I'm so sorry, cp. I'm right there with you. I almost feel like I don't want to move in because I'll just see my d***ed GC's evil face everywhere I look, like a haunting.

:-(

And I feel for you too Kiwi. I can only imagine what it's been like working with such a poor GC. I can't be sure, but everyone we talked to loves our GC and he genuinely seems to care and I've seen his workmanship from every stage and it appears to be impeccable.

And better still I loved his comment to me. He said, " We will screw up somewhere down the line. It does happen. However we will fix it and make it right. If I don't see it, all you need to do is call me."

Additionally he is and was happy for us to go to any of his building sites, let his people there know we had permission from him to go inside and view the site as long as we didn't interrupt the workman and the foreman felt it was safe for us to do. And we did. We saw houses of his in every stage of construction. And he was even more happy when we ran into some of his happy customers. LOL.

Thankfully, he's not the problem. The ^**&()&( zoning board is the problem!

Plumbing fixtures were installed today. A few mistakes; wrong kitchen faucet and toilet, but nothing that won't be fixed. I'm not sure I'm pleased with my fixture selections though. I went with chrome for all faucets thinking it was classic and easy to clean to a shine. However, I'm not crazy how they look with the satin nickel light fixtures. Maybe once I've decorated I won't notice, but right now I can't help but notice the difference in metals.

Kiwigem,

Sorry you are dealing with such an aggrevating GC. Can you insist your GC takes regular pictures from his phone for you at key points? For example, if he had taken a picture of the rebar in place before he poured you would not be pulling your hair out wondering if he had used rebar or way lying. In our city, the inspector needs to see the rebar before the concrete is poured - too bad they don't do that where you live. The structural engineer told us to get photos of all key stages (rebar would be one) so if ever questioned by the inspectors he would be able to sign off on that stage of the build via the photo. Our other choice was to hire the structural engineer to make 4 or so onsite visits to inspect. We elected to do the photo route.

Carol

Our GC wasn't even onsite :-/

Wow, kiwigem! Did you speak to his workers? Do they sound convincing about the rebar?

Carol

cpartist - i am so sorry. i've had past experience working with a zoning board for the city, and my eyes were opened to how the relationships between board members, businesses, and citizens worked. i was sad to see the voice behind the money was often loud (and listened to) over the voice of the citizen. i don't want to stir the political pot here (we are all stressed with other things, right?!), but do you know people, that know people?

r2d2 - swamped and so tired. yes and very much, yes.

kiwi- what trouble!

michelle - i remember your "white covered" (i didn't say the s word!) winter pictures now. i had forgotten you started when we did. we started digging the basement the first week of September last year.

amberm- we went with waterlox. it's shinier than i would like (DH loves it), but i do love that it's a nice, hard surface and food safe. i have extra butcherblock from where it was cut to size, so i'm planning to make some cutting boards and use an oil finish on those.

i promised pictures, and i just put some up on our blog (i can't get houzz to put the link here, so it's at the bottom).

we are renting our current home, and have a renter moving in august 1, so the next couple of weeks are full. cleaning there, packing here, cleaning here, etc. i am so thankful for friends and family that are offering to help. :)

It is such a mental relief to have the county satisfied with our home and to have that CO! They don't require certain finishes, so we do still have a list of things that will need to be done. Some before we move, most after. DH wants to get the trim work finished before we move in, so he'll be working on that this week, and I'll mainly be here packing. oh, the end is in sight!

our blog

Cpartist - so sorry you are going though this! I'm curious to know if the brilliant idea of the porch was accepted. By the way, how big is your island? It looks great!

R2d2 - I know how tiring this can be, managing all at the same time. When I wake up in the morning, I'm ready to get 8 hours of sleep.

They finished our foundation, I guess all that it needs is to be signed off and some time to cure. Some of the utilities are going to be next. We got lucky and will be able to hook up to the pressurized irrigation, that is something that I was really hoping for

Not the greatest pictures, but they give the general idea...

