All of the lights

OK, not ALL of the lights. But I've been looking for an excuse to link to this video ever since my sister introduced me to it - gotta to love a music video with an epilepsy warning, am I right?

And check it out... WE HAVE LIGHTS.

They don't all have bulbs in them, but oh my gosh, I skipped around the house like a little kid, flipping switches and doing a completely ridiculous dance/squeal combo whenever a switch actually did something.

Walk into upstairs guest bedroom...

Flip switch...

EEEEEEE IT'S MAGIC!!!

As you can see in the photo above, the plumbers were back today installing fixtures, and I think water is supposed to be hooked up tomorrow! The master bathroom now has its shower faucet and glass surround and it looks absolutely gorgeous. Now we just have to get in there and paint the trim and beadboard, and the tile installer has to finish off the shelves in the shower (where you see the red below).

The plumbers also installed the faucets for the vessel sinks I mentioned a couple days ago.

The toilets are in too, but I figured no one really wants to see pictures of toilets...

BUT LOOK, MORE LIGHTS!!

The painters were also back at the house today, and painted the entire kitchen/living room area! We settled on Benjamin Moore's Summer Lime, and it's actually pretty subtle at night with only a limited amount of lighting. It looks pale yellow, whereas in sunlight it has a bit more green in it. I can't wait to see it during the daytime, but for now this was the best I could do, photo-wise:

Things are getting SO CLOSE, you guys. Seriously, I can hardly deal with it. Throughout this whole process, I have every so often just burst into tears when I visit the house, but I think the frequency is increasing. This evening I sat down on the steps for a while to look around, and before I knew it I was crying my face off because I was so overwhelmed with how completely amazing everything is, and how I am the luckiest person in the universe to have the opportunity to build this house, and live there with my best friend and our best canine friends, and have our wonderful family and friends support us in this crazy adventure, and have a job I love so much that hanging out here for the duration of a 30-year mortgage is totally appealing. And all of you who stop by and read this goofy little blog! And and and... amazing. And now I'm totally crying again. Get it together, basketcase!!

Love and spiders

It's never really occurred to me before how... organismal (for lack of a better word) my taste in decor is. The more I look at stuff I like, the more I see trends toward natural materials (well, I noticed that a long time ago), and simple, clean lines that mimic organic elements. I guess this shouldn't really be that surprising, right... I am a biologist. Still, it made me laugh to think that we now have a jellyfish hanging in the entryway, and a spider hanging in the dining room.

Granted it is an extremely elegant and nonthreatening spider.

I mentioned yesterday that the matching pendents have been installed over the kitchen island...

Here is one of them with the spider in the background so you can see them together. Love! You can also see that the sink faucet has been installed - I forgot to photograph that yesterday. Sorry for all the terrible flash photos with super-evident dust - it was the best I could do under rapidly darkening conditions this evening.

When I first pulled up to the house this evening, I thought "something looks different..." Took me a moment to realize that I haven't had this lovely unobstructed view of the porta-potty in quite a while.

Why? Because that's where the dumpster has been living for the last several months! I think no more dumpster is an excellent sign. Our house is no longer full of things that need to be ripped out and discarded. Hooray! Now we just have to deal with the pile of rubble that the dumpster had been partially obscuring...

In other news, the painters were back today working on the ceilings, so the entry stairs were draped with dropcloths when I arrived...

...and look at my beloved jellyfish! Sniff. At least it is protected from paint drips.

Love and jellyfish

Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving! How many of you rushed home from spending time with your family and spent several hours caulking and priming trim? No? Just us?

I was very excited to get back to the house today, because we left on our whirlwind Thanksgiving trip straight from work on Tuesday evening, so we hadn't seen the progress from Tuesday afternoon or Wednesday. And it was pretty dramatic! In fact, when we walked in I may have squeaked at a pitch audible only to dogs.

The jellyfish!!! is on the ceiling!!! Photos can't even capture how sparkly and magical it is. I'm pretty sure it's not really made out of capiz shells, it's actually rainbows and fairy dust and unicorn poop.

I love it. I love it. I want to marry it. I also owe Steven big time on this one, because apparently after I saw this and fell completely in love, West Elm stopped carrying it! Steven, being a house genius AND a jellyfish/unicorn-poop hero, called all over the country to find one and eventually tracked down a floor model. Three cheers are not even close to enough cheers for Steven. Have I mentioned I love this chandelier?

