Interior/exterior update

I struggled to come up with a catchy title for this one...

The house is coming along! 

The siding is 2/3 done... 

All those shakes we stained are up too

I'm so glad we went for real cedar. The colours are amazing. We plan to stain the timbers a bit darker in the spring. We used the same stain for both, but they're two different species so we were expecting to have to redo it. We just wanted them stained and protected for the winter.  

Our back timbers SHOULD be up in the next few days. But I've been saying that for weeks it seems...

On the inside, all the mudding and sanding of drywall is done. So once we clean all the dust off the ceiling and walls, we'll be ready for primer and paint! 

Jake bought a sprayer so hopefully it will move things along faster! We want to paint our basement ceiling/floor trusses black eventually so it will definitely be needed for that!  I found this picture on Houzz and we both love the idea. 

On to even more exciting progress... We have some floors and tub/shower surround up!

This is our mudroom floor. We bought these tiles for $0.30/tile at Home Depot. We decided to lay them on a diagonal/diamond pattern to make them more interesting and I'm pretty happy with them!

Our ensuite shower so far...

I love this little alcove! I feel like I'll need to buy some fancy shampoo now. 

The floor in our main bathroom turned out so well. We absolutely love it. Now we're considering using the same, only black, for our basement laundry room. But that's a DIY project for down the road. 

I'm excited for it all to be grouted. Our installer said he'll be done by Wednesday. Yay!

Stairway to... The laundry room!

Our stairs are in!!! Yay! Finally we don't have to climb up and down a ladder that barely reached the top! Totally safe :)

Our stairs were made by the same guy who's doing our kitchen and bathroom cabinetry and fire place mantel. So far, I'm really impressed!

We went with rustic hickory treads and we'll be painting the risers black. It's all unfinished now and we'll need to stain/oil and paint them ourselves. 

It's hard to see because they're all protected, but there is lots of colour variation in the wood, which I love!

You can see how giant these stairs are... He installed them by himself! That's right, just 1 guy. I was there, but I was almost afraid to watch!!

Our basement is going to be unfinished for a while, except for the laundry room, but we faked it because the staircase is open. There's drywall all the way down, and along the wall directly in front of the stairs. 

We'll put a piece of carpet down there for now and nobody will ever know! Except for anyone who reads this blog and anyone who comes over :)

The outside is progressing well too!

The drywall will be 100% done tomorrow and our flooring installer is starting the tile work at the end of the week.

Jake and his Dad worked hard all day today to get our floors ready for tile. 

Our trim is being delivered on Friday so we can start painting it. Doors will be delivered the following Friday and we'll hopefully start painting early next week!!  

I can't believe we're painting already! Woohoo! The end is in sight!

Stress and Siding... Not related.

What should I start with? Stress? Might as well... Because it will likely be throughout this post anyway!

Things are starting to get really stressful as we near the end. If I thought it was stressful before, I had no idea what I was heading into! 

Our drywall is all hung and the taper worked all weekend and is almost finished as well. The house is really starting to look good! (Trying to maintain a positive attitude :) )

When we decided to build this house ourselves, we never really thought about all the little things we'd actually end up doing BY ourselves.  When it came time to hanging drywall, there were all these little spots that needed blocking and strapping so they had something to actually attach the drywall to. Our framer had done a pretty good job of getting most spots, but not all of them. So we attempted to do things on our own. Keep in mind, we work the exact same schedule, and it's the WORST possible schedule for accomplishing anything. 

We had to work on these small projects between our 3 night shifts with little sleep, little patience, little skills and lots of grumpiness. 

We didn't get it all done. So areas were drywalled, and yesterday was spent taking the drywall down in these areas... Ugh. Thankfully it's just the garage that we didn't get time to finish, but it still annoys the hell out of me that we didn't get it done. So now, we are going to have to buy new drywall, hang it ourselves, tape and mud it ourselves. After paying for professionals. But not before we add more support for the garage door brackets behind the drywalled areas. And hopefully we get this done before our garage doors arrive this week. Oh have I mentioned that our schedule this week is days Monday and Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday we're off (but I have the girls so I can only be available between 9:30-3) and then we work Friday, Saturday and Sunday days followed by Monday and Tuesday nights. Right. Plenty of time. 

Have I also mentioned that my house has now sold and we need to be out of here by February 11th? So add packing/storing an entire house in that schedule too. $&@!#!!!!! If you see me, and I have no hair, it's because I pulled it all out. That could be true about my eyelashes too... They seem to be the first to go when I'm stressed. 

We are also painting our new house during this time. That should only take a few hours, right? It's about all I've got left, once I give up sleeping and eating for 3 weeks. Annnnnd I should probably move onto siding now, because I'm getting chest pain thinking about everything that has to happen with no time to do it in! 

Siding... It's up! Not all of it, but I'd say 1/3 of it. And I LOVE it!! 

We are using James Hardie fiber cement siding. The body of the house is called Iron Gray. I know what you're thinking, it should be called Iron Blue! I agree, but I love it all the same :)

The trim around the windows and doors is also James Hardie and it's called Cobblestone. I am so happy we went with it over a stark white. 

I have no idea when they plan on being finished with the siding. They're super nice (and funny) guys. But they don't move very quickly! It's also been bitter cold most days so I don't blame them. They've been at the soffits, fascia and siding for 2 weeks now... at this rate they should be done around May 2-4. ;)

I guess I should get off my butt and start packing... I've taken all the pictures off of my walls, but that's about it! Maybe I should get a job with the siding guys! My hours would be better... 

Drywall!!

Things are really starting to heat up at the house! Almost literally!

We are fully insulated (inspections passed!) and almost entirely drywalled. 

These guys are efficient! They started insulating on Thursday, boarding on Friday and they'll be done boarding and starting taping on Wednesday. We're really impressed. 

We've been running 2 electric construction heaters to warm things up inside and they're working quite well. 

The basement was + 7°C yesterday! And today with the temperature feeling like -30° the basement only dropped by 2°C. 

From the kitchen, looking into dining area and great room. 

Master Bedroom

Shower in the ensuite... And someone sweet! 

We also got our water softener and hot water tank today. 

We decided to buy the hot water tank outright versus renting. It has an 8 year warranty and we would have paid for it in 3 years if we went with renting from Reliance. Seemed more economical to us!

Our garage door frames are up and our garage doors should be installed by next week! 

We are really happy with how everything is turning out. It's hard to believe that we're getting to the end! Sort of :)