The finished product

We moved in several months ago and are finally settled in. Here are some photos of the finished prodct. More photos are available on flickr in a slideshow at:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/99974662@N00/sets/72157604315441209/show/

Lots ‘o progress

There’s been lots going on this week. The garage doors and exterior lights have been installed. The exterior lights are powerful up-down lights that will really work at night to not only provide a lot of light, but also to showcase the house.

When you walk in the front door, you’ll walk under this groovy light:

 The painters have been busy this week. When you enter the front door, you’ll see this orange wall (it’s orange, not red as it appears in the photo) which goes all the way up the three floors along the staircase for a neat effect. Next to the orange wall is the downstairs bar which we’ll use as a wine bar.

In the kitchen, we did this really cool backsplash all the way to the wall. It complements the sleekness of the white and grey cabinets and countertop by having a whole lot going on with it. It’s going to look fabulous once the kitchen is all put together. I wasn’t too sure about the white Corian countertops since they seemed a little plain at first, but now with the backsplash the countertops work fabulously. I don’t think we could have pulled off the backsplash with any other countertop style.

Here’s a closeup look by the sink:

The rest of the house is painted white with grey accent walls and a dark steel grey trim and doors. We did the bedrooms and bathrooms in similar colors.

The orange wall carries through on the second floor landing:

The electricians have been installing the fans in the bedrooms:

On the third floor is the sunroom area where we’ll have a bar to serve the deck area. The wall here is painted orange which will look sharp once we finish installing the shiny black bar cabinets.

The master bathroom has sinks facing each other in the middle of the room. All of the bathrooms got measured today for a really cool muted grey granite that looks a lot like concrete. We’re not big fans of granite, but the slab we found doesn’t look like granite at all and is really cool. It will go in all of the bathrooms except the downstairs powder room where Kyle is making our countertop out of walnut. In the master bathroom, this sink has a buddy on the other side of the little wall for a his and hers effect.

We’re mounting a mirror and lights between the two sinks using this wood frame that goes all the way to the ceiling. It will be stained dark to match the color of the hardwoods throughout the house. Since it’s open, we’ll be able to see through to the person at the other sink, but it provides a way to mount mirrors and lights above the sink.

Kitchen cabinets and tile work

The kitchen cabinets are installed, although we’ve taken off the doors to protect them while construction continues. These are the Kraftmaid Venicia line. We installed white cabinets in the back wall and steel grey cabinets for the island and bar.

Tile work in the bathrooms continues. We went with a black slate tile and grey tiles accented by slate strips on the walls. The tiles go all the way to the ceilings in each of the bathrooms for a neat effect.

House exterior is painted

We settled on using a light slate blue for the exterior hardipanel with a dark grey stucco for the recessed areas. The white metal trim acts as an accent. We really like how it turned out. Here are some photos:

Possible exterior paint colors

Our architect has been playing with some possibilities for paint colors for the exterior of the house. We haven’t settled on anything yet, but here are some possibilities:

It’s not fun playing “will the inspector show up today?”

We’ve been waiting a few weeks to get our HVAC and framing inspections done. The inspector says he’ll show up, but then never does. We’re behind schedule as we wait for him to show up and sign off on the previous work since we can’t do anything else on the interior until we get this sign off. Building a house in the City of Atlanta sure requires utmost patience.

More stucco work

Here’s how the back of the house with the stucco looks. It still needs to be smoothed out so that it doesn’t look so rough. We also don’t know yet what color we’ll paint it, but perhaps a grey color with steel blue for the panels on the front of the house. In this photo, you can see the metal strips that wrap the house all the way round. These are going to look great as an accent and they coordinate well with the white metal trim of the windows and the white metal roof:

The scaffolding is set up to stucco the recessed areas on the front of the house. Here it is under the two-story front porch:

And the exterior doors have been delivered and are ready to install:

Stucco goes on, wood floors are in, big closets, etc.

We’re moving right along… here’s a photo of the really large walk-in master closet. It’s about 9′ x 14′ so it’s really the size of a small bedroom. Can’t wait to get in there!

The oak floors have been installed througout the house. We can’t seem to decide how to stain these. We’re debating staining them a dark ebony so that they look almost black, bleaching them so they’re almost white, or staining them a really light natural color. Because the house has so many windows and is so bright, the darker floors would work but they might bleach out. The lighter bleached or natural floors might also look good. Hmmm… can’t seem to decide! This view is from the loft area into the living/dining area. They supports for the cable railing have also been installed which are the metal posts sticking out of the floor in the loft area. We’ll be adding cables to these for the area that overlooks the living/dining room.

The narrow window in the master bedroom above where the master bed will go was also installed. It’s got a protective cover on the exterior due to the stucco installation.

The steel support beams for the railing on the two third floor decks have been installed. These will have cables throughout them to keep people from falling off! This photo is from the covered porch on the west side of the house

And this one is on the uncovered deck on the east side of the house facing midtown:

This week they’ve been putting hard stucco on two sides of the house and in all of the recessed areas such as under the porches, etc. The other two sides of the house will be 4×8 panels. We haven’t decided on colors yet for the stucco or panels. Here they are mixing the stucco. It’s been over 100 degrees in Atlanta the past few weeks so I feel for these guys working in the heat every day.

They’re working three stories up on the scaffolding:

Here’s what it looks like as the stucco goes on. This is in the back of the garage by the entrance to the mother-in-law suite:

Windows are in, roof is done, and the deck membrane is in

Most of the windows (with the exception of the commercial glass windows) were installed today. These are wood frame windows clad with white metal. Here’s the view from the front:

These are the small windows in the coat closet and bathroom area downstairs:

Here’s a view from the back of the house. These three windows in a row will be by the dining table:

Our white metal roof has also been installed:

And the membrane for the third story deck has been installed. This will channel any rainwater. We’ll be putting tile pavers above this:

Latest floorplan

We made some minor changes to the floorplan. Here’s the latest. The entire structure is about 4,700 square feet which includes the unfinished spaces of the garage and outdoor decks. The heated space is a little more than 3,500 square feet.

Here’s the first floor:

The second floor:

The third floor: