along as Kristen's driver.  It was rather chilly and maybe not so much fun with only two cars on the course.

We headed to the miniature golf course next.  I had grabbed my Canon T3i before we left the house, thinking I should at least get a few pictures of our Spring Break week.  When I returned to the car to retrieve my jacket and get the camera, I noticed that Kristen had tucked my small underwater camera in.  Since it fit in my pocket, it was a more convenient choice.  The quality of the pictures weren't as great, but I was already carrying a golf ball, club, pencil, and score card.

The token finger-in-the-gorilla's-nose picture.

Amy got a hole in one.  Yay for her!  I finally stopped keeping score at the 13th hole when I realized I had missed scoring one hole.  We all went downhill from there.  But we had fun.

Since we were in Boulder, we decided to check out Trader Joe's.  People seem to make a big deal out of it when a new store opens.  I was rather unimpressed.  I was imagining something grand and big, and this Trader Joe's wasn't any of that.  It was about the size of a Walgreens.  We picked a few treat items, but I noted that some of the "Trader Joe's" branded foods, were things I grew up with in Canada.

Misha popped a pizza in the oven for us while we headed home, and we ended our day much the same way it began.  Except that Amy fell asleep around 7 pm.  Who naps at 7 pm?!  I was hoping she would sleep straight through, but that was a long shot.  She woke up just as I was going to sleep at 10:30 pm.  Who knows what time she actually went back to bed, but she did get her laundry finished.

House Progress - Apr 2

No more joking today!  It's not allowed.  The closets were corrected in the girls' rooms, and shelves were installed in the pantry, the office, extra closets--I am loving all of my storage spaces.  Can't wait to start organizing!  Seriously, I am most excited about it.

Hall closet

Pantry

Office closet

The accent tile was added to the powder bath shower and the girl's shower.

We had ordered an over-the-toilet cabinet that was placed in another ideal spot that we hadn't considered ordering that kind of cabinet for.  It is an extra vanity make-up station in the girls' bathroom.  The cabinet was placed in the vanity area but has now been moved to its final resting spot.  Again, finished end pieces have to be ordered.  A cabinet is on order for the small vanity area.

The bifold doors on the linen closet were installed.

The trim is almost done.  I don't think the trim guy is really looking forward to adding the trim to the second story of windows in the living room and entry way since he is leaving it until last. I love the look of our trim.  I noted a picture online of different trim styles and found it interesting that this layout is a typical layout for traditional Craftsman style. 

This is a shot of Amy's closet.  She is looking forward to the two small windows that light the space.  Misha and Kristen's closets are a bit bigger but have no exterior light.  So, it won't exactly match, but the girls all want drawers in their closets, so we will purchase Closet Maid pieces to create a stack of drawers that will be on the wall opposite the door.

The trim was added to the half walls at the top of the stairs in the loft.  Amazing how it finishes off a space where before it looked pretty rough.

And I looked down and noticed that the laundry room floor had been grouted.  So much fun stuff going on.

Spring Break - Tuesday

My girls had a lazy, sleepy morning.  In fact, all of them slept past 8 am.  Amy could sleep all morning long so that is no great accomplishment for her, but it was nice to have a quiet morning to myself.  Less nice that my morning started before 5 am.  Chris buzzed my iPad with a text from Brazil and then someone called his work line (which rings at home as well) twice before 5:05 am.  I tried to fall back to sleep, but no luck there.

I had told the girls that Tuesday was movie day since the Metrolux at Centerra has discount Tuesday tickets.  Misha invited her friend Morgan along to see Divergent.  I caved and saw the Muppet movie with Kristen while Amy saw Divergent again.  The Muppet movie is stupid.  Enough said.

We followed up the movie with dinner at Chick-fil-A--always a crowd pleaser.  And then, I wanted to check out JoAnn fabrics, Old Navy, and Marshalls.  Misha found a kindred spirit in Morgan as they both were bored with my shopping, but hey, I sat through the Muppet movie.  They could shop a little.