Reeseputtercup,

Your house looks great -- and was built so quickly. Mixing metals is very popular right now. Check out the blog below for ideas on how to mix metals. I think you should be just fine on your chrome faucet and brushed nickel finishes, but I am no expert.

mixing metals

Carol

Yellowducky

Hooray for you and your family!!! Moving in to your home, the end we all are looking forward to doing.

We have been moving totes and boxes to the basement of our new build using our small trailer. Hoping to actually move in by early August. Our kitty has been watching us and I think she wants to be sure we don't forget her.

Yellowducky, your pics are great!! House looks wonderful!! I love the kids' handprints in the concrete. What a treasure. I wanted to do that too, but ours set before we got there. :(

I meant to post these yesterday, but my phone was misbehaving.

They repainted the bedroom ceiling. I love it!

Getting my railings stained while I'm blocked from the bathrooms.

And they're ripping up the corner of sidewalk they skipped, which was the worst on the block.

Just before they started ripping...

Kiwi- thank you, we love it!

Reese- can't wait to see how it Will look painted - that cream kitchen is saved on my phone as an inspiration picture as well!!

Good grief! Just got an email with the price per tree (Live Oak). I almost had a heart attack! We need some trees in our backyard.... Yikes! I need a money tree.

Chris - hurray for the start! So exciting!

Amberm - love the ceiling. I'm glad they are fixing the sidewalk. We can't have the ugliest sidewalk on the block. Can we? ;)

Rookie if you were local I have plenty you can dig up for free. ;)

My kitchen island was delivered today. The pendant lights were installed weeks ago according to the outline and measurements on the floor by the KD. Somehow they were mismeasured. There should have been " about" 42 inches from the island to the counters. There is about 5 feet, way too much. The island is on legs and can easily be moved, but the pendants of course cannot. Anyone else have this issue? Did you have th GC move the pendants and if so, was it a big deal and did the hole that was left get fixed so it was undetectable? My husband will have a hissy fit if I mention I want the pendants moved:/. Haven't moved in yet, but they are getting close.

houserookie, are you in Texas? I always think of live oaks as a Texas tree. We have friends in San Antonio, and visiting them was the first time we'd ever seen one.

zorroslw, it depends on where your joists are. Mine are too close to the perimeter cabinets. I noticed it before drywall. But to get any further away, they would have had to move to the other side of a joist. DH talked me out of having them moved. And now that drywall is up, forget about it. Oh, well. MOST of my light fixtures are off by at least a few inches, why should the island pendants be any different? :P If you don't have to move them to a different joist bay, it would be a lot easier. And whether the drywall can be fixed depends on how good your drywallers are.

Amber - I might come to where you are, and hall away the trees by hand if need be. Might be cheaper than the ones here. Hahahahahahaha

Amberm- yes, we are in the Dallas area. I just posted on the Garden section. We have some other tree options, but no price for the others yet. I may do a mix of trees. Hoping the other ones won't be so pricy!

Amberm, the ceiling looks great!

cpartist, sorry you are dealing with all of this mess. I would be a wreck.

Chris, congrats on getting the foundation going!

We are hoping to be ready for final inspection next week. Our trim carpenter is completely finished, electricians appear to have maybe one more day of work. I am loving seeing the pretty light fixtures going in. Plumber comes today to set fixtures. Painters are "supposed" to be working through the weekend to finish up, which won't happen. Ha. The house is a complete wreck. It's so dirty. Stuff everywhere. I'm so ready to clean it all.. Our major disaster for the week: my husband cracked our granite on the back porch grilling area. I don't mean a little crack either. I'm calling the fabricator this morning to see if it can be repaired. He's (hubby) not my favorite person right now. And it makes me realize how being upset over the door handle set earlier in the week truly was small potatoes. Perspective.

Amberm: Love the ceiling and the exterior colors..

Yellowducky: read your blog..your home, setting, style everything nice. I love the kids pics and the hand prints in concrete. Sooo cccute. :-)

Aleleux: Wow all the best for the inspection, I know the feeling. DH sometimes are not the fav persons esp, when they break things. LOL. I have been there several times this week myself.

