Comfy Place gets a roof and windows!

Yesterday after work my house was starting to get a roof! I forgot my camera so I went back this morning before work and took a couple photos:


They boarded up the ground floor window and doorways, I guess to keep out trespassers (or the crazy lady in the blue car who drives by a couple times a day with a camera).

Today was window day! At least for the top 2 floors.


Here is the back with the 3 sunroom windows. Some of the units got their rear slider installed too, mine is not there yet. I'm still missing a wall!


This is a fun process so far! I just love watching everything come together. My construction manager said it is time for another meeting this week, so maybe I'll get to go inside of it and see how things look in there.

I'm figuring that at the rate we are going, they will finish the walls, windows and doors, shingle the roof and start insulating this week. Who knows, they may be starting the siding in another 10 days.

Teapot Three or More Thursday

I'm late, I'm late! Tam at The Gypsy's Corner (http://gypsycorner.blogspot.com) is having Three or More Thursday. Here is something I have more than 3 of but these are my 3 favorites:


Have a pleasant evening, everyone!

Dreaming of the Islands...

I could be dreaming of a little trip to Figi or Maui with this windy cold weather hitting again, but I have the bigger picture in mind and am focusing on the new house. Some of my new house spending money will go for a kitchen island. I opted not to buy the one that came with my unit because it costs more than any of these below and is much smaller with zero decor appeal.

I have searched the internet but the ones that are doing it for me (and are in my price range) are actually located very close to home. Here are the nominees:

1. This one's from Country Additions, a furniture store 15 minutes down the road where the guy makes all his own stuff. It's large and leggy, well made and reasonably priced under $500. I love the color but would probably give it a coat of poly to shine it up a bit and protect the wood. Only con to this one - lack of storage, which is already lacking in my future kitchen:

2. Also from Country Additions, #2 has a similar appeal to #1 but also has a large storage cabinet underneath. Priced a bit over $500. Cons? Looks a little lopsided to me. Why the big open space on the left side? There should be a drawer on the end, at least.


3. This one is from Peaceful Valley Furniture, with 3 convenient locations nearby. This one seems to have the most of what I want, it's got more drawers and also storage below, plus the symmetry of it appeals to me. It's a bit more money at around $600. Cons? The legs look a little skinny and I'm having a hard time picturing it in black. Overall, this is probably the leader for now. I think you can also get it with an optional granite top. That would be a bit pricey though.

4. This one, also from Peaceful Valley, is the wild card. It's cheap, just under $350, and has pretty good storage. No pretty legs though, and no drawers. I really need drawers. Do I need them worth $250? I don't know.

I guess ideally, I'd want drawers like #3 and closed in cabinets all the way around underneath. Also, it would be nice to have tilt-out trash and recycling bins. Maybe I'll talk to the guy at Country Additions about a custom piece. Any opinions?

Construction 1/27 and 1/28

Here is my new house as of yesterday, 2nd floor already framed up! Those are my living room windows.

Here is the back, my little sunroom-to-be. It's going to have a slider on the other side, out to a tiny deck, and the ceiling inside the sunroom will match the pitch of the roof.


Here is progress from today, even with several inches of snow overnight a little bit of work got done. The third floor is underway (one of Danielle's bedroom windows):


Pics are dark because it was a little late when I left work, but here is the back today, they got the rear wall of the 3rd floor up. That is where my bedroom will be (large double window looking over the future deck).


I can't wait to get inside of it and walk around! They had the roof trusses out front, so I guess roofing is happening pretty soon. It's unbelievable to me how fast this is going. I've been waiting since July to get started, and it seemed like it would never happen. But it is!

Also, I found out today we could be moving to our new office in 45 days, so now it looks like that may happen before the house is finished. I love change, so all of this is really exciting to me, and I'm having a great time mentally decorating my new spaces. I'm sure my blog will be prettier once I get to the point of actual decorating!

