Less than one month!

We are less than a month away until our house is done! Here is what is left to do:

• Tile the bathrooms and basement
• Cabinets get delivered tomorrow!
• Cabinets installed
• Paint
• Install Granite
• Lay the hardwood floors
• Install appliances
• Install lighting and plumbing fixtures
• Final inspections and punch out!

Of course, before all of these have to happen, we have to pick out all of this stuff! We picked out our granite this weekend, which looks like this:

This was a nice compromise between Mike and me. He wanted a light color, I wanted some black/dark colors incorporated. This is a light granite and splashes of black! Hopefully it will look great with the white cabinets and dark hardware!

 

For the paint, our contract states that we have to paint the whole house one color (not ideal, but we can always go back and paint certain rooms a different color). So we decided to go with a light gray, and these are some of our color samples that we painted:

 

 

 We are leaning towards the second one from the left...

 

We are having some trouble with hardwood floors. This is our inspiration picture for the hardwood floors:

 

 

But anything that we've found that is similar to this are over budget....WAY over budget. Not sure why it is so hard to find this color and width! We're going to keep searching...

We haven't really done much research on appliances and lighting. We have been playing it safe with a lot of our choices, so we want to be a bit more bold with lighting - lots of fun colors and/or patterns.

 

There have been some updates to the house to show as well! One weight off of our shoulders was renting our current house! The new house will be done at the end of April, and our new tenants signed a lease to move in May 15. That is a big relief! Other updates:

 

Guest room bathroom is fully tiled!

 



 

 Basement floor is tiled

Crown molding on the coffered ceiling

And the piece de resistance...our GORGEOUS master bath! We went a little nuts with the marble, but we're psyched on how it turned out. This shower will have a rain shower and one on the wall. Will feel so luxurious!

 

Pictures and Captions

We have closet shelves! And the beginning of tile work! It's SO exciting!!!

I'll let the pictures (and captions) do the talkin' for me.

Oh.My.Gosh. Have you ever seen a more beautiful closet? Ok, I'm sure the answer is yes since it's not painted or filled up...but still. I can't WAIT to organize all my clothes and accessories!! Super-duper exciting!!!

Mike's closet. Also beautiful and amazing! We will both have PLENTY of space for our stuff, plus more!

Shelving for our lovely pantry!

Tilework for the basement bathroom. We went simple and classic for two reasons: 1) we like the look and 2) we blew the budget on the master bath tile...

...the beginning of which looks like this! Marble, marble everywhere - it will be gorgeous!




 

Painting and drywall and tiles, oh my!

Mike and I just got back from an AMAZING trip out west for our Hot/Cold Mundy Mountainous Adventure.

We went from this:

A nice hike in Tucson in 80-degree weather!

To this:

Skiing in Vail in 20-degree snowy weather with 30 MPH wind!

But it was a great trip. Of course, when we planned it, we thought our house was going to be done February 1st! We had no idea we would be in the thick of decisions and progress. But it was great to get back to Baltimore, and see this:

A beautifully painted facade! Love the darker blue accent - definitely the best looking house on the block!

And it gets even better! We knew that we when came home, the house would be dry-walled. Mike kept warning me that I should temper my expectations, because the drywall may make it feel smaller, or it may not be all the way done, etc. Luckily, we were THRILLED walking in! It felt more like a real house, not smaller at all. We are in LOVE with the coffered ceiling downstairs and tray ceiling in the master.

Look at that cute smile on Mike's face! And the beautiful coffered ceilings!

 

Another view of the ceilings

 

Even the basement didn't feel tight - super exciting!

 

I'm still obsessed with the bay window in the master - and look at the tray ceiling!

 

They started tiling yesterday; I can't WAIT to see it! We also had to pick a color family for them to prime for interior painting (our contract only allows us to paint the whole house one color). We chose a light gray for the whole house. Hopefully we get to experiment with a few shades before settling - that would be a huge mistake to pick the wrong color!

