Painters are almost finished and countertops went in today .

Kennady12 love you countertops what color? Ondre'a is there a way you can put on a gutter extension so it runs down the drive instead of pooling up right by the house?

They are Cambria USA color- brittanica

Marjen - I loved that stage, so much visible progress every day!

Kennady - nice counters! Especially love them on the island !

We finally have power. We went with 5000k bulbs. We thought it might be too much. We are really happy with the lights.

So many great updates!! Beautiful pictures!

Blah.... We were given Aug 1 as our closing pending everyone doing their stuff on time and no big delays. Today that got updated to sept 1. I am just hoping to be in by the start of school. Fingers crossed.

Ondre'a I feel like your gutter people should have extensions to add to your downspouts, or they should have run perimeter drain & tile under the ground to attach them to so the water doesn't run out above ground.

We have a spot of gutter over our people door into our garage that gets full of leaves often, if we don't keep it cleaned out, it will force the water under the door and into the floor of our 3rd bay like this too!! Good luck! This is definitely the year for testing our homes & buildings against the weather!!! :/

Hiron Arora - I keep saying it but I LOVE your cabinet colors!! It’s coming together so well! I think the whiter color of lighting compliments your finishes very nicely! I cannot wait to see your final product!

Thank you Kate. We are so glad to have picked a different color for our cabinets.

Nidnay, yes I did get an independent inspector. We had more rain and tornadoes today. Never been so glad not to live by a river. I feel bad for Bixby & Leach. The leaking was from the door exiting from the garage into the back yard. It held up beautifully today. Roof leak was due to flying debris..It is fixed. I still have a small leak in the stairway window.

Gutters: I will be installing the extensions Saturday. Thanks for that tip. Now what is the best gutter guard system?

From my window today.

New England - if you can believe it, we still do not have water. Waiting on the hydrofracker's. Crossing my fingers that they will come next week and are successful! This has been so frustrating!!!!

Our Tub was finally installed today. Also our wood lentils over windows were painted in black.

I need to look into gutter guards too!

And this weather is just stupid. Everywhere!!! ugh... being a farm family is getting more stressful by the day, over the normal! :(

Lori, what state are you in? We broke ground back in April and this rain is the pits! It is so slow going, we only have the basement poured, drain tile in and rough plumbing. They couldn't do our Master bath drain because it kept sinking!

Tiling is getting started which is exciting! I’ve posted some pics below. All of the carrara is in the master, . The darkest gray hex getting installed into the small utility closet (will house the cat box and tankless water heater). Medium gray matte penny rounds go in the kids bath with soldier style elongated white subway on the walls.

I’m having a conundrum regarding the backyard. We are doing artificial turf with a planter bed surround but I’m not sure if I should spring for a raised bed or not. It will be more expensive but would keep the kids and their balls and toys out of the flowers. We have a 22’x40’ backyard. There is a blue stone patio nearest the house

Any thoughts would be appreciated!

This is my first post here. My house project started April 1st, and we are currently in the midst of framing the second floor. We seem to be doing pretty well time-wise so far. But, we are also in the middle of trying to figure out final numbers for all major areas: flooring, kitchen, etc. It is all SO high, so that is pretty stressful!

Welcome Megan! The budget is the worst part. I would be embarrassed to tell you how far over budget we are. But the end is in sight for us. About 3 weeks to go!

Megan - my wife and I do budgets weekly to keep tabs on money . You definitely want to budget in for overages .

My husband has definitely been doing that, and we are trying to cut on smaller things without cutting on the things we really have always known we wanted/loved. It's tough, but in the scheme of life, it's obviously a very good problem to have. If anyone has any ideas of where to find some savings without totally sacrificing looks/style, I'm always listening!

I don’t really have any tips for saving money . but I would suggest trying to upgrade or spend extra on the things that can’t be easily changed later . For example, our standard insulation for our garage attached to the house was r-11 . Well on a whim I just asked the builder what it would be to put r 13 in instead . It was 100 dollar upgrade . Not a huge difference in r value but I figured for 100 it was worth it . Also we upgraded the windows , and made the basement walls taller . As far as lights and things , my wife would search for hours for a nice one that fit within the allowance with minimal luck . In the end we decided we can always change them out later so we went cheaper .

I was hoping to have more to report this month, but we are in limbo waiting for the windows, which are scheduled to be delivered next week. I finally moved from Florida to Virginia yesterday. Plumbing and HVAC are also scheduled for next week and electrical the week after that. Front door was just ordered and it won't be in for another three weeks, but that would only slow down siding.

A little drama going on when our site camera alerted us to motion at about 7 this evening. Seems like someone decided he needed lumber and what better place to get it than an unattended construction site. We called the cops, who arrived in time to have him put the stuff back. The guy had loaded a few large sheets of plywood and some 2 x 6s before the cops arrived.

Kathy - bet he won't be back! yea for construction cameras!

New here (first post on Houzz!), but I thought you all might like to see some photos of our dream home currently under construction!

Meredith - your home is beautiful . If you don’t mind sharing what is the exterior color?

Kathy we had lumbar theft at our site as well! The neighbor knew something was off and took a picture. They caught and arrested the guys and my builder is prosecuting. Sweet justice!

