Staining, Painting, Bricks, & Cabinets

So yes it has been a ridiculous long time since I've posted any new pictures; and apparently, I hardly deemed anything in February and March worthy of a picture. So with the pics, I just kinda jump from studs to painted drywall. I promise there really is insulation and wiring behind the walls.


Pappy & Buster were super excited about digging the trenches for the water, gas, and electrical lines. At least 2 of the 3 could go in the same ditch. Right? :)

These are the trim boards for the siding on the front and screen porches. We used LP Smart Siding. I don't have any close up pics of it, but it is the yellow siding in the picture of the whole house. I didn't realize how uncommon this stuff was around here especially if you want the smooth. It was exactly what I wanted. Sometimes, you just have to ignore all of the nay-sayers out there and hope you don't regret it down the road.

I'm very excited about my green metal roof. There were two different shades of green and I went with the lighter.

I went out on a limb somewhat and ordered my cabinets from a company in Oregon called Barker Cabinets. They come shipped unassembled and unpainted (though you can pay extra to have them painted). I was really nervous about this because while it saved lots of money, it could be a really bad thing if they showed up and were just awful. Thankfully, they are amazing cabinets and look to be extremely well made. Though, I have to admit when we first opened the big boxes, I was a little overwhelmed about the sheer amount of materials. Thankfully, each cabinet is wrapped together with all of its pieces so you don't have to go hunting for the right parts. Plus, the drawers come already assembled.

We got our brick from Ruston Brick and they had exceptional customer service. We used Fireside by Hanson with ivory mortar and white sand. I love how it turned out!!

Here is Buster exhausted after working on the form for the back patio. 

Here I am carrying in a board to be stained for the interior ceilings. I was just happy that it was a sunny day for a change and that the boards were actually light enough that I could carry them by myself.

Unfortunately, we keep getting rainstorm after rainstorm so we still haven't gotten the concrete poured for the front porch steps base nor the back patio. Gotta love the hole filling up with water. I'm just glad this didn't happen when we were working on the entire house form.

I didn't realize when we started this house exactly how much staining I would be doing. Tons!!

Here is our white vinyl beadboard on the screen porch. It is also on the front porch and carport. The guys from Phillips Vinyl Siding from Choudrant did a phenomenal job.

These are the pine boards for the interior ceilings. The clear coat is for the cathedral ceiling in the living room. The dark walnut stained boards are for the tray ceilings in the dining room, playroom, and master bedroom. 

Somehow, the kitchen became the paint station. I rolled all of the walls with the Wagner Power Roller (a roller hooked up to a motor and pulls paint directly from the can). This thing was amazing and saved tons of time. It also had a small edge trimmer. We also had the Wagner Flexio 590 Paint Sprayer. We used this more for the ceiling edges, exterior siding, interior doors, and cabinets. I highly recommend both if you have lots of painting to do.

AJ's room is purple. She picked out the color. Well, she first picked out a darker brighter purple but I stayed in the same family but went with something a little more airy.

Picking out Conner's room color was the hardest choice. I finally went with a gray (it looks darker here). It is going to be baseball themed. I got some really awesome metal baseball pieces from Hobby Lobby that I can't wait to see on the wall. As you can see, I used all of the rooms as cabinet door drying area. This white is actually just the primer. The final color will be a little more of a creamy white (Sherwin Williams dover white to be exact).

The master bedroom is a light airy green and the master bath is a sunny yellow (the same as the playroom).

The office is what I call a light swampy green.

Its hard to see much of the playroom in this pic, but it is a bright sunny yellow (but not too bright). It is actually my favorite color of all the walls. The green door in the center is for the kitchen pantry. The glass french doors leading from the living room to the playroom will also be this green as well as the kitchen island. All of the other interior doors will be the white like the door in the background.

The main area (dining, living room, and kitchen) is a light pale yellow. I think it will have more of a yellow tint once the white trim goes up to provide more contrast. Apparently, I am a huge fan of green and yellow right now.

