Inside Information - Day 198

I told you that I'd finally go back inside and take some pictures of the progress there. I teased it last post with that picture of Grace in front of the new door to the sunroom where there used to be a random window.
So, for May 13th, Day 198, here's some of the other developments. Below is the hardware for our kitchen farmhouse style sink. Don't the counter tops look awesome?

The next picture is of the sink and hardware for the bar and butler pantry area. Since this area is in between our formal dining room and our kitchen, it will be interesting to see how much use this gets in the future.

The giant soaking tub for the master bathroom is finally installed. It fits perfectly in its space right next to the big picture windows. Lots of great light and of course the hand-held shower head works great as a microphone! Grace is belting out that old Sesame Street favorite, "Rubber Ducky, You're The One!"

Next stop- cleanliness! Grace is sitting down on the bench inside our 3-in-1 shower stall. It will eventually have glass sides and a door. It has a regular wall shower head, an overhead 'rainfall' head and then the hand-held on a slider for when you're just too tired to stand up and need to wash those hard to reach spots.

Fancy, huh? Mom and Dad now actually have their own sinks, complete with matching fixtures. We have TOTALLY grown up. Do we have to? :-)

Grace finally gets to see what her lovely vanity looks like in the correct bathroom! She won't know what to do with so much room to herself! You can see she's very excited...

And last but not least... The fixture is in for the laundry room/utility sink. There's gonna be a whole lotta' soakin' goin' on!

A couple more pictures from outside, including an update on the slate walkway, which the Masons filled in with mortar. It really looks nice and solid. The landscapers will be able to start working on filling in the yard pretty soon, I should think.

In the picture below, you can see that the electricians installed our dining room chandelier. Definitely a centerpiece for the room. Very elegant and it certainly gets your attention!

The painters also put on a second coat of the exterior paint and started to do some of the trim. If you look closely you can see that they were able to paint the 'Iron Ore' trim on the first floor windows and the soffitt braces all around the house.

You can see from the picture below that the painters had to remove all of the windows on the second floor so that they could paint all of the window frames and mullions. They're going to look very cool. 

Hard to believe, but there are still a ton of light fixtures and other stuff that has to be installed. All of those and much more in the next installment of Project 713... 

Cheers!

Serious Progress - Day 197

Tuesday May 11th, Day 197 is a flurry of activity at Project 713. There are three separate crews getting work done today. The Masons are hard at work filling the mortar in between the large slabs of slate for the walkway up to the porch from the driveway.

The electricians are inside installing lighting fixtures, chandeliers, the hot water heater and other electrical switches and outlets. I went back over later in the day after they were finished, to check out the work inside.

The painters are back to finish the primer for the western side and rear of the house. I also had a short discussion with the foreman to make sure we're on the same page about the trim color for the wooden soffitt braces and the window frames and mullions.

I'm pretty sure we got things squared away, but I guess we'll know when they start on those tomorrow. :-(

I also made it over to Grace's school to watch a few minutes of her field day during my lunch break.

Looked like they were having a blast, especially when they got to run through the sprinkler a few times.

It was a nice respite and then back to work. I went back a mere 6 hours later and THIS had happened! The front porch was painted and the electrician installed the porch lights and chandelier.

And then they were able to get to this as well. You can see they finished the backside since the first visit.

And I ended up taking so many pictures that I don't want to post them all on this page, so I'll save them for tomorrow. But here's a Preview!

Yup, that's right. Grace is standing in front of a new door where there used to be a window that leads into the sun room behind the fireplace. Sorry about the badly lit photography. As a former journalist, I should be better than that with the backlighting. Oh well. With progress like this, we may get back in there by early June after all. We'll see...
More cool pictures tomorrow. Cheers!

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!