Meredith stunning home!

Miren LOVE the contrast in your exterior!

Kennady love the counter and the overall look of the kitchen. Very exciting!

Hiren love the bathroom tile work and kitchen cabinets. Those colors are so pretty!

Missi I cannot believe how hard this has been for you to find water. Prayers for next week you finally find it

Lori I hope the weather gets better for you. I know farming is very hard work and relies so heavily on the weather. Hope it gets better (hugs)

NYCish love the tile selection. Cant wait till you post pictures of the rooms all finished.

Megan welcome to the forum! This is a fun place with very kind and helpful people. Keep posting your updates, we love seeing them.

Kathy oh no, that is unbelievable! Glad you made it safely to VA and also that you saw this and were able to alert police. I hope they arrested the thief. Hope things progress quickly and glad you were finally able to order the front door.

Meredith welcome! You have a beautiful home being built. It reminds me of the farm homes you see in Amish country, so beautiful and a lovely setting. Keep posting your updates!

I went floor shopping for our main are hardwoods and we decided on a wide plank engineered hardwood. Looking at maybe 7" planks.

Waiting on electrical guys to finish up and get the inspection so we can get the insulation and blue board guys in.

Thanks for the welcome, everybody! Kennady12, the exterior is plain ol' white siding. Nat Mc, how amazing was it that your neighbor got a photo! It's nice to know they've got your back.

Updates on our family room fireplace and bar. Cabinet guys installed four base media cabinets and four 4’ wide floating shelves, two on each side of the fireplace and two wall cabinets with glass doors and glass shelves on the bar wall. Next the electrician will install puck lights below each floating fireplace shelf and top and under cabinet lights on the bar wall cabinets.

Next I need to order/install black glass doors on each fireplace media cabinet, and three 11’ long one piece glass shelves between two bar wall cabinets. i can then put some booze on the shelves.

Everything is exactly as designed with zero defects. All coming together. Perhaps end of this year ill work on completing the large media room and bar aka man cave above the front garages; that’s going to be amazing especially when I’ll be able to blast out rock music at deafening levels without bothering anyone, well just my DW. :)

We’ve been in a holding pattern while we wait for the rest of our windows to arrive. Hopefully they will arrive sometime next week and then we’ll start drywall. We’re running about a month behind due to bad weather, which isn’t too bad. Our GC still thinks we’ll be in in time for Thanksgiving! Snapped this shot of the view from my future island.

kelly_143256 - I took a measuring tape to our foundation because I was convinced it was poured too small! Maybe a bit excessive, lol. It looks fine now.

Hiren Arora - I love your cabinet color so much I might steal it for our laundry room.

NYCish - where did you get your hex tile?

To all the people installing marble in your bathrooms, are you not worried about etching and staining? I need to choose our tile soon and have been stuck. I was leaning towards terrazzo tile since it fits the style of our house but am worried about the upkeep on anything cement based. I love marble but same worry.

Nice way to wrap up the week. These guys have been working overtime!

Thank you Lori Walker

Kayce03. Thank you so much. It is SW Copen Blue. We fell in love with the color when we first saw on houzz. It truly is an amazing color. Green then slightly bluish with natural light.

Lots of progress today.

Nat the house is really going up fast!

Kennady the house looks so nice! I like the white boards up above the brick fireplace. I also like that it is flat against the floor without a big step. I was thinking of doing this for mine (the boards not the iron bars on the side) with a TV above the fireplace.

What color are your walls? I really like the color!

SW requisite grey,
the brick will be painted white .

@kayce03 I’m not quite sure; our designer purchased it. I can check next time I’m at the house! Not very helpful, I know.

It might be from here in matte black (not glazed)

http://www.nemotile.com/tile/product/glazed-hex/

Kennady very pretty!

Happy Memorial Day Weekend everyone! Hoping you all have a fabulous weekend with nice weather. I will be away for over a week and a half starting Monday night so hoping someone will start the June Building A Home thread come June 1st!

Spent today finally sanding and oiling our front porch cumaru wood. Should only need this every 2-3 years to keep it looking like this.

Before

After

Now that’s a great porch !!

I took a few more pictures of the painters progress today . I think we went a little dark on the stain , but it is what it is .

I love the dark stain Kennady!

K H thank you . It is close to our floor color and fireplace mantel and stair railing .

I love seeing everyone’s progress!

Gthigpain the porch deck is so beautiful! Love the color.

Kennedy same for your stain, I love it on the shelves and part of the cooktop hood! Love the contrast with the white cabinets.

Gthigpen you have been such a great help with window sizes would you mind sharing your dormer window sizes too? I plan to have one window up there but I’m not sure how to size it!! Do you have any information on what material was used to trim out or case your windows on the exterior? Our builder is pretty young and I have definitely gotten him to try new things! But using smart trim it only has a flat casing and no sillnose. Maybe your windows already came with the pretty casing. Seems like most homes around here are pretty fancy on the inside and pretty basic on the outside. Oh and I forgot to ask about your daughters vanity. I love the crystal knobs and door hardware. Where did you get that? Might just have to email you so I don’t have to keep asking on the forum lol!