Monday, July 23, 2012

Don't Mess with a Girl & Her Crown Molding


Things are moving super fast in our house lately! We close two weeks from today! I texted my PM to ask him when the stone would be put on the fireplace and he said it was finished already! I told him I was going to drive out there and check it out. Well, I made the drive and was super disappointed. I wish he would have told me that the painters were there. They had the whole fireplace and all of the kitchen cabinets covered in plastic. I couldn't see anything! Such a wasted trip. I drove home all sad and told my hubby. After dinner we drove out there to see the rest of the progress and hoped the plastic would be taken down by then. The workers were still there (at 8pm!) but they were wrapping up and had already removed the plastic covering! YAY! The fireplace looks GORGEOUS! We aren't going to have a television in our family room so the fireplace is the main focal point. All of the cabinets are in as well! Our PM said they measured for the granite countertops today and they should be installed next Monday!

Our PM also said our driveway will be poured this week. I was in the middle of a conversation with him and I asked him if we could place a pipe under the end of the driveway to feed our invisible fence through after closing. He stopped responding and that was around 1pm today. That doesn't make me very happy. If we miss this opportunity because the driveway is poured without us knowing, I will be very upset. I've heard of other bloggers doing this but I need some advice. What is the easiest way to "fish" the wire through the tube once it is under the driveway? My neighbor installed an invisible fence by just lifting up his sod and putting the wires under it. That sounds easy enough. He also ran the wire through the crack in the end of his driveway. I don't want to do this if avoidable. I would rather put it through the pipe if our PM ever gets back to us about it....

One thing that really bugged me about our trip today is that there wasn't any crown molding in our study. This was included in our trim package. I know that the tray ceiling was a mistake made by the framing crew but we still paid for the crown molding to be around the regular part of the ceiling. I also feel that they should put crown in the tray. It's not our fault that they accidentally installed a tray ceiling. That doesn't mean they can leave it unfinished. I texted my PM right away but I don't expect a response until tomorrow. I hope he responds first thing because I am super impatient and upset that this room was skipped over.


Our PM said we get any leftover brick. I guess this is it.
My beautiful kitchen! Can't wait for the granite!
Close-up of the gourmet island! It's HUGE!
The door behind the island is to the basement. It will be interesting moving furniture down there.
Food pantry to the right, door to garage in the middle, and laundry room is to the left.
At first, I was bummed we didn't get the option to have the 6-panel doors. I actually like the 2-panel doors better now. They look better than I thought they would.
I've been wondering if we would get a lazy susan! The verdict is in!
This empty space is where the dishwasher will go.
The sink is to the left and has a view straight out the morning room windows <3
If there is even a HINT of cigarette smoke in my house, WWIII will break out....

I don't like how the ceiling looks just above the cabinets. They textured it and the cabinets don't sit flush.  Hopefully they can make this look a little better. We would have gotten the trim above the cabinets but we didn't know how that would looks since they go up to the ceiling like that.
Knobs!
The fridge will be on the right and the double wall ovens on the left!
I wonder if they can move the upper cabinets up to sit flush with the ones to the left? If not, I will NEVER be able to reach these.

I don't know how I feel about this. This is the cabinet above the wall oven. You have to open the right side before you can open the left side. Weird.
The whole kitchen
Recessed lights! The big off-centered hole is for our in-ceiling speaker! We got the  home audio system. This includes two speakers in the first floor ceiling and two in the second floor ceiling.

My beloved morning room <3
The large hole is for our second home audio speaker on the first floor. The little one is our ceiling fan rough-in.
Our recessed eyeball lights are above the fireplace.



I now introduce to you, the fireplace! LOVE the stone!


I thought this looked cool. This is the only light in the basement right now.

They installed and stained the banister! This is the basement.

Looking up the basement steps.

Close-up




Looking into the basement from the stairs.

Rounding the corner from the last pic


Rounding another corner from the last pic.
The doorway on the left is to the morning room extension part of the unfinished area.



