@Emily I spoke too soon. Despite all the deliveries there is nobody there today. Maybe tomorrow or I guess at the latest next week. Hopefully it will be the same for you!

@nhb22 I read a comment on Houzz not too long ago that stuck with me. Someone said you do not need to be in love with every individual element in order to appreciate the whole design once it’s complete. The comments about colors when the house isn’t finished are, IMO, premature. I’ve stopped sending my friends pics of my lighting selections because inevitably someone doesn‘t like one and that little seed of doubt is planted. Stick with what you love! The finished home will be stunning.

LOL...so true! That little seed of doubt creeps up every couple of days.

My husband has the same opinion that y'all do. We will see! My daughter is on her way home from the hospital. I'll keep the color decisions to myself for now. Wouldn't want to upset her!!! 😉

Sorry about the photo that I thought I had posted. It's up now.

dis0spry0s - I am in love with the photo of the cow in your lap. Beautiful countryside and animals. Thanks for sharing.

Your daughter will be under the influence of painkillers ... I certainly wouldn't listen to any advice for a few days! ;-)

Thank you for the pictures.

My favorite time to walk through a house under construction is after the rough carpentry is complete and before the electrical and HVAC starts. All that wood, almost like a Greene & Greene designed house.

Mine, also, Mark!

Kat - I forgot to answer your questions about upholstery. The dining room was reupholstered a year before we moved out of previous home. I went neutral this time, and not planning to re-do again. I am not picking anything similar to what I have used in the past with the exception of DH office. He loves khaki and that he shall have. :) We did have a darker dining room in a shade of moss green, and a study with brown walls. All walls were a deep buff color or bright yellow (the guest bedrooms and grandkids playroom.) I am stepping out with blues, light creams and grays, greige, and the High Tea, should I use it.

@nhb22 oh well sounds like you are mixing it up then!! The high tea seemed similar to your previous dining room but it’s always hard to tell on computer screen.

They both have a bit of green, but the High Tea is brown based leaning towards Olive.

Previous - BM Wethersfield Moss - Green leaning yellow

New color - High Tea

@nhb22, I gotta say, I love Weathersfield Moss. I am more of a green fan, though, and prefer lighter colors. You should definitely go with what uou love, as others have said. We're all different.

Emily - That photo of WM is the listing photo for our home. The true color is a bit darker. This is more like it. The room did not get nearly the light we are getting in the new house.

Beautiful dining room!

Have any of you made a smooth transition between a lower, thinner floor tile (like the small hex) to the higher engineered wood floor? I had really hoped all of the transitions would be completely smooth and flat, but this one is going to be a problem

@Sherryl Yes, our flooring installers laid down and glued thin plywood underlayment to make the thinner tile the same height as our 3/4” hardwood. Can’t remember the plywood thickness but to me it was worth the additional cost so all of my flooring was the same height and made for better transitions. I think we had an additional $250-500 cost with labor.

@Sherryl you could possibly accomplish this with a thicker backerboard for the tile set, 1/2" instead of 1/4"

We have waited too long to find someone to lay our tile. Everyone seems to be 2 months out and we were hoping to get it done in 4 to 6 weeks. Ughhh

@keepthefaith lovely lake view! Once we have a house you can come visit. All the animals love cuddles

Some pictures from this evenings walk. Junebug (the cat) walks with us all over the farm.

@nhb22 - That’s Cash, cuddling with my husband. They’re besties 😍

To keep things slightly on topic, here’s the exterior of our future home

@nhb22 your previous dining room was beautiful but I am sure when you get your furniture in this one will be lovely too if you keep the high tea. Do you have plans for wainscoting in it?

Looking again at your countertop photo though I can see why your daughter was thinking you should bring in some gray as your countertops seem to have a large amount in it, at least from my computer screen.

Have you considered picking a gray color for your accent wall/bookcases in the family room to tie those two together and then carrying that into the dining room. I hesitate to give too much advice on such a personal thing, but I feel like a gray would go better with your morning room blue.

@di0spyr0s beautiful land, home exterior and animals. Do you live nearby currently, or are you set up on the land with a temporary or older home. I'm assuming you are close as you have to tend to your animals and your cat is walking with you.

