Oh! Also, I finally changed the name of our blog. "Life in the Meadow" seemed irrelevant now that we no longer live in Oak Meadow. So we are now "Life in the Little Woods."
A lot of people have asked for some updates so here is what has been happening! We are getting very close to being able to move in. We are probably 6-8 weeks out which on some days seems like forever away but on some days it seems like it will be here before I know it! Without further adieu...
This is the finished product of our accent wall in our master bedroom. This is the same stone that was used on the fireplace in the living room as well as on the exterior or the house. The picture doesn't do it justice. It is so beautiful!!! I feel like I'm living in a castle!
Here is a picture of the living room with the hardwood floor finished and the paint on the walls. I love how the yellow on the walls looks with the hickory hardwood floor. You will notice the top part of that wall isn't finished - what goes there??? That will be a cedar siding accent wall that will go up to the ceiling. It will look great with the cedar stairs and posts already in the house!
Tommy's workshop in the basement is slowly but surely coming together. All of his good lumber was at his friends house so it could be temperature controlled. My helper Alex and I spent a day loading that all up and bringing it to the new house. Whew! What a workout! Tommy and Alex built these shelves to hold the lumber. There is a lot there! Walnut, cherry, etc. Ready to build things!
Getting the electrical in was pretty exciting! I like seeing details get finished so this was fun for me. We chose these lights for our master bedroom wall and I love them! They will be great for reading lights at night!
These are the fixtures that we chose for our master bathroom. Those big holes in the wall are for the medicine cabinets that Tommy is building. :)
I absolutely love the light fixture that I found for our front entry. I bought it at Barefoot Cottage in Newburgh - their stuff is so beautiful! It has a lot of metal and rope detail which goes with our house perfectly.
These are the ceiling fans that we chose for all of the bedrooms. They are nice and big and I love the wood on them!
We put three ceiling fans out on the back porch - I have a feeling this will be my favorite area once this place is all finished!
Since we love natural stone details we decided to add some of that to our front entry. The guy who has been doing our stonework is Chris Boyer and I highly recommend him. He does a great job!!!
I am in love with our master bathroom shower. It's pretty big and I love how the tile turned out. The glass doors are floor to ceiling and I can't wait use it!
We made the shutters for the exterior of the house out of cedar then they were stained. This a pretty simple project that really adds a lot!
Picture of the house once the shutters are up! They look awesome!
So when you build a house you can't expect everything to go perfectly right? Right. We had a few bumps along the way over the past month or so. We didn't kill each other or anyone else so I consider it a victory. HA! One of the big issues we had to deal with was our cabinets. Oh the cabinets.... We prefer Amish made cabinets because, well, they do amazing work. So we found a wonderful man (Norm Graber) in Odon who we decided to use. We met with him to go over everything and we were ready to go! I was so excited to get them installed. And when they came, this is what they looked like:
Now, to most people you would think, "Those are beautiful!!!" And yes, they ARE beautiful. And so well made. But. BUT. Tommy is a woodworker and he is VERY sensitive about wood projects. That is his thing. So when we ordered natural cherry cabinets to have only a clear finish on them and we got these, he was a bit upset to say the least. These appeared to be more of a walnut color. They were pretty dark brown. I am of the mindset, eh, I don't care. They are fine! But he was very bothered and we decided if we can get it fixed, let's get it fixed. So he made the call and Norm was extremely understanding and helpful. He said he would make all new cabinets due to the miscommunication of the color and it would be two weeks.
Below is a picture of the NEW cabinets. See the difference in color? This is the natural cherry with a clear finish. This is exactly what we wanted and they are so beautiful.
This will be the island where the sink/dishwasher go. The back side will be covered in stone and the granite countertops will be here soon as well!
Here are the bathroom cabinets along with the medicine cabinets that Tommy built. The doors aren't on them yet but aren't they beautiful? They match the cabinets perfectly.
Here is my pretty copper farmhouse sink that will go in the kitchen! This was one of my big wants for this house and here it is!
The other big debacle of the past month were the interior doors. This was what I like to call, "A whole thing." We purchased special order knotty alder doors from Menards. You can see on the right what they looked like when we bought them. On the left is after I stained them. We stained them with a cherry color stain. They were beautiful! But then.....
....but then Tommy was like, wait a minute! What have I done?! When he told me to stain them with this color, he wasn't thinking. He wasn't thinking about the fact that all of our trim is going to be cedar. Therefore, the doors were not going to match the trim AT ALL. We went back and forth on what to do. Tommy decided that the colors would be too different so we needed to fix these doors with the correct color of stain. This turned into a huge process of trying different methods to do the fix. We thought we might be able to strip the stain off of these doors and re-stain them. Guess what? Stripper will not take off gel stain. Neither will lacquer thinner or any other method you might think would work. We researched, we had our wonderful Sherwin Williams expert Louie come out and look at them and nothing worked. We tried sanding them which was the only thing that would take the color off - however, they are veneer so sanding wouldn't work either. In the end, after much deliberation we decided that in the long run the best thing to do was to buy all new doors and do them in the color we wanted. So, Alex and I loaded up these doors and took them to Habitat to donate them. It pained me a bit because they were pricey and I put SO much work into them but I know we donated to a good cause so that softened the blow a bit.
Below are the new doors after I stained them the correct color. If I never stain another door again, I will be pleased. I think I was staining doors and door jambs in my sleep and my dreams. But these are much more what we wanted so I'm glad we did it.
A fun little addition are these antique stained glass windows. We went to our friend's new shop Honeysuckle Finds in Newburgh to have her help us build a light fixture for our dining area. While there I mentioned that I liked these windows a lot and Tommy surprised me with buying them!!! These will hang in the windows up on wall with the cedar siding. They will be so beautiful!
Those are the updates for now!!! Things are happening every day now and like I said, we are getting close. Hopefully soon I will have a blog telling you that we are about to move in! :)
