Day 61

The concrete floors got poured today. Framing is scheduled to start next Wednesday. Finally!

Standing on our future front porch!

The Riddler

Last week James finished up a paint job for a customer. Here's the result. It's not exactly what I would have picked but the customer was looking for a paint job inspired by the comic book character The Riddler.

The Riddler aka Batman's nemesis


First layer of paint


Hand painted details


Hand painted head badge


Can't be the Riddler without the ?


Pinstripes


Signed by the artist

Lost and Found

While working at the house this weekend we unearthed a 1940-1950's era Coca-Cola bottle. It is fully intact and in surprisingly great shape considering it has been buried in a pasture for at least 60 years. It's a pretty cool find - we'll have to make a special place for it in the new house.

Day 54

Between the regular downpours we've been experiencing over the past few weeks and the fact that our builder quit on us rather suddenly (because we were off schedule), we've fallen just a bit behind on the house project. Not hugely behind, perhaps just a couple of weeks. The good news is we don't need to rush since we're happily settled in our current home, but we can't help but get a little anxious. We've had lot of people have been asking when we expect to be able to move in. I hate to put a date on it in case the project gets bogged down any further, but for now we are still hoping to be in by the end of the year. I really don't want to move in the middle of winter!

Even though the framing hasn't started yet there still has been plenty of work going on. We had to finish the foundation details which included bringing in fill for the garage and foundation, grading and compacting the basement floor and installing R-10 foam insulation and piping for our radiant heating system that will heat the lower floor of the house. The schedule for the next week (if it ever stops raining) is to get the basement floor poured at which point we'll be ready for our new builder to get started on the framing by the end of the week. I'll have plenty of fun pictures to show you at that point because the place will really start looking like a house in no time at all.

Dad and James filling and grading the foundation

Me pretending to know what I'm doing


Dad running the compactor


I work too! It's just hard to find someone to take my picture!


Laying out the floor insulation and grid for the radiant floors


The pink stuff is energy saving insulation to prevent energy loss through the floors


Laying out the piping for the radiant floor system

Yesterday we placed our order for the windows and exterior doors of the house. We ordered energy efficient, low emissivity, argon filled windows. These windows can reduce energy loss by 30-50% and the Anderson 400 series windows we bought are Green Seal approved.

It turns out there are a lot of details when it comes to windows. Sizes, shapes, hardware, grills, screens...so many decisions! And did you know the rule about matching the window hardware to every light fixture in your house...say what?! It makes perfect sense to me now that I think about it, but if someone didn't tell me that I bet it would have gone right over my head and for sure, our window hardware and our light fixtures would not match. Dang, there's so much to think about!

Yankees Win!

Hold on tight, I have several posts I hope to get up this week. I'm behind and there's been a lot going on and no time to write about it!

Let's start with our outing to Yankee Stadium last Thursday. It was my older brother Curt's birthday so we decided to play hookie and head to the Bronx for an afternoon game against the Texas Rangers. There is no bigger Yankee fan than my brother Curt and he's working hard to groom his son Andrew to follow in his footsteps. We had a great time and the Yanks served up a W in honor of Curt's birthday.

Like Father Like Son


Heading into Yankee Stadium



The Stadium was packed with die-hard fans


Andrew reacting to a run scored by the Rangers


...and a run scored by the Yanks!


which helped the Yankees WIN!




Victory Dance!

We had a great afternoon at the ballpark. Hopefully we'll have time to visit the Stadium again this season. There's no greater team in baseball. Go Yanks!

Antiquing We Will Go

This weekend we visited the Harwington Antique & Design Festival. Last fall James and I spent a weekend in the Finger Lake region of upstate NY and while there visited several large antique outlets. It's just fun looking through old stuff. To think about where some of the things have been and what the previous owners were like. We don't buy much but it's really interesting. Now whenever we are on a road trip we make a habit of stopping whenever we pass an antique shop, the weirder looking, the better.

Here are some sweet finds from the day. I decided to give the photos an "antique" look to go with the theme of the day. It gave me a chance to play around with some Photoshop techniques.

Gorgeous wooden trunks. Great for a living room or bedroom.

Pair of owl fireplace stands


Looooong bench. Would be perfect for the entryway of the new house.

Tea anyone?


Check out those rockers! Oh how we could grow old in those...


This mirror was a beauty. Can you picture it hanging above a mantle?


Drooling over this dining table.


Probably my favorite find of the day. Imagining these on our future front porch.


Old books. I can still smell them. love.


Skeleton keys. They don't make them like they used to.

While I can dream all day, the only thing that actually came home with us (aka the only thing that we could afford) was a handful of the skeleton keys pictured above. It's fun to think about what each key actually unlocked in its glory days. I'm glad we came across them today, there's lots creative ways we can incorporate them into the decor of the new home: exhibit A, exhibit B, exhibit C.