Ain't No Sunshine. . .

     And due to the fact there "Ain't No Sunshine" there has been no major progress made to the outside of the house. . .mainly stone work. The walls have been prepared and when the stone arrives, they will begin. But if the truth be known, even if the stone was at the site, it has been way too cold for it to be put on the house.       

     I have been able to go to the house twice since my last post but there hasn't been much to take pictures of. The only photos I have are of the trim work going on, but until there is paint on the walls, they really don't speak to me yet. I think most, if not all, of the interior doors have been installed and shimmed. The trim is going around those doors and crown moulding and base boards are being cut and measured.

     On my second visit, the builder had  put some paint on some walls to give us an idea of what it would look like in the light at the house. Our first reaction was that the colors we selected were too dark. After some thought and discussion with friends, we realized that a small patch WOULD make the paint look darker on walls surrounded by white (unpainted) drywall but would lighten up as the whole room would be painted. With that said, I think we will be going with our originial color choices. Whew!  I was not looking forward to going back to that "drawing board".

 And...the stair rail  has been started. See Rosanne, this is the stairway down to the lower level. It is located right behind the kitchen bar area. The doorway you see leads to the kitchen from the garage, past the laundry room and power room which is the doorway on the right.

  Breaking News!  I have just about completed paint color selections for the entire house. I have promised the builder that I will send him these selections by or before the week's end. In order to help me decide what colors go where, I have made a spread sheet for him to have for each of these rooms. On it he will find the name of the room, the floor choice (hardwood, tile or carpet), paint color for wall, ceiling and trim (to include closet colors) for each room. I have also included a special "note" section for each room. For instance, the notes for the laundry room will not only tell him my wall color choice, I have listed the color of the cabinets, type and color of the counter tops as well as the appliance color. ( I even enclosed a pieced together sample of how I want the tile laid.) I know what some of you might be thinking . . . but believe me, I did this as much for ME as for the builder!
     One of the reasons that I was able to select the paint colors is because I have finally made decisions that are now permanent. I ordered ALL the bed linens for each of the rooms that needed a paint color. When they arrived, and I was then able to make the paint color choice for the walls in each room. Then I also found a young woman who will paint some of our old furniture to make it look new. . .  or should I say it will be newly painted to make it look old since she will be painting and distressing it in a "shabby chic" manner. After I found her, and the Pottery Barn linens arrived for that room, I kinda got on a roll.   I then KNEW what I was to do for the adjoining room. We bought new furniture for that room, ordered the bed linens and then things started clicking! Wanta sneak preview?

    Forget the bed, focus on the bed linens. This room will have the "shabby chic" white bedroom furniture with a touch of  solid color added around the room in the form of  pillows and painted side tables here and there. The wall color is the exact blue/green shown in the toile quilt. Love it!



This table will be painted the color of the walls and then distressed.

    The adjoining room will go with this room. . .kinda. The furniture is expresso (or a deep stained color). After buying the bedroom suite, my neice sent me a link to a bed in the Restoration Hardware catalog  that was very similar but at almost twice the cost of what we paid for this entire bedroom suite! What a deal!
In this photo of the new furniture . .  . forget the bed linens.

The room will be painted  a shade lighter than the other room.  The bed linens for this room will be quilted as well, but is a solid kahaki color with white sheets. Both rooms will have  the same blue/green fabric pillows to tie them together along with the same color carpet. Thank goodness Renovation Hardware was having a sale! I found these linens as well as the sconces for the master bathroom on line.

     The Jack and Jill bathroom will  be painted the medium shade of these two rooms with the white and blue towels sets to be shared by both rooms. How am I doing so far?

    The lower level great room was almost done before we started. The existing sofa gave us the color of the room. The addition of a sofa table and two end tables (bought when we first got here to be use in this rental) was done, so all we needed was more seating. We purchased the two leather recliners mentioned in an earlier post (one for upper level and one for lower level) this past weekend.


This chair is for upper level, the other one is quiet similiar but photo didn't turn out.