Ok.. our home is being photgraphed today for the listing, cleaning and cleaning and organzing and agonizing has been my life. I will post the link once listed if interested?

I am back again with interior colors now: can you please please help me some. Chime in please.

Here are our closets almost all done.

r2d2indy, beautiful. What closet system is that?

r2d2, those closets are magnificent! What can you say about the colors? They are all so different. Are they for different areas? What kind of areas?

Golfer and Aleleux: thanks they are Innovative Closets. We paid some to get it a little upgraded than what the builder was providing.. overall happy!.

Aleleux: the builder is providing three colors to paint..in the entire house.

I thought I will go with a same light color in the entire first floor and not sure what to do..

Here are the colors from right to left

1. Shark-- for the kids bedroom and bathrooms

2. Fog-- for the master bathroom and bedroom.

3. Antique white.. its too light the first color on the right.

The other 3 colors we chose towards the left are a little bit dark arent they?

Basically am confused.. and my DH is irritated with me for being so picky on it. Not sure what to do.

Basement is daylight we want it to appear bright and cheery so maybe one of the colors will do. Any suggestions please. Thanks!

r2d2- Passive by Sherwin Williams is a light grey-blue that might work well down there. It's our ceiling color all through the house.

DH hates my paint colours, now that they're up. The bedroom ceiling is fine, and that same colour is in a couple of spots on the main floor. But he hates my white. It's a modern house, with dark windows and a dark staircase, so I needed a contrast. We're not fans of pastels. And any light beige or grey I tried looked dirty. So I went with Sherwin Williams Greek Villa. Basically white. He's calling it builder white, and wondering what took me so long to choose since I could have just said "white".

And then because he told me I'm never allowed to paint, now that we've paid to have the house painted, I decided to change it up in a couple of rooms. I should have known this was a bad choice, since we have it at home, and again, it's white. It's a pale grey, but so pale you gotta look for some real white to see a difference. When I painted samples on the primer, it looked darker. So now he's making snarky comments about paying an extra $75 to get a slightly different white. It's true. Even I'm disappointed in it. Oh, well. It's just paint.

amberm- men always seem to gravitate towards dark wood stains and deep colors like autumn red and hunter green. That's great for a few rooms but really not livable through an entire house unless it is a lodge.

If he wants to make changes in the future, I would have him pick one room and then make a workbook for him of rooms with walls he likes, and then do just that one room.

I kind of miss the 150 post days of the old GW format. It takes about an hour to get down to the bottom of the thread nowadays. Got a good muscle developing in my swiping finger:)

amberm: It is called paint remorse.. :-)

Maybe I can use the lessons learned from your project and apply it to mine. We are also a modern build what is your take on my colors, go with a bit darker and dont stick to white then ? Antique white, designer white, are no good other than for trim and ceiling?

Yeah, he's already said he's looking forward to painting the garage, so he can go out there for a break when he's going blind with all the white. We had the same conversation when we first moved into this house. I painted a whole lotta taupe, with a few accent walls. He whined that it was all beige. I told him when he decorated the garage, he could do any colour he liked. And he picked Home Depot orange for the shelves, and was going to do grey on the walls. I reminded him how he made fun of my taupe, and told him he needed colour on the walls. So it's bright green. I call it the muscle car inspired garage.

r2d2, is it SW Antique White? We used that in a guest bath, foyer, my girls' room, and the spare bedroom. I want to repaint the foyer and guest bsth already. Lol. I like it for the girls' room and can leave it for the spare bedroom. It reads yellowy in my house and I don't care for it.

