I'm trying to get back into the blogging groove. Luckily, with the house nearing completion and the excitement reaching critical mass, that is becoming increasingly easier because I feel I should share the progress with my friends.
We stopped in yesterday and the painting is pretty much done. There's some small touch up work to do yet, but the major portion is complete. Vent covers, electrical sockets, and light switches have been installed. All that remains are the sinks, the basement toilet, a few ceiling fans, cabinet and closet handles, and finishing the bar.
Unfortunately, Señor Blurry (aka the iPhone camera) doesn't do the best job of capturing the different shades of the rooms, but you'll get the idea. Here's a shot of my room, leading into the hallway. You can also see the difference between the way the floors were stained.
My ceiling fan.
A shot of the bathroom tile and the wall, which is a light taupe color like the kitchen and living room.
This is my brother's room. It's hard to tell in the photos, but the shade of blue is much lighter in his room. My room is almost blue-gray. The shots are at weird angles because I wanted to capture as much of the color contrast as possible - the floors, the trim and moulding, and the walls.
This is what used to be my room, and will now serve as the office/computer room. Again, this shade of blue is actually a little different than the one in either of the other two rooms.
Here's the living room. As you can tell, the light fixture isn't completed yet. Before the fire, the house was painted almost completely white, off-white, or light gray (which looks white). Not only does that show off every speck of dust, dirt, fingerprint, or mark, it's boring. We wanted a lot more color this time around, which is why we went with taupe in the common areas and shades of blue in the bedrooms and basement.
The kitchen is the same color as the living room, but this shot shows off the recessed lighting, which I love.
Again, this is a different shade of blue from any of the bedrooms. This is the basement, which will become the entertainment hub once I get all my gear moved in. The blue flecks in the floor tiles look great against the walls.
The bar area. The walls here aren't actually different form the rest of the basement. The effect is just caused by the lighting. The bar itself is a very, very dark shade - almost midnight blue/black.
So that's the latest. The front porch should be repaired this week, which was the last major hurdle in moving back in. We're hoping to get the OK to move some of our stuff back soon, which will also allow us to move our furniture delivery up a week or two.
It seems entirely possible, and even likely, that we'll be able to move in before the September 30th date set by Jarvis Construction, but even if we have to wait the entire time, it's less than three weeks away.
I had considered holding a housewarming party, but thought better of it for several reasons. First and foremost, we are terrible planners. We are also cheap and not willing to buy alcohol for other people to drink. Secondly, I have several pairs of friends who do not like each other. The solution is to either neglect to invite some friends, which is just rude, or run the risk of the WWE Royal Rumble breaking out in my newly finished house. The much easier solution is to simply invite people over one at a time to see the house, hang out for a while, and maybe have a few drinks and/or dinner individually.
It's very possible the next set of pictures I post will be the completed house, filled with furniture, and hopefully some friends who come to visit.