Brushing Up - Day 196

We had a good start to the week, May 11th - Day 196 of the project.
The painting crew began clean-up and priming of the exterior of the house. It's amazing how much a difference it makes to get all of that trash out from in front of the house and off of the porch. 

On top of that, to actually start painting all of the brick and the siding on the second floor. We no longer have that mish-mash of old painted brick and the new red brick that was put in to meet the second floor siding. The painters hadn't quite primed all they way around to the second floor on the driveway side, so I didn't bother to take a picture of that.

The Masons also laid in the slate for the front and side walkways connecting the driveway to the porch. Now they just have put the mortar in between the rock.

There will eventually be some grass sod in that area between the walkway and the porch. We'll also have a bedded area with some shrubs and other plants, right next to the stone.
This is going to be a pretty short post since these were pretty much all that went on at the house today. We may get some rain tomorrow, so I'm not sure how much will be accomplished.
Cheers!

Mother's Day - Day 195

We have reached Day 195 of Project 713, and it's May 10th - Mother's Day.
Here is a picture of us at brunch at the Capital Grille here in Atlanta. Clearly, we were in our 'Blue Motif.'

Here's a cool picture of Grace after she had finished her school project. They're learning about Greek mythology and were having a chariot race at school the next day. She placed first in the girls' category and 4th in the overall race. Not bad! Check out those bad wheels!

Below is a great picture of Grace (R) and her pal Halle (L) from school. They did a dance routine in this year's school talent show to the song "Riptide" by Vance Joy. It was really cute seeing them perform on stage in front of hundreds of people. I know I'm a ham, but I never could have pulled that off at their age!

This next picture was actually from a fun picnic our neighborhood, Peachtree Park had to celebrate its Centennial. That's right, some parts of our 'hood are 100 years old!

The man in the peach colored shirt next to the bike is Ceasar Mitchell, the president of the Atlanta city council. He delivered a nice speech and gave us a commemorative plaque for being a century neighborhood. Pretty cool, huh?
Anyway, let's get back to some pictures of progress on the house. We'll start with some of the cool carpentry on the second floor. Here's a look at the stairs up to Grace's loft!

And then here's a shot of the built-in bookshelves up in her loft. I hope she does actually read up there! :-)

Here are a couple pictures of the built-in bookshelves that we're having put in on the second floor hallway landing area. They're turning out very nice and will have some space at the corners for decorative pieces.
They also put in our hand rails going up/down the stairway from the first floor to the second floor.

And now we'll take a look at outside with some of the work on the walkway up to the porch and also the new deck and steps from the house in back.

They've also taken out the old stone steps in back and are going to re-do the stone retaining wall leading into the back yard.

That upper set of steps there will also be torn out and the dirt in the backyard is going to be leveled/graded. The lawn will eventually meet the stone retaining wall, so it will only be a couple of steps up from the back patio up into the back yard.
That's all for now. This next week will be very busy with the walkway and back deck being completed, some of the landscaping will begin and the outside of the house should be painted. We also should be pretty close to getting the hardwood floors sanded and stained because our appliances will be delivered in about 10 days. Sweet!
Later!

Odds and Ends - Day 190

Hello everyone! Well, we're 'technically' a little over schedule, since we were 'supposed' to be finished by six months, or 180 days. But here we are in early May, at Day 190 of Project 713 and we're still about a month from moving in... we hope. The picture below will give you a hint at one of the big projects ahead.

Yes, these are all of the boxes filled with ceiling fans, various lighting fixtures, sconces, chandeliers, etc. It may take a week for the electricians to put all of those things in. This next picture is going to have you scratching your head. 

No, that's not a special trap-door in the porch. While testing some of the plumbing, it was discovered that the crew had damaged a sewer line leaving the house while putting in the cement footings for the front porch. Glad it was discovered now rather than later. The following pictures are from the laundry room upstairs.           
We now have the soaking tub and the counter-tops installed in the laundry. Hooray! Now for some other rooms. Like the downstairs guest/powder room...

And the upstairs guest bathroom... We were finally able to get the vanity situation between this bathroom and Grace's room squared away. It makes a big difference, since the counter-top is supposed to match the floor.

And our brand new staircase handrail and our lovely, curved bottom steps!

The kitchen counter-tops were also finally sealed, so that's a relief and will allow for a lot of other progress to go on around the house, especially those that require a lot of sawdust being produced.

You can see how the sealer gives the counters such a wonderful shine and it really pulls out the vein pattern in the concrete.
Well, that will be it for this lot of photos. I have a few more that I'll put on the next post and will also include some of the 'goings on' away from the house as well.
Cheers!

Broad Strokes - Day 178

I know that it's been a while since I've posted- like OVER 2 weeks- but it's partly been because there just hasn't been a ton of stuff going on. So, there hasn't been a lot of progress to show you, but also I've been a tad frustrated and didn't really want to 'vent' about it on here. Renovations are a lot of work and everyone says they never go as planned. Too true...  So I'll show you a bit of what HAS transpired!

