I was really hoping that this house would be 100% complete by now, but hey, the weather is nice and we just worked our butts off to get the house to where it is now... We'll get back to working on it this winter when the weather is crappy! :)
So what's left?
Fireplace mantle: Our kitchen guy is doing it, and he's swamped. I made the mistake of saying we weren't in a rush. We aren't, but it would be nice to have that done!
Here's the drawing. It will be white to match our kitchen cabinets with a reclaimed wood piece on the top.
Trim: our trim is all just primed. So it will need 2 coats of paint. That is definitely a winter project! EVERY piece of trim. Baseboards, window casings, door casings... Good thing we didn't go for any crown moulding!!
We are also missing a few pieces of baseboard because we're waiting for the fireplace!
Stairs: we ran into an issue with the treads on the stairs so it's taken A LOT more work and time than it was supposed to.
Darby ran up and down them with muddy paws after I took the plastic off, but before we had a chance to stain/protect them. I thought I cleaned it all up until I put the stain on! You could see 2 paw prints on EVERY STEP!! I debated whether to sand it right away or put another coat of stain on to see if they'd disappear. I went with stain. Let's face it, I'm impatient and I wanted to get the stairs done. Stain was the wrong choice! It just made the paw prints darker.
So then I sanded Every. Single. Step.
And started the staining process over again. 2 coats of stain, 3 coats of polyurethane and then I still needed to paint the risers and stringers!
I decided to use Annie Sloan Chalk Paint on the risers. I did that next because I wanted to see how they looked dark.
I think I chose the wrong order again! For anyone who has used chalk paint, you know how you're supposed to apply a finishing wax once the paint is dry? Well how do I do that neat enough to only keep it on the risers and not get any wax on the stringers? Because if I get wax on the stringers, then the latex paint for there won't stick! Agh! What have I done?! I've just made more work for myself! So I've left the wax for another day and am slowly tackling the stringers. Slowly. Baby steps. :)
Attic hatch: sounds simple enough? Put a piece of wood and some insulation up there and call it a day. I wish it was that easy! We have the supplies, but we don't have a bazillion foot ladder. No idea how or why, but our garage ceilings are 12' high. We have 12' ladders. But you can't lean them in the attic hole because then they're too short! Story of my life!
We also have so much sh*t in our garage that we can hardly walk around.
This one is actually at the top of our priority list so hopefully we'll get it done this weekend.
Cladding the LVL beams: huh? See the yellow horizontal beams? 
Those are all structural and need to be covered in pine boards to look like more timbers. We have been waiting for a quote from the timber guy since May... Despite reminding him, I don't think he's really interested in doing them for us. So we borrowed my dad's table saw, and we're doing it ourselves!
Landscaping/Grass: I always thought that this was something that could wait. Let's finish the house, get settled in and worry about the yard next year. Well... After living in Weed City for a few months, I realized that that plan was not a good one!
We have a landscaping company from town coming to put up Armour Stone retaining walls in the back walkout area and 1 in the front garden. Our lot is so sloped! We thought we could get away without retaining walls, but every time it rains, the water runs right down in front of the basement patio doors. Retaining walls it is! I'm kind of excited for them! We chose a dark stone like this:
Grass... Well we seeded the front 1/2 of our property in the spring. It has grown in nicely. But because we have SO many rocks in our yard that we never got a chance to finish picking them and planting seed before the weather got too hot. So we are planning to get the rest of the yard seeded within the next few weeks. They say fall is best for planting grass seed anyway!
Let's see... What else is there?
Insulation: we had some water issues this spring. 1 was a leaky outside tap that was fixed within hours and the other was from not having our yard graded before the snow melted. So we (ahem Jake) ripped out a lot of the basement insulation as part of a very thorough investigative process ;)
So we need to put that back together.
We've also submitted plans for a detached garage permit and should be hearing back about that any day now. Because we need more projects!! I think we'll be hiring this one out...
Now that I've made this list... I feel like I need to go do something! Hopefully I'll have a progress post a little sooner this time :)
