Decisions Decisions Decisions - with kitchen design shot

This was a big week for decisions!! We met with the tile designer, the people at Best Tile, the appliance folks at Earl B. Feiden and Ackerman, the radiant heat and Sun Dog Solar folks, and Les Craig, our kitchen cabinet designer. The photo is the design Les put together for us. Things are rolling right along on all fronts. I think we've settled on champagne maple for the cabinets, slate floors for entry way, powder room , kitchen and guest suite, tumbled travertine for the master bath, 5 inch birch for the living areas, black granite for the countertop, a soap stone farm sink, and some very nice appliances. Although it won't be a totally green house, we are going to put up solar panels on the roof that will heat most of the hot water and power a good portion of the radiant heat cutting down on the amount of propane needed to do those jobs. We'll use cultured stone for the fireplace in the great room and will get the mason to redo the propane stove chimney in the same stone so it looks better. We chose a Liebherr fridge which touts itself as best in green design, a 36 inch propane powered Capital oven/range with griddle feature and a Bosch dishwasher. Having renovated our kitchen in Dobbs Ferry, we kind of knew what we liked already so the decisions haven't been too tough so far.

At the house they've been working on installing the piping for the radiant heat and roughing in the plumbing. They also built access to the attic from a "barn door" on the outside above our bedroom. The electrician is due this week or next and so is the siding.

Soffits!

Our team has been hard at work getting the soffits up to prepare for installing the siding and finished getting most of the windows and sliding glass doors in as well as continuing work on the plumbing. Cement will be poured soon and work on the garage and breezeway will begin. That of course depends on the weather though and as luck would have it this week is predicted to be rainy. But Jim said there's lots to do inside if they can't work outside. The fun never ends around here!!

New bay window is in and the door out from the guest suite. Doesn't that look pretty! More plumbing is done and our old tub was moved down to the guest suite. And there's David looking out what will be the door to the patio off the master bedroom. They've taken off the front stairs/stoop and will be working on that in this coming week. We've chosen a door with side glass area and Bill designed some pillars for us for a more elegant looking front entrance. The mason has been out to estimate what the stone fireplace/chimney will cost as well as extending the current brick chimney beyond the new roof and the blue stone patios on both sides of the house. We decided not to do a screen porch out the side for now and a new deck will be built starting just after the entrance to the basement.

And when we returned from our Scottish Adventures - we came home to this! A finished and capped roof, windows going in, plumbing getting laid out, and more plans for us to approve on the guest suite. Jim says that although our rainy March put them behind, they've pretty much caught up in April and we're still on track to move back in sometime in July he thinks. Siding is ordered and will go up next. Now that we made our decisions on the layout of the stairs leading down to the guest suite and how the bathroom will lay out, he'll get the plumber back in to finish all that up as well as the electrician. Then they can get to work on the inside in earnest. He's got us checking with the mason and the tile man now, choosing our fireplace, and soon all the kitchen stuff. It's all very exciting. Not sure if I'll sleep tonight - although the jet lag might just supercede any sleeplessness.

Scotland Adventures

Ok, so we need a quick break from renovations to talk about our trip to Scotland. What a wonderful green place with landscapes to die for, the nicest people, the yummiest food (yes we tried haggis), unbelievably amazing art and buildings, the cutest lambs - and lots of them - and great shopping! I had my first experience with single malt whisky (they do not call it scotch there or spell it with an "ey" at the end) on the Isle of Islay (pronounced eye-la) along with Dave and Jan....our new Canadian friends. I had no idea there was as many varieties as wine (almost) and each has such different characteristics. Where we were they pride themselves on the peatiness of their product - we saw fields and fields of peat and got to tour a couple of distilleries (Lagavulin and Bruichladdich) to see the process and taste their wares. We'll post all 500+ pictures and post a link soon but here are some beauties to tide you over......