We also put our house up for rent starting May 15th. If you know of anyone looking for a rental house in a great location with the BEST landlords around...pass this along! http://baltimore.craigslist.org/apa/3696402622.html

We were a little bit bummed that we had to rent it starting May 15. We thought we'd be able to get a full months rent for May, but the current schedule has a completion date of April 26th. If that schedule slides just a little bit...we could be in trouble. So we're hesitantly playing it safe...but boy that extra money would be nice!! :)

I'll post again this weekend, when I get some good pictures of our TILE!! Woo-hoo!!

My Cornice is Showing!

I've never thought much about the color and shape of cornices, but now that's all I notice on houses! As I mentioned before, Mike and I had to choose historic paint colors for the bay window and cornice. We were really at a loss, because there are SO many more bad paint jobs for row homes of our style than good ones, so it was hard to find some good precedent colors.

Fortunately for us, our contractor introduced me (Mike was still out of town) to the KING of cornices and historic paint colors! Honestly, this guy is a TRIP. I just tried to Google him, but all I know is his first name so unfortunately I couldn't find anything. I want to write a story about him, or at least go have a few beers with him. He's absolutely crazy, but in the best way. He recreates historic cornices by hand, not only to be historically accurate for the city, but historically accurate for each BLOCK. He knows everything about the cornices and historic paint colors in the city. He saw that I was struggling for color choices, and reassured me that I can give him general ideas of what we are looking for, and he'll pick colors that "will make me CRY!" And if he doesn't make me cry, then he'll keep trying until I do! I wish I could do justice in describing this guy - just full of energy, full of passion, full of obscure analogies and full of crazy. Jon said that when this guy dies, a piece of Baltimore history will die as well. I believe it!

So this is what the cornice and bay window looked like, primed and ready to go:

My boy Adam recreated the corbels to their historic integrity

Closer view of the corbels. Also notice the decorative boxes. Love them!

 

So what colors should we pick? Green? Yellow? We settled on "Greige" (love that name - Gray + Beige!), a cream, and a dark blue accent.

 

And this is the result! But...it's not perfect yet. The blue is a bit too light and purple-y. Guess I'll have to go back to Adam and ask him to make the blue darker! I'm glad Mike will get to meet him. Do you think it's awkward or inappropriate to ask your painter to grab a beer with you?

 

 

Hopefully we'll get it right soon! We still haven't finalized our tile choices, but we need to give them to Jon by Sunday.  I know you're on the edge of your seat in anticipation! :)



The Lay-Out

Decisions are coming at us so fast! The framing is all done, so I thought I'd give you a tour of our house before the drywall goes up, which should be this week! I feel like the drywall will make it feel like a real house, instead of the construction site it has felt like for the last six (!!) months. It's all very exciting!

Without further adieu, our house pre-drywall:

The scaffolding is back up! They are fixing the cornice, and putting on the final coat of exterior paint. We need to decide what color we are going to use - it has to be "historic" colors, so we're not even sure what that means. But we need to make a decision by tomorrow, so hopefully we figure something out! It's tough when Mike is out of town...he's on a 10-day trip, which makes it tough to make decisions!



Walking into the house, we love the open layout that is: living room, dining room, kitchen, with upstairs and downstairs on the right.

Standing in the kitchen, you can see our pantry! We are debated whether to make that  coat closet or a pantry, but ultimately decided to make it a pantry. Now you can also see the stairs going down better.

 

Standing again in the kitchen, you can see the great exposed brick, huge front window, and can kind of see the coffered ceilings.

 

When you  walk down the basement stairs, you enter into our TV room downstairs. There is a storage closet on the front right, and some light from the window (it's not going to be as covered - there is plywood on it now).

 

I didn't know how to demonstrate the layout with the plywood up, so excuse my lame rastafarian attempt :) This is the basement, standing in the TV room.

 

Now we are right at the top of the upstairs, looking at the master bedroom. Mike's closet (although he'll argue with this...more about that later) is first, then the master bath, then our room with the bay window!

 

At the top of the stairs, looking towards the guest room. Bathroom in the foreground, and MY closet beyond that.

 

TAA-DAA!! My beautiful, large, walk-in closet!! Mike pretends like he's going to get this closet, but we all know who will REALLY get it :)

 

 

So that's it! We have a LOT of decisions coming up - paint color, appliances, and TILE! Lots and lots of tile - three bathrooms, basement floor, kitchen backsplash, and entryway. That's what my next post will be about - stay tuned!