Farmhouse Progress

Making Due…

For those who are not familiar with home construction, there is a natural progression that normally takes place on the job site. A job begins with purchasing property, deciding on house plans, site location and excavation. From there, footers are prepared and poured. Then the foundation can be laid by the masons and finally construction framing can begin! After framing is completed, windows and roofing are installed. Next comes plumbing, HVAC and electrical.

Because window delivery has been continually delayed for 13 weeks now, we took a risk that we normally would not take. We decided to leave the house wrap, also known as Tyvek, intact instead of cutting out for our window openings. By doing this, we were successful in creating a “dried in” site that has not been penetrated by rain since we had the roof installed. Even the porch area that has not been poured yet has stayed dry in the basement!

After ensuring that our plan had worked, we continued with our normal installations that usually take place after window installation. By doing this, we have been able to move forward with plumbing, HVAC, and electrical installation. So, the past 3 weeks we have continued to make progress that would otherwise be non existent!

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Brick

The foundation brick for the garage has been completed and most of the brick on the main house is completed. This will enable the porch concrete floor and patio to be poured sometime this week. After the windows are installed, the masons will finish the basement brick.

Planning

In the meantime, we have been making final decisions on kitchen cabinets, countertops, and bathroom tile. We spend endless evening hours deciding on light fixtures, paint colors, interior door styles and the myriad of little details that make a house feel like home.

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Flooring

I would never consider anything but real wood for flooring, and yet that is precisely what is happening! When we remodeled our garage attic to make an apartment for our daughter a couple of years ago, we installed Luxury Vinyl Plank Flooring. We wanted something durable since she has two rambunctious dogs. When we moved, I noticed that after 2 years of use, the floors still looked new! In the main house, our real wood floors were so scratched from our two dogs. It is possible to refinish real wood flooring but that does mean you have to move everything out while it is being refinished. For this reason, we are installing a similar Vinyl Plank Floor in our farmhouse. The companies even make stair parts so you don’t have to try to match the finish on the stairs!

Countertops

I love butcher block. In one of our previous homes, we installed butcher block countertops. I followed all the steps to condition and seal the wood, but I was never completely satisfied with the color. One weekend we decided to take the tops off and re finish them with a dark stain. The results were amazing! I am excited to have this look in the farmhouse kitchen. I believe it will really tie all the design elements together in a classic way.

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Tile

There are so many new designs to choose from with tile! A new trend is to use a pattern printed on the tile. While I do love the way it looks, I am a little worried that it won’t be as durable as traditional tile that has the color throughout the material. I found this flat pebble tile and gray travertine tile for our shower. This combination creates a soft, luxurious space.

High Hopes

We will hopefully see some major progress in the next week! Stay tuned for more…

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