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.

Countertop, stairs, etc

The kitchen countertops were installed. Keeping with a clean, modern look, we went with a white Corian countertop cut with a minimal edging for the kitchen. We also had the countertop waterfall over the end of the island so that it wraps the cabinets. We left an area for seating at the end of the island where it joins the wall:

The walls have all been primed and the painter will be painting this week. We’re painting the inside white with grey accent walls throughout the house. We’ll also have one wall that goes up the stairs all the way to third floor painted in orange.

Speaking of stairs, we finally got the stairs installed:

And interior doors too:

Plus the tiles are almost finished in all of the bathrooms:

The upstairs bar is being installed. It will be glossy black cabinets up against the orange accent wall from the stairs which should look pretty nifty:

This bar will be in the third floor “playroom” that opens onto the deck via the garage door:

To install the garage door on the interior of the house so that it doesn’t look messy, we decided to drywall in the tracks for the door. The initial installation job with the usual metal poles may work fine in a regular garage, but looked terrible inside the house. Our solution turned out well, we think:

The island for the kitchen in the mother-in-law suite has been drywalled, as has all of the floor baseboard trim been installed:

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.

Deck garage door installed and drywall in

The garage door on the third floor deck has been installed. This will lead from the sunroom area on the third floor out onto the deck.

There’s also a door onto the deck from the master bedroom:

The drywall has all been installed:

Demolition party article in the Wall Street Journal

The Wall Street Journal did a story today on “The three-martini renovation” that included details about our demolition party that we had before we demolished our previous house on the lot. Check out the story here! It’s on page W1 of the print version.

About half-way down the page, there’s a picture of Kyle smashing his leg through a wall.

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:

Hardipanel on the exterior

Still waiting to pass the HVAC inspection…. supposedly it’ll happen on Monday and then we can finally start drywalling.

Meanwhile, the hardipanel on the exterior has been installed. It’ll be painted (not sure of color yet… currently thinking about a burnt orange color for the hardipanel and greyish-brown for the stucco). There are white metal trim pieces that divide the hardipanel and act as an accent. These will remain white.

Here are some updated photos:

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.

Slate tiles and doors

Our front door is in. This is a mahogany door stained natural. (The blue tape will be removed from the glass.)

The back door is in too:

The windows by the front door look great with the stucco and white metal band that surrounds the house:

We’ve got black slate down in the kitchen and master bathroom. We’ll be putting this in the other bathrooms too. It’ll look nice when it’s polished and sealed. The kitchen will have sleek white glossy cabinets on the back wall and a long island with grey glossy cabinets in the front which should complement the black slate floor well.

Kitchen:

Master bathroom:

Here are some updated views from the street. The stucco will be painted and we still need to put in the panels on the parts of the house that are simply wrapped.