Things I'd Change

The house is wonderful, don't get me wrong. I'm not complaining. But a common question I get is "So, what would you have done differently?" And I must admit, after living here for nearly a year, I've noticed a few things that aren't quite as wonderful as they could be, such as:

#1 - The door to the sunporch opens directly into the inside-corner pillar supporting the porch roof. There's plenty of room to open the door, but it does rather spoil the view out the window in the door, and it makes it a bit tight if you are carying something large through the doorway. There's no structural reason the door couldn't have been located 3 feet or so further to the right, putting it squarely between the two support pillars... we just didn't notice until it was done.

#2 - We shouldn't have run the radiant heat into the pantry, it gets really warm in that little room when the door is closed. It doesn't really need to be heated, but when we were laying the floor we just didn't think about leaving any spaces unheated. It's not really a problem for dried goods or canned foods, but I've stopped keeping garlic, onions, potatoes, apples, squash and the like in there because they tend to go bad. (On the other hand, the sun porch being unheated makes it a great storage area for that sort of thing. In the future when we have bumper crops of fruits and vegetables out of our garden & orchard, this space is going to be filled to the brim with harvest bounty.)

#3 - The upstairs bathroom door opens right next to the sink/vanity, making the space tight and awkward, right where you want to stand to use the sink or look in the mirror. It's cramped enough that the right-hand drawer on the vanity won't open if the door isn't closed completely: There's also the wierdness of having the closet door open right behind the main door. I should just close the door to the bathroom before opening the closet door, which but I seem to be incapable of remembering to do that. I'm forever banging the closet door into the bathroom door. Both of these issues would have been solved by using a pocket door for the bathroom door. Unfortunately, it's too late to change that. I don't even know if its possible to retrofit a pocket door into an existing, load-bearing wall, but if it is I bet its a real hassel.

#4 - No overhang on the kitchen countertops. They are faced flush with the cabinet fronts. It looks really nice, and I'm not even bothered that it makes clean up slightly more difficult because you can't catch the crumbs in your hand as easily when you wipe off the countertop. No, the real problem is that whenever a liquid spills and runs over the edge, it somehow suctions itself into the crevase between facing and the cupboard or drawer. Sometimes I don't notice the spill right away, only to later find a little puddle in the silverware drawer, or a half-dried sticky dribble down the inside of a cupboard door. What makes this worst of all, though, is that my little brother accurately predicted that this would happen. When he first visited the house, shortly before we moved it, he took one look at the countertops and said exactly that would happen. Of course I argued with him at the time, declaring it preposterous to think that having flush-fronted countertops would make any difference at all. It pains me greatly to admit, Jon, but you were right. I hope you'll be up for helping us redo the countertops - with an overhang this time - in a few years!

That's it so far - and it's really very minor stuff. There are also a few light switches and outlets that could be in better spots, but I don't really think you can ever get that sort of thing 100% right.

Porch Light

Porch lights! Pretty... One by the mechanical room door, and one by the sun porch door.

Weekend Business

A lot of work got done this weekend. On Saturday and Sunday, Joel and Chris came out and worked on sheathing the treated 4x4 posts as well as the exposed beams on the porch with finish lumber. This is in anticipation of possibly doing the exterior painting this week. Mark says that if it doesn't get done this week we'll probably have to wait until spring, because it's just getting too cold and wet. However, right now the sun is shining and the sky is clear, so maybe we'll be lucky enough to actually get it done this week. Fingers crossed!
On Friday some more of the fancy light fixtures went in. Here's Cary with the main fixture in the living room (affectionatly refered to as the "giant nipple light"):
And these are the pendant lights which hang over the (not yet built) bar countertop:
You can't tell from these pictures because the lights are on, but the shades are shaded from white to a beige/yellow which almost exactly matches the color of the wall. Maybe Robin knew they would be that way, but back when we picked out the lights & shades we hadn't even started to think about the paint color. So in my mind it's just a very happy accident that they coordinate so well. :)

On Sunday, Jim the flooring guy came out and put down the marmoleum in the upstairs bathroom and the laundry room. It looks lovely, but my camera ran out of batteries so no pictures yet. The downstairs bathroom floor still has to be finished where the spacer was left in it to allow for fitting the clawfoot tub drain pipe. You might remeber that when the foundation was poured, we didn't have the exact measurements for the tub (obviously we have them now, see the post below!). The plumbers haven't been back out to finish off the drain, so the floor still has a gravely space. I'm sure that it won't be long before that gets fixed, and Jim'll be back to do the carpet in a couple of weeks so he can put down the marmoleum then.