      So all we need now is a matching fabric to recover the green leather chair and ottoman. Hopefully that will be decided on Friday when we meet with the designer to continue the fabric choices for the upper level great room.  Once these choices are made, I can then decide the color of the last room. The dining room.
     This week's mission is to finalize all paint colors, pick out remaining lighting (chandeliers for dining room and foyer, wall sconces for hall and stairways and pendants for over the island), plumbing fixtures for all bathrooms, and  look for a vanity for the powder room. Before the month is out we need to pick out and buy rugs for the house...there is a sale on until Feb 28th!  Hope we get to all of this, if not, there is always next week!
      I know the saying goes "Make hay while the sun shines" but in this case, all our "hay making" has been done because the sun wasn't shining.  At least, there is no snow to keep us from going out and about. Just cold weather.
     A shout out  in the way of a big THANK YOU to the (Atlanta) Lowmans and (Memphis) Stones. Today  I purchased some beautiful table linens to match my new kitchen decor with the generous Christmas gift cards  you gave us from Ballard Designs. I also bought a much wanted stairway basket to place items in that are going up to the Croft.  I love it that you guys have added a special touch to our new home! Your visits in the rooms I have created for you will be even more special!

And the Beat Goes On. . .

...and so does the progress on my house! I can not believe it has been more than two weeks since I have been on site! H has been my eyes and ears for this portion of the construction since I can not walk the "grade" of the property yet.
    As I have been recuperating, H has been to the site several times to talk with the builder, check on the progress of the brick work and retaining wall (both which are now finished), to meet with people to give him bids on the seawall and boathouse, as well as to take these photos for you and I!

     Have I mentioned how much I like the retaining wall? :)  I can not wait to see it for real! There are still a few more scraggly trees to be cut  which will give more presence to the wall from the lake although we have not seen it from that viewpoint yet. (H has done the best he can, without falling in the lake, to take these pictures for me.) They have also finished the brick work on the columns. NOW it is time for the stone. I can't wait to see that! As you know, most of my apprehenshion has been in putting the house color, brick and stone work together....so far we are more than pleased.

    Now, moving inside we find the hardwood floors have all been laid! We picked white oak as we were told it stains very well plus we have already seen it in our friend's home and loved it. These are just a few pictures of various rooms to prove this has already been done. :) I was so excited when the roof went on, amazed when the walls/drywall was installed and now just plain overwhelmed that we have hardwood floors! I can only imagine my emotions from here on out!



View from foyer towards great room



Great room view from kitchen



View from foyer looking toward kitchen

    The trim and all the interior doors were delivered the day this photo was taken and H says there was a "ton" of it!  We now need to think about tile. . . I guess it was a good thing we had spent several hours at the tile store with a designer this past week picking out tile!
   We will need another appointment as it seems 4 1/2 hours is ONLY enough time to decide on tile for three bathroom floors, a deck, screened room, lower level great room and a laundry room! We are having second thoughts about the lower level great room floor tile but were more than pleased with our choices for all the other tiled areas.  We picked all rather basic tile but basic tile comes in all different sizes, shapes, colors and design plans we found out! We  also found out, from our builder, that the "tiler" charges more per sq. ft. depending on the pattern and number of the cuts made to make the pattern. That was when we decided which rooms deserved the extra costs!
     The deck, screened room and great room will be laid in the off set pattern. Most of those areas will be covered with carpet/rugs and/or furniture so a "fancy" pattern would be lost anyway.  That leaves the bathrooms and since the bathrooms are smaller and fairly simple, we opted for laying the tile on point  that makes these rooms look larger and  that would give it the "umph" they needed. (cha ching $ ) My  laundry room, however, will be a little more cost due to the pattern I want on this floor. I have always wanted a black and white laundry room which has a black and white tile floor. It is now a DONE DEAL!  I made this decision and I'm sticking to it! The floor will be mainly white with a smaller black tile randomly  laid through out the room.  (cha-ching cha-ching $$) The cabinets are white with a textured black laminate counter top!  Wall color TBD. I am so excited!
     The next appointment for tile will be this Friday so we can plan the master bathroom. Since we will be tiling a lot more area than the floor, we need ed to make a special appointment just for this room. We know the color of the stained cabinets and  the granite color for the vanities...now we just have to find a tile design to make it all work. We are talking floor, shower walls and around the garden tub area and it all needs tile! It might be helpful if I knew the color of the master bedroom, but that won't be determined until the designer gives me a price for the bed linens I fell in love with.  I really want the bathroom to be an extention of the bedroom. Might have to go to plan B.
    The backspash for the kitchen may need a special appointment as well. Even though I know the color of the kitchen, the backsplash may be determined after I pick out the slab of granite for the island and countertop. The granite choice is now being revisited. . . so much for the Ubatuba I THOUGHT I wanted.
     Meanwhile the builder is waiting and waiting and waiting for my paint colors. I am getting soooo close, (really I am) to putting it all in my mind's eye but I still have a few things to consider before I commit. The main color for all the rooms that  f-l-o-w, has been chosen. Its all those other rooms that are holding me up.   The dining room will depend on the color fabric chosen for the great  room furniture.  Thanks to my niece and daughter, listening to me sound  it all out, I made a major decision today and that takes care of 3 more rooms! Maybe if I give him a few colors he can get it on walls for me to see. . .unfortunately I still don't know when I can get down to the site to give my decision.  I know, for a fact, this week is out! Hopefully, Denny, I can give you my colors next week! Bare with me.