One part of the unfinished space with door #1 into this area.
My husband will be finishing this for a media room later.

Other side of unfinished space. This is the morning room extension. Door #2 into unfinished space.
I love that there is a door on each end of the storage area since it's so big.



The big hole in the ceiling is for one of our two second floor home audio speakers. The second one is right outside the master bedroom.

I love this railing!
I love this! There is trim around the window too but it's too hard to see. There is also crown molding in the upstairs foyer and hall :)

My favorite shot of the railing! I love the shape of our upstairs hall.





Tired of looking at my spindles yet?!? That was the last one, I promise!

Crown molding on the inside and outside of the formal dining room tray ceiling!
Chair rail in formal dining room!
Umm...there's supposed to be crown molding in here too. What the heck? I know the tray ceiling was an accident in here but our trim package still included crown molding in the study.
Don't mess with a girl and her crown molding!

Closet doors in one of the bedrooms. Love them!


Master tray ceiling with crown molding

13 comments:

  1. I hope your speakers sound okay when we selected the home audio our guardian rep urged us to put the speakers closer together since they are left and right channel and may not sound right if they were spaced too far apart

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    1. We thought they would be closer together. We didn't pick the locations. They aren't too far apart though.

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  2. Wow there moving fast! I love the stone fireplace that was an option that we scrubbed and went with a traditional mantel to save money but I sure wish we still had gone with it after seeing how awesome your fireplace is

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    1. Thank you! We wanted something more dramatic since we won't have a television in our family room. The fireplace is our main focal point. It was a little pricey and we did go over our budget a little. I wasn't willing to part with anything that couldn't easily be added later! Or my granite.... Or my hardwoods... or my trim package! Oh hell, who am I kidding? We totally blew our budget! Ha ha!

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  3. Our PM placed a PVC pipe under the sidewalk before it was poured. In our current house, the electrician used a tool to dig under the sidewalk, so he could fish a wire through for the post lamp. We blew our budget out of the roof also, but we wanted to make sure we got everything that we skimped on in our current house!

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    1. This is good information about the PVC pipe under the sidewalk. When I mentioned it to our SR & PM they looked at me like I was crazy. They wondered how can the drive way not be bumpy with a pipe under it! So they did not approve it. In the meantime, my next door neighbor gave us an excellent reference for the invisible fence for our dog that will be much cheaper. We also went way way over budget. I loaded up our house like it's a Rolls Royce!! We figured this will be our forever home and we may as well go for it! Hell, you only live once!!

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    2. I really like the angle of the railing overlooking the foyer--it's a nice touch!

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    3. We are installing the invisible fence ourselves. It's only about $150 to purchase at Lowes or Home Depot. My neighbor said it is really easy to do. All you do is lift up the sod and put it underneath. He said it would take 30 mins to an hour for us to install it all the way around our half acre lot.

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  4. I love the upstairs railing. Your home is beautiful and we are so excited for you! Love the fireplace!!

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  5. I love that landing area in your upstairs hall. Your house is looking great. Let us know what he says about the pipe under the driveway!

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    1. I'm going to write a new blog tonight and include this info there as well, but since I'm on my lunch break I thought I would tell you now! We asked him about the pipe and not only did he say yes, but he said he would do it for us!! Yay!

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  6. Ha! Love the "who am I kidding?" comment! We're totally in the same boat. And couldn't part with the same things ... stone fireplace, granite, hardwoods ...

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    1. We hate remodeling and it takes FOREVER! We've been working on our outdated condo and I'm just sick of it! I told my hubby that I didn't want to buy a house if we couldn't afford everything we wanted. I didn't want to tear out anything new just because I like something better either. I will admit, the one thing I kind of regret is not getting hardwood in the formal dining room. It was super expensive and our SR pointed out that I would spend another $1000 on a rug to put under our table. I guess carpet in a formal dining room is common though. I just think it's weird to eat in a room with carpet!

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