Our house has two doors on the main level. The front door, which is in the center of the house, and the pantry door, which is on the North side and leads to the garage.
When you approach the house from the street, the pantry door is closer to the driveway, but we do not want guest to use that door. The front door leads to the front hall where people can take off their shoes and hang up their coats so that is where we want people to enter. On the other hand, the pantry door is better for packages because it is protected from rain by the breezeway.
To try to steer visitors correctly, we have added this sign to the walkway.
We just got our walkway lights installed. Here is an evening picture showing the lights when they are turned on.
Also, we got a few inches of rain over the last couple of days. This has significantly raised the water level in the river. Here is a picture showing the current water level.
And here is a picture from a few weeks ago showing the water level at that time.
The landscaping company installed hair cap moss along the south side of the house. This is in the low point where we want to prevent erosion from rain water. The hay bales are temporary until we can get more plants established.
I admit that the strip of moss is narrower than I was envisioning when we planned it, but hair cap moss sod is expensive. We are not sure what we will be planting on either side of this strip, but this strip does allow for people to walk from the front to the back, occasionally (its not a high traffic path).
Meanwhile, since the front yard was filled in with soil and then leaf mulch, it was time to finish the driveway.
In addition to this professional work, Daphne has been adding plants to the front yard near the house. Not much to look at yet (so no picture), but we hope they will fill in over time.
The landscaping crew has worked on the front yard. The walkway is done except for the lights. You can see it below, including the rocks and some plantings (including a tree).
And the rest of the front yard is now covered in leaf soil and leaf mulch. As soon as we get seeds, we can start planting. We want rhododendrons along the road, and we want a meadow in the yard. But we are struggling to find meadow seeds so we may be forced to put in a lawn, once the watering restrictions are lifted.
Next up for landscaping:
Final paving of the driveway
Planting of hair cap moss on the south side of the house
Lights along the walkway
We have also ordered some signs for that post along the walkway directing people and packages to their correct doors. The signs may be a few more weeks before they get show up.
Even though we have moved into the house, we have still been busy finishing up turning the house into a home.
Lets start outside. They still need to landscape the front yard and put another layer of pavement on the driveway; for now, they have taken the next step by installing our walkway.
Here are two pictures of the walkway, one from each direction. The first picture was taken while the stones were wet and the second taken a day later when they were dry, which is why they look different. The paving stones are blue mist granite, the same as the front stoop.
Do you see that lonely rock along the path. We will actually have six rocks placed next to the path. In fact, earlier in the week, Daphne visited the landscaping company’s rock pile to pick out the rocks she wanted.
Also outside, Daphne has been doing more planting. Here is the area around the backup generator (which has still not turned on for its weekly lubrication run).
To the left is a coral honeysuckle, near the red flag are wild strawberries, around the soaker hose are winterberries, and way in the back are some sedge.
Last week we have the construction team address some things on the punch list. We finally got the screens installed on the porch. Here is a picture of them, although the screens are intentionally almost invisible (even if I was able to get the camera to focus on them).
We also got door stops installed everywhere. Here is an example from the guest bathroom.
The master bathroom door no longer squeaks and the master shower no longer leaks in the basement. The latter was because the plumber over tightened the plug in the trap and it was cracked.
Lots of furniture has arrived and been assembled and placed. Here is the south side of the game room, which is now a reading corner.
On the second floor, we just got the table for the family room delivered. I call this the “Space Alert” table. Space Alert is a cooperative board game that is quite loud when it is played, so we force the players to use the second floor.
Here is another angle on the second floor family room. The couch is now usable. When the movers moved the couch from our old home, they removed the center leg and when they carried it upstairs, they did not reattach that leg. After a few phone calls, they found the leg (it was not in our house), brought it over and installed it so now the couch is usable (although its is far enough from the window that you do not really get a good view when you sit down).
The guest bedroom has been set up. All of the furniture is from our old house, except for the bed frames. That chair does have a great view.
And that’s my update. We are still hanging pictures on the wall. And I still need to finish unpacking and sorting the tool bench in the basement. We are still waiting for the coffee table for the living room, and we are about to order some blinds for the bathroom windows.
I have added another two months worth of progress pictures to the photo timeline of the house construction. If you have only occasionally been following the progress, that page is a great way to get the whole story in a single sequence of images.
I have added a page that includes historical documents about the original house. These were submitted to the town during the process of getting a demolition permit.
We got the last batch of furniture from Cherrystones this morning. Two pieces were our old desks which had been refinished. Daphne’s old desk went into the family room and my old desk is now in the corner of the guest bedroom.
If you look closely at the side of the desk you will see that we screwed up. The electrical (and Ethernet) outlets were too close to the corner to be accessible when the desk was placed. So the furniture installers had to cut holes.
But the star of the show is out new cabinet that divides the dining room from the living room. This piece has drawers, which will be my “desk” drawers since my desk is no longer close to the tall cabinets on the far side of the living room.
If you look closely, you will see wheels under the cabinets. The two halves of the cabinets can be separated and wheeled away if we want more space for parties. Separating them does require removing some drawers and using an Allen wrench, but it is doable.
The other thing you may notice is that the wood is lighter than a lot of our other cheery furniture, especially the chairs and table behind it. This is simply because it has not aged in the light. Our dining room set is 16 years old and has seen plenty of aging sunlight. The new cabinet just needs some time to catch up.
Also, last week we got our porch furniture delivered. Here is one side of the porch with the new couch and rocking/swiveling chair. The is a second chair on the other side of the porch (not in the picture).
No screen on the porch yet. But they are sitting in the garage and will be installed this coming Monday.
Speaking of Monday, the landscaper returns next week to do the walk and front yard, although not the plantings yet. We want a native meadow, but it is currently impossible to get seeds for it, so we may be forced to put down seed instead. However, there are lawn watering restrictions in place so we may have to wait until spring. The porta-potty was delivered late last week for the workers. Its sitting on the side of the garage, out of the way.
It has been almost two weeks in the new house. We are mostly unpacked and I have a few pictures for you.
First, on Sunday evening we played the first game on our new gaming table in our new gaming room in our new house. We did not finish (The Captain is Dead), but we can leave it set up for the next time since we no longer have to game on the same table we use for meals.
When our old next door neighbors came to visit, they insisted that we post a picture of the Instant-Pot corner, which is the North wall of the dining room. These Instant-Pots used to be spread around our first floor in the old house.
On Sunday, we went kayaking on the river once the rain stopped. But more importantly, we started working on unpacking and arraigning the basement. Here are three basement progress pictures. The area in last picture used to be filled with boxes to unpack.
Our poor dragon, which used to live on top of our living room cabinets, needs to be refinished. The two lonely boxes in the above picture need to wait for another piece of furniture to be delivered in a week.
Anyway, the house is livable, but there is still work to be done. For one thing, the front walkway needs to be added, and the front yard needs to be landscaped.
The porch is stilling missing screens — they should arrive this week. The master bathroom door still squeaks and needs some shims under its hinges. And the deadbolt in one of our outside doors can not be closed (or opened) using a key. Two cabinets need to have a fixed shelf removed so they can be used to store brooms. And there is some other minor stuff awaiting attention.
Anyway, I will keep up with updates, but they may be less frequent. At some point, I will summarize the whole build and probably switch the focus of this website.
