Shingles!!!

 We've got shingles! It is soooo nice to see something coming to the house other than wood. 

Our pretty gray shingles went on over about 3 days. Above is the (mostly) finished project, but of course we took some photos along the way.

We caught the works in progress. They put down the tar paper and then shingles. And are up there with no net! That is pretty steep to me but they were walking around like it was nothing. I don't think I could ever be a roofer..

Let the Decking Begin!

The great room is looking... great! From this view you can see where the fireplace will be placed - Centered between the bottom two windows. We want a fireplace that is covered in stacked stone and extends about 12 feet above the floor. That'll place the top a foot or so shy of the center window shown here. Plus it will be a ventless gas fireplace insert about 36" wide; a good size for this space and no need for a chimney - Very efficient.

Here is the bonus room with it's decking installed. The crossbeams are 8 feet above the floor and although we were worried about the knee walls making the room feel claustrophobic, it feels quite nice and will feel better once the light colored drywall is in place. We've already discussed how we want this room to be used - A theater room. It's 30 feet long, so it's plenty to put a couple rows of seating plus a bar with bar stools as a 3rd row.  We will do tiered seating so everyone has a good view of the screen. It's going to be a little tricky deciding how the speakers should be mounted near the slanted walls. We'll figure it out. Also, all walls and ceiling will be acoustically sealed as good as budget will allow.

These center supports will be removed.

We Have {the Start of} A Roof!

OoOoOoOo!!! The roof beams are in and we are in LOVE! The space is really taking shape and we are getting closer to seeing what the final roof line will look like (instead of imagining an endless amount of options). 

From the second floor the view is just stunning. It is probably another 12 feet or so to those crossbeams. That will be a flat section on the ceiling of the great room that we expected. It just all feels so spacious.

Second Floor Part 2 of at least 4

We had some beautiful 70 degree days this week so Wednesday the crew got SO MUCH done! 

We come right about 4:15 and they were just cleaning up for the day. And look at that - we have the start of our roof line!

Looking down the unfinished space that will be above the garage. Mike is already researching best practices when building a theater room.

Second Floor Part 1 of ???

We have spent every evening at the house. So much has gotten done this week, we are splitting it up into multiple posts - for what was done each day.

This is the photo we keep taking as we pull up to the house every time. I am excited to put these all together at the end and make a time-lapse.

They started on the framing upstairs Tuesday. This is the view from the living room. And, a peak at that staircase *swoon*

It's Time For Color!

We have gone back and forth a couple of times with regards to color schemes for the outside of the house.

We started with a hunter green home with white trim and cedar accents. Then once we found our property, I was nervous about a hunter green house with a backdrop of forest to just be too much green. So to pinterest I went and came across this lovely home time and time again. 

It is a design from YoungHouseLove who I follow already and love so much of their work. I am not suprised I was drawn to something else they have done. So even though we have gone from green to blue, we have continued to want white trim with cedar accents. 

So we took this photo to our builder and said we want this. Now this house was painted, but ours will be limited to the color of vinyl siding available. 

So what did our builder tell us to do? To go drive around and find a house with siding, roofing, and stone work that we liked. Yep, it seems a bit odd of a request, but we went with it. And guess what we found? A lovely little blue house with a gray roof! 

This is a house we are pretty sure our builder did so he will easily be able to get this color siding and roofing. It is a bit darker that our original inspiration photo, but we love it! You can see it was a bit cloudy this day so we will make sure to go back when it is sunny (which is almost always is here anyway!) and make sure it is still perfect. 

But to us, their stonework looked a bit on the brown side, so we also found a stone we love a couple of houses down. 

This lovely gray stone will look amazing with our blue house and white trim. 

But what about the cedar? Well, we also drove by this house -

The blue is a bit different, but we love the cedar posts on the porch and even the cedar shutters. The accent cedar in the peaks (I'm guessing those have a more official name that we will learn down the road, but for now they are just peaks), it a bit much to us, but it helped pull together the idea that the blue/white/cedar is definitely our combination. 

We also made a trip to 84 Lumber, and will have a meeting with their outdoor materials guy soon, to discuss siding, roofing, doors and trim. They brought up doing an accent in the peaks just like this and we are definitely considering it. 

Here is an artist rendering of the front of our home from the website we got our floor plan inspiration from. 

We have made some changes so it won't look exactly like this, but it will have lots of similar elements. Like our front porch goes all the way across the front of the house, where in the photo the front door is on a different plane than the rest of the wall. Also, we will only be doing the stonework on the bottom 3 - 4 feet of the front of the home (not all the way up in some places like they have here). We made our garage longer as well, so it will stick out further in-front than this one does. 

So in addition to an accent in our peaks we are playing with the idea of doing some metal roofing on the front porch. Probably stick with a color similar to our shingles (gray), but it would be a nice contrast and we hear it sounds wonderful during rain. 

So many more things to think about and decide on, we will have lots of new posts coming your way! Make sure to check back soon for more updates. 

Toodles!

Liz and Mike