I love the second and third colors you have up, but I love blue and grey. I would choose something safe if doing the whole main living area one color, but I'm boring. Lol. We did SW Balanced Beige for the main area, and I wish we had gone lighter (Accessible Beige) or even slightly more grey. It's more of a grey beige than a brown beige, but ar certain times looks too brown for my taste. I think light in the basement is a great idea.

musicgale - i emailed houzz about the length of these threads. they said the quick way to get to the bottom, is to click on 'comment'. it will take to directly to the bottom, and you can scroll up to find the newer postings.

amberm- my DH is joking that everything is gray. we still have to pick out new things - a couch, curtains, etc. and my DH jokes i'm going to come home with everything gray. gray pictures, gray rugs, gray tablecloths, gray toothbrushes to match etc ... we are both laughing about it (for now). i told him he'll be glad of the calm "background" once all our colorful stuff and loud children and busy life are in full swing! good luck on the whites and the DH. :)

Gray is the new beige of these times LOL. I was planning on using a gray tones exterior, but I had to change as our immediate neighbor and 10 other homes in our neighborhood have grays.. The perfect color search continues..

zorrow - missed your post earlier - congrats! aren't basements great?! love the pic of the cat. one of my boys camped out in a big box yesterday with lots of his favorite things. i think he wanted to make sure he was going too!

yellowducky, I'm liking both your advice to Musicgal and your discussions with your DH. There's going to be so much colour with rugs, curtains, and furniture.

Really, it's all part of my plan to get him to embrace teal. It happens to be one of my favourite colours, and he hates it. But if I get him sick of the white... :)

musicgale, interesting. When I get an email notification, it brings me in somewhere above the recent comments. So I have to go to the top to get to the bottom? lol

We're steadily making progress, even after a few snafu's.. but that's just part of the process. The past week or so has been drywall, and I can't wait to see what's next. Here's hoping it might be paint, cabinetry, or floors.

As for the exterior - we've got it almost completely painted. I am in love with the color we chose.. it's a great chameleon blue - goes from a deep gray blue in shade to almost a navy/cobalt color in bright sun. Now just waiting for stone and the massive dumpster to be removed, as well as some landscaping. I love our Alabama red clay, but some grass would be nice too.

We have a closing date and I am thrilled that we are only 45 days away from our potential move-in day. There are so many more details to come and I can NOT wait to see the design choices all come together.

Congrats to those just starting the process, and positive, encouraging vibes to those of you who are knee (or neck) deep!

We're blogging our journey to Home over at thenerdynest.

We got our temporary CO! We're moving some tonight and the rest tomorrow! The only thing we have to do for perm CO is get gutters on(next week), mason to finish chimney, and get 75% ground coverage (grass) by middle of October.

Paint oh the paint. First house dh would paint nothing BUT WHITE. We painted the whole stinkin house white dove. All of it. Except, I put my foot down and we painted the bedroom a color. You should have seen his face when I slapped that roller to the wall. I said just keep rolling baby it will be fine! Fast forward 15 years to the new house and nothing is painted white but the trim. Once I got him over the white he really has embraced color and not just beige (which was all I could get him to agree to in our old bedroom). Hang in there! I always said paint is relatively CHEAP - but I realize that is only if you DIY.

r2d2indy-what colors do you like? Are you trying to compliment existing furniture?

Finally started moving dirt today. Dig for basement should be complete tomorrow.

I hope it's okay for newbies to join in. First, thank you all for sharing your journey(s)...it helps to know I'm not alone on this roller coaster! It's so fun to see all the photos and progress! We are framing, and arguing with architect about changes we've made with the GC. Here's some pictures of our progress so far:

Started in April.

Clean slate!

More photos...

Pilings are in.

And a few last ones...

Looking back.

Finally...

This is standing about where my dining table will be.

Thanks for letting me join in!

Alisamu - nice view! How exciting!

Picture of kitchen. Walls are not painted yet. They will be SW March Wind (a light gray). After crown is done and doors on, maybe the builder will remove the "protective boxes" on my glass cobalt blue pendants:). I haven't even seen them up myself.

There are still two weeks in July and probably a lot more posts to this thread which is getting hard to navigate...how about a new July part 2 thread?

Zorro I love that you did stained perimeters with a painted island!!!!

Michelle, who is the manufacturer of your doors?