REVEAL! - Okay, you asked for it.. lol
Allrighty then.. let's see what we can do here. Now, the lighting on a few photos are not very good, so excuse the darkness. I will post duplicates of some areas so it has better lighting. Also, there are issues still needing to be addressed, small things, but I will point those out and feel free to go "I was gonna say!" .. lol.. because yea, it is what it is and is still a hell of a lot better than if we bought used and had to take what we got :P
So, on to da rat killin....
Oh, and I ramble... eh.. part of my charm :P
We started this process years and years ago. We wanted a "custom house"....i.e. I wanted 'the perfect kitchen'.. lol.. but we are humble folks...i.e. we did not win the lottery, so we could not afford it.
We looked at these builders back in 1999, and opted to go another route. Since that time, we built another home, sold that, bought another used home, sold that, and here we were in 2014, looking again.
Yes, I said that, 2014. We sent the first email starting this build in April of 2014. We had the major footprint of this house decided in June of 2014. We closed on the house on December 7th of 2016, a day that will live in infamy.... (gotta love that).
Through this, we dealt with a few hassles. Most hassles were very small, easily fixed, but made worse by a GC that...I'll give him credit.. he meant well and is a nice guy, but we did not know he had almost zero experience in doing GC work till after he left the company, shortly before we completed.
The saving grace of the company was the President of the company. Her name is Tommie Arnold and she just went off and started her own custom house company with her husband, Wayne, and we could not be any happier. Through it all, dealing with them was always a pleasure (and no, I am not saying that because they are on here, I do not think they ever look at this place, I am saying it because THEY are the single reason we did not flip out or blow up.
So, you are like, "stop, Russ.. we want pictures!".. okay.. getting there.
We have a lot of work to do still. They only built houses.. so we are now adding a barn, a fence, and the base of a future covered deck. I'll "reveal" those after they are done, expecting around June-ish.
So, here are the picture of what my wife calls, "The kitchen with bedrooms attached" (I may have to add more in a comment or something):
What we started with: I hate "breakfast nooks" but I must admit the windows we gave up sure were nice.
Showing the kitchen first as that is what you all love ;) Gumbo getting ready on the stove atm
Walking around the island is bothersome at times, but I totally forget it when I start cooking and do not have to worry about SPACE.. lol
Nothing says 'storage' like the fridge. I broke the trim the day it got installed.. they had forgotten to turn on the ice water line. I tried to do it and did not see a screw that was still in. Wayfair sent me an entire $325 kit out for free AND gave me a $25 credit. It was 2 days before Christmas and I had bought it almost 11.5 months prior. The guy said Merry Christmas, let's just say it is under warranty."
Love, Love, Love, Love.. did I mention Love the drawers!!! ;)
Paper towels.. we go through a lot.. darn dogs :P
Did I mention dogs?
We cook.. a LOT: These were deep fried Boudin eggrolls. Pepper jack cheese, boudin, sliced jalapenos, bell peppers, carrots. At the same time, momma is making homemade salsa
Making cookies is FAST with 3 ovens.. lol
Yes, and pies too...
oops.. gotta make a new post.. more pics!
Comments (40)
User
7 years agoLet's see... there ARE other parts of the house...
I hate paying stupid prices for furniture when I can make it. Not perfect.. but solid as hell...and when there is a cedar mill right down the road... why not?
We had ALL the floors done in the same ceramic wood tile.. much easier to clean, albeit the dirt outside and dogs make that a chore too.. heh
We added 96 tons of recycled asphalt.. that sure helped. Going to add a couple more loads after the barn etc goes in, to make it more even and clean, THEN the flowerbeds go in. More on that in a few minutes.. heh
All done, for now..
Master bath,.....low light...blech..
FINALLY got the mirror hung.. (I made the shelf you see part of in the mirror. Had to do it custom, the stores did not have the right size...momma also likes to stuff everything on them.. heh. Going to add his and her cabinets on each side to match the vanity later.
The living room will have a piano here eventually...
I HATE the TV wires.. but needed to be able to walk. Soon as the barn goes in, I will be designing and building a custom cabinet that will fit there and hide ALL that junk... blech...no idea what is on the TV...cannot lay the rug down till the puppy is house trained better :P
They came in and added another row of tile to this.. that was an amateur job, but it looks nicer now ;)
Momma's bathtub.. she loves this part.. heh
erp.. more posts!User
7 years agoOh..
the lights are off center.. they come in next week to redo those AND
the ones over the island..I hate that they are not centered. Guest bathroom
Everyone needs a cross wall, right? Check out the form and spoon on the walls. Would you believe that was a major... MAJOR point in the design? My grandmother gave those to me before she passed. They were in her kitchen since before I was born.
OH.. to cut the grass.. I got this 3yr old mower for $300 off clist.. BAM! (it cleaned up almost brand new with a little soap.. SCORE!
The mailbox matches the house.. lol
LAST ONE (I think).. testing the stove for the first time.. THANK YOU SO MUCH TREVOR!! (I have red knobs on it now.. heh)
Oh fine.. one more cooking.. lol
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eam44
7 years ago
bpath
7 years agoUser
7 years agolol.. forgot to post that. Everything was essentially the same, but I had to add to the kitchen to fit that all in.
The first job was to straighten out the left wall in that picture.. here...I...er...WE.. lol.. expanded the kitchen into the breakfast nook and then straightened the back and left side walls. The roof cost dropped due to the lack of the structure changes. We did all sorts of that to cut costs.. lol
Ended up with this:
I remember calling my wife at work and saying, "I have some good news, and some bad news..." she was, "okay, what is the bad news?"