OK, there are also some other light fixtures in the house, and I tried to be nice to them too so they wouldn't feel left out. I think I did a good job ooh-ing and aah-ing over the pendant lights in the kitchen...

...but I am pretty sure the light in the guest bedroom might be getting an inferiority complex. Sorry, buddy.

The ceiling fan in our master bedroom might also be feeling a little bummed out. But let's be honest, ceiling fans aren't really all that cool looking. This one is better than most, though.

There are several wall sconces up around the stairwell and upstairs landing. To be honest, I'd totally forgotten what these were going to look like - good thing I like them. They are simple and don't call a lot of attention to themselves.

This is the cute bathroom light we picked out. This one is in the guest bathroom, but we got the same one in a four-light version for our master bathroom.

Speaking of the bathrooms, there was also some progress on the plumbing fixtures. In the downstairs bathroom, we have a pedestal sink currently in two pieces, but you can get the idea...

...and a toilet that isn't quite connected to anything, but at least is no longer in a box in the garage!

The bath faucet, handle, and shower head have also been installed downstairs:

Upstairs, the tile installer finished the grout around the beautiful glass subway tiles, and the shower handle has been installed.

The sinks have also arrived for the master vanity. They are vessel sinks that will sit up on top of the refinished dresser (just how it looks in the picture below). Apparently the plumbers will take care of actually attaching the sinks and hooking up all the plumbing, which means the only thing I have left to do on this project is shortening the drawers to accommodate the plumbing. I am waiting until they get everything installed so I can take measurements and go have some fun with a jigsaw!

Top shelf

Brandon and I headed out to the house this morning to try to get some more trim painted... which soon turned into the realization that first we have to caulk the trim. Sigh. Why is there always another step (or four) before the step we've actually anticipated and at least moderately prepared for? Anyway, not to brag, but I am basically a wizard with a caulking gun. Caulk doesn't make for good photos, though (NO DIRTY JOKES, my parents read this), so let's turn to what the pros were up to.

Remember the shelving unit turned media cabinet? Brandon and I had primed it and added a back and a top and access holes for wiring, and yesterday B and the GC installed it so it could be trimmed out. It looks awesome!! Still needs paint, to be sure, but I think it's going to be so great for getting all of our A/V stuff organized and out of the way.

The electrician is putting outlets back behind there, so the rats' nest of wiring can be hidden from view... but in order to access it, we'll have to squirm through a tiny opening in the "hobbit room" (storage closet) off the dining room:

In the kitchen, the glass-fronted cabinet has been installed...

...and the beadboard on the pantry is primed and ready for paint.

AND LOOK AT THESE MAGICAL THINGS THAT HAVE APPEARED THROUGHOUT THE HOUSE:

Have you ever seen something so exciting??? The electricians were still working when we left, and some of the lighting fixtures were piled up in the kitchen area - including the jellyfish! I can't waaait to get back there and see what they've gotten installed.

In other news, I just got off the phone with a professional pond installer. No joke. When I described what Project Vernal Pool entailed, he said something along the lines of "oh, no problem. I've done ponds like that before, and all kinds of specialty wildlife stuff - I've even put in artificial crayfish burrows for rattlesnakes to overwinter in." Um, I think I've found my guy.

Scene of the crime

Painter Al was at the house today for more work on the exterior, and it is looking terrific! It looks like he finished the rarely seen west side of the house, and the second story of the north side (where the horizontal Hardie board siding is).

It was a good thing I knew what was going on before I went in the house, or I might have taken a look out the dining room window and called in CSI-Ypsilanti.

Bloodbath!!!

But seriously, I am loving the exterior color - we wanted to play up the "barn charm" of the house, and this color is just a great traditional barn red. We (by which I mean designer Mandi) even found these terrific lights for over the garage and main entry, perfectly in line with the whole barn vibe:

Adorable, right? I lurves them.

In other news, the garage door installer was back today to hook everything up on the inside. There is no power yet, but I can gaze at this and daydream about all the snow I will NOT be shoveling off my car this winter...

I think the drywall guys