amber you will most assuredly be finished before we are! Did I mention they will be re-pouring our driveway approach come spring? ARgh! The build that will never complete itself, lol!

We sprayed and back-rolled primer and ceilings before trim and floors. But we followed our own program.

speaking of repouring , redoing stuff I just find a split in my butcher block. working with them to get a new one I let them know that a little glue and sanding will not be acceptable

Went out to the house last weekend. It seems to be taking forever. According to the builder's wife it may be the end of March beginning of May for us to get in. I have to let my rental company know if we need the house on a monthly rate by the end of this week.

The trim work is being completed. Bath tile is done in all but our Master Bath. He was still working on the marble in there. \

We have interior doors being installed and the irrigation system was being installed. We decided to do some rick rack? (a type of drainage with rock) work down by the lake because our soil is eroding into it. It will cost us an extra $250 because the guy who had the tractor lifter has to reload it and come back. We declined prior without seeing it when he was still on site. Wish builder had taken a picture and sent it to us so we knew what he was talking about. We thought we could have done it later on, but decided to finish it up now before the sod goes in.

Here is a picture of the house with the new colored and end stamped driveway. It was taken a couple weeks ago. We are still waiting for the entrance door to be installed and the trim around it to be put up.

Our new main staircase. Not completely stained and finished yet.

Our guest bathroom tile. It was hard to take a good picture of it due to the bad lighting. There is no natural light in there. And finally our main upstairs shower flooring . (Mostly my husband's bathroom off his exercise room) Again lighting wasn't too good as there is no natural lighting in there either.

Aleleux are those DSA doors? We had the Tiffany double doors and a side entry door made by them. They are sitting waiting for install, which has been delayed and delayed because of our weather in New England. I haven't even seen the final product! I debated about the Flemish glass but went with clear. My daughter convinced me to go with clear -- I hope we aren't too exposed! I'd love to see what your doors look like with the rest of the siding/brick on. I'll post pictures when ours are installed, hopefully in about a week! I figured we could always change the glass if it drove us nuts.

We finally have started.

We are building a 3781 a/c living ICF home. We will also have a 3 car garage and big front and back porches.

I can't seem to add many pics...so Our Blog

Aleleux and almostemptynester - please let me know your thoughts on DSA doors! They do not have any dealers in the Chicago area and my builder has never heard of them, so wants to make sure they are quality. Of course the door I want is through DSA (the Aberdeen Burlwood double door)! He recommended glass craft doors but I really don't like he styles GC offers. So, of course I turned to the Internet.

Almostemptynester, they were custom made locally. The guy who built it ordered the glass from somewhere though. Not sure where he gets his glass. We don't have our brick on the front yet, but I'll post a pic when we get it all complete. I think clear glass is beautiful. It's definitely my favorite. I certainly would have picked clear if our foyer didn't look directly into the area where our family room furniture will be. I need the natural light there so didn't want to have to cover the glass for privacy. Although I think we are probably far enough off the road to not have to worry too much. I'm still trying to decide how we will cover our wall of windows on the back of the family room. There isn't anyone that lives behind us, but I feel exposed. I don't want blinds or anything to cover them during the day. I guess we'll have to get curtains made that we can pull at night. Not sure.

amfm, mine isn't DSA. Can't help you there. Ours was made from a local guy who builds custom doors. Do you guys have anything like that where you are? We were able to choose from Spanish cedar or reclaimed cypress (really wishing we had ponied up the extra for that). We were able to choose basically just what we wanted: size, moldings, number of lites, glass, etc. I don't know how prices compare, but I thought it was VERY reasonable for a 9 ft double front entry door. It just took FOREVER. Was supposed to take 5 weeks, but ended up taking like 9-10 weeks because of the glass issue we had.

I bet yours was more reasonable...we went through DSA doors and got a mahogany double entry 8 or 9 ft and a side single entry door. i think the total was $7500. I haven't seen the doors because they are still in their transport packaging in our storage trailer. I think they'll install them next week if we can get the roof on, so I'll take some pics then. They should look like the photo below...

side entry doesn't have the round top....

I'm a little concerned about the privacy, but we'll see how that goes....

amfm11 -- I will let you know what I think of the doors when I finally get a look at them. I think it took at least six weeks because they finish the door there. I worked with a guy who ships them all over the U.S. and he gave us a reasonable rate I think I can look up his info if you aren't near a dealer.

