We are home!! Late last week we passed inspection to get our certificate of occupancy and started moving in! I do want to apologize for the delay between my last blog entry and this one. The last month has been a crazy time. We had both a flurry of activity and maddening delays. Of course, this close to being able to move in, and delay was maddening ;-) We also volunteered at the State Fair, and had all the normal abnormal stuff that happens with a move. Below are images of some of the things, but not nearly all, that have been worked on this last month. The siding has been 100% completed, allowing the painters to do their thing. Stucco has also been applied to the concrete below the siding as well as the lower level of the house on the south side. We now have a walkway from our front door to the street. The weather has been very damp lately. Luckily, last week was mostly dry, allowing the fine folks at Southview Design (Thanks Matt, Mike and Tino!) to give us a wonderful yard! It isn't 100% complete yet, but most of it is in place. Simply having the rain gardens dug and partially filled with a sandier soil allowed them to route most of the water that has fallen lately into the rain gardens, rather than covering our entire yard in mud. Now with many of the plants in place... well it is supposed to be a very rainy week, so we will see how well the yard does. Without plants, it did very well, with them, I expect it to do phenomenal! The tile work is complete, with a small exception of the kitchen backsplash. The master bath is completed, along with the cabinetry work. Part of which is a tall linen closet. To make the most of the space, the majority of the space is filled with pull-out drawers, so it is easy for us to access the entire depth of the closet. The laundry room countertop with a vent is now complete and sealed in place. The vent is just below a hanging rod, with an air return above. The air exchanger can be set to go into high gear to move even more air over wet clothes if we choose. With those options in place, hang-drying clothes should be easy. We also have some treated doors in a few places in our great room. The doors are purple, with a gray lacy appearing fabric laid over the top. I have shown a few pictures above so you can get a fair idea of the appearance. And, my game room is almost complete! All the green and gray areas are made of a recycled material. It is about a quarter inch thick and dense enough to tack things to (that reminds me, I have to go buy some tacks!). It also works to absorb some of the sounds of disappointment of those daring to challenge me in Catan (if you don't know what that is, come on over, I will teach you to play)! And of course, details change everything!
Faucets, lighting fixtures, cabinet fronts and handles and furniture have all been added. The house has really come 'alive' with all these details. While there are still a few details to complete, we are thrilled with what has been done. The faucets in the master bath are really cool. You can turn water on and off as normal. Or, you can turn the water on and off with a touch anywhere on the faucet. Or you can use the motion sensor, so it simply turns on when your hands are under the faucet, and off again shortly after you remove them. The sensor is very reliable and I am using much less water. We have some weather stripping around the garage doors to add this week, an energy monitoring system, a number of shelves, the kitchen backsplash and a few other items like that to complete. These should all be wrapped up within a couple of weeks. As we get unpacked and organized, I will be posting more about the final product. If you are in the area, and so inclined, please come visit us on the Homes by Architects tour on September 17th and 18th. Ours is home #13 on the tour (my brother and electrician's house is #4 on the tour, but no rivalry here ;o)). I will continue to blog about our experiences here in the house. How it matches our energy needs and what surprises I discover (because you know, there are always surprises ;-)) along the way. At this point though, Kate and I are extremely happy to be in our beautiful house! We are very sad to be leaving our old neighbors, and very much looking forward to getting to know our new ones! We want to thank Kerry Hage of Hage Homes and all of the crew that has helped create our dream home (especially Norm, Rob and Ken). We also want to thank Marc Sloot of SALA architects for giving our concept of a "forever" home shape and substance. And we want to thank Lilu Interiors for breathing life into that shape. More soon! Comments are closed.
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AuthorMark really doesn't like to talk about himself, the house is much more interesting. Archives
September 2020
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