January 31, 2012

Bet you didn't know we were siding the house in blue?? Neither did we!

Unfortunately the white siding and white trim (and white snow!) aren't meshing. There will be painting to come once spring appears. Bummer.

TA DA! Believe it or not, the floors are being installed.

Check out the ceiling as well. We're loving the details as they SLOWLY come together.

Another kitchen/dining room shot.

Two additional doors that were once windows have been bricked in - this one and one upstairs.

Child labor - the girls working on installing the floor... Danger, huh?

Looking from the front hall into the kitchen and dining rooms.

The central work station and pile of wood for the ceilings. The whole first floor will have wood.

The second newly bricked window-turned-door.

There has been a lot of thought and planning put into the nosing and trim details for the two curved stair wells. It's starting to come together here...

Kitchen stairwell.

Front foyer stair well.

Front foyer again.

Unpacking the chandelier from Currey & Company. We had to get it out of the family room in order to move on to the floor and ceilings.

The girls check the chandelier out where it will safely hide in my studio until it gets hung.

On to fireplaces... The master bedroom has been started.

And the family room fireplace is complete!

A shot from a few days earlier.

We used Castle Rock stone in Buff/Grey Chilton from Madison Block and Stone. I love it!

So that's where we stand on the last day of January. More flooring and siding has gone in. The bathroom floors will begin soon - our 600 lb pedestal tub arrives Thursday... yikes!! We're still taking it one-day-at-a-time but it's finally starting to feel like there's a light at the end of the tunnel. Bring on February!

January 3, 2012

Happy New Year! Hard to believe this project started in 2010, went ALLLLLL the way through 2011 and has now welcomed in 2012. I think this may be "our year." (fingers crossed!)

HELLO DRYWALL! This photo shows the stairwell in the foyer to the left as you enter the front door in the new part of the house. I love how you can see the original brick walls down the hall to the master bedroom as well as in the foyer. The wooden beam is still covered but you can imagine how nice that additional texture will be. We will have dark, distressed hardwood floors through the whole main level of the house.

Another shot of the foyer. The front door will have a divided window, adding natural light.

The master bedroom. The fireplace will be done in the same brick as the kitchen one.

In the kitchen - an island will be parallel to the fireplace, the range and sink to the right and the fridge and freezer to the left on the wall across from and facing the pantry. The door leads to the walk in pantry. Can't wait!

Looking from the kitchen side.... a stairwell to the upstairs in the old house where the girls rooms are. You can also see into the front foyer.

A peek into the pantry. There will be floor to ceiling cabinets on the wall opposite the windows as well as a cabinet with counter tops on each end. One end will have a wine fridge and will serve as a bar area.

This is looking into the kitchen/dining from the front door of the old house. This side of the room will have a large dining table.

The dining area and door to the old house basement.

Moving upstairs... Elle's room is at the top of the kitchen stairwell.

And Lil' Sophie is right next door.

The guest room in the new construction...

with a wonderful exposed wall and filled in brick and stone window.

The loft is looking like loads of fun! Sophie's room is to the right.

The landing upstairs in the new construction. Think bookcases, TV, lounging area.

Looking from the "landing lounge" back at the old house. The passage goes through to the girls rooms, the door to the right is the guest room and the stairs go down to the foyer.

Again from the "landing lounge" area... looking towards my studio above the garage.

Ta Da! Studio back through to the landing.

Studio windows out the back of the house. I can hardly wait!! eek!

So that concluded today's "tour of drywalled rooms." We used Ben Moore "moonlight white" through the entire house for now. I plan to add color through rugs, art and accessories and will paint a few rooms. Our focus for this farmhouse interior design will be on textures and natural tones. Looking forward to seeing how it all comes together, slowly but surely.

Cheers to 2012!

December 27, 2011

Carey insists it's been a LONG time since the blog was updated and, sure enough, it has! The holidays swooped me up in their madness but I'm back now with a few updates on the old stone farm house.

These first few photos show the rest of the second new roof being installed. It is a slightly chunkier looking shingle but in the same color as the last. We are thrilled with our choice!

Here's a closer shot of the shingles from my upstairs studio above the garage.

At last we have insulation! Spray foam was the way to go in order to work with the old stone and all the funky angles. It did however prove to be difficult to work with and took quite some time to get right.

This door is the other passage way into the kitchen. It will get a layer of thin brick soon.

Insulation Upstairs

We chose to add a skylight to the TV/bookcase/lounge area in the upstairs landing. Adds lots of light! There will be bookcases along the wall below.

Hardscaping is in full swing...

Check out the pile of boulders to the right.

Part of the backyard wall. Loving the work that Olson Toon has done... art with boulders!

And then the drywall...

Lots and lots and lots of drywall.

Hunting season, Thanksgiving and Christmas all put temporary stops on the work along with MUD galore! Happy to not have tons of snow but we're wishing for some frozen ground to get things moving on the exterior work again. I promise to post more pictures soon showing the drywall and texture. We're putting the final touches on colors and finishes. The end is relatively close yet feels sooo far away! Cheers!

November 9, 2011

The saga continues. Let's start with the good news... Last week the new front porch went up and columns went in. Looking good!

The weekend held great promise. The plan was to rip off the old roof (it was a terrible roofing job topped with hail damage) and get the new one on in two days. These first photos were taken on Saturday when things were moving along as planned...

We should have known it wouldn't happen when a worker fell through the roof! He was fine and his co-workers thought it was pretty funny (NOT!) Later in the day 15 bundles of shingles fell OFF the roof, narrowly missing a friend who had stopped out to see the "progress."

This photo is on Sunday. No roofers to be found. Turns out the custom ordered galvanized drip edge was all defective - yup, DEFECTIVE! It was very windy out and the drip edge was literally ripping apart.

And the drip edge that was already installed had broken apart in places as seen here.

A closer look - AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! So that put everything on hold.

This is the one portion that was re-roofed with the new shingles. We chose the same color (weathered wood) but went with the Camelot 2 style for more dimension. Love it!

Another challenge came up with the round roof on our back porch. Anyone have thoughts on how to roof this?! Who knew it would be yet another source on contention.

But the worst - I mean VERY WORST - part of the roof not being in place on Sunday is that Mother Nature decided to rear her ugly side and has given us nothing but rain and now SNOW... 1 to 3 inches and more tomorrow! So, we are losing a week and the house is getting wet inside. We also had the insulators working last week and they can't finish their portion of the job until the roof goes on. Needless to say, this job has us feeling pretty defeated and, well, just plain JINXED. Hopefully a miracle or two will come though so we can finish up before the end of the year. Wish us luck!