From a Distance. . .

     I named this post From a Distance because, due to my elective surgery this past week, that is how I will be viewing the house site for another week or two. H is on his own as he talks with the builder about the things WE talk about, and he is also in charge of the camera. Just a side note about Hargrove photography:
I shoot from the hip, so to speak, when it comes to taking pictures. Anything and everything I see. If it's not good or not centered, I delete it and take it again. I'm not saying that's good or bad, it's just how I take pictures. They are more candid that way. H, on the other hand worries about the little things, like its there enough light, is the angle right, or is the subject centered, and then he decides whether a certain view is blog worthy. So with that being said, there might not be as many pictures in my next few posts.
     Since my last post, there has been much more brick work done on and around the house. The photo of the brick work in my last post was sent to me by the builder. They started it right after we left the site. Up until then all I had was a couple of photos of the stacked brick.

I was able to capture a photo of two of the brick layers tossing the brick to each other as they stacked the bricks around the house that they would use. My photo does not do them justice. I really tried to catch a brick in motion. Trust me, they really had a system going and were able to get the brick spread out in a short amount of  time.

Most of the brick will be around the foundation in the front of the house and on the back facing the lake. H did get this photo of a finished side of the garage  to show where the brick meets the Hardy board siding.

     I understand the brickwork had been postponed for a day or two due to the weather. The frigid cold temperature draws the moisture from the mortar and could cause cracks.  (The things one learns when building a house).
    The main reason H went to the site was to check out the retaining wall. It is dry stacked and the cold doesn't affect the stacking process. The "stackers", on the other hand, might have a different story.
    To refresh your memory, the retaining wall is needed on our site to enable us to get from the terrace down to the boat house. There would have been too much of a drop off unless we "terraced" it somewhat.
There was no official plan for this but as the site was escavated it was decided we would do this. The highest part of the wall may be 4 1/2 to 5 feet high, I am told. The sides gradually go down on both sides of the house. The guy who we contracted with, to do the wall, is a landscaper and we left the rest up to him. This is what he did and we are very pleased.

I had no idea what the retaining wall would look like, but I was delighted to see this. So was H, but he may have had some idea what was happening. I can already see a couple of urns with plants either on the bottom steps or at the top. The top ledge which will be flush with the ground and will need some plantings so no one will wander off the edge.There is several feet from the terrace to the top of the retaing wall. The landscaper will submitt a bid to H for the landscape work that needs to be done after the house is built.(Sure miss lawnboy.)  The steps lead down to the level that the boat house is on. There will be a sodded area at this level. Have plans in my mind for a flagpole to fly my flag that was flown from the capitol on my birthday. (Thanks to my darling daughter Liz.)

