Checklist

We're really close now!  Wish I had an exact date (birth metaphor again) but we know it's coming.  We are aiming for the first part of May.  So it's crazy million-decision time.  Nice, though, that we can actually make a checklist and when things are done, they are done.  I wish my dishes and laundry were like that.

Paint:  Painted.  Pretty good.  It's paint.  We can change it later if we hate it.  Check.

Tile: chosen, ordered.  Mostly installed.  Check.

Wood:  That was a doozy.  So many trips back and forth.  So many samples.  Being installed as I write this.  Check.

Carpet:  Chosen and ordered.  Can still opt for the "ballet pad" which our builder and Wendy think we should do.  Will be installed as soon as we're ready for it.  Half-check.

Garage Doors:  Almost chosen.  Must do that today.  Tonight.

Plumbing fixtures:  Meet with Jim the Plumber on Thursday to finalize.


Hardware:  Think we're going with doorknobs, not levers, since the latter break easily.  Time to peruse more online catalogs.  Gotta look at cabinet hardware.

Lights:  Picking up a bunch here and there from the local hardware store.  Half-check.

Phone:  Hopefully we didn't bury the other end of the wire somewhere.  Hmmmm . . .  If they just would have come out and spliced the wire when they said they would, before the snow fell last fall, then we probably wouldn't be wondering about this now.  Arg.  We don't pay them for what they do, so they have little (or no) motivation to come up here and help us out.  (Upcoming post:  Market forces at work in the installation of residential utilities.)

And - other minutia that bore you and me will need to be decided and done.


Then - WE MOVE IN AND HAVE A NEW HOUSE TO OUR VERY OWN SELVES!!!

And eventually we'll buy some furniture.

Fireplace

I've had a few magazine cut-outs and photos of fireplaces I like in a file for a while now.  It's nice to know exactly what you want.  Makes things easier.  So, starting out with one main picture, and adding a hearth, and keeping the trim in mind, we came up with our fireplace design.

Starting with this:

Adding a lot of this . . .

And adding a hearth,

we came up with this design . . .

And the (almost) finished product (click to enlarge):

I love how it turned out.

We still need to tile the top of the hearth, no, mantle, no, hearth . . .  hearth.  Yes, hearth.  No sitting on the mantel, please.  You'd have to be really tiny and well, that's just silly.  I think I've got those terms straightened out now.  

And, also, that is the paint that we painted just about everything in the place.  It's a nice warm white and I like it.  (I had better like it!)