The Aberdeen burlwood doors are gorgeous. What type of house are you building? I figured it was worth spending the money since the door is such a very visual part of the house and I loved the windows with the double doors. Let's see how I feel when the dogs jump on them!

Woohoo! Tubs are installed. So excited to take a bath in my awesome tub and bathe my doggies in theirs.

By the way, how can my pics be posted properly? They are always sideways.

Aimless07- I love the dog tub! Where did you find it?

Aimless, your tub is beautiful! Makes me wish I had gone with a freestanding tub. Gorgeous.

Glad to hear some of you are not being held up by the winter weather. Our build has been on hold for about 2 weeks due to weather. Our builder doesn't have his crew work outside unless the temp is above 20 degrees. The framing and roof are almost complete, but they probably need another week of work to get them completed. It's snowing out right now:(. I hope March brings good weather for our build! We are going to pick up our fireplace surround and the granite facing tomorrow. At least I can look at it and imagine how it will look when we finally have it installed. Waiting is SO hard. We have everything picked out, all decisions (except paint color) have been made. I will try to post a pick when the snow melts, maybe next July?

AGGHH! so we have been on hold for weather about 2 weeks, and then today was the ONLY day it would be above 30 to pour that concrete, because tomorrow until Monday it's going to be cold with a winter storm watch, and guess what!?? WOOOOT they got it done yay!

those doors are gorgeous!
so is that freestanding tub!

Almost - thanks and can't wait to see your doors when they are installed! Lmk about shipping too. My DH is a freight broker so He can usually find a truck to do the delivering. I would be curious about his prices though. Please send the info because I believe the nearest dealer is about 6 hours south of me in another state.

i was surprised to find our basement framed today! Steel is supposed to be delivered and installed tomorrow morning, spancrete will hopefully come early next week. i dont think this crazy Chicago weather is stopping the workers here !

Aimless07- Would love to know where you sourced your tub.

We had our initial electrical walk through today. The weather here in Missouri has been nuts. Today 54 and now it's snowing and 28 with a wind chill of 14. They are supposed to put our windows in tomorrow. Plumbing has been going in the past few days but he didn't show up today.

We ordered our double slipper cast iron claw foot tub yesterday. Can't wait to see it!

Our human tub is the Victoria and Albert Amalfi tub. I am tall and can stretch out my legs. It's nice.

Our doggie tub is from Flying Pig Grooming. We couldn't afford the really fancy tubs with the stainless steel being of a thicker grade with welded seams. It was between this one and the Groomer's Best Standard 36 inch tub. The Flying Pig Tub was a slightly thicker gauge of steel and sat higher off the ground. We haven't moved in the house and used it yet, but I like what I have seen so far. This will also function as a utility sink for us too. It came as a kit with all the plumbing parts, was promptly shipped, and was packaged nicely. Very heavy though. Well over 100 pounds!

http://www.amazon.com/Flying-Pig-Grooming-Stainless-Flooring/dp/B00T72HPMS/ref=sr_1_17?s=pet-supplies&ie=UTF8&qid=1423105248&sr=1-17

We haven't had many delays lately except waiting for the stone to come in for our fireplace. The bad weather in other parts of the country has affected it getting here. We are looking to be finished in just a couple of weeks. I can't believe it.

We ordered our interior doors and trim today. Met with the cabinet builder again today to go over some things. I'm feeling quite frustrated over little things. Together they all add up to a lot of bother though. We put automatic door switches in a few doors of the house, one being the walk in pantry off the kitchen. The electricians wired it according to the plan, but I didn't catch that it was on the wrong side. It has to go on the hinge side and the door has to swing out. So now we can't reverse it and you will have to pass up the door to get into the pantry. It sounds simple, but it will annoy me always. We had picked out a less-busy door and window trim only to find out that we cannot get it with the prehung doors. So they wouldn't match and now we have to go with the one I didn't care as much for. Again....not a huge deal, but meh. Then we have a 10 ft double vanity in our master bath. 4 ft sections on either side with a centered sink and a 2 ft section in the center with a tower that sits on top of the counter. Because the plumber screwed up a pipe, we can't really get drawers in the 4 ft section on one side, unless we did tiny drawers on one side. Annoying again.

Aleleux1, why can't those errors be fixed? Are you too far along in the build?