     Does this view give you an idea where the wall starts from the terrace? The terrace floor goesfrom the lower level door out to the soon to be columns holding up the upper deck. We plan to use that area a lot!
      It wasn't long after H returned home that we got a call from a man asking to submit a bid on building the seawall at the waters edge. We want it to match our neighbors as much as posssible so it will look uniform around the point. As you can surmise from that phone call,we have not had any problems getting the work done as needed. The economy is such that people call you asking for work or at least call the builder to ask, when do you want me to come? This has been a lucky break for us. Not one sub has not shown up for work due to deer hunting season either!  Good news is this means the house will be build sooner that espected, bad news is that decision time is getting closer and closer. The trim man is ready for paint colors after the hardwood floors go in (probably next week).
    The decorator asked that we get a sample of the paint color, paint a poster board and take it fromroom to room. This will help us see the color in its different light. Our builder said, heck! we'll just paint the sample color on the wall in each room and we can make our decision that way.
       So that is where we are as of today. I still need to make color choice for all the bed rooms but have decided to go with the color chosen by the decorator for all the rooms that open to each other. Check one!
Hopefully next week, I can get in and out of a car more easily and go looking at and for others things that need a decision made about!

How Dry I Am . . .

For those of you who have built a home,will agree this is an appropriate title to this post. The title mostly refers to the fact that all the drywall is in but it also refers to how the builders feel when it rains and they now have a place to go. (They have even set up a microwave in the garage :) This post is all about drywall and I warn you, it's hard to take pictures when there are walls and one can't back up into the next room to get the "whole picture" (no pun intended). But hopefully I can give you a small glance at how things are shaping up inside.
 For several days, I have had some anxiety about what things will look like when the drywall goes in and have prepared myself for how "closed in" or small things will look when this happens. My first impression was WOW! When I walked into the great room after the drywall was installed, I can now see exactly how high 18 ft. ceilings are! It was not smaller, it looked huge!

      Maybe I could gauge the size of thing more than I thought! Anyway, I was more than pleased at the size of each room!
     The kitchen is now becoming real to me. We have finally "locked" in on the style of cabinets for the kitchen.  We opted for the stained cabinets with a glaze rather than the painted cabinets. No particular reason, except we loved the richness of the stain and went for it!

     The view above is looking at the kitchen from the great room. The 8 ft island is in the center of that room.  The bar area is to the right of the two doors coming back toward the great room. The window is where the sink will be. One of the doors in the photo, it to the pantry and the other leads down the hallway going to the garage. There is a powder room and the laundry room off that hallway as well.

I tried to take these photos of the dining room to show the window and to show you the front door. Hope this gives you an idea. Love the size of the dining room! I can now use all 8 of my chairs and keep a couple of leafs in the table! Still trying to visulize the chandelier over the table. The foyer will need a nice chandelier as well, but maybe not quite so formal as the dining room.

Below is a view of the lower level great room. Can't you just see that big screen TV over that fireplace watching some Alabama football hearing Roll Tide in the background!

     I did not  try to take pictures of the guestrooms on this level because I couldn't get a decent view, so you will have to take my word that they, too, are drywalled. I did get a photo of the guy on stilts putting a skim coat in one of the rooms. 

     As I said, when I saw the rooms drywalled I didn't feel like they were too small because in reality I know the sizes of each room, and even if they looked small, I know that they are bigger than any rooms I have previously lived in. The only exception. . . was the master bathroom. My first impression was that  it was somewhat smaller. But in all fairness, it had seemed smaller before the drywall went in. This room is not large like some of the "spa" type bathrooms you see in some new homes these days but we knew that going in. Our bathroom has a large shower, (with two shower heads and a bench seat)  two separate vanities (across the room from each other) a nice size garden tub (with jettys) an enclosed toliet room, and a really nice size linen closet but not alot of empty floor space. This works for us!

     The other room that took me off guard was the croft. As I walked up the stairs into that room, my first impression seeing the wall that closes off H's office made me think, what happened here? Then, I pulled up a bucket, made a bench for me and just looked around that room. There is no way this room is TOO small for me. If the truth be known, the entire Croft space would have been too much! Now, that is not to say that I would not have used every square inch of it...but did I really need it. No. Plus I have gotten a lot of mileage out of telling everyone that I am decided to share my space with H. What a great wife!