K H - how did they attach the plywood to the concrete foundation? Or did you have a basement so you didn’t have to have it over concrete?

Sherryl - We have not thought about the transitions between hardwood and tile. We have the small hex going in two bathrooms upstairs. I will ask my contractor if an underlayment goes on the floors. Hope you can work something out.

Kat - Correct in that there is a good bit of gray in the granite. Also creams, and just a touch of greenish brown. We took the paint sample boards to the supplier and the High Tea actually does quite well with the granite. However, we are looking at changing the family room wall color to a gray blue color called SW Krypton. My daughter suggested it. It's a color she had in her previous home that I always admired. I painted a sample yesterday and it's a big contender. Goes well with my furnishings, and should go well with the granite. I like it so much, that I would extend it to the M bedroom and paint over the SW Niebla Azul.

I have attached a photo of our granite with the sample board of SW Samovor Silver so that you get the idea. Although too dark of a color gray for our room. I think the Krypton will go nicely. So if I go with Krypton in the FR, I am going to change the color of the dining room to SW Natural Linen. It blends nicely with my dining chairs. It's the color that I had chosen over a year ago when I was going to lighten my dining room in the previous home. Now, if I stick with High Tea, I will paint the FR walls SW Natural Linen.

The gray tones that my daughter suggested for the dining room look simply awful with my chairs. I have a friend that agrees. Then the friend suggested SW Accessible Beige that I had already tried. A bit too gray, as well. I just do not want a true gray on any of my walls!!!

SW Anonymous and SW Porpoise

SW Accessible Beige

SW Natural Linen

SW Krypton for FR (this photo shows it looking darker than reality. It sometimes leans blue and sometimes grayish. This top edge is closer to the real color. Very pretty!)

SW Samovor Silver with granite (a darker version of above although it looks lighter in this photo)

SW Natural Linen with granite

@nhb22- I had Krypton in my previous home. A very pretty color!

@nhb22 I really like the Krypton and the idea of the natural linen in the dining room! I think they all go beautifully together.

Nhb22 I like the bulldog and he matches Natural Linen!. Natural linen with the stone really brightens it. Krypton sounds pretty. I like colors that change with lighting I think.

We had a vanity put in for the itty-bitty loft bath. I'm really happy with the gray color leaning blue so far. Hope the hardware is hiding inside it. All I found with the box was a free faucet I'm giving to our GC. Shipping has gotten really interesting! Towels showed up in a luggage box.

Got the cabinet drawings and working on markups. I would love to have a utensil holder pull out by the stove along with a spice rack pullout on the other side, but not sure we can fit it without making those cabinets too narrow. I want a pull out trash by the sink, but with 2 dishwashers its hard to figure out where to put it. We will have an 8' island, so thinking about putting it on the end by the dishwashers, but going back and forth about the end by the sink or the end by the fridge, lol. I will have one of the cabinets by the sink with dividers for the cutting boards. Another cabinet with dividers above the microwave. I usually enjoy the design process of the kitchen because I love cooking, but I am so swamped at work I don't have time to really think it all through the way I would like, in fact I feel like this entire build process has been the winging it type decisions because I'm so busy I just don't have time to think and mull it all over. Already working on picking lights and tile because I know that will be here before I know it and planning outlet locations etc because electrical rough in is almost done. I really just want to take a day and stare at the spaces and visualize in my head.

Regarding electrical...any thoughts about an outlet by the toilet? Some friends who recently built put in a bidet seat and SWEAR by it, like it is the most amazing thing ever. My DH is not convinced and I don't know what to think but feel like we should future proof with the outlet just in case. I guess it is supposed to have a dedicated circuit because of the heater in the seat or something, so it seems kind of like a waste if we don't use it ever. It won't be easy to fish a line in later since the panel for it is in the basement and the ceiling will be finished.

@jbethjoy In our current home, we have 2 dishwashers and put our pull out trash can on the island end closest to the kitchen table. It is really efficient for having people scrape their plates right into the garbage as they are walking by. New home will only have one dishwasher (kids are out of the house now, so don't need a second one often enough to justify it) but I still considered putting the trash can at the end of the island.

