Ktdh - which window company did you end up choosing? We have to make a final decision and none of the online research is compelling enough to convince us one way or the other. We've gotten quotes from most of the big names and they are all pretty close, with just a couple of outliers.

Knotty Bear- we ended up with a combination of Andersen 400’s and Andersen Architect Series, we are pleased with how they all look. (Obviously not installed yet!)

Stairway is almost done!

And the driveway is in, porch columns/railings installed, and landscaping started. Should get the CO in two weeks. Movers are scheduled for July 16-18.

We visited our site today to see if any progress was made even though we had a few rainy days. To our surprise our basement walls are in! It was very cool to see and we’re thinking framing will begin Monday. It’s awesome to see things moving and changing!!

Going back to the tile company to reselect shower pan and niche backslashe tiles for all guest bathrooms, we are not happy with our earlier selefirons. Crazy amount of wood flooring was delivered on Friday and I helped unload it too. Put osb panels on the garage entrance which were no match for each of four pallets weighing 2500lbs each. First one got stuck and I physically moved 45 boxes off the first pallet which felt really easy; for the next three we placed more osb panels on the floor however it took a lot or pushing and pulling to get the remaining pallets in the garage; wish I had a fork lift yet I was prepared to move almost two hundred boxes alone since did not expect the driver to help at all. Being a Friday meant I went bowling a little later than usual and still manged to bowl 24 games with relatively decent scores. Was I a little sore in the evening? not that I noticed it, thankfully I’m still fit.

Other than that it’s been a little quiet on the building front but the pace is going to pick up over the next couple of weeks. After unloading the wood, I cleared up much of random junk/building material in front of the garages though I expect the builder to take away empty boxes of stone. I do however need to bring my mower and weed trimmer back onsite to mow the tall grass however I’m heading back in Orlando tonight, it will have to wait another week or on July 4th. I do really love working around the house and can’t wait to move in most likely in September and hopefully not as late as October.

Our foundation brick work and interior painting were both finished this week. I think they will start tile now, and they started putting up the hardie board Friday.

My fireplace surround is also done and should be shipping this week. It’s made from metal panels in a black patina, and that I-beam is the mantel.

It's hard to tell with scaffolding still up and the linea un-painted but in better light it looks like I have chosen the right colour for the cedar - it will need a final coat. The builder should be finished with the last of the cedar today and they should be starting on the insulation and gib (drywall) by the end of this week.

I feel like we are on the home straight!

Started crawl-space framing and insulation, and you can see the rig drilling the geothermal wells.

For those who read about my tile saga above, here it is. The 3rd string pick. I had to go to 2 different Lowe’s stores just to get enough for both the floor and the walls in the pool bathroom. I think it works Ok for what it is. Now, hoping the SW Sea Salt wall color I chose originally still works with this!

Well here we are end of June basically and heading into a long weekend in Canada. Not much has changed. I thought we would be done the strapping on exterior and have begun insulation ages ago. Drywall should be well underway and it isn't. I've reached the frustrated and want house done phase which isn't good as we still have a solid four months of work ahead. Argh.

Less than two weeks to completion! I'm very happy with my kitchen - and you should see my walk in pantry!

Stamped patio in, pending antique finish, getting ready for sidewalks.

Figured I chime in with slight progress.

Have driveway layout and engineering done. Drive is staked. Contractor selected for this.

House plans out for engineering and to builders for review.

Septic perc'd and designed.

Cost of running power about triple what I anticipated!!! yikes!!

Maybe we will dig before the end of the year.

Framing started this week. We stopped by this morning to see what had been done so far. It’s a 45 minute trip so we go about every 8 days unless we need to be there sooner. They were done with bearing walls and waiting for the truck to move the floor trusses. The adventek will go in tomorrow unless they had time to do it today. Of course we are supposed to get storms, 2 inches of rain this weekend in Minnesota and are forecast for 97* and 77 dewpoints. Up to 110* for heat index. Yuck.
Geothermal starts July 2 so things are moving right along. We have a tentative dry in date of July 27th.

How do I get bigger pictures on here?

ghatta- Clicking on it made it bigger for me.

Ghatta......sometimes what you see might be different from what others see. I am seeing full sized pics when viewing in a browser, and when using the app, it’s full sized after clicking on the thumbnail. Most of the time when I post pics, I use a browser (not the app) to post them. That might cause them to show full size instead of the smaller initial thumbnail. I don’t know.

The following pics were posted using my browser....are they full sized?

I see other pictures as bigger. When I post from my iPad, the picture is small until you click it to make it bigger.

Are you using the Houzz app or Safari?