 In this view, you can see the dormer that I will be using as my work station. The entire recessed area is a little over 6 ft wide x 4 ft deep. (The door on the left of the photo leads into H's office. ) The rest of the room will be my area but what you don't see is the sewing nook, a closet and a powder room. I didn't take any more photos up here as they wouldn't have shown you much but I promise I will share as this room starts taking shape. In fact, I have plans for this room to take on a whole blog itself... entitled "Stairway to Heaven" :) 
 
Finishing up the drywall is about all that is going on inside the house these days. But when that is done in a day or two, the builder is asking for colors! YIKES! We made an appointment with a designer/decorator on Tuesday, talked for about 3 plus hours, showed her the house plans, gave her our ideas, told her what furniture we had to use, what furniture we need to buy, and talked about our style and lifestyle. Then we met with her again on Friday to discuss color selection.  Since the house is so open and will flow from one room to the next and even downstairs, the paint color should flow as well.  This means I must really LOVE the color I select.  We have not decided on anything for now, but with the given ( all we discussed on Monday and with the ONLY piece of furniture that is upholstered. . . and will be used) she came up with an interesting color choice. Would it have been what I would have chosen, I'm not sure. . . but is is a color we like? I think so. Our homework is to buy some of the paint, paint a large poster board with it and take it to the house and put it in each area it would be used and see it in that lighting (we have a northern exposure coming in from the lake side). This is the side of the house with all the windows and will get a lot of light. The color itself took on a whole new "hue" when we took it out of the showroom and into a room with a northern exposure!  If we in fact choose this color, we have the option of lightening it and/or darkening it as we go from room to room.  This idea I liked. Will keep you updated on color choice, but for now, I am not revealing the color family until it is a go. Some of you may think I have really come "out of the box"!

Now for the outside. . .The brick has been delivered and our builder sent me this photo to share with you. The stone will go on as soon as the brickwork is completed. It's really starting to come together for me. As I had said before, I have no idea what all of this will look like when it is all put together.  I know I like the color, the stone and the brick. . .but all together. . . on my house. . . forever and always. . . has taken me to a great big leap of faith. So far, as it is coming together, I'm feeling good!

Believe it or not, there is a winter storm predicted for this area starting tomorrow to include snow and ice. YUCK! Thought we had left that all behind in Virginia. Hargrove luck, I guess.  With that being said, house progress may slow down somewhat. That is probably just as good as my "elective surgery" is schedule for Tuesday and I will be unable to walk "down to" or "up from"  the site for a few weeks anyway.  So there will be no photos (unless H takes them) for blog posts until then. I do plan to keep posting while I recuperate but not sure what it will be about or how long between posts. I plan to use this time to re-organize my thoughts and try to think through room plans. Wish me luck!

Auld Lang Syne. . .

T’was the week after Christmas

And down at the site,

Our builders had been working

From morning  ‘til night.

Last  September this site

Had trees all around,

Then in came the machines

And they fell to the ground.

The dirt was then moved

To make it level and neat,

For the eight big trucks

Full of concrete.

With boards and string

They had marked out the floors,

Because the house’s foundation

They needed to pour.

They framed all the walls

As fast as the wind,

Then on went the roof,

And the windows went in!

The electrician came

To check out the plan,

Where to put all the outlets,

The lights and the fans.

We put in some air and

Heating ducts too,

We also needed wiring

For a TV or two!

Now the roof is all shingled

The siding is on,

The paint color is chosen

Just  waiting for stone.

On the inside of the house

With the drywall installed,
Now some rooms look big
While others seem small.

It’s almost time

For us to commit,
On the colors of rooms

To make it all fit.

 

Should the cabinets be stained?
Or just painted white?
It's hard to decide
How to make it all right! 



   

We’ll pick out the tile,

 and some granite and such

carpet, flooring, lights and fixtures

. . .it all seems so much!

 

Will our old furniture fit,

Or do we need new?

It’s so very hard

To know what to do.

One step at a time

Is what they all say,

It will all come together

And be finished one day.

