A sign of progress. Thanks to friend Shannon for the very thoughtful and beautiful weeping snow fountain cherry tree, which has found a happy home in our front yard.
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
The first tree of spring
Behold:
A sign of progress. Thanks to friend Shannon for the very thoughtful and beautiful weeping snow fountain cherry tree, which has found a happy home in our front yard.
A sign of progress. Thanks to friend Shannon for the very thoughtful and beautiful weeping snow fountain cherry tree, which has found a happy home in our front yard.
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
The latest punch list
We love our house. Not a day goes by without us thinking about the morning light in our living room, the functionality of the garage, the ideal entertaining space that is our living-dining-kitchen space, our great exterior design, the tranquility of our bedroom...we love it.
That said, it's not perfect. During the design and building process, I guess I imagined that once we moved in the house-building fairy would appear and magically make everything complete and perfect with a wave of her sparkly wand. She hasn't shown up yet, so in the meantime, this is what we're thinking about completing or improving in the next little while:
• landscaping
• house numbers
• fence with neighbors to the south
• cabinet and storage configuration in laundry nook
• office configuration
You've read about our landscape plans. It looks like we're tentatively planning on mimicking this design for the fence:
Tai's been drawing up plans to make it two-sided and to take into account the fall in elevation between the east side and west side of our south property line. I'm really excited, though -- I think it's going to look great.
When we first moved in, a fence was in a top-tier priority, but in recent weeks it had slipped a bit. It bumped back up when the neighbors expressed interest in a fence, which means that we're going to be putting off some other optional upgrades in order to work with the neighbors. A couple of things that are slipping are window coverings, more plants for the yard, a speedier timeline for the landscaping, and office furnishings.
This is what our office looks like at the moment:
Lovely, huh? The un-interesting story for this room is that we thought we had a design we liked for a built-in desktop and shelving, then we decided we didn't. We also decided against doing anything from Ikea in this room -- our kitchen is Ikea by choice, our bookcases upstairs are Ikea by necessity, our wardrobes and bathrooms cabinets are Ikea by expediency, and we just don't want any more Ikea. Back to square one.
One of the smaller tasks we face is the positioning and installation of our permanent house numbers. In order to get our occupancy permit this fall, Tai spray pained some stencil numbers and tacked them up to our front post. After touring a Geoff Tice remodel, Tai spotted this line of numbers and found out they're offered at a very reasonable price at Lowe's:
So the 1, 3, 4, and 2 have been sitting on our kitchen counter for a week or so awaiting installation on our exterior concrete wall. Tai even make a trek to Harbor Freight for a hammer-action drill to tackle the concrete. Current thinking about placement puts them horizontally, off center (to the left), just below the canopy frame.
The last thing I wanted to share is that we are highly amused by the slow drive-bys. Watching the parade of gawkers outside our front windows has become a weekend past time -- keep 'em coming!
That said, it's not perfect. During the design and building process, I guess I imagined that once we moved in the house-building fairy would appear and magically make everything complete and perfect with a wave of her sparkly wand. She hasn't shown up yet, so in the meantime, this is what we're thinking about completing or improving in the next little while:
• landscaping
• house numbers
• fence with neighbors to the south
• cabinet and storage configuration in laundry nook
• office configuration
You've read about our landscape plans. It looks like we're tentatively planning on mimicking this design for the fence:
Tai's been drawing up plans to make it two-sided and to take into account the fall in elevation between the east side and west side of our south property line. I'm really excited, though -- I think it's going to look great.
When we first moved in, a fence was in a top-tier priority, but in recent weeks it had slipped a bit. It bumped back up when the neighbors expressed interest in a fence, which means that we're going to be putting off some other optional upgrades in order to work with the neighbors. A couple of things that are slipping are window coverings, more plants for the yard, a speedier timeline for the landscaping, and office furnishings.
This is what our office looks like at the moment:
Lovely, huh? The un-interesting story for this room is that we thought we had a design we liked for a built-in desktop and shelving, then we decided we didn't. We also decided against doing anything from Ikea in this room -- our kitchen is Ikea by choice, our bookcases upstairs are Ikea by necessity, our wardrobes and bathrooms cabinets are Ikea by expediency, and we just don't want any more Ikea. Back to square one.
One of the smaller tasks we face is the positioning and installation of our permanent house numbers. In order to get our occupancy permit this fall, Tai spray pained some stencil numbers and tacked them up to our front post. After touring a Geoff Tice remodel, Tai spotted this line of numbers and found out they're offered at a very reasonable price at Lowe's:
So the 1, 3, 4, and 2 have been sitting on our kitchen counter for a week or so awaiting installation on our exterior concrete wall. Tai even make a trek to Harbor Freight for a hammer-action drill to tackle the concrete. Current thinking about placement puts them horizontally, off center (to the left), just below the canopy frame.
The last thing I wanted to share is that we are highly amused by the slow drive-bys. Watching the parade of gawkers outside our front windows has become a weekend past time -- keep 'em coming!
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