Kitchen Tile

I ordered my tile on Monday night and the boxes were on my front porch today.  I am one happy girl.  The tiles are ridiculously gorgeous!  They are impossible to get a good photo of though so you will just have to trust me on this.  I will be bugging Clayton to get these installed this weekend so I will hopefully have a photo of the completed project next week. :)

Our Home

I never got around to posting a photo of our house after it was completed.  Our sod is coming in rather nicely.  The back is a different story.  It is seeded and taking forever to grow in.  I miss having underground irrigation like we had in CO.  I can't stand seeing the hoses and tripping over them is a pain.  Maybe we will sod the back and put in a sprinkler system?  I have no idea.

We live on a corner lot at one of our neighborhood's entrances.  Because of that, we have a rock wall and nice landscaping flanking our front corner and side of our house.  I love it!

Kitchen Backsplash

I have been going crazy trying to find the perfect tile for our kitchen.  So far, this is the closest that I have gotten.  I love how the colors blend with the granite.  The cracked glass tiles are really pretty too.  I would love to have a little more shine though.  I tend to lean toward iridescent tiles but I can't find anything that I love.  I may just be ordering these tiles soon and be done with this.  I am sick of getting grease and food spatters on my wall, lol.  

You can see how it ties the stainless appliances with the granite and the black cabinets in this photo.

Our Dining Room

I faux painted the inset of the tray ceiling.  I used the wall color for the base and then rag rolled the light ceiling color (the one around the tray) over top.  This picture does it no justice.  It looks really cool in person.

Looking into the dining room from the bottom of the stairs (love the wainscoting!)

Sorry, I know that all of these photos suck.  I couldn't get get enough lighting and then it was impossible to get the whole room into a shot because of the way that the room is closed off.  I couldn't get far enough away to get a decent shot with my big camera so I had to use my little point-and-shoot.  The colors aren't right but at least you can get any idea of what I have been working on.

I swear that those curtains aren't that bright.  They match the rug better than that, I promise.  I think that they captured my flash too much because they are a shiny fabric.  

I still need to get some artwork up on the walls but I just haven't gotten around to that yet.  

Dining Room Sneak Peek

I am up to my eyeballs in home projects. Lately, it has been painting. These blank walls have been killing me so I have slowly been working my way throughout the house. I need color in my life, dang it!  Anyhow, I have no time to chat now but I wanted to tease you guys with my newly updated dining room.  This is a terrible pic but you get the idea.  I faux painted the tray ceiling and it is so cool looking.  I will post full pics tomorrow.  Clayton still has to hang my curtains tonight. :)

BTW, ignore that hideous chandelier.  I will be changing that sucker out to a wrought iron black one in the future and you better believe it won't have those terrible fake candle sticks on it, lol.

New Rug and Curtains

I found this beautiful rug on clearance at Pier 1.  The colors really pop against my light carpet.  I love it!  I ended up getting some beautiful curtains to match but you can only see a smidgen of them in the top photo.  I tried to take a good pic of them but they all were washed out due to the sunlight.  I will attempt to get a good pic of them at night soon.  Now I need to get some pretty throw pillows to tie it all together. :)

BTW-Those round pillow things are where the kiddos sit when they watch Clayton play Xbox.

Miss Me?

The kitchen-we will be getting new rugs, some colored pendant lights, a custom tile backsplash and some decorations for the tops of my cabinets

It has been almost 1 month since we settled on our new house.  We moved in on 12/23, just 2 days before Christmas.  It has been a whirlwind since then.  Time won't slow down, it seems.  Anyway, sorry for the long hiatus.  It is taking us forever to make this house our home but it's all in fun, right?  We have been in Lowe's, Target and Ikea more than I would like to admit.  Over the next few weeks, I will start blogging our home's progress.  You will have to excuse the blue tape for now as our PM will be coming in to touch up everything soon.  I marked everything with the tape so he could easily find dings and marks.

For those of you getting the espresso cabinets and java floors, I can tell you that it is going to drive you nuts.  The cabinets show EVERYTHING and the finish comes off rather easily.  We are extremely careful with them and they still have scratches and dings now.  I may end up distressing them in the future if they get bad enough to warrant it.  They stress me and my hubby to death.  As for the floors, they scratch and dent easily.  I don't understand it.  They are hickory, for crying out loud!  One cardboard box, that was practically empty, scratched the heck out of one of my planks when it got slid across it.  I was very unhappy.  I admit that I cried a little, lol.  Seriously, hardwood floors should be able to withstand basic operations in the home.  I don't get it.  The box took off the top layer and left me with a huge light dent in the flooring.  My PM said that he thinks that is a fluke but I have seen more scratches and dings that shouldn't have happened.  The good news is that the floor is distressed anyway so it won't be hard to hide imperfections, but still, these floors were not cheap and it ticks me off.  We now have a "no shoe" policy because I just can't risk damage to my floors.

