Walls! Roof!

The most exciting thing happened today... we got WALLS AND A ROOF AND A VIEW OF THE RIMROCK!!!!!!!!

Okay (so with fewer exclamation points this time) the house has made ENORMOUS progress in the past few days. I popped by yesterday and this is what it looked like.

Day 22:

And drum-roll please... this is what it looks like TODAY!

Brad looking out one of the two bedroom windows!

This gives some perspective to "Big Sky Country" doesn't it?

Standing in the garage, admiring the soon-to-be ceiling.

Main hallway

View out of the kitchen

View out of our front window

Brad and I got to walk around the house today, through all the rooms, imagining what we will put where. We were even able to see what the view is going to look like from each of our windows :)

The only structural change that needs to happen is a window was missed during the drawing phase of the plans. The houses we walked through all had a window in the master bath, and we were supposed to have one too. We missed it on the architectural drawings, and now they have to go in and add it after the fact. Bob says it's no problem and should have been in there in the first place, so we are only being charged for the extra window - and not a big "change order" fee. (For those not actively involved in building a house, this is a cost for making a change to the plan after construction has begun. These fee's can be enormously steep. Bob's fee is cost + an extra 15% of the cost to make the change. Although I've heard some places charge as much as an additional 50%.)

So now that you have seen the house, I'll fill you in on some of the details. We have had an ongoing saga about our kitchen cabinets. We thought we had dealt with the troubles of the distribution warehouse going out of business. Well, a few days ago we got a call from the company we are working with, and they said "we're not feeling confident that these cabinets are going to happen" and that we needed to come in and re-select our cabinets.

Now for those of you who haven't heard me talk about these white cabinets - I LOVE them, and was really upset at the thought of losing the cabinets I had agonized over for so long.

Brad and I met the "cabinet-lady" yesterday and she showed us a sample of an identical (really) cabinet that she could provide us - in half the time, with nicer wood, at the same cost... sold!

Instead of being made of poplar wood (a "downgrade" of sorts, that we decided we didn't mind), now we are going to have alder cabinets. Brad says they really are nicer, and hey, he's a forester, so he ought to know! I don't really care what kind of wood they are made out of - they are going to be painted, so you won't see much of the wood grain.

The rest of the house cabinets, and the kitchen island are going to be a darker wood color. The new color we chose is called "cinnamon" and its a lovely reddish-brown stain that will pop with the GORGEOUS rusty-gold counter-tops. Maybe if you're lucky I'll post some sample photos of those when I get home tonight.

All considered, today was wonderful. The house is making so much progress, the cabinets are ordered. Our refund on the appliances is on it's way from Lowes (yay!) and Bob the Builder is writing us a check to cover the appliance expenses.