Tile floor in guest/ ADA bathroom. 

The Work Continues

Well my cameraman is asleep (it has been a long, busy week), so photos will come later, if at all. Since the last set, we have a garage door, the cabinets are fully installed, countertops have been measured, and the tile work has begun in earnest. The floor of the guest bathroom is laid(but not grouted) and at least a quarter of the shower walls are up. They began the laying of the main tile today. Much of the great room is done. This tile flows through the whole house up to the bedrooms. Once they get just a bit further we will not be able to walk around in the house so the last 2 days I've been hurriedly getting bids for window coverings. I thought I wanted wood blinds until the woman today mentioned that with the size of my windows the raised blinds would be a one foot stack. I don't think we would like that so now I am looking at other options. More expense no doubt! We expect to start grading the sides and back of the yard areas tomorrow. We have to do this so we can get a pad for one HVAC unit poured and so we can have a wall built. We are supposed to get the second coat of stucco this coming week. The HVAC system is to be installed November 7th. I'm sure that will be nice but right now it doesn't seem necessary--when we go out to the house at 7am it is in the 50's or 60's but the house is nice and warm. Sweaters come off right away. In the afternoon when the air has warmed, we open the windows and get lovely breezes through the house.
When you've been building for a long time you get into a certain mindset, as I discovered today. We bring our cold water in a small cooler or coffee in thermal cups. But we do have water in an outside faucet and we have lights and electricity, just not everywhere. Our Hispanic tile layers brought a small microwave oven and plugged it in in the garage--hot burritos!!! And later I noticed a radio and a cellphone plugged in. They see a working house, I still was seeing an unfinished lot. Now I'm thinking...I could bring a coffee pot, a clock, my own phone cord, etc......

Now it looks like a house! 

Do you think you are underwater? Hopefully it will feel cool when it is 109 outside! 

The 'tropical' room. 

Color in three point harmomy. Well something like that. Can you see the 3 colors? 

In Memorial

We received word yesterday afternoon that a very,very dear friend of ours passed away a few days ago. We will be going to California for her memorial service this weekend. Lee Ann Mayr truely eptomized the Proverbs 31 woman but in my life she also lived out Paul's instructions to Titus for older women,"then they can train the younger women to love their husbands and children...." Lee Ann took me under her wing when I first arrived in Livermore as a new bride, knowing only a couple of people in town other than my new groom. Two years later we were blessed to be able to buy the house next to theirs. She nursed me through all my pregnancies, loved on my kids, taught me to relax, to cook without every single ingredient the recipe called for. She reached out and truely cared for people who needed a helping hand and would drag me along to help too. There was always a cup of coffee and a listening ear available in Lee Ann's kitchen. Her family became my family. Holiday meals included Grandma Mayr, Grandma and Grandpa Peck, Great-grandma Woodard, her three teenagers, my three babies, our husbands, our selves, sometimes my folks or inlaws, and often a few other friends, Ed especially comes to mind. We shopped for fabric and wallpaper together, we moved furniture(usually hers when I was pregnant). She was an artist and I've been missing her eye for color as I try to pull the interior of our house together. She told me when my oldest was taking dancing lessons in college to tell him he knew how to dance cause she had danced him around as a baby. My kids would run over to visit her before our husbands left for work in the morning and often I'd get a call that they were eating breakfast there. She scrubbed my toilets when I was pregnant and pucking all the time, she cleaned my house after we'd left for a trip and left it looking like a tornado had been through, she borrowed my good dining room table when we were gone over some holiday. That one horrified my mother but actually made me feel good that we were close enough friends that she felt free to do it. Well there are years and years of memories to review and I won't do all that here, but I truely loved Lee Ann and she certainly had a tremendous positive influence on my life. She ran the good race, may she rest in peace, and may all the memories she left behind continue to spur those of us who knew her on to do good works too.

An Exciting Day/Week

As you can see from the photos, we are suddenly making lots of visible progress. Today we had the stucco crew, the electricians(3), and 2 cabinet installers, each with their own set of rooms to install. We picked up a number of our fans(this is Arizona remember!) and lights and the electricians put them up. Also my lighted ironing board. Tomorrow we expect all these people again for at least part of the day AND the people to install our security/sound system AND the garage door. And maybe even the tile crew will appear. Glad they weren't here today--it was a zoo with 5 people working inside and the 2 of us wandering around answering questions. Sorry Anna, we didn't get any shots of the 'bright' rooms today, but the master suite looks like your room in CA.

Kitchen installation in progress. Golden gate is the color on the walls. Cabinets are knotty alder. 

The living/great room--seaglass walls and freckles fireplace. And lots of cabinets waiting to be installed. This room was completely full yesterday. 

The stucco-ing process is under way. It is going to look like a real house on the outside soon. 

Living in Color

I decided that since the vast majority of the walls in our last house were Antique White that it was time for a change. This house would have all the walls painted in color, not white. For the main, public areas we wanted to reflect the colors of the desert around us. For the master suite we wanted something which would accent a couple of watercolors we bought in St. Thomas. So a more tropical theme. Well..........we have color, but I'm not sure I dare to show it here or to anyone else until we get some flooring and furniture in to tone the color down!!!!!! I wonder what my painters thought when they put the two really bright colors on today!?! We didn't have the camera along today so there will be a delay anyway. (Maybe a long one depending on what they show!)
All the stucco companies are really busy all of a sudden. We have been promised a crew for this Monday and Tuesday, but since we had expected them this past Tuesday we will wait and see. Lots of other things are scheduled for this week. I'll let you know as they actually happen.

Yes, We Have Doors!!!!!!

Finally, we have our doors. We actually have several kinds of doors in this house. The interior paint grade doors are here and hung awaiting paint. The exterior doors are all hung--the alder ones have been stained and look wonderful. Even the birch fire door got stained and you know what? Birch has a beautiful grain. The non alder exterior doors are also awaiting paint. The interior alder doors were all hung but have now been removed to the stain shop. I missed seeing them but even the trim guy was impressed with the unusual library doors. I can't wait to see them all stained and in place. (Doesn't this just pique your curiosity--to see all these different doors in one house.) All the closets except the master walk-in have been trimmed. The baseboard is being installed, though the texturing around the doors has to be finished before all the baseboard can go in. Tile, lighting, and plumbing fixtures have all been chosen. Well...almost all, of course there are a couple of decisions pending. Painting will occur at the end of the week. I've had one color consult and walk thru already and another on Monday. Then I tell the painter which color goes where and pray the colors actually look good with the tile we've chosen. Painting now is great because there is nothing to spill on, but it just seems wrong to pick paint before there is any thing else colorwise in the house. And, we are due for the first coat of stucco on Tuesday. This week should be really exciting and hopefully some new photos by week's end.

The exterior doors are stained and hung. We forgot to take the photo before they covered it prior to drywall texturing. 

The 'work room' for cutting the baseboard. Also, you can see there has been a revision to the divider top. This one item has taken more energy and thought!!!! We still haven't ordered tile for it, due to our twice weekly revisions!! 

The pantry closet has shelves! 

The glass block shower wall. Also notice the textured walls in the background.