House Progress - Apr 1

We have shelving and closets coming together.  I groaned, however, when I checked on two of the girls' closets.  There must have been some translation error with their closets. I quickly texted Dave.  Perhaps it was just an April Fool's joke from the trim guys!  Regardless, I looked at the way they had laid out the closet and wondered out loud, "Why?  Why would anyone want a closet like that?"  That was about the time Dave and his sidekick Charlie (his youngest son who is on Spring Break) climbed the stairs to the second floor.  He looked at the closets and said, "That's not what I told them!"  He found the installers working in the pantry and showed them what they needed to fix.

This is a hall closet next to the girls' rooms and bathroom.  We had to omit the highest planned-for shelf since it wouldn't allow room to actually reach anything on the top shelf without scraping knuckles.  Chris plans to install a second router in this closet.

Spring Break - Monday

With Chris out of town and our continued life in the rental, our Spring Break this year will be a little less than stellar.  My hope is to keep the girls busy with some kind of activity each day.  The odds are that two out of three of my children will want to participate in an activity and a third will think it is a bad idea. 

So today's activity was inspired by Amy--shopping--so you know she's all over this one.  Kristen is usually good to go shopping as well.  Misha just tagged along for the ride.  We stopped first at Ross for a quick run-through their home decor department.  I am trying to find that "one piece" that will spur the rest of my home decor ideas for the new house. No luck there.  I am not a fan of Ross, so it was a long shot.

We spent most of our time at JC Penney.  Amy tried on prom dresses and Kristen got in to the spirit of dressing up as well.  The sad reality was that at 8, most of the dresses in the teen section were the right length for Kristen.  And if they were long enough, they were missing A LOT of fabric on the top half.

I had Misha try on a pair of capris.  They fit, she said she would wear them, we bought them.  She's not a shopper.  The bonus to capris is that she won't outgrow them in the length--maybe around the waist someday--but her legs can/will still grow and capris do the job.

We did a quick run-through of Target with Amy bringing me all the things she thinks she "needs" and I shake my head and say, "You don't have the money."  This girl needs a summer job.  If anyone has suggestions we are open to ideas.  Even next summer when she is 15 1/2, she will still be hard-pressed to find employers that will hire someone under the age of 16. 

Costco was our next stop.  We looked more than we bought, but it was a fun place to check out too.  The girls wanted to go to IHOP for dinner, but since it wasn't close, I suggested they find an IHOP pancake recipe and make their own.  They were all over that idea.  The pancakes turned out very moist, though missing some flavor that we couldn't pin down. 

Kristen's Sewing Class

I signed Kristen up for a sewing class in February.  She was absolutely thrilled.  All of my sewing stuff is in storage so she didn't have many opportunities for practicing during the week, but she had fun each week that she was able to attend classes.  Her teacher, Marla, got sick and hasn't been able to continue holding classes; however, Kristen was able to finish her first project.  She was so proud of her pillow case with the "prairie points" (triangular-shaped accents) that took meticulous effort to get just right.

House Progress - Mar 29

Chris and I spent Friday night at the house, painting the storage room floor.  That is the exciting level to which our date nights have progressed/digressed.  He had spent the previous nights sanding and then meticulously vacuuming out all dust and debris from the floor.  We had originally planned to install vinyl in the storage space, but Dave suggested that it would just discolor from the glue if we didn't also install a subfloor.  The cost just for that floor was adding up and we were hoping to keep those $$ down.  It was a storage room after all.  Since our landlord had just painted the exterior of his house and had paint left over, he kindly told Chris that he could use the paint if Chris left a little for future touch ups.  We will probably put carpet pieces down in walk ways, so this seemed like an inexpensive, doable option.

Chris did most of the painting.  When I spelled him off, I wasn't strong enough to get the coverage he wanted on the sheeting.  I moved the light and paint bucket around instead.

Chris had most of us working at the house on Saturday to hang his cabinets in the garage, though we didn't get started on the cabinets until the afternoon.  The girls and I spent the morning picking up garbage and nails around the house.  I would say picking up the nails was mostly for our cars' benefit since I didn't want to ruin a tire.  You might guess that there was grumbling from the under-fifteen crowd.  Chris ordered pizza for lunch, and we kept them working most of the day.  On one of Chris' trips back to the rental to pick up tools though, he dropped Kristen off.  She wouldn't have been able to help too much with the cabinets anyway.  She was happier staying home.  Seriously, who likes to work!  Not my kids!  But Amy and Misha were so helpful in getting the cabinets hung.  For one, they were taller than me, and two, my arms and head could only hold up so much cabinet.  These were solid-wood cabinets and were H-E-A-V-Y!