We have sheetrock up and taped and floated. The plumber's pipe would be coming out where a drawer stack would go so I'm assuming we'd have to take sheetrock out for that. It's something we should have caught during our cabinet walk through I suppose. I'm not sure how electrical things work. The switch wire is sticking out of a door frame. All wiring has been sheetrocked over. I guess I could check with the electrician on moving it to the other side. I'm just so tired of dealing with things that I'm starting to choose my battles. Although these are things that will annoy me continuously probably. And perhaps my understanding of the plumbing issue isn't entirely accurate.

I close tomorrow! Holy smokes. It seems so surreal still, we signed contracts a year ago, and broke ground in late July. I have been so consumed with"the house" that I don't know what I will do with myself! Lol. I guess I can move on to decorating now :)
Best of luck to those of you still in the thick of it, I know it doesn't seem like it, but it does go by quickly. Soon all the little headaches will be a thing of the past and you will be in your beautiful homes.

Zoe52

I really like the glass inserts in your shower. Very nice!

Aleleux1

If the door is wrong and you think it will always annoy you, ask them to redo it before it's really too late. You should not have a new home with anything that is annoying. Just my thoughts.

Aleleux1, I agree with Zorro. If you know it will annoy you, do speak up and get it fixed while you can. You will regret it if you don't. I am having my builder rip out our entire staircase and rebuild it because I knew if they left it as is, it would be fine, but I wouldn't love it. I need to love this house at the price we are paying for it!

Congrats Mrsb! Do you have pics to share?

Zoe, your home is beautiful. MrsB, congrats. Bridget Howe, congrats. Aimless, your dog is lucky. My big fur ball just gets a water hose with a generic spray nozzle...lol. Nice thing to do for your doggie.

mrsb1227 CONGRATULATIONS!!!

Jdez, our dogs are our kids! I am usually the one who bathes them and I was just tired of sitting on the toilet and bending over hurting my back to scrub them down in our guest bathroom tub. So I am excited to not have that problem anymore and having a sink to rinse off dirty and yucky things.

In other news, the carpet was laid down in the bedrooms and closets. Yay!

Congrats to Mrsb! Post some more pics when you are finally in! Your house is lovely. I bet you will enjoy it for years to come!

Aimless, that is one beautiful tub!

Thanks, Jdez and zorros! I can't wait until it is finished. My builder thinks we will be getting into the house the end of March or early April. Had to go let our rental place know we would be renting another month. At least it will give us some time to do so even if we do get in the end of March. However, I don't believe my builder. I think it will be into April at the very least.

Some of our granite arrived finally this week. This is the marble for our countertops in our Master Bath. Carrara Marble And the second piece is the granite for our kitchen. It is the lighter version of Giallo Ornamental.

We are going out to visit our new home today to see what has been done. I may have more pictures for you. Have a great weekend everyone!

Zoe, I'm loving that piece of Carrara. Gorgeous!!! I think we'll bite the bullet and go Carrara in our bathroom too.

Hi folks- it's been a busy two months since we've moved in, and this new conversion to Houzz has really put a damper on my visiting the forum. I wanted to post some photos since I didn't want to be someone who just "took" from all of you without giving back! So many of you were helpful and supportive, and we just loved seeing your photos. Thank you again for your help! Here's a link to my album on Flickr house album Feb2015 with inside photos and here's a quick peek at our exterior.

Tamaranc- SO beautiful!!!! love the colors and your kitchen island is gorgeous

Absolutely beautiful home, tamaramc. Thanks for linking the photos. Enjoy your home.

Carol

Tamaranc - Beautiful inside and out.

My range is IN! well, it's in the house, but it's not fully installed but... that's progress right?

Tamanac - Bravo! You have a beautiful home. And it looks good with all that snow around it, too. Although I would NOT want to shovel any of that stuff any longer.

Tamaranc, lovely home! Congratulations.

Tamara, what kind of floors did you use? Are they stained? I love your house, you must be so happy to be on the other side.

Beautiful home Tamaranc!

And Mrs B would love to see pics of yours too!

Thanks everyone! Amberm, the floors are "reclaimed" maple. Basically, they are random width and length rejects from when gym floors are installed. (apparently, for gym floors they want completely clear wood with no color or knots.) The floors do have a medium stain - I believe it is Minwax's Early American with a matte finish.

Tamarac

Absolutly breathtaking! Beautiful job on your choices, you did a fantastic job and should be very proud of your new home.

Zoe52

I love Carrara marble! I will have some in the guest bath with the grey cabinet, but it won't work elsewhere. Your slab is beautiful.

Peasknees

RIGHT, progess!