Paint colors; Inside & Outside

So so so so many choices!
From left to right:
1st floor man cave
1st floor main area (none of these worked)
2nd floor office
Exterior

Exterior options

Chris painting (from left to right) exterior options
number 1-7

We took our favorite exterior options (#2 &
#3) and painted them around the house!
In the sun & shade, plus on the old &
new siding!
We chose #3 - shown on the right here!

Some of our first efforts on the 1st floor color.
We wanted a light gray....darker than the white trim but
lighter than our cabinets. Harder to find than you'd
imagine! This includes living room, dining room,
 hall bathroom, kitchen, family room and our master bedroom!
I struggled mightily with this choice!

2nd floor color options - we wanted an off white that would
show off the trim but not be too bold. This paint is for
the foyer, front stairwell, upstairs hallway, guest rooms &
the hall bathroom. Bottom row center is the winner!

Gray, gray, gray.
I painted lots of color options on this wall
in the kitchen! We wanted to be as sure as possible we were
making the right choice! We went with the color on the lower
left (its repeated on both sides of the door).

We are rocking the man cave like it is
a transplant from our condo! It will be painted
brown & have virtually the same furniture :)

The winning man cave color is on the right.
The one on the left looks too much like a dirty diaper :(

Chris showing off the office window with the color
options. The darkest one won here :) Its in the center

I DIYed the basement laundry area wall....because it is in
the basement & it doesn't matter! The middle color won!

I wanted to go bold & fun. One might think this is too
dark of a color for a basement; I went high gloss to
bounce the light around the room. Our basement has some
above grade windows which give it some natural light,
which helps!

In case you care to buy any of these colors, we used all Benjamin Moore paints. Here is a list of what we bought & where we're using it:

Exterior: Deep Royal

1st Floor + Master Bedroom: Whitestone at 50% strength

2nd Floor + Foyer/Stairwell: China White

Man Cave: Whitall Brown

Office: Van Deusen Blue

Laundry Area: Old Navy

Insulation Station!

Who knew how incredibly fast the insulators would work?? Not me!

Welcome home - to a hazmat situation!
Apparently it is not good to expose your
skin or lungs to spray foam insulation....

On Friday around 12 noon I went to the house with a wonderful friend, Tanya, who drove in from Iowa. I gave her the exterior tour because it was clear the door was blocked by plastic sheeting. I tried to open the door & shouted hello through it; but the sheeting was taped over the door! Thankfully, this gentleman appeared & let us in. It was time for them to break for lunch he told us. Perfect; given how long Tanya had driven, I didn't want her tour to end at the mud pit yard!

Chris' office was almost done when the guys broke for
lunch. All done in the afternoon.

By that time (12 noon on Friday) the insulators had sprayed the foam throughout the 2nd floor! They worked so fast!

Chris & I went back together on Saturday & the insulators had completed the entire 1st floor Friday afternoon! Lickety split I'd say! (how do you spell lickety? lickity? Spell check doesn't like any of it. Hopefully you get my meaning despite any spelling shortcomings :)

Upstairs bathroom will be toasty!

Yahoo! Our bedroom is good to go!

The only other areas that need insulation are the attic, basement & crawlspace under the future family room. Those areas don't get sprayed; they get the old school batting insulation which apparently takes longer to install. They should be done by tomorrow at noon, meaning we'll have the insulation inspected Tuesday afternoon! Zoom! 

I think Willa was quite impressed with our 1st floor
insulation!

I love the old kitchen exhaust fan we kept -
the Air King! Our bedroom is insulated!

Next up? DRYWALL! Eek! We're chugging along!

December Framing Progress For Real!

Yay! The house smells like lumber because the framers have been building our new walls! Yipee! Hooray! Hurrah!

1st floor bathroom has fresh new studs.

Oh, strange, there is no floor in what used to be
the 1st floor kitchen. Note the giant hole to
Chris' right!

We have a hallway on the 2nd floor! We have a new
(tiny) linen closet that I am creeping out of!

Look at all those new walls! Yahoo! This is a view from the
sunporch to the front of the 2nd floor. Oven is still a
key feature in our future bedroom. You can see the new walls
for our future bathroom and closet on the righthand side.

The giant hole in the floor is a fancy feature
not everyone can have one of those!

The upstairs bedrooms have the closet wall separating them
now! Yay! The look/feel of the 2nd floor is really
taking shape.

The interior window in Chris' office
has been framed! The office is finally
taking shape!

Demolition Day 4 - Back Stairs, Head Knocker, 2nd Floor Kitchen

Seriously, this demolition is just about the best thing in our lives right now.

It is a concrete sign that Grant St will in fact, despite all the waiting, become our home sometime (relatively soon we hope!). 

There were 3 guys working in the house yesterday, they accomplish so much wonderful destruction every time they come. This part is slightly addictive & I assume the next phase, when things are being built, will find us similarly obsessed with evening visits to see the progress.

Demolition day 4 saw the removal of the back stairs, major work on Chris' future office, the removal of the dreaded head knocker on the front stairs, and huge work on the 2nd floor kitchen (our future bedroom).

Enjoy the photos! We've been enjoying wandering around the house seeing all the insanity demolition brings.

Selfie in our future bedroom!
Presumably we won't take selfies here once it is our actual bedroom.....

Hanging out in our future master bathroom, casually looking
through the wall of what used to be the 2nd floor kitchen.

Hahahhahahah. Look at that pile of rubble!
We'll have a dumpster once we have permits.
For now, these piles are really funny to me.
This is the 2nd floor kitchen; our future bedroom.

Cheers to Chris' future office!
Goodbye to the headknocker on the front steps
(which was the closet) & the south wall!

Hip hip hooray! Au revoir to the headknocker!
The dark line at the top of the photo shows what used to be the headknocker.
Not there anymore, which makes the stairway feel airy & light & wonderful!

Ah! There is no longer a wall to the 2nd floor
1st bedroom! This room is Chris' future office.

Check out the outline of the steps on the right of the photo.
They are gone!
Only the slats that supported the plaster beneath remain!

View from the first floor landing up the back steps.
Same as above; look to the top/right of the photo to
see the outline of where the stairs used to be. It is wild.