I got some cute new placemats and I was going to do a tablescape, but I got distracted and never took the pictures. What is so distracting? Well...

Here is the front view of my house as of lunchtime today. The hole on the left is my future garage, the right is my future front door.


This is the back of the rest of my block. Their wood was on the top of the stack so they are a little further along than my unit.

This is my unit (on the end with the wood leaning up against it. Those window holes in the back are for my daughter's bedroom.


At that point I went back to work. But I had to sneak another peek after work! They framed up the unit on the other side of mine so now mine is the one with 2 guys standing on it (in my future sunroom!)

It is just amazing to me how quickly this is happening. I spoke to my project manager today and he said I'll be moving in by the end of March.


I'm hoping for more big progress tomorrow, because there is a snowstorm coming that will probably slow things down again. I'm getting a house!! Woo-hoo!

A big day of progress on the new digs...

I apologize in advance for the lack of prettiness in this post! There is a lot going on with me, but none of it is particularly attractive....

They have started framing my block... yesterday it was just a few concrete walls, now things are starting to happen. I'm so excited!

They have not actually started my unit, mine is on the far left in the photo below and they didn't get that far yet, but it's coming! I should be on target to move in around April.


I'm also getting a new office at work. We are moving to a larger building. They just finished off the section where I'm going to be, and they put my furniture in my office already. I'm picturing a nice plant on the corner of the desk. I might have to take the ivy in and see how it looks:


I'm glad for the nice big windows. I have a large window now, and would really miss having an outdoor view. From my doorway vantage point, it looks mainly like I have a parking lot view, but you can see for miles. I also have a narrow window looking into the area where my department will be located, but that is not quite as expansive or interesting!


Although this is finished, I will probably be moving into my new house before we move to the new office - we are redoing another large area of the building before the move, so it could be another 12 weeks. It will be fun to see which one comes first!

Collected Works

Isn't it funny how blogging lets you find so many people you have things in common with? As I've read through blogs over the past several months, I found loads of women who share my passion for decorating magazines. Today I started to go through them in preparation for the move to the new house. There is always the inevitable question "Should I keep these or throw them out?" Well, these I am keeping:


I have over 50 issues of Victoria, dating back as far as 1995. Unfortunately, I have moved 3 times since then and I did manage to lose most of 1995 and 1996, but I have nearly all of 97 and 98, and nearly everything since 2000. I read them over all the time. I was crushed when they stopped publishing it in 2003 but have not missed an issue since it started up again in 2007.

I did toss my Country Living magazines from the 1980's. Not the newer ones, though, I still look through those, as well as my plethora of DIY-Creative-Country-Victorian-Living-Gardening-Inns-Martha-Traditional-Home craziness. Can't live without them. One thing is for certain; someone is going to complain about carrying the heavy boxes.

House Guest

While my oldest daughter and her boyfriend are out of town this weekend, I am enjoying the company of Mr. Kitters, their very large kitten. Mr. Kitters is about 3 times the size of my 8-year old cat, and he is extremely inquisitive. Several times I awoke to bumps in the night because he tends to knock a lot of things over. I had to right a few items this morning, but there was no breakage. A few minutes ago, I potted an ivy in the planter I got on clearance a couple weeks ago. I grabbed my camera, set the pot on the end table and stood back to take a photo:

Immediately, Mr. Kitters came to investigate. I had to interrupt my photo shoot a second later when his teeth clamped around the vine and started tugging the plant over!

I quickly whisked it off into one of my daughter's bedrooms where I could close the door and keep him out. Mr. Kitters conducted an interrogation. "Did you see a plant around here?"

"Did it go outside?"

"Ok, it's not hiding behind the lamp..."


While Mr. Kitters took a full 5 minutes to keep looking for that ivy, here was my little kitty, taking a nap in bed and dreaming of when Mr. Kitters would go home and leave her alone.