They started framing two days ago and already I found some mistakes. Yikes. The framers framed our front windows wrong and I wanna say the kitchen window is also framed wrong but I didn't have my measuring tape with me to check. The two front windows are suppose to be 2- 3060 in the dining room and in one bedroom. Instead they framed out 1-3060 window in each room. The kitchen window is suppose to sit on the counter (no window sill). It' looks to high to me, so I'm going to have to go back out there with a measuring tape.

When I stepped into the kitchen space and looked out into the living room, my heart sank. I think we might have made our living room to small. It looks so tiny! My husband just kept telling me "everything is going to be fine and don't freak out"!

Sabrinatx.....my advice would be to double check everything the framers do. Don’t be shy. My framers made several mistakes and had to correct them. It’s usually easy to fix in the framing stage, but afterwords it’s a major issue. We have our kitchen windows sitting on our counters as well (5 windows in all) but 3 of them in front of our sink were slightly higher than the other 2 and we had to do some fudging with our countertops to make things look right. It worked out ok and it’s hardly noticeable, but if I had been more diligent with my checking, it could have been avoided altogether.

I also felt my living area (family room actually) was too small and if I had to do it over, would have increased it by 5 feet! Since we don’t have a formal living room, I should have made the family room larger.....but too late now :)

My kitchen windows.....sink windows are slightly higher and have more exposed trim on the bottom (you can also see space between upper window trim and crown is slightly wider above the stove windows). We had to raise our counters up by adding thin strip of wood underneath the marble (if you zoom in you can see it).

Nidnay, what paint color did you use? I tried to figure it out by looking through your build photos, but couldn’t find it.

Jemimabean.......SW Useful Gray.

@nidnay, they do look different on the browser than on the app. They are smaller on the browser? I use an iPad and mine are always thumbnail on the app. Yours and Pinebaron and others look bigger. I was just wondering how that happened.

ghatta.....I always post pics using my browser (I’m on an iPad as well). For the pic below, I am using the app to post the pic....how does it look?

Here’s the same pic but posting using Safari (on the iPad).

@nidnay, it’s a big picture and not a thumbnail.

Both of my last 2 pics? Are you viewing them in the app or a browser?

@nidnay. The pictures are bigger on the app than the browser. It’s no big deal. I was just curious and trying to figure it out. Lol

Finally, DH and I were able to start the roofing! But higher than desirable winds made it a little difficult. Two sheets up though the second isn't screwed in all the way. DH will work on that tomorrow while I mow the lawn at home. It's going to be too windy to put up any more till Monday. Not to mention the possible 100 degree day on Saturday!

Sigh. We just found out that the excavator didn’t look at the plan enough and put down radon rock without seeing we needed insulation under the to be poured foundation. They have to remove it all (4 inches) and dig down 2 more inches because we WANT, (contract), insulation under the foundation. Problem. They have already framed the lower level. It will have to come out with wheel barrows or whatever because there is no way to get a machine in there unless they take out an already framed wall. Minnesota mandates 4 inches of radon so they can’t just take a couple of inches of the rock off the top and pass inspection. Sigh. This is the same excavator that didn’t bid the fill correctly either. Now we hope that since this is a nebulous $$ area, he doesn’t try to recoup the extra labor by charging more for the garage and driveway fill. We’ve already put the builder on notice we won’t stand for that and will get other bids for fill to make sure we aren’t getting screwed. Other than that, we’ve seen the July schedule and it’s looks like there is something happening every day they work. We are doing the low voltage so we are scheduled also. We are hoping this doesn’t set us back.

nidnay- what size is your living room? Ours is 15'x17', so already smaller than I originally wanted. Like you said there's no going back now. LOL

I went out there this morning and the framers were fixing their framing mistake. The builder ordered our windows yesterday too.

This happened within the last 24 hours....

Sabrinatx....the family room is 20 x 20......BUT.....our fireplace is on an inside wall so it juts out into the room maybe 3 feet or so and then there are the built-ins that take up space. On the blueprints, the room measurements are from wall to wall normally. But with the fireplace/built-ins my 20 x 20 room realistically becomes 20 x 17 of actual floor space (floor space is what really counts in my view anyway). I really could kick myself over this one....probably my biggest error and oversight.

Skivista......wowee!!

Nidnay are you saying your 20x17 room is too small? It looks lovely!

Alison....yes too small. When we designed the house, we did away with formal rooms (dining room & living room) because we never used them, so on the main level with only one main living/hanging out space, I think it should have been larger. Also, because it’s only open on one side, it’s more squished and closed in. I think if it was open with one less wall, it would live larger. Even though we did away with the formal rooms, I feel like we should have kept that square footage but put it in the family and breakfast rooms (breakfast room is 16 x 16 and could have gone bigger there as well).

