December 18th, Kitchen cabinets finished

At long last, the kitchen cabinets are complete and installed. All we lack now in the kitchen are the appliances, sinks, faucets and countertops. Our beautiful knotty alder custom cabinets were built by Chuck Bailey, owner of Eagle Cabinets in Flippin, AR.

This is the north wall where the main sink and dishwasher (automatic and Denis) will be located.

Above the dishwasher is a wine rack for 9 bottles (plenty for us) and underneath that, a slotted rack to hold wine glasses. There are two cabinets to the right of the wine rack, with shelves. The cabinet maker wanted to make this a broom closet or pantry, but we have a walk in pantry and a laundry room to hold cleaning equipment so we just opted for shelves in both the upper and lower cabinets.



This is the island showing the chef's side. In the middle will be a prep sink. The blue boxes are electrical outlets so I'll have plenty of places to plug in my small applicances.

This view of the island shows the supports in place to hold the extended countertop, which will be a place for our casual meals.

This is the back of the island where the stools will be located. It's hard to see in this picture, but the wood is grooved for a beadboard look.

Below is the wall where the gas cooktop, electric oven and microwave will be located. Above the cooktop will be vent hood and stainless backsplash with a pot filler faucet, warming lights and shelves.

This is an insert into a drawer that will hold spices. I have two big drawers like this. It will be so handy to be able to view all the spices and not have to dig for them in a cabinet.

This is a long range view of the kitchen, showing all the cabinets. The beams and the colums still have to be wrapped in sheetrock. I was debating having them done in the same wood as the cabinets but decided to go for some contrast and have the painted sheetrock instead.

December 5th, Screen dooor, wood box

The back porch and gazebo are fully screened in now. Here is the new screen door from outside the porch.

And here is the door from inside the porch.

Inside the house, next to the hearth which will hold the wood burning stove, is a huge box to hold wood. The top is hinged and will raise up to allow access to the wood. It will also serve as a window seat.

The wood will be loaded into the box from outside the house. This is the access door, made of cedar to match the gazebo.

December 14th, Kitchen cabinets and floors

The floor in the pool room is finished now. It has one coat of sealer and four coats of polyeurothane in a satin finish. That should make it hold up well under the traffic of pool players and grandkids. The half wall seen in the distance is not finished yet. It still needs drywall. We were going to have built in cabinets there, but decided to just finish out the wall and buy a piece of furniture to serve as storage for toys, games, and any other pool room paraphernalia.

The picture below was taken looking in a different direction, from the top of the steps. The color of the floor looks a little different than in the previous picture but it must just be the lighting. It's the same floor, 4 inch wide, rustic red oak.

The cabinet maker has started the cabinet installation in the kitchen. This is the main kitchen sink cabinet, including space for the raised dishwasher, wine rack and stem holder. Denis calls the ones on this wall "his cabinets" as he promises to be the main clean up crew while I do the cooking.

This is the huge island, under construction. There will be a small prep sink right in the middle. The extended board you see on the right is the appliance lift for the mixer. That way the mixer can stay hidden underneath until needed, then it can be raised to working height without any heavy lifting.

This is the fridge and cooking wall. The big empty box on the left is where the fridge will go. In the middle will be the cooktop with venthood above. On the right are openings for the built in oven and microwave.

There are many many drawers and doors to be installed yet. Here they are lined up and waiting, along with some of the painter's supplies. We can't wait until they are all in and the appliances in place. I'll do an update on the kitchen at that point.

November 24th, Screened in, almost

View of the back porch, from the pool room. Screens are on the windows, but you really can't tell it, which is nice. They are a bronze color and it's almost like looking thru the window without screens. No screen door yet, but it's not like we need it yet anyway.

The dogs, hanging around outside the mudroom. It looks like there is snow on the ground, but it's just concrete with some leaves scattered around.

Even though we don't have the stain on the concrete floor yet, we decided to go ahead and move the outdoor table and chairs into the gazebo to see how they would fit and look.

And we were very pleased with the look at the fit. The gazebo is 16 feet across so plenty of room for the table and chairs.

Novermber 14th, Interior paint colors

The guest bedroom, on the southeast corner of the house, is painted a very light lilac color. The name of the color is Mozart, which says nothing about the hue of the color, but I like the name. On the right is the door to the little bath. Note the new six panel solid core door, with brushed nickel handle.

Here is a close up of that brushed nickel door handle which Denis installed. I was hesitant to replace all the doors in the house (22) and hardware, but now that I see how nice they look, I'm happy with that decision.

This is the north part of the master bedroom. The main walls are a seafoam green, and the headboard wall is a darker tone of the same color. We added a partial wall in the middle of the bedroom so we would have a wall to back the headboard up to. There was no other wall in the room we wanted to use. Note the new ceiling fan in a pewter color.

This is another view of the headboard wall from the other side. This side of the room will contain our dressers. The other side of the room with the bed in it will be nearest to the master bathroom.

This room is the office/possible extra bedroom. This is where we keep all our computer equipment and filing cabinets. The window looks out on the sunroom where we now have our computer. The color of this room is a very light khaki.