Birdbrained

I went to Renninger's this morning, which is a farmers market/antique market. It was fun looking around but I didn't find anything that spoke to me except a $2000 Hoosier cabinet, and that was way out of my league. So then I went to Home Goods, and ended up with a bamboo cutlery tray...


Some speckled eggs for Easter...


And this:

I nearly didn't see it down in the back on the bottom shelf, but this little guy called my name:


I have birds on the brain! Now I have another cloche dilemma. I think it needs a little plant, maybe. Maybe some herbs under glass?

Bread Box

It's Friday, it's payday, and I have a 3-day weekend for MLK Day on Monday so things should be looking pretty good, right? I guess they are, I'm just too cold to notice! Brrrrr! I'm never cold, I don't think I put on a winter coat more than one day last year, but today I actually dug up a pair of gloves to wear! Of course, a little cold can't keep me from shopping.

I went to Marshalls thinking an extra quilt would be a good thing, but I still have not found exactly what I have in mind, so I'll keep looking. However, they still had the breadbox I picked up and carried around for 10 minutes the last time I was there, so I broke down and bought it:

I think it's the little brass tag on the front that got to me. In other news, my house bits arrived today and are laid out and ready to get turned into my house:

No kids this weekend, my oldest daughter and her boyfriend took my youngest along to visit the middle daughter out at State College, so I am footloose and fancyfree until Sunday afternoon. I think that calls for a trip to Home Goods!

Three or more Thursday

Tam at The Gypsy's Corner is hosting her 10th Three or More Thursday, and she showed some cute little birds she recently acquired. I just bought 2 birds today and they have something in common with another bird at my house, and that is this guy:


Ok, he is a rooster, but he has cutouts on his sides, and that is what he has in common with my 2 new birds. I found these both today at Michaels for just a couple dollars each:


This one is my favorite. I like his chubby little round body.


Thanks for hosting, Tam!

Progress

My house is going up! Here is last week, the concrete garage wall panels were put in place:


Here is today, braces down and the slab is in. The lumber arrives Friday and next week framing starts. I can't wait to see more!

Bird's Nest & Tagged

I got my birds nest today in the mail from the Etsy seller. I love it, it's really cute and it's the perfect size for the cloche. The photo is really dark, but you can see it ok.

I have been tagged by Nicole at http://nicolestreasurechest.blogspot.com to play Picture Tag! Here are the rules:

1) Choose the 4th folder where you store your pictures on your computer.
2) Select the 4th picture in the folder.
3) Explain the picture.
4) Tag 4 people to do the same.

Since I don't have many blogger friends just yet, I'm inviting anyone who would like to play to join in.

The fourth picture in my fourth folder is of my daughter sitting on her bed, with her eyes closed! I don't know why I don't really delete imperfect photos of my kids... I guess I should, but somehow I never do.

Just contemplating a couple ideas

I love this tin, my daughter gave it to me a couple years ago and I want to build an entire sewing room around it. I don't have the luxury of a sewing room, I will one day when the girls have moved out, but I'm in no rush for that. So perhaps a sewing cabinet. I'm thinking that might work.

I bought a set of pretty white plates and my cloche fits perfectly on one, but I don't have a single thing that looks good inside it. I bought a little nest on Etsy, I'm waiting for that to come and I hope it's big enough that it won't look lost in there.


I bought this urn for $4 on clearance at Tuesday Morning. I'm thinking ivy, so I sat it in the only spot where ivy has ever grown successfully in my apartment and now I just need to go buy an ivy plant. I can't wait to have a sunroom.


I also bought this rooster on clearance at Tuesday Morning, for $9. He's made out of cement or something, he's really big and quite heavy. He's on top of my armoire. He's the perfect height but he looks a bit lonely. Nothing else I've tried looks right though, so I'm still thinking about that one.


I have a few projects in the planning stages, now that Winter Break is over and my daughter is going back to college for Spring Semester, I guess I can take that as a sign it's time to get to work.