definitely by Christmas (part 2)

In July of last year, I said my famous last words, "We'll be in the house definitely by Christmas." Who knew that I was talking about Christmas 2010? Well, I was. heehee.

I thought we'd be moving in when I got home from CHA the end of January, but now it's looking more like March....or April....or May. Eventually we'll move in.

But, as you can tell from everything else going on in my life, the less I stress about moving in, the better.

So, here we go on the progress made as of Saturday.

This is one of my favorite places in the house. It's at the landing at the top of the stairs. We knocked out a wall and added a desk area. I love how it opened the space up.

This is the guest bath...the sink is set, but it was covered up, otherwise I would have taken a photo of it. We used the existing cast-iron tubs and added the tile surrounds. The penny tiles on the floor are a mixture of whites and off-whites, so we echoed that in the bath surround.

The upstairs hall bath has a doorway into the toilet/tub area. There's lots of light in here since we added windows in the dormer on the front of the house. We added beadboard and painted the walls a charcoal color.

Love the contrast in here.

The tub surround here is my favorite in the whole house. I love this subway tile 4x12".

This is the front of the bathroom in the sink area, looking at the linen closet and into the tub/toilet area.

Take note of my doors. I fought hard for those doors. :)

And this is the sink area. There's going to be a trough sink here underneath the medicine cabinets. Got these 25% off during Restoration Hardware's sale. Originally, the plan was to buy the inset ones, but we had a pipe in the wall that made it impossible. Instead, we put them on the wall and built the trim around them.

Now, the downstairs master bath. Subway tile again....this is 3x6" (I think). And, 4x4"s on the floor. The shower will have a glass surround where you see the dam built up. The clawfoot tub will sit at an angle between the windows.

A close-up of the shower floor with those tiny marble circles.

Addy posing for a photo by the rug in between our sink consoles. Love that over-the-shoulder look.

Our sink consoles fit in a tight space here. We worked really hard to rearrange this bathroom to give us more light and had to make some concessions with space. We ended up with these sink consoles from Pottery Barn. They're 55" apiece, so that's nice. I'm going to take the one you see here because it's the one you first see when you walk in the door. I'm more apt to keep my counter cleaned off, so I'm giving Greg the one behind the door. Aren't I generous? :)

A shot to the left when you walk in the bathroom....I can already tell these white tiles are going to be a pain.

This is a shot of the living room looking into the kitchen.

I'm really looking to decorating this mantle when we move in by Christmas.

A shot at the back wall of the living room and the ceiling. Greg fought hard for the ceiling. Like I fought for my doors. We took planks from a barn in Cumberland County, KY and the beams are 7x7" from a barn in Michigan. They're all different wood species, but we whitewashed them to give them a consistent look.


My man with the vacuum.

Seriously, he loves the Dyson.

He could be a Dyson salesperson. That or an iPhone salesperson. I'm loving the rough ceiling with the clean white cabinets and smooth concrete countertops.

Oh, and my tile is done in the kitchen backsplash. White....surprise! Actually, this is about 3x6" and has a beveled edge, which gives it some dimension.

The bench for the banquette is complete.

And, right off the breakfast/kitchen area is the mudroom. We put these lockers there to hold boots and coats and general junk that gets dropped by the back door.

And, the bathroom off the mudroom....wow this has been an ordeal. I found this photo in an issue of Martha Stewart Living:

I liked the pavers on the floor with the open concrete shower...oh, and the exposed pipes. We finally worked out the paver situation and can lay it on the floor. The weight was an issue as was the moisture, but the engineer cleared us for the weight and the tile guy is going to put down a waterproof backer board and seal the concrete.

Lu, a friend of ours that's an interior designer found an outdoor faucet that will work with some exposed copper piping and a rain can. She even found us a sink like the one in the photo, a 1928 basin from California.

But, we were stuck on the concrete walls. I wanted something smooth enough that could be wiped off, but we couldn't find anyone that knew how to apply it.....and guarantee it wouldn't crack.

Finally, Lu found a guy named Richard who is a handyman/contractor of sorts who was up for the challenge. He and the tile guy, Dave (who we might claim as a dependant on our taxes since he's been living at our house the last 4 months....well not living, working) talked about their strategy for waterproofing it and I was optimistic it could work.

Thankfully, it did! Now, we wait for Dave to put in the pavers...

Moving to the laundry room, the countertops were installed on Saturday. They're concrete with a tint in them.

They're a chocolate brown color and we're going to add a stain to them when they cure in a couple weeks to give them more of a variegated look.

And, that wraps up the update to our house. Anyone want to start a pool on when we'll move in?