Pool, Millwork, Railing, Concrete, Progress

Hey there blog fans.  A lot has been done in the last two weeks.  As you can see above, our pool has been shot with gunnite, and is ready to be plastered.  The yard has been mostly graded, and more small trees were cleared in order to shape the landscape a bit more.  It's coming together.

Above are the floor-to-ceiling walnut doors that will serve as the mudroom closet doors, and also to separate the den from the rest of the house when someone needs to use it as a bedroom.  They were dropped off, but not yet installed, which is why they are on the floor in the photo.  Also...

Our concrete was installed!  Above is a photo of the fireplace cabinetry countertop, and below is a photo of our master bedroom vanity.  The guest bath tub deck also has concrete, but since the tile is still being installed, it was covered up and I couldn't see it.  

Our blackened steel railing was also installed, and it looks great despite the fact that we were getting kind of used to the nice clean look of no railing.  But I suppose it's necessary.  The handrail will be installed later, as it's not been fabricated yet.  But it will be a sappy walnut, so there will be lighter streaks running through it.

Pool Pic

Just got this picture from our pool builder. The concrete is formed, the steps are done, and they're working on the U-shaped bench that will be between the steps. That's all for now. I'm heading up this weekend and will take more photos then.

First Night

This weekend, Nina and I stayed at the house for the first time. Don't get us wrong, there's still much to do, but it is finally at the point where we have enough amenities to actually spend the night. Our master bath shower is working (but doesn't have a real enclosure yet) and the powder room downstairs is up and running. What else do you need?

The above shot was taken shortly before dusk last night.

The below shot shows our nearly finished kitchen. The sinks and faucets are in, and the fridge has been paneled and turned on. The only thing left is to put up the backsplash (there's a picture in an older post). Check out the stools too.

Below is a view toward the dining/living room. All the dining lights have been installed, and you can see a couple of our dining chairs. The "table" you see is actually our den sofa. In the distance is our recently delivered living room sofa. It's huge.

The other direction...

Our range was hooked up and is now functional. I'm going to burn so much stuff on this thing.

Our guest bath tiles have finally arrived (they were severely delayed), and they're working on finishing up that bathroom now. We didn't realize how irregular these tiles are - they require a 3/8" grout line, which is huge. We're going to use a dark grout which will hopefully make it look more deliberate.

No blog next week, but check us again in two weeks. Cheers.

DUST OFF YOUR SWIMMIES...

WE'RE GETTING A POOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL! How sweet is that? The hole is dug, and they were laying the rebar today (see below). hopefully next week it will be shot with gunite. Maybe we'll be swimming by the end of June (fingers crossed).

Ugh. So the last time we were up, we laid out the location of the pool, scooting it off to the side, so it wasn't the center of attention in the back yard. After they cleared the necessary trees, and graded the land a bit with some of the dirt + shale they dug up, what do you know, the pool seems to be pretty front and center in our yard. Which bothers me to no end! They put it in the right place, we just happened to locate it in the wrong place. To ameliorate the situation, we'll have to do some creative landscaping - planting a few more trees on the north side (left side of pic), and re-grading the southside a bit more to make it feel like less of a presence. The above pic was shot from our upstairs porch. And now for the eye candy...

This week, we saw some more kitchen progress. Above is the arrangement of our backsplash tiles laid out on the floor. It's a made-to-order pattern from Ann Sacks, who, by the way, did not include a diagram for this along with the tile shipment. But Walter the master puzzlesmith figured it out. And below, you can see our countertops, complete with this crazy-awesome pop-up electrical outlet (there's one on either side of the range). The countertops are Ceasarstone, which is a man-made quartz aggregate, and is pretty darn-near indestructible and extremely low-maintenance.


How cool is that? They are connected to a GFI (ground fault interrupted - used in all wet areas like kitchen + bathroom) electrical supply in the cabinet chase below, and are gasketed at the top (it forms a seal in the closed position in case you spill anything.) Also installed this past week was some of our millwork! Below is our fireplace cabinetry. It's all solid walnut and walnut veneer, with a tool-blackened steel face on the fireplace box, and leather cabinet doors. The countertop on that will be concrete, which is being fabricated right now.

A detail shot of the cabinet doors...

The leather is from Moore + Giles, who seem to be the only tannery that makes anything close to a worn saddle/jacket leather. All I wanted was to clad my doors in someone's old motor-cycle jacket. Is that so much to ask? I think they came pretty close, though. Click on it for some sweet grain detail. Below is another detail shot. Note the grille cut into the wood at the bottom. This was genius HVAC-ing on Walter's end. Instead of slicing up our ceiling or floor with return grilles, he hid them in the fireplace cabinetry, and also in the kicks of our kitchen cabinetry at the other end of the room.

More millwork in the master bathroom upstairs - the vanity we posted earlier was finally installed, along with a removable ipe deck for our shower. It's tiled below, but since we had some left over from the upstairs porch deck, we decided to make our shower a bit more spa-like with a wood floor.
Below is the vanity, which will also get a concrete top. I should mention that the concrete is being done by Mark Lacko of Betonas Concrete in Garrison. He was referred by our millworker, Jay Brennan, who I would also pimp with a link, if he weren't still living in the stone age and without a website. So, I'll just say that we are blown away by his work so far, and have hired him to do a ton of other custom furniture in our house.