Ours is essentially the same size and we also don’t have a formal living/dining. It’s all basically open concept great room. But it’s bigger than anything we’ve ever had so feels lovely so far. I’m sure yours will work in the end once you are there and really enjoying it all.

@Sabrinatx: Its only perception. Living rooms/areas need to be propotional to overall home size, Making them even larger (for a specific home size) means you are giving up some other space. It is also true that design, architecture and how you furnish and decorate a room will likely influence your perception of spaciousness. I realize you are past design and into contruction, you may start thinking of how you intend to fill the space; an uncluttered area will always look open and spacious.

@niday When I look at pictures of living areas in your house, nothing about it looks small, in fact it appears quite spacious to say the least. You really need to consider the sum of your breakfast and living areas; I quite like what you did; just be happy :)

My original design (few renderings are in my build thread) had formal living and dining rooms on each side of a giant circular foyer; we now have a long/wide foyer and entry instead. All living, breakfast and kitchen areas are open plan and exist in one large rectangle space with a wall of glass (sort of) on one long side increasing depth perception. We have a fireplace on an interior wall too but I designed it in a way that it looks recessed.

Thank my stars, we finally signed off on entire tile, backsplash, grout, countertop and radiant heat materials. Despite having the tools or rather because I have the tools to design and render absolutely any material in any space made it even harder, however helped eliminate risk of ordering the wrong floor, wall tile, back splash, counter top materials etc. Each high quality rendering takes 3-4 or more hours. The hardest part was deciding on guest and other bathroom floor tiles, shower pan tiles and niche backsplash etc. all to create what my DW says a Wow factor; we have it now. The last thing was selecting a diiferent countertop for the laundry room (rather than one in all bathrooms (except master) which we also accomplished yesterday just before signing off the material list.

Nidnay, I hear your regret and totally understand that sinking feeling, but I think that the scale of your family room is lovely, especially with the breakfast room and kitchen right there (and with all of the huge windows). I don’t let myself have house envy often, but I battle it every single time you post photos.

I hope that once you’re all moved in, you feel comfortable in the space as it is.

We have (some) tile! The wrong tile was ordered for my girls’ bathroom and for the laundry room. Luckily, I saw it RIGHT before it was going to be installed. It was nothing close to what I wanted in looks, but the name was really close- hence the mistake. Now we are waiting for the correct tile to come in, so those rooms and my middle son’s bathroom haven’t been started yet.

(mudroom)

(Powder room)

(Master bath floor)

(Basement bath floor)

And half of a completed exterior!

Nidnay, you mentioned earlier up the thread about shutters being looked at unfavorably on Houzz (I think yours are beautiful, btw, and perfect for your gorgeous house!), but I think my white hardie board with black windows get more disdain than shutters- haha.

On another note, anyone else Looking at furniture? We live in a big furniture manufacturing area, so we went to a factory to look at some pieces on Thursday. Now I am trying to decide on fabrics. I’m leaning towards the ones below:

Leather for sofa, light color for other sofa (it’s bulletproof fabric, so kid and pet friendly, otherwise I would never look at such a light color with 4 kids and 4 pets!).

Patterned fabric and lagoon fabric (pic below this one) would be for chairs. One for the head of table dining room chairs, and one for the 2 arm chairs to go with the sofas. Trying to decide which fabric for which chairs, and keep changing my mind! We have a great room, so these pieces will all be in eye shot of each other.

Lagoon

amiebeth01....haha....and do you have the despised shiplap (we have some in our home). Love your black windows.....and your floors, especially that master bath!

Thank you! No Shiplap, although I do love it! Plenty of other “no no’s” in my build :-D.

I love many of the “no no’s”.

We were happily surprised on Friday when we went over to see the house that the stair company was installing the stairs. One of the things we specified with our architect were stairs that are easy to climb, meaning less steep than code. The installer commented on how comfortable the stairs are to climb. Of course, that meant the treads and risers (both oak) were a custom order. We also specified railings on both sides of the staircase. The skirt is paint-grade.

I think we did something amazing yesterday; we visited local furniture stores and actually liked design and fabric of U shaped sectionals for our family room. Last time it took us years to select our family room furniture, we are both so darned fussy for no particular reason however fortunately we both have same or very similar taste for furniture and colors; renderings in progress. Though we've almost decided on our yesterdays selection, we intend to head south today towards Seattle to look at additional furniture stores.

The home stretch is so tense, yet satisfying when decisions are made.

Pinebaron what sectional do you like? We are getting one in our great room.

@Alison, we are only considering low profile sectionals, 4 corners and 5 armless, no more than 31" high, very close to size and shape to my renderings. Other criteria is no seat and back cushions (we have those in our present home) which need frequent fluffing etc. and these need to be grandkids proof which only time will tell.

Would love to hear what you end up with!

skivista where are you building? You have a great view!