Yes- the interior painting is essentially finished. Each room has been hit with primer and its primary color. That big box sitting in our living room actually contains the tub for the master bathroom upstairs. Sweet!

As you can see, our primary color is a very cool, light gray. More blue than brown for those keeping score at home.

It basically covers our entire first floor and then extends up into the staircase and into the upstairs landing.

Once upstairs, that's where things get interesting. In the master bedroom, we went with a faint blueish-gray that looks fantastic in the soft light.

The guest room is a pretty tropical blue that is very warm and cozy. Any guest who stays in there will feel like they're looking at a clear, Caribbean sky... on a wall. :-)

As for Grace's bedroom, I think the picture speaks for itself. She got her wish- and her wish is ELECTRIC LIME! Yes, she got one entire wall- plus one wall up in the loft, in Electric Lime.

The pictures may not entirely capture the true essence and magnitude of the energy that color radiates, so you'll have to see for yourself someday. Safe to say that by reflecting off of the other white walls, that it will save us some money on our electric bills.

The crew also put in the granite counter and shower bench in our master bathroom. You can see the double vanity picture here.

Here's a nice shot of the bench for the shower. That could be a little chilly on the cheeks! Good thing we've got showerheads on the wall, in the ceiling overhead and a hand-held.

There had been dozens of deliveries at the house today, mostly lighting fixtures, faucets and toilets, so the guys are going to be very busy installing all of that for the next couple days.
Cheers!

Busy Bees - Day 162

It's April 7th - officially Day 162 and we're back from Spring Break. The Project 713 work site has been busy. In fact, it was a little busier than we had actually anticipated, because when we showed up Tuesday afternoon, we found this!

I mean, we knew it was coming soon, but thought it was still a week or so off, so imagine our surprise when we found a new driveway and the old, crumbling parking pad and patio in back demolished and gone.

That entire area that used to be concrete will eventually be grass and natural area. The rest of that retaining wall will be demolished and leveled and then we'll be expanding the back patio area back a few feet and putting in a new deck.

Once we went inside the house, we found a couple of pleasant surprises in Grace's room. Check out the cool built-in bookshelves up in her loft which also help serve as a railing.

The frame for her bunk beds was almost finished as well. You can see the bookshelves that also serve as the headboards. A large set of stairs that will contain storage as well is going in on the right side against the wall.

It may be hard to tell, but the painters also primed the walls throughout the house at the end of last week and should be putting the actual colors on the walls this week.
Cheers!

Easter and Spring Break

I was fortunate to have Good Friday off heading into the Spring Break week. We were able to celebrate Easter mass on Sunday, then head off to a quick vacation up in Scaly Mountain in western North Carolina.
Here's a cute picture of Grace and Kristin after mass.

We were able to get to our destination by early afternoon and enjoy a hike up Scaly Mountain before some stormy weather rolled in.

A good afternoon of exercise and one heck of a view made the 3 mile round-trip trek worth it! This is a great picture of Nanna with the grandkids.

Oh, and after taking a short 'detour' on the drive up, I couldn't resist taking this picture of one of the local roads. I sure know how to 'pick' a winner!

Good Friday - Day 158

We've turned yet another page on the calendar, as Project 713 has reached the month of April. For record-keeping purposes, Day 158 was April 3rd- Good Friday. I apologize for skipping several days without posting because of weather issues and relatively little visual progress. The picture below is probably one of the bigger accomplishments of the week. The designer who did our counter-tops took a couple days to let the slabs cure, and worked on our fireplace mantel which is really starting to come along. It will eventually have tile inside those columns and around the face of the fireplace.

There has been stuff going on, but much of it was planning or minutiae like measurements and cutting smaller pieces of the larger projects. For example, below is a picture of the new steps that were put in for the staircase leading from the first floor up to the second floor landing. The final two steps are on order since they're custom made since they're rounded on the right edges to keep folks from hurting themselves!

This picture below is of the wood trim edge to Grace's reading loft. It's a very nice white oak and really 'classes up the joint.' The second picture below is my birds' eye view shot from up in her loft. That was my first time getting up there and let me tell you, it's WAY up there.

And of course it wouldn't be complete if I didn't put a picture of Grace up in the loft enjoying her high-altitude perch. As you can tell from her pose, she's pretty stoked about the additional space.

The mystery box in the photo below is one of our two bathroom sink vanities for either the upstairs guest room or Grace's bathroom. I guess we'll just have to wait until it's opened to see which one!

So these were the final pictures I took prior to the Easter holiday weekend and the start of Spring Break. Since I'm just now catching up, I can tell you that there are some really cool pictures coming up in the next couple blog posts.