Our formal china cabinet doesn't fit in the dining room so it is in the morning room for now.  I will either get rid of it and get a more casual piece or I will replace the table to a more formal looking one.  We will soon get some kind of pretty light fixture to hang from the tall ceiling.  I know the picture makes the table look like we didn't center it but it is.  I am extremely OCD so it is in the dead center, trust me, lol.  

Our hardware-We love it!!  Notice how the espresso cabinets actually look brown in this pic.  They really aren't black like most pictures show.  They are truly a deep brown.

Clear for take-off!

We just got word from our NVR rep that we are set to clear on Friday.  Whoo hoo!!  I still expect them to bug us about something between now and then though.  They seem to have a reputation for that, lol.

So, now I am about to go crazy waiting.  In the meantime, we have been searching for cabinet hardware and tile for our kitchen backsplash.  Can anyone point me to some good resources for either?

Almost there...

I am bursting with anticipation this week.  Have you noticed my ticker?!  We have our final walk-through of the house scheduled for Wednesday morning and then we close on Friday morning.  I can't wait to get the keys!!  We have movers scheduled for Saturday.  Saturday night will be spent with my family in High Point and then Sunday (Christmas) will be spent in our new home.  Christmas evening will be at my cousin Christine's, here in Concord.  I can't wait!

Ahhhh, those floors---*Swoon*

Looking down from the landing on the stairs

Please note that the trim guy hadn't finished the bottom trim on any of the walls.  He did it all last night and it now looks completed.  I took the photos at lunch.

The formal dining room-I wish we would have upgraded the window wall to jut out.  It would have made it an octagonal room.  Oh well, I won't complain though.  I love it!! (BTW-That weird looking pile outside the windows is our rolls of sod waiting to be put down.)

Love our entryway!  The ceiling is so pretty.

I took this pic to show the contrast of the family room carpet and the wood flooring.

Our Combination of Color Choices, Sod, Guest Bath

This pic shows how our hardwoods, cabinets, appliances and counter look.  I love how our choices blend together.

Our sod in the front yard was just starting to be rolled out when I visited yesterday.

Guest shower

Guest flooring

Master Bath

My tub (it's nestled between our matching sinks)

Love the light tile strip that they used to separate the carpet and tile floor.

Clayton's shower

Looking from the bathroom into the master bedroom (it steps down into it)-the doors on the left and right are our closets

Flooring Update

We are now scheduled to get our floors installed tomorrow.  Yay!!  Our awesome PM put the pressure on Rite Rug to get things done.  They found our hardwoods in Canada so they got over-nighted here.  We're almost done and I am a happy gal!

Flooring Woes

Friday should have been the day for all of our flooring to go in.  Unfortunately, it was not.  Instead, I got a call from our PM telling us that the hardwoods that we ordered are back-ordered until January 10th.  Ughhhhhhh.  What a bummer!  The manufacturer makes this particular kind only 3 times a year.  They are completely out of it right now.  They are trying to locate us some from around the US and even overseas.  If they do find some, it will most likely be installed next week.  Worst case scenario, we will have to wait for the hardwoods.  Ryan Homes will put temporary vinyl flooring down in place of the hardwoods in the meantime.  They are still going to move us in during Christmas week so the flooring will not delay things in that respect, thank the Lord.

As far as our carpeting is concerned, our PM decided not to install it Friday.  He thinks that it will get stained if it is put in before the hardwoods.  The reason being that the hardwoods are all that you would see as you enter the front door.  Due to the hardwoods not being down, the floors are all concrete at the entrance.  When workers enter, all they would see is that the flooring isn't down yet so they wouldn't remove their muddy boots.  It could be that they wouldn't notice the white carpets until they had already walked over them in other rooms.  It makes sense to me so now we wait.

Next week, the whole house will be cleaned and spruced up.  Painters will be in there to make everything perfect for us.  Our sod will be laid and hopefully, we will get our hardwoods/carpet.  That's all that's left before we close the following week.  I can't wait!!!

Drive By [12.6.11]-Almost Done!!

LOVE my new 60/40 sink and granite!