All these decisions will be made

I have no fear,

Because our house will be done

And we'll show you next year!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!
WELCOME 2011

Up on the Housetop. . .

             . . .and just in time for Santa because we now have shingles on the roof!

But not so fast, Mr. Claus. . .even though this house has shingles on the roof and two fireplaces, it has no chimney.  So I guess you'll just have to use the new front door. Its 8 feet tall and pretty wide for all those goodies in your bag.

(Unfortunately, Santa still needs to be careful because the porch has yet to be built.)

But  at least Santa will have no trouble finding us because we have the only gray house on The Ridge. Most of the homes are all done is darker colors or all brick.

     Speaking of gray, can you tell which shade of gray we decided to paint the house by these photos?  Just in case you can't tell. . .it was number two! It was the one in the middle that had the green undertones. That was H's first and only choice from the three color choices and after I saw it with the stone and bricks, I pretty much had to agree with him.  Most people who voiced an opinion, went with number one (it had the brown undertones).  Hope you are not disappointed, we certainly aren't! The areas on the house that are not painted, like the front and side of the garage, will be all stone.  Most of the brick work is on the back side facing the lake. See the coupla sitting on top of garage? The copper roof is still being constructed.

     With the roof shingled and all the doors and windows in, we are officially "dried in" as the builder would say.  The insulation is in the walls and the drywall is in each room waiting to be installed.  The hold up right now is the Audio-Visual man who H met with, and decided on what, where, and how all the electronics would be. He is also doing all the security work on the house.  All his work needs to be done before the drywall is installed. He was supposed to start work this past week while we were in Atlanta, but so far he hasn't been there.  Wonder if the below freezing weather has had anything to do with it? Meanwhile, this is what things look like inside.

      It is now a lot easier to start seeing room sizes.  The insulation helps to close in the room so you are not  looking throught the framework and getting a false reading on the room size. 

      The electrician has finally finished his first part.  As I said in an earlier post, we added more recessed lights and ceiling fans after going through the house with him. The orginial house plan called for about 50 recessed lights, the electrician said the most he had  ever put in a house was about 80. . . our house has 109!  If you are gonna want more light, this is the time to do it, I guess. The kitchen alone has 12 plus the three pendants over the island, not to mention the under cabinet lighing. . . guess we could always use the kitchen for an operating room!  We also added five more ceiling fans for the deck, terrace and the Croft which were not in the plans. 

    The weather should warm up on Thursday and hopefully building can resume. . . it is just too cold outside for the subs to use their hands for any detail work. The only problem with warm weather coming in, it brings the rain.  (I know, I know that we left Northern Virginia because of the freezing weather, rain, sleet and snow during this time of year. . . but, the big difference here is this will go away in a day or two and warm up again, she says hopefully.)  But at least they can get the drywall up on the inside and stay dry.

    We still can't believe how fast things are going and will be more surprised how fast three months will fly  by in the new year, if, in fact we can move in somethime in March!

     We are now deciding on the stone work for the retaining wall that separates the terrace area and the grassy area that leads down to the boathouse.  Our choices are:

 OR     

     One has more gray, the other has more brown. This has got to be a lot easier to pick out than the stone for the house was!

     This may be my last post before Christmas because of the weather and what may or may not get done at the house before the Christmas break. H and I will travel to Memphis to celebrate Christmas with H's mother, and Rosanne and her family.  Liz and Jarrett are traveling to Austin, Texas to celebrate with his parents and his brother and family. H and I were able to exchange gifts with them while in Atlanta last week. Since they were going away, they decided not to put up a tree and decorate their home as elaborate as last year. But it is Christmas time, and one needs a tree to put the gifts under. 

A tribute to "A Charlie Brown's Christmas"



.                                   

     We loved it and the special time shared with them and  our "granddogger", Savannah. She's thanking Papa for her new Virginia Tech collar we gave her! Go Hokies!

   So in case I don't send another post, Merry Christmas and Much Happines in the New Year from the both of us here at the homesweetalabamablogspot!

Stormy Weather. . . .

