Lights, Appliances and Carpet

We are SO close to being done and we are very excited. This week has been busy as usual. We got most of our lights in, plumbing, carpet, and placed another appliance...the stove. Although, it's not hooked up yet, it looks much better in the kitchen than it did in the middle of the living room. We have had the utilities marked in the front so we can start trenching for sprinklers on Saturday. With any luck, we'll have final inspections next week and start moving next weekend. Keep your fingers crossed for all of us. Enjoy the pics below of our most recent changes.

Can I just say that I LOVE the light fixtures we picked. So fun. Here is the dining room light and the kitchen can lights that you can barely see. We will also have two pendants over the island.

The entry light.

Light in the hall.

Master bedroom fan. This will have a light under the fan blades, but it is backordered right now. Should be here Monday though. The fan/light in the Living room is the same.

Master bathroom light. Love it!

Here is a picture of the stove. I think it looks much better now that it is sitting where it belongs even if it's not hooked up.

The dishwasher.

Ahh...my sink. I love it. 60/40 basin, undermount with a nice tall faucet. I might actually be able to wash my biggest pot now. Yipee!!

All of the front outside lights are the same. I love them. They are nice and big and very bright. Just what we wanted.

The front of the garage. Lights installed and stucco on, except for the pop outs. They'll be taupe when they're done.

And finally...CARPET!! I was so worried about the color because I changed my mind so many times, but I really love it. It's just what I wanted and oh so SOFT. That's the most important thing. We wanted to be able to lay down on it and not feel like we were being scratched by cat claws. This picture is looking into the living room.

Talon and Kaleb's room.

Master bedroom.

We're Getting There

Things are really moving now. Between cabinets, plumbing, heating, and stucco, we're really getting there now. We got all of our cabinets last week and, except for the kitchen handles, they are done. I LOVE the way they look. They are just what I wanted.

This is our whole kitchen. Even though it's not that big, we have a TON of storage and plenty of working space. I can't wait to cook in here.

The pantry cupboard. Even though I have a pantry too, I wanted as much storage as I could get. I am very glad we did this.

More kitchen cabinets...including a close-up of the island. The hole to the right is for the fridge.

Laundry room cabinets.

Josh and I standing in the kitchen next to our new fridge. WAHOO!!

Our washer and dryer. I can't wait to use these. I can even wash a king size quilt!

The stove. Dishwasher and microwave are in the boxes behind this.

I have wanted to do horizontal stripes in a room for years and I finally have my chance. This is the wall our bed will go on. Our head board isn't very tall so I have 3 chunky picture frames that my Dad made me last summer that will go on the wall above the bed. You can see one of them in the bottom right corner of the photo. I'm excited to see this room all pulled together with our bed (Dad built that too!) and comforter. I think it will be cute.

And finally...countertops. We found a guy online and got a great deal on these. I never thought we'd be able to have granite, but we do! I really like the way it looks with my cabinets.

I also bought my kitchen sink from the granite guy for a great price. It's just the one I wanted. Elsewhere, it could have cost me up to $600. Luckily, we only paid $150 and it's a 60/40. It's the one I've had my heart set on.

Close up of the granite on top of the island. Another fun thing we got to do with this granite guy was to pick ANY edge we wanted. I love the chiseled edge because it's so different. Kind of fun!!

This is my favorite piece of granite, although the picture doesn't do it justice. This is the sink in the boys' bathroom. It really goes well with the color of the tile on the floor too. It's very different and interesting looking.

Last but not least...we've also been getting our stucco. FINALLY!!! They were supposed to come 3 months ago and they finally showed up on Monday (7/13). When they started our stucco, the color was wrong. We've had a rough time with things being wrong on the outside of our house. However, they fixed it and I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the color. It seriously couldn't be more perfect. I am excited to see it with the pop outs done (they'll be a taupe color to match the windows) and the exterior doors hung (they are dark brown like the soffit and fascia and garage door). Aaahh...It's a relief to have that done because I really worried about how the color was going to look with the shingles. But it looks great!!!

South side of the house with stucco.

The back (east) side of the house from 1/2 block away.

Oops!

The other day, Josh was following me home on the dirt road. We had just picked up the kids and I thought it might be fun to see if there were any caterpillars on the milkweed. So, I slowed down and stopped and...SMACK!!!!!! Josh rear-ended me. We were both so mad at the time and now all we can do is laugh about it. The car is pretty bad, but we are trying to see if we can get parts for cheap and fix it. If not, we didn't pay much for it and we've had it for 7 1/2 years. It's been a good car for us.