The powder room (below) is almost done now, it's just waiting for a custom light fixture. And a mirror. Billy beat me to the inaugural pee. The toilet is Toto, and the sink is Duravit.


I just liked this photo above, so I threw it in the mix. You can kind of see from the first level that the pool really is more off to the side than it appears to be from the second floor.

And our mattresses were delivered today. No beds yet, but we've got mattresses. Which is a good thing, because next weekend, since Billy's mom is taking over our place in the city, we'll be spending our first night in the house! Stay tuned.

Floors Sealed, More Light Fixtures, Mattresses

Our floors have been sanded and sealed with a matte water-based polyurethane.  They look incredible.  In the above picture, note that (a) the floors are finished, (b) the back island panel has been applied, (c) three of the five dining room pendants have been installed, and (d) the refrigerator panels are ready to be installed - they're against the wall on the right.

In the above photo, you can see the wall sconces on the fireplace wall (that's the fireplace on the floor waiting to be installed - the cabinetry should be ready for installation this week).

Above is a close-up of the floors.  We love the rustic character, and we chose not to fill any knots.

Above is another shot of the floors.  The color looks much different in this shot.  In reality, the color is closest to the first picture in this post.

And finally, this is a shot of our finished stairs.  To the right, you can see the dark gray hexagonal tiles on the entry floor.  The walls in the entry were painted a light green, but we really don't like it, so it's being repainted to match the rest of the downstairs.  Also check out the sweet light fixture we got for the entry and the mercury glass pendants above the stairs.

After going to the house, Nina and I headed to Sleepy's and bought four beds (a king for our room, a queen for one guest room, and 2 twins for the other guest room).  They're being delivered a week from Saturday, so we might just stay up there that night!

This should be another week of significant progress.  Hopefully the plumbing fixtures will be installed, painting will be complete, the remaining lights will be installed, the kitchen counter will arrive, and our custom fireplace and master bath cabinetry will arrive.  Hopefully...

Almost There

This week saw quite a bit of progress.  The floors were sanded and should be sealed this week.  The stairs were also installed.  They're white oak, just like the floors.

We ran the treads and risers to be flush with the wall.  It definitely makes for a more interesting set of stairs.

The recessed lights were installed.

The range hood was put in place.

This is the den.  There will be a media cabinet against this wall, on which a TV will sit.  There will be wall sconces installed where the light bulbs are now.  The wires below are for in-wall speakers.

This is the same wall from the other side.  You can see the track in the ceiling above for the entry closet doors on the far side of the wall.  Those doors can also be used to close off the den if there are guests staying in there.

And here's a shot of the ceiling fan that is in each of the bedrooms.

We expect significant progress again this week.  We'll be having furniture delivered soon, and should be able to stay up there within the next few weeks!

Paint, Fridge, Tile, Stone

Hello.

Nina and I returned from Copenhagen (married!) on Saturday evening, and headed up to the house for the first time in a couple of weeks on Sunday morning. The most visible progress was certainly on the first floor of the house, where taping, spackling and painting have been completed. The recessed light fixtures were also installed. Have a look...


The next shot shows the reveals between the wall and ceiling and wall and baseboard. Also note the curtain track recessed into the ceiling.


Here's a pic of the powder room. Those are reclaimed fence posts on the lower half of the walls.


The refrigerator was also put in place, but has not yet been paneled.


Below is the master bath shower, which was recently tiled. The floor of the shower will actually be covered by an ipe deck, and the rest of the bathroom floor will be tiled in the same travertine as the shower walls.


Finally, a couple of shots of the exterior of the house. The tent around the garage has been taken down, and you can finally see the ledgestone against the garage door. The door is made of the same cedar as the deck ceiling above, but is completely covered in dust. Once cleaned, it will have the same vibrant color.



We'll be up again this weekend, and will post more then. We expect to have electrical outlets by then, and our floors will be sanded in preparation for finishing.

Monday Update

Nina drove up to the house this morning and took some great pictures that show that we're really coming down the home stretch. The covered deck is just about done - the only thing left to do is install the recessed lights, speakers and ceiling fan. Speaking of the ceiling fan, Walter built a small flat surface from the cedar so the fan could be mounted in the center of the peak. Here's a picture...


The ipe cap was also applied to the railing...


The cabinets were re-installed, this time for good. The large box on the right will house our refrigerator, which is an integrated, walnut paneled Thermador Freedom side by side...


And here's a shot of our newly installed Bluestar range. It's 36" wide, with 6 burners (up to 22K BTU's!) and an extra large gas oven. The door is black. It's right in the middle of the 13 foot island which is temporarily covered with cardboard.


The reclaimed fencepost cladding has been applied to the powder room walls. Those are paint samples on the wall above. Walter will be painting the first floor walls soon.


The next shot is of the skylight in the guest bathroom. Walter suggested cladding the channel in the same cedar we used for the deck ceiling and garage door. We think it looks great.


The master bath is currently being tiled. We used a stone called durango in here. I think it's a type of travertine. This is a shot of the shower...


And finally, a couple of shots of the ledgestone.


We expect things to move pretty quickly now, so stay tuned.