First off, the title of this post has nothing to do with the progress of building our house, but everything to do with the weather since my last post. As had happened earlier this season, once again we were awaken by the sound of the siren announcing tornado warnings on Monday. With that came, colder weather, lots and lots of rain and yes, mud. (If anyone remembers the movie, "My Cousin Vinny"  and the piece about the Alabama red mud, then you have an idea of what I'm talking about.) All of the above has slowed some of the progress on the house. Mainly on the outside. The trim guys opted NOT to get up on the scaffoling with muddy shoes to finish the trim. The down side of that is until the trim is finished, the roof is delayed and shingles on the roof would definately keep the water out of the house. . .get the picture?
     Meanwhile, the electrician is still hard at work pulling wires for all the recessed lights, ceiling fans, and numerous other electrical "stuff." This is his third week on site. Liz and Jarrett's Thanksgiving visit gave H and Jarrett time to walk through the house trying to decide what and where electronics should go. So between Jarrett and the Audio/Visual guy that  H met with on Tuesday, there have been even more suggestions for outlets and switches which has kept the electrician very busy.  Believe it or not, I have not been on site since the Wednesday before Thanksgiving! Hence, no photos!. . .again. The photos I would take at this point would not indicate much change but believe me there is a lot going on that a picture would not show.
     Since this was a slow week on the site, H and I decided we had better start making plans for the next phase. Furnishing. As I might have mentioned, the room originially designated for the office has now been extended to make a larger laundry room. Yea!  It was not a great location nor was it large enough for an office anyway, so out went the wall and in came a 14 foot counter and a laundry room that (believe it or not) I am very excited about and have already decorated (in my head) !
     OK, so now what to do with the very large solid wood office furniture that we have with us but won't fit in the now re-located office upstairs in the croft? Well, as luck would have it, a young couple we know has just moved to the area and bought their first home. Her job is in B'ham and his "company" is in Atlanta (about 3 hours away) but he will be working from home. Ta Da! He needs some office furniture.  He took a look at ours, liked it, made an offer and it is now in his new home! H and I knew we would not be using this office furniture, (but not sure what we were going to do with it) so we have been on the look out for something more in scale with his new office layout. Voile!  While out and about this week, we found it, bought it and are now ready for buisness. While buying this furniture, we looked around for more things we will be needing and found a great leather (recliner) chair for the lower great room. If fact, we liked it so much, we bought TWO! The "football" viewing room is now furnished. We had already bought two end tables and a sofa table right after we got here because we needed something for the sound system to go on, remember? Now the green leather chair that we were going to have re-upholstered (but have been waiting on the leather for more than 8 weeks ), has now been re-assigned  to the great room upstairs. It will be re-upholstered in fabric to go with ALL the other pieces that will go in that room. Now, all we need is one more club chair for that room. Love it when a plan starts coming together! I have ordered swatches from Ballard Designs and can't wait to get them, see the colors up close and personal and get the "feel" of this color scheme. We still have plans to meet with a designer because there is just too much to try to figure out ourselves. For instance, what does one put on an 18 foot wall?
    H and I are going on another little "road trip" with Jane and Ralph to a town called Eufaula.  There we will tour four Victorian homes on the Historical register by candlelight.  We will end the evening having dinner in lovely mansion. We are staying overnight not to have to drive the 2 1/2 hours back after dinner. Then the next week, we will be in Atlanta from Wednesday until the next Monday. My sister, Jane and her husband, Bill along with my nephew John and his wife Nina will be hosting a Christmas Open House for about 300 guests. She has already decorated her home and put up nine Christmas trees! This will be the first time that H and I will be able to attend and we are looking forward to it. We are going early so maybe we can lend a hand .  My sister, Cheryl will come early as well. While the "girls" are in the kitchen, grocery store, or Michaels preparing things for the party, the guys will also have  their list of chores. (H will take a day off  for a trip to Chattanooga to see "baby boat" who has alread been winterized and just waitng to join us on the lake when our boat house is completed.)  Hopefully, all of these festivities this will jump start my Christmas spirit because this year in Clanton, we will have no tree, no decorations and even worse, no SANTAS! It will be hard, but I can handle all of this knowing Christmas will be on the Lake in 2011!