We're putting an outlet in the water closet for a nightlight, but not in a place that would be useful for a bidet seat. Have you ever used one? I wouldn't go to the expense of the outlet and dedicated circuit for one unless you think you'd likely install one in the future. I tried one while on vacation once, and know I'd not bother putting one in my own home.

@Kat - we bought 60 acres adjacent to my in-laws. We’re living in their garage until our house is ready.

It is!! Sometimes we go to the dog park so she can play

How in the world did this get on here 😆 I was texting. Thank goodness it was about my dog 😆

mark1993 - Krypton is a beautiful color.

Keepthefaith MIGirl - Sorry that I missed whatever you have deleted! 😂

That is interesting how the granite lightens with the lighter color. I had not noticed that.

That's my granddog, Boone. He is a Frenchie.

I like your vanity!

jbethjoy - We always put an outlet in the water closet of our M. bedrooms. I like to be able to plug either a night light, or a scented plug-in there. I've also tried the bidets in Europe, but only to soak my aching feet! There happened to be a wide window ledge right over the bidet that I sat on and put my feet into the bidet. The cold running water was heaven to my feet after a long day of walking. 🤣

We have 2 narrow 6" apothecary drawer sets on either side of our range. The drawers are only about 3.5" on the inside. They will hold cooking utensils. I like for my spices to be in a top wide and shallow drawer so that they can be read face-up. I am keeping mine in my island, in the drawer that is nearest the range.

Kat - Here is a photo looking from the SW Naval, through the foyer, and into the High Tea dining room.

@jbethjoy All of the toilets in my home will be fitted with Toto washlets / toilets. The only thing that they require is a 10 amp GFCI outlet but have to be placed according to manufacturer's specifications. This is easier to achieve prior to installation of the toilets. Since the entire bathroom is on GFCI, we only installed a single receptacle instead of a duplex at these locations. Also, the outlets in our baths are set on 20 amp circuits and are separate from the bath lights which are on 15 amps. Adding these outlets was VERY cheap. For us, the cost--which was minimal--was in installing higher amperage circuits or dedicated circuits. Again, all very cheap. What we learned is that It is much cheaper to do these things during new construction than post construction.

@nhb22 your previous dining room was beautiful but I am sure when you get your furniture in this one will be lovely too if you keep the high tea. Do you have plans for wainscoting in it?

Kat - I keep failing to answer your questions. I am so sorry. We will be wainscoting the dining room, foyer, and up the stairs. My daughter wants us to wainscot in the following style versus what we had before. I want it to look like it fits with the house. What do y'all think?

I am going gaga over the grass cloth! Speaking of wallpaper, where do I find it these days?

@jbethjoy We are putting a pullout garbage can to the right of the sink (dishwasher is traditionally on the left) and another on the far end of the island which is close to the dining area.

I requested an electrical outlet in the toilet room but I don't recall seeing one in there. I also recently noticed that we do not have electrical for the exhaust in the kitchen 🤦‍♀️ I feel like we are so close but so far 🥴

nhb22 -I found our wallpaper I wanted for our powder room here on Houzz and then Google searched and found it on Anthropologie!

Looks like we might be homeless... we already put in notice of leaving our apt and we can't pay partial month... at yesterday's meeting our GC acknowledged he'll need the whole month of May. If that's the case then it'll only be for a week and we will move into the camper me, DH, 2 cats, 1 dog,... and fill up the garage with stuff.... please 🙏 if you can. My MIL is pressuring my DH to go on the family camping trip a week after that and if I'm just moving in there's no way I'm leaving to go sit in a campground or beach. I won't be able to sit anywhere knowing there's too much to do and I'd rather be doing it. I can't believe how much the trades make empty promises and don't show up. I truly hope the schedule doesn't change again. I'm already struggling to keep a glimmer of optimism.

🙏 all will work out for you.

We are planning to pay our rental monthly after July. What we cannot plan is a vacation. Afraid that we will have to make some house decisions and would not be here. So for the first time in many, many years, we will not go to the beach for our annual July week get-together with many families. On the plus side, we can always run down to Charleston for aa few days and stay with our daughter and her husband. In fact, since she and her husband are here in our rental while she recuperates from surgery (now we understand it may be 4 weeks👧) we might switch houses and go stay at theirs...if we can get away from house decisions.