"The bad news is.. the stove just will not fit in the kitchen..."
"oh ... darn... what is the good news?"
"I blew the back wall out 5 feet now the stove fits..."
lol!
Then we added the garage, that was not standard in this plan: (upstairs did not change)
Now we are adding to that, with the deck, etc...Let's see if it will let me upload a few more pics..
Upstairs shower
Upstairs vanity... sorta dull room, getting to painting later..
Kid's / guest bathroom: (the new tile row.. heh)
The hallway:)
And:
User
7 years ago@Bpathome - I was not liking the hallway to the MBR either, still don't. I can be laying in bed and see a person looking in the front door windows, but I am working on an idea of faux stained glass film on there. Just need the right one. Either that, or I will flat out replace it with stained glass to obfuscate it a little. The transoms are for another idea.
Originally, we wanted an old 100+ yr old house we could remodel. We had to have the main 3 bedrooms downstairs, wife is an amputee, so getting up and down the stairs all the time would have been a bit much. We also needed a big kitchen AND one with a view. I am a huge fan of a window over the sink setup.
We found one house we liked, but it was in an also old old neighborhood in a small town and we could not afford the upgrade costs without a neighborhood of comps to support it.
So, we looked through hundreds of floor plans, trying to keep the costs down, and always went back to this.To give it a more "aged" feel, we added the holes for transom windows over each door. We could not fit one over the front door though. Then, each kiddo and the wife will pick their own design and add a stained glass design above each room.
@suzanne_sl - lol! I was like, "white basin?" Those are stools the wife got from her mom. We already got rid of them. The kids like to turn on them and they like to tip over too easy so after one child went down with one, we got rid of them. We are on the lookout for comfortable replacements atm.. heh
@pattiesue78 - heh, no, but my mom and step-dad live in Eunice, LA... so.. may as well be from there :P We are just outside Austin, TX in Cedar Creek. When I go to visit my mom, she always has a pot of gumbo waiting for me. I like to cook large quantities and then freeze them so I can have some anytime I like. Here is another one of me boiling the eggs for it:
Also.. a picture of me making pies BEFORE I got the house done: (lol)
I love to cook. Anyone for homemade biscuits, beans, cornbread?
I have a theory.. if you are gonna bake.. BAKE.. heh.. well.. if you are gonna COOK.. then COOK.. heh.
I rarely redesign the wheel.. I just make it roll smoother. When it comes to pies, I like Knorr's apple pie filling, I just make it less bland by adding to it. The problem is, it takes more than 1 can to make a good pie, but not 2 cans... so I make 2 pies with three cans.. heh
And, I tend to take orders every now and then. Not really "orders" but I remember when someone likes something and I add to my already baking plans and surprise them, until it becomes an expected thing... then I take a break for a while.
One lady would plan her Thanksgiving dinner around me supplying the pies :P
The green paint. Well, we originally had Alder wood with English or Chestnut stain or something like that. It was really funny, Houzz folks made us step back and ask, "if we were living here for 20 years, what would we do?" and we went, "okay... let's do THAT!". Cost us a little.. heh.. but, we ended up finding this paint color on houzz post. We loved it. I emailed the guy on the picture and he replied. He said people had asked him for the color for like 10 years and he had never really supplied it but something about my email made him reply. He sent me the only sample he had of the custom color and we matched it.
The cabinet guy got it a little wrong and the color looked more blue than green, but he kept trying to fix it till he got it right.
We love it too, thank you very much:)
Wait till you see the deck going on the back outside the kitchen in the next few months. We miss the door being off the back, but it would have cost us a LOT of counter space:(
RUser
7 years agoOoops.. forgot to add, this is the next phase..
The deck will be stripped cedar posts holding up a roof.
And a barn and fence: (barn = mancave.. lol) (the driveway is not as pictured :P )
PROMDLN
7 years agoBeautiful home & very cute doggie.
Please consider moving your oven mitts away from the stove flame; my pets did not survive my house fire that started in the kitchen.
User thanked MDLNUser
7 years agoOh, those mits got moved. I did not notice they were still there in the picture. My wife got on one of those ...whatever those hanging thigs are, kicks.
I moved the coffee maker and cups and all the "tea/coffee/hot chocolate stuff like 3 or 4 times before I found the right spot for it. You would be amazed how something as stupid as looking "around" a cabinet door to grab a cup etc would become a pain. Finally ended up with it to the left of the sink. The only thing I have to go grab is the creamer.. heh.@blfenton - thanks:) It is always work in progress. We still have not made headway on the upper-upper cabinets (as I like to call them.. lol). We went to.. hrm, what is that site.. piercedtin.com and got some patterns, then we went all over google and started finding pictures of what we liked and did not like. We have 6 or 7 of the tin designs made to fill those in, but we have been so busy on the "other stuff" that we have not gotten to that yet.
I am making a trip to Lowes today to grab a few things. I spent 2 hours there yesterday and could not quite bring myself to pull the trigger on a new grill... lol.. I am waiting for the right sale. I have been without a grill since we sold the last house.. August 2015!
The cream cheese is thawing right now. I have been doing test runs on NY style cheesecake. I'll start a new KAW thread on that later today or tomorrow, depending on when I get it in the oven. I'll take pictures in case anyone has not seen or wondered how to make one. There are a couple tricks to it.
Today I am working on figuring where I want my weathervane...and replacing one of the vents. This vent blows on my stove and messed up a nice hollandaise sauce.. lol (or however it is spelled.. heh)
Can anyone name where they have seen this weathervane from?;)
Mo latah! ;)
RUser
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2 years ago
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