Going beyond the recessed can...

Yesterday Frank and Andy started putting up some of the "fancy" light fixtures. You know, the ones that aren't recessed cans? There are still a couple of cans to put in, such as the ones in the stairwell. We didn't get a lot of surface-mount fixtures, as they are quite a bit more expensive than the cans (which DO do the job just fine, albeit without much flair). The surface mount fixtures really add a nice touch though. This one, for instance, is located on either side of the sliding glass door in the sunroom. Rotated the other way around (so the shade points down) it will also serve as a wall sconce on the stairway. I love the little swoopy thing.
Here's its relative, the triple fixture, which is appearing above both bathroom vanities. You can't really see the finish very distinctly in either of these images, but they are (of course) oil-rubbed bronze.

Speaking of bathroom vanities, here's the one for the downstairs bathroom, which was installed yesterday. The upstairs one will look similar, although the dimensions are slightly different.
In the bedrooms, the window-seat cabinets were put in yesterday as well.
I'm really looking forward to someday spending rainy sunday afternoons curled up with a good book in one of these window nooks. Well, after we put down a nice thick cushion, that is.

I expect Frank and Andy finished up the rest of the fixtures today, with such fun stuff as the pendant lights that will hang over the bar, and the front porch light, and other good things. You'll just have to check back on Monday to see pictures of those. :)

Something is Different...

Can you spot the exciting new house development in this picture? That's right, there's lights! Real, live electric lights that can be turned on and off with a switch! Of course, not all of the fixtures are hooked up, but I turned all the ones that were and went outside to take this picture:
Here they are, blazing away in the kitchen, showing off the cabinets very nicely.
Here are the black island cabinets in place. They'll look really striking with the black stove, I think. As you can see, there are no lights up yet in the living room... but I expect there will be by the time I get out there tonight.
Here's the laundry room, witht the maple cabinets. The washer and the dryer will go along that wall, beneath the row of cabinets. The cabinet in the corner is a lazy susan. The square box thing sitting on top of it is a stool, I think, that the cabinet guy is using to help with the instalation.
Here's the rest of the laundry room cabinets. There will be a 15" square utility sink in front of the window.
Not only are the lights hooked up in the utility room, but the fan is also operational, and there are switch plates on the walls. It's probably the most finished room in the house right now. I probably spent 10 full minutes standing there, switching the lights and fan on and off and on and off... :)

Light Fixtures Delivered

Nothing much happened yesterday, except that the light fixtures were delivered. I had fun looking at the pictures on the boxes. It's been since early July, I think, that I picked them out. There's no way I would have been able to pick them out of a line-up! But luckily I still like them all. :)
It's amazing to think that it's only been 4 months since we broke ground on the driveway (June 15th). We've sure done a LOT since then.

Intermission

So it looks like the framing won't begin until next Tuesday. In the meantime, I'm meeting with Robin to select stain and paint colors. If I select the stain today, I might get to spend the weekend dipping shingles! I bet that's a real hoot. (Actually I'm looking forward to it. Ralph Wiggins voice: I'm helping!)

I've had a couple of meetings already with Robin (Schramer, Mark's wife & partner who is an interior designer) to select materials and design stuff for the house. It's pretty fun to pick things out, although it would be totally overwhelming without Robin's help. She knows what stuff costs, which of the 7 million not-quite-but-almost-the-same choices is the best deal, how long it lasts, how well it wears, what it's made from, where it comes from, what it looks good with, and all that important stuff. Which means I show up and she's already got a handful of colors or tiles or carpet swatches set out for me, and I don't have to go through the whole entire universe of options before I make a decision.

Earlier this week we did light fixtures. It's pretty amazing how much the price difference can be between two (or twenty) fixtures that look almost identical. One thing I'm sure of in this life: I will never think to myself "Damn, I sure wish I had a handblown Italian glass shade on the porch light."

Cheapskate that I am, I came in underbudget on light fixtures. Which is good, because we're sure to go overbudget somewhere else.