Thanks for the wallpaper tips, Sherryl.

tendrac - Hope you and the little one are doing well.

@nhb22 We are using what our builder calls board and batten for our foyer and stairways. I absolutely love it and attached a picture of it. Best of luck to your daughter with her recovery? Did you say hip surgery? My daughter had hip surgery twice and it was quite a recovery but worth it in the end.

@Keepthefaith MIGirl It's really frustrating isn't it? Especially when you no longer have a place to live. We were told that the cabinets were the delay. Well they arrive this Monday and half the bathrooms do not have tile floors. They say that is because the tile is backordered. Well, I picked it in December and they didn't order it until March.

We have another delay. Our builder didn't order our plumbing or light fixtures until now. Half of our light fixtures are backordered until July or August. I don't know the cost but we will likely have to buy inexpensive ones to get a CO then replace them. I'm so frustrated but we cannot wait until August to settle and it is the outdoor lights which are required by code.

Thank you for the encouragement. What can be let go and still get a CO? I bought our lights last fall. I'm stuck with no options to return tho.

@Keepthefaith MIGirl I asked this a few weeks back and it really depends on your township. We are in a resort town with a lot of rentals so we are being told that it makes inspections even tougher. They don't want investors completing the house 90% of the way then not coming back to finish.

Tanya Shelly - We are in the same boat as Keepthefaith MIGirl. Most of our lights we have purchased. They will be unreturnable by the time they are installed, but at least we have them. We have our cabinets, and hope that the tile is ordered this next week. Plumbing is in, as well. Our plumbing was the first thing that the builder wanted ordered. That was even before we had our framing done. We have had a small delay on a shower pan, but that was resolved within a week and did not hold us up.

While I love board and batten, it's not the right fit for our home. The style that my daughter picked out is similar with the inset panels...just not as high as most B&B patterns. The panels with inset trim will be less formal than our previous experiences with wainscoting when we used applied molding. I think it's a nice compromise for this house!

Yes, my 40 year old daughter had to have a torn hip labrum repair. She was injured (hip dislocated) in the car accident we were all in in January of 2020. At the time, she had just been released from a physician after having two back surgeries (the first failed.) She had been married the month before, but had not yet moved to Charleston to be with her new husband. We had taken her down for a visit. On the way back home, we were in the accident. She said the hip dislocation was more painful than both back issues and she was back to square one. Then COVID struck a couple of weeks later. We were all recovering. Surgery was postponed...twice. In the meantime my daughter was able to move to be with her husband, but her surgeons are here in our town. And that's why she, her DH, and dog are with us for the next few weeks. 🤦‍♀️

I think I remember your daughter's accident. Wasn't she kicked by a horse or something. Maybe that was someone else. Glad she is recovered.

Our delays are frustrating because we made selections months ago but the builder never ordered them. We are contracted on a spec house so we cannot order them ourselves.

My daughter was not the one kicked by the horse. She had torn labrum/hip impingement surgery so I know exactly what you are experiencing. Best of luck to your daughter. She is lucky to have you!

I remember someone had started the new May thread, but I don’t find it.

@jbethjoy I vote yes to the outlet near the toilet for a bidet seat, it is my plan, for the master bath if no where else.

I couldn't find a May 2021 thread no matter how much I searched so I started one here. If there is another one, someone point me to it and I'll try to kill mine.

Buzz Solo - same with me. I thought I remembered someone started it, but I can’t find it. . . . .

Thanks for all the input on the kitchen and bidet outlet.

Today we finally have a finished roof! It was a ridiculously long process with the first roofer taking sooo long(they started in mid March). But the crew he finally subbed out to finished today just before some big rain gets here tomorrow! The new crew was fantastic.

@Sherryl we have a basement so our main floor was made with floor joists and t&g floor sheeting then they just laid down the thin stuff. On concrete could you float the floor? Or have them put down some quick Crete to level it up?

K H - they are having to put hardie backer board and nail it to the concrete - not cheap, but I would always regret not having it level with the wood floors. Plus there would be a trip hazard. Do you know where the May thread is?

@Sherryl here

https://www.houzz.com/discussions/6115708/may-2021-building-a-home