This big room (24 X 30) is what we call the pool room. Why? Because this is where the pool table will go. Denis inherited the pool table when his father died in 1975 and has been moving it, in pieces, with him since that time. Finally it will have a nice home. The primary wall color in this room is what I would call camel, like on a camel coat. The white object on the wall is the heating/air conditioning unit. We had to add a supplemental unit for this room because of it's size and location. Even with upgrading the blower and heat pump on our exisiting geothermal unit, it wasn't enough to adequately cover this room.


There are two types of lighting in this room, wall sconces and can lights. This is one of the wall sconces. We bought six of them many years ago in Colorado Springs when a local hardware store went out of business. We had planned to use them in our victorian house but never got that far with the remodel so decided to use them on this remodel. They look great with the wall color and give off a lot of light.

In this distance shot you can see three of the wall sconces and two of the can lights. This room will also be the overflow bedroom and will probably be the site of airbeds or sleeping bags for the grandkids when they come to the country.

This picture shows the four big can lights which will be situated right over the pool table and will provide plenty of light for all you pool players.

November 13th, more about the porch and gazebo

In the last post I talked about the porch and gazebo, and I wanted to say a little more on that part of the house. The next picture is taken from inside the porch. That window is over the kitchen sink, and the doorway to the right leads into the house. I just love the shiny look of the cedar with the protective coating on it.

Next is a view of the whole porch, from the back yard. The porch is 20 feet across and 16 feet deep. All the openings will be screened and I sure hope it will keep the dratted gnats out!

And in this picture you see the walkway (11 feet long) leading from the porch to the gazebo, and the gazebo, mostly finished except for screens. The gazebo is 16 feet across at any point, plenty of room for a table and chairs.

November 3rd, Gazebo and porch almost complete

I've been away for a couple of weeks so a lot has been accomplished on the house. Not all of it is picture worthy, but all very important.

Here is a view of the back porch/patio and gazebo, taken from the north of the house. That part is just about complete except for the screens and applying a protective coating to the cedar.

The following picture is a close up of the cedar, which is tongue and groove on this part of the porch. The french doors lead into the kitchen area.

This is the walkway from the porch to the gazebo. Since I was here last, the batten boards have been added to the cedar planks. Makes for a very nice finished look.

To take this picture, I was standing at the entrance to the gazebo. There will be a ceiling fan in here with a light fixture for evening dining al fresco. The concrete floor will be acid stained a color to match the cedar.

And here is more cedar, in my closet. It's a treat to walk in there and smell the cedar. I hope my clothes all smell like that.

Another big accomplishment is that the exterior painting is almost done. The house looks rather white in the picture but it's not a stark white, but a creamy white. Actually it's the same color as it was before. We liked it and didn't want to change it. This view is the east side of the house with the new double garage and pool room above it. The garage doors are a pretty forest green but they look black in this picture. The little room to the left of the garage doors is the master bath. My spa tub looks out that window. The downspouts, gutters, and trim are green also.


The interior is all primed, ready for the final colors. I'll wait to take pictures until the interior colors are done. The new six panel doors are painted white and have brushed nickel hinges. We have to get door knobs to match one day this week.

October 19th, More cedar, garage doors and gutters

Another week has passed and while I was gone to Mississippi again, progress was made in several areas. More cedar was wrapped around the gazebo and patio. The color doesn't show up as well in pictures as it does in person. See those blue pipes on the ground? That is part of the system the builder devised to carry water away from the base of the house. Our house is on a slope and water has always been a bit of a problem. Eventually some type of deck/walkway will be built over those pipes and to that back door that leads into the mechanical room.

The cedar is just about done on the gazebo and there are now gutters in place. We've never had gutters before so that's exciting to us.

These gutters and downspouts carry water to those blue pipes you saw in an earlier picture. The trim, gutters and downspouts are a pretty shade of green that matches the roof.

This picture shows the gutters and part of the patio cedar from a window in the pool room.

This is the west side of the house and that hole that was cut into the new siding (always a scary thing) is the location of the future wood box. Inside the house will be the main part of the box that will hold wood for the stove and also serve as a window seat.

Now here's something we are really proud of -- garage doors with remote control openers! We are going to feel downright citified, getting to park in a real garage and have the door open without having to leave the vehicle. The doors are that same pretty shade of green as the trim and gutters. Annie obliged me by serving as a model for this picture.

October 13th, Wrapping the porch in cedar

This month the most picturesque thing to happen with the house is that the back porch and gazebo are being "wrapped" with cedar. The plain wood that was used to construct the porch and gazebo are covered with this very lovely cedar wood which was cut and milled just about 4 miles up the road from us. It smells wonderful now. I don't know if it will smell that way after it is sealed. We are also having them line the master bedroom closet with the cedar.




The french door leading into the kitchen is now installed. In fact, all doors are up now so the house can finally be closed off to the elements and critters.


And here's Nigel, sitting on the porch looking out thru what will be a screened section in the future. We'll be able to keep the dogs out of there if we want, like when we are eating.