These are the cabinet doors for the kitchen island. I rigged up this drying rack because I wanted to paint the fronts and backs without having to wait a long time in between (and have to clean the machine twice).

Thats all for now. Hopefully, soon (really soon), we will have the boards up on the ceiling, cabinets finished painted and installed, interior doors installed, and window/door trim up. After that will be getting the electrical finished and installing the floors.

Windows & More Staining

This one will be short and sweet, but I'm trying to do better about doing updates more often. I also realized that I haven't posted pics of the inside once you could tell what the rooms actually were.

It was really pretty this afternoon and since I now have access to a babysitter again (aka my mom), I was able to do it in the backyard of the new house. It was such a gorgeous day that it was a blessing just being able to be outside. 

And here you can see what we are actually doing with all of these stained boards. The center post in the "v" still needs to be stained. The posts going to the ground will be all completely bricked. The ceiling of the carport will be white vinyl beadboard which I think will really highlight the stained wood on the ends. This is the front of the carport, but this will also be the same on the front porch and screen porch.

We have windows! Yes, I know it probably would've made more sense to take the picture from the front of the house, but well I didn't. Plus, I have more windows in the back anyways. The two doubles on the left in the picture are in the playroom followed by the triple ones on the back of the screen porch that are in the living room. The two short ones are in the kitchen, a single in the master bedroom, and then a double in the office.

Here is a picture standing in the front of the house looking towards the back of the house through the living room out onto the screen porch. To the right will be the playroom that will be connected by 2 sets of skinny tall french doors. The kitchen is to the left (not pictured).

This is standing at the front of the house in the dining room area looking into the kitchen. There will be a kitchen island separating the kitchen from the living room. The smaller of the two windows will be over the kitchen sink. It is my only surviving french casement window. I wanted all the windows to be casement, but me being the budget girl, cut them all out except this one b/c they just ended up being way too expensive. The longer picture window next to it will be over my desk (the counter is dropped 6 inches so that is why it is longer). The door on the back wall goes into the master bedroom.

I'll try to take some more inside pics soon. The roof should be starting to go up sometime this week! I'm really excited about that. 

Framing & Staining

Once again, it has been longer than intended between posts. So to make up for it, there are lots of pics. Most of this will show the framing of the house.

This is a view standing in the living room looking up at the cathedral ceiling in both the living room and extended out into the screen porch (of course, there will be a wall in between.)

And here is Tracy working on it...

I was really excited the morning that I pulled into my parents' driveway and saw that top board going up. Okay, I'll admit it. I was more than excited, I was plain giddy.

This is the back screen porch. The front porch, screen porch, and carport will all have matching open cathedral ceilings. I imagine that I'll spend quite a bit of time on both the front porch and screen porch in a swing wrapped up in a blanket reading a good book.

This is the open  carport. I know in today's time, most people value a closed in door garage. Guess I'm just not most people. Though it may get cold some mornings, there are going to be plenty of other times that we will be able to use the carport more like a pavilion that will far outweigh the other. Understandably, if I was building in a subdivision, I'd probably reconsider this. Guess that is one advantage of living in the country where the outdoor area is just as valuable in living life as the indoor area.

It really started looking more like a house to me around about this time.

The plumbing has also started. I need to take a pic of the tubs. I ended up special ordering the kids bath/tub combo, because I wanted to make sure that the tub part was deep enough. I'm so glad that I did, because it really looks much better than the generic barely there tub that is standard these days. I'll have to take a pic soon. 

The last few days, we have been busy staining the finishing 1x12's pine that will be going on the "triangles" on the carport and porches. I call them triangles, but I'm sure there is a better word out there. I've never been so thankful for Pappy's shop before this. We were able to do all of the staining inside which was really great since it is ridiculously cold outside.

These are all still wet with stain before they are wiped down. I have no idea why some of them obviously came out darker than the others. Could be the wood itself or that those were at the bottom of the stain can. Who knows. It adds character, I guess. That is what I am going with anyways. 

These all have been wiped. The ones in the middle still need a second coat. Once they got the second coat.