The back of the van doesn't look much different. The bumper was ruined when we bought it so you can hardly tell. The dent in the door is new though, but luckily, it still closes as if nothing happened.

The car however...is a different story. It went under the van bumper so it really crunched the hood and bent up some things inside. We obviously need a new light and left fender. Good thing we were only going 10mph. It could have been much worse.

4th of July

As I'm sure most of you did...we had a fun 4th of July. We started at the Moroni parade and then went to a BBQ with the Rasmussens. We did still have to work at the house, but our morning was fun and relaxing. We also went to the fireworks in Manti that night. Our seats were great. We popped some popcorn and enjoyed watching them together. Here are a few pictures from our day.

Matthew, Shadow, Talon, Josh, Kaleb, Lynne (Grandma), Lewis (Grandpa) and Coby. We ended up moving across the street and having great seats. There wasn't a huge crowd to fight for candy either.

Our boys. Talon, Coby, and Kaleb

Talon just dumped a cup full of water on to his seat and sat down. He and Uncle Chet were having a water fight. And yes...that's Kaleb minus his pants to the right of Tal. They were all so wet from the water fight that we had to lose SOME pieces of clothing.

Coby looking for ANYTHING he can fill with water.

Josh and Shadow...all tuckered out!!

Who Needs a Girl...

...when you have a little boy that likes to wear your heels? Cute little Kaleb came out of my room with my high heels on and I thought it was kinda funny.

Kitchen

Well...it's still a work in progress, but I couldn't stand it.  I had to post these pictures.  The cabinet guy is just about finished installing and then we'll be ready for appliances (coming tomorrow) and countertops (coming Friday).  It's turning out even more beautiful than I thought.  I love it!!!

One of the corner cabinets to the right of the sink.  The short ones to the right of that will have the microwave under them.

The south wall of the kitchen.  The far right hole is for the fridge and the other one is for the stove.

The whole kitchen.  Almost done!

Paint and Cabinets

We finally finished painting Tuesday...just in time for our cabinets to arrive. The guy has been installing them today and I am so excited I can't stand it.  I LOVE them!! The countertop guy is supposed to come tonight to template for our granite and hopefully they will be installed by Saturday. Things are moving now.  

The living room looking towards the front door, on the left, and the front bedroom and hallway on the right. I really like the color we chose.

Master bedroom closets.

Front bedroom and hallway.

Here is a picture of our kitchen cabinets sitting all over the place. They delivered them yesterday and didn't do any installing, so they are cluttering the whole kitchen. Soon, they'll be right where they belong.

A close-up view of the style we chose. It's a shaker style door. Plain and lovely!

In this picture, most of the cabinets are where they are going to be for good. Right before I took this, I helped the cabinet guy place the island where I want it to go. I love my new kitchen. Can't wait to cook in it.

The House

We've done a lot to the house recently and we are so excited for the progress we've made. We had our wood floor installed for us. The wood is so hard that we decided it would probably be better to have the pros do it. We are glad we did too because it was crazy to watch the kid struggle to get the staples through the wood. This Brazilian Teak is 3rd from the hardest wood on the hardness scale if that tells you anything. We are so happy with the way it turned out too. I love all of the different colors it has. It should match all of the wood in the house.

Looking toward the front door.

Josh installing the baseboards on top of the wood.  

The wood running down the first hall.

And looking from our room to the north bedroom.

Here are the headers we built for our doors. I love them! It is really hard to tell what they are going to look like since the sides are white and the tops are brown, but I have seen them before and they are really pretty. Just wait until we get some paint on them.

A little closer view.

The concrete guys FINALLY came back and finished our cement work. This is a picture of the steps coming out of the french doors in the back. I really love the way they did these with a little bit of a landing. What a great spot to put potted plants.

The steps to the front porch.

The other thing we've been doing is prepping for paint and painting. Can I just say that filling holes, caulking, taping and papering is SO boring and never ending. I thought we would NEVER get to paint, but we did finally finish (with blisters to prove it) and start painting. I can't believe the difference it makes in the way things look to have a coat of paint on it. WOW!!

Poor Josh really took one for the team painting those closets. When you spray in there, they spray right back. This is how he looked after a day of painting closets and trim.

Looking through the dining room into the kitchen.

The living room ceiling.

The closet in the south bedroom.

Hall linen closet.

A close up of the headers we built. In the first picture, they were un-primed mdf. Here is a picture of one all painted. I love the way they turned out.