Let me just say that these photos suck and I am well aware of it.  I forgot my camera card so I had to use my iPhone.  There were workers everywhere so I took my photos rather quickly.  

Double ovens-they still have blue plastic on them for protection (BTW-that isn't me in the reflection.  I think that is one of the cleaners, lol).

This pic is really horrible but at least you can see how the kitchen is coming together.  All of my appliances are in except the gas cook-top.  The pendant lights are something that Ryan just started adding to the Dorsey Hall.  There will be 2 bar stools underneath them for the kids to eat on the island.

I heard from our PM today and he said that our hardwoods would be going in on Friday.  Odds and ends are being done right now like putting the lights, switch plates, chandeliers, and faucets in.  There were 2 women cleaning everything today.  It's really looking good!  Next week will be when they do all of their touch-ups.  He said that week will be spent making it a perfect "10".  Wow, so I now wonder-Can we possibly close sooner than originally projected???  I know we are put down for 12/23 in the books, but our PM has said that he thinks that it could be sooner by a few days.  I sure hope that we can close earlier because that is too close to Christmas.  We will have a hard time celebrating in the midst of moving all of our crap in.  Oh well, I can't complain.  The house will sure be a nice Christmas gift!

Drive By [12.4.11]

We now have columns and shutters.  All we need now are the decorative pieces that go over the bottom 2 windows.  After those things are done, I expect to see the lawn sodded and that ugly gas tank gone.  Wow, it is finally beginning to look like home. :)

It's hard to see the Santa Cecilia granite in this photo thanks to the plastic that they have taped over it.  At least we were able to sneak a peek underneath the plastic to see it.

It's gorgeous!!!

This pic gives you a better idea of how the granite ties in with the cabinets.  I wish the big part wasn't covered with brown paper but oh well.  I will get to see it all together soon enough.

Sorry I have no pics of the tile work throughout the house.  Everything that the tile guys did over the weekend is covered up.

Our House

Our house is really close to being finished.  We broke in on Friday night and saw everything.  I took pics then but I can get better ones today during the daytime.  We now have shutters and columns on the front.  The crown molding, chair railing, baseboards, and wainscoting have been installed and painted .  Our granite is in and it is gorgeous against our espresso cabinets!!  The floors, tubs, and showers have all been tiled.  Our appliances were sitting in the family room in boxes.  I hope that they are installed now.  We shall see...

Tray Ceilings, Race Cars, and Tequila?

Tray ceiling in model home-crown molding is raised to top of tray

The master bedroom tray ceiling in our home-crown molding is dropped to bottom of tray

When we had our pre-construction meeting, our PM told us he would like to change the molding in our bedroom.  He described it to me but I couldn't picture it.  I googled it on my iPhone and found an example.  It didn't look right to me (it was a bad photo) so I told him to raise it back up like the model home has.  Once I got home, I searched for more examples and I found better photos of the lowered crown molding.  After that, I decided to go with his original plan.  We had them install an outlet behind the molding so that we can run rope light behind the trim.  It's going to be connected to a switch so we can easily turn it off and on.  I love how the lowered molding gives the tray more dimension.

Gentlemen, start your engines!  Yes, that is Charlotte Motor Speedway.  Sorry the photo sucks but I only have my little camera right now.  This is the view from the windows surrounding my bath tub on the second floor.  I can't believe how close we are to the track.  Considering how well we can hear the race cars here at Concord Mills (our apartment is beside CM), we will definitely be able to hear the ruckus from our house since it is closer.     

Do you see the interesting thing about this photo?  We checked out our house last Sunday and saw that huge empty bottle of tequila in my boys' bathroom.  Odd, huh?  Our PM drilled all the workers from that weekend to try to find out who drank it but no one fessed up, of course.  He was fairly angry but I told him not to worry about it.  The house looks amazing.  If my tiles start to pop off the walls because the workers were drunk and installed them incorrectly, then we would have a problem.  He checked to make sure everything was straight just in case they were too intoxicated to do so and all was well, lol.

Our Future Mortgage---A Phenomenal Rate!

We officially locked our rate a week ago at an amazing 3.75%.  How awesome is that?!  It's for a 30 year fixed loan.  We were thrilled in 2008 to refinance our Colorado house to 5.25%.  Back then, that was good.  The rates right now are really hitting bottom.  I am so glad that we didn't have to lock back during summer because it was around 4.5%.  It's crazy how the rate can drastically change over a short amount of time.

Tile Work Preview

Master shower

Master tub-there is a lot left for the tile guy to finish.  The windows will eventually get sills and the floor will be tiled.

Closeup of the tiles