Small steps forward

After my midweek visit, we had pretty low expectations for our trip up to Breckenridge on Saturday on Memorial Day Weekend.  There was actually a fair bit of work done and we're really excited to be so close to the finish line.


On the front of the house, we finally have all the cedar siding installed on the second story.  This was held up waiting for the flashing to be installed between the front wall of the house and the shed roof over the front porch.  Now Bob's team will come back and stain the new siding to match the rest of the siding that was already stained.

Around the back, the deck is almost complete.  The railing is just about done and Mark was working on the stairs that will lead from the deck down to the concrete patio below.

In our master bath, we brought lightbulbs with us and were able to put them in and also attach the lamp shades on each of the bulbs.  We hope to order the custom mirror on Tuesday and get it installed sometime in the next week or so.

Bob's guy also got the rest of the interior staining done.  The catwalk and stairs now pretty much look as they will when we move into the house.

But does the carpet match the drapes?

Well...not really because we don't have any drapes.  In fact we don't have any window covering of any sort.  We do, however, have carpet as of a couple of days ago.

Here's a picture of the carpet in our master bedroom.

This one shows the transition between the hardwood in the hall / great room and the carpet in the master bedroom.

Carpet in the girls' room :

The guys finally got the flashing installed properly between the house and the shed roof which means that Mark can get back to work on the siding.  He got four or five courses installed and we expect the rest to be done before the weekend.  Hopefully the roofers will also get the galvanized metal on the shed roof as well this week.

Finally, the lighting is working in the roof overhang of the garage :

You light up my life

It's been a couple of weeks since I've updated the web site.  Last week the painters finished all the interior stain and painted all the walls & ceilings.  At the end of the week, we met with the painter and confirmed colors for the exterior stain.

This week, we visited the house on Saturday and were really happy with the progress.  Believe it or not, it was hailing little tiny "dippin' dots" when we got to the house although it had been 85 in Denver on Friday.  Two weeks in a row, we've had bad luck with weather on our site visits.

This first picture, through the hail, shows the finished stain on the garage.  We have a natural stain on the cedar shingles and cedar siding and a darker stain to accent on the garage door cross members and facia boards.

Around back, you can see that same dark stain on the trim around the doors and windows.  We also chose to keep the timbers natural colored to better show the wood grain.  Here you can see the roofers finishing up their work on the shingles.  They expect to have the roof complete in about another week or so.

The deck railing came out great - below is a detail picture of what the railing looks like up close.  The grid is called 'cattle fencing' and the railing is similar to what we used inside the house on the railing for the stairs & catwalk.

Inside the house, we were happy to see how great the hardwood floor is looking.  Roughly 1/2 of the main level is now covered in the hardwood flooring and we expect that to be completed this week before we visit again.  We used a 7" wide, hand scraped product which gives the floor a very rich feel and will hopefully be very durable.

The lighting is also mostly complete.  Here in this picture you can see all the cans in the kitchen plus the fixture over the breakfast area and the pendants over the eating bar.

Up the staircase, these sconces look really great - a nice mixture of modern & mountain feel.

Looking up at the roof peak in the great room you can also see the finished catwalk railing and some of the lighting way high up in the ceiling.  The ceiling fan also made it into this picture as well as the chandelier in the entry way.

Finally, the finish plumbing is complete.  This picture below is the second shower head (handheld) in our master shower.

No pain, some stain.

Bob and his guys finished staining the interior woodwork before we went up to have a quick visit this morning.  He wanted us to confirm we liked the color before he did the 'finish' coats that will make the wood look more glossy.

This first picture shows the build in cabinet in the mudroom next to the doorway into the kitchen.

Here's the underside of the catwalk.  The pine took the stain very nicely as did the fir (timbers) and the alder (trim).  

This next shot shows the built in cabinet to the left of the stone fireplace in the great room.  This is where we'll have the audio / video gear as well as games and other fun family stuff.

This view of the catwalk shows how the finished stair rail looks as it leads into the catwalk.

We were really happy with the way the built in benches in the kitchen eating area look.  The alder looks just beautiful with the stain on it and will look even better after it's been lacquered with the finish coats.

We reviewed the exterior colors with Bob today as well and he's going to work on some samples that we'll review when we're up next Friday.  By then, the rest of the interior painting will be completed.  We're closing in on a completed project and it's really getting exciting.  

We decided to have an excavator come back and do a little more dirt moving in front of the house.   We decided to flatten out the hill that sits right in front of the front door.  We weren't really happy with the drainage after the snow melted with the hill where it currently sits and it also blocks the view of the front of the house from the street.