It didn't take the workers long to get the island set.  I am glad we spent the time making sure it was placed correctly.

On a side note, Luke, our landlord, changed his real estate agent.  Since two of his contracts have fallen through, the first agent was the likely scapegoat.  Nevermind what I think of this house and why it doesn't sell for the inflated listing price!  Yeah, nevermind.  However, in the change over to a new agent, Luke had the company that scheduled the showings send showing requests to him.  Um, duh!  You don't live here right now!  So, unbeknownst to us, he had scheduled two showings for Saturday afternoon.  Kristen was home all by herself when she suddenly heard people unlocking the door.  They just walked in regardless of the fact that an eight-year old was home by herself.  When Amy called to check on her, Kristen mentioned that people had been at the house.  Right then, more people showed up for an appointment.  Through the door, with Amy yelling at her, Kristen was trying to follow instructions to not let the second group of people in.

Since I wasn't receiving the showing requests, I thought the people were showing up unannounced or without going through the proper channels.  Kristen gave the agent standing outside the door my phone number, and he called me.  I told him I would be home in a couple of minutes, and he could enter the house then.  He was completely okay with that.  When I arrived in all my sloppiness, he was talking to Melissa, the new agent.  I asked to talk with her.  After chewing her out for not using my phone number to request showings, I asked her to give Luke a message for me because he forgot to let us know that he had scheduled two showings, "DUH!!!"  I was ticked.  So stupid.

House Progress - Mar 28

And we've got some stucco.  The workers started the application of the color today.  It was another one of those moments when I breathed a sigh of relief and thought, "I like the color."  I had originally picked a color that had purple undertones in certain light, and I didn't want to have the crazy "purple" house on the street.  It was pretty neutral, but I like it that way.  There will be darker accents with the trim, front door, garage doors, and shutters.

This is "Command Central" as I like to call it.  Chris has spent HOURS pulling all this together (the girls and I have helped and have spent HOURS as well, but not as many as he has).  Maybe ten years ago, a coworker from IBM was redoing his kitchen and pulled out these cabinets.  Chris was a happy recipient as he used them in the garage and storage areas of our Monarch house.  Now they will find a new home at Pelican Shores.  As you can see, they already come in pretty handy.

The cabinets in the laundry room have come together nicely.  It is funny, well not really in a laughing sort of way, but all of the cabinets come stamped with "Do not lift here" notes on strategic parts of the cabinetry where one would likely grab and move a cabinet.  As the cabinets were being unpacked, a number of the cabinets were already broken where someone had "lifted" the cabinets in those exact spots.  You would think the workers in the factory would be smart enough to heed their own warnings.  Sadly, a couple cabinets will need to be replaced.

The cabinet sitting in the corner there is part of the island, so it is a little taller than the desk height cabinets.  Not to worry, it will be moved later.

On another sad note, our cabinet designer forgot to order some cabinets with finished end pieces.  Those will have to be remedied as well.  And that seems to take time in shipping from the factory.  You can probably guess that this is the wall where the washer and dryer will be installed.  We had to add a 2x4 or two to this wall to make it long enough to allow for the 60" of space for the washer and dryer AND to have a full-size laundry sink.

Chris and I spent a couple of hours at the house in the evening trying to stage the island so that the workers could start setting the cabinets and to help the plumber and electrician pull wire and place plumbing.  Dave showed up around 8:30 pm to give a hand.

Lots happened today.  Workers also started on tiling the showers.  Floor tile was installed about a week ago in the laundry room and the girls' bathroom.  All tiled areas are laid with a walnut-colored ceramic tile that looks like travertine (hopefully it will be more durable, especially in high-traffic areas).  The laundry room and the girls' bathroom have 20x20 ceramic tiles, the main floor powder bath has 10x20 tiles in a brick pattern. We are still waiting on extra tiles to create the Versaille pattern in the master bath. 

Radiant-floor heating was installed in the master bath, but since we didn't have enough of the right size of tiles for the Versaille pattern, it has had to wait.  I am hoping that having workers walk on the copper tubing won't destroy it before the tile is installed.