Looking like a home.

When you think about building a house, you imagine what it will look like when it's done.  You don't think about 6 months of looking at concrete and framing lumber and sheathing and plumbing and wire and every other thing that goes into building a home.

In a little more than two weeks, the moving van will show up in front of our rental home and we'll finally settle into our new digs.  As I look around, this is what I imagined it would look like when we started this process.

The kitchen cabinets have all been installed.  This is a view from the dining area.  The cabinets you see in the lower left will support a breakfast bar.  The stove will be installed in the space dead-ahead and the fridge will fill the opening just to the left of the opening to the mudroom.

The hardware flooring has been installed throughout the downstairs and in the hall upstairs.  Most of it is covered with cardboard for protection, but this photo shows the opening for the range with the flooring exposed.

Crown moulding has been installed above the cabinets where they meet the soffit.  We don't like the empty space you see above the cabinets in many kitchens, so soffits eliminate this dust trap and allow us to bring the can lighting down closer to the work surface.  We'll also have this cool LED tape installed beneath the cabinets for task lighting.

Most of the doors and molding on the first floor have been installed.  Because the exterior walls are so thick, we have bench seating near every window in the house.  All of the windows on the

south side of the house are oversized and triple pane.  They're designed to produce heat in the winter time.  Sitting in the window well on a sunny day you're bathed in nice warm air.  Next week we should have the heat recovery ventilator fired up so it will distribute this free heat evenly throughout the house.

Upstairs tiling has begun in the laundry room and guest bathroom.  We chose white subway tile for the tub surround in the guest bath.  This was an upgrade from the fiberglass enclosure you see in some homes and I think well worth it.

We also added upgrades in the master bathroom with a separate tub and shower and dual sinks.  Here the shower stall has been been prepped for tile.  Based on our tile vendor's suggestion, we added a foot to the width of the shower stall to accommodate a built-in bench.  This is actually constructed from thick styrofoam so it can never rot.  Here it is covered with the tile backer board and sealed with some magic purple sealant.  We chose a white porcelain tile that looks like marble.

The attractive orange floor will hold a heating coil that is embedded beneath the tile to keep our piggies nice and warm.  There is nothing like stepping on an ice cold tile floor in the middle of the night and now we can count on that being a distant, unpleasant memory.

Next week the tilers should be finishing up and the plumber should be back to install the fixtures and fire up the heating/cooling and ventilating systems.  Electrician and painters should be behind him and lastly (I assume) the carpeting will be installed on the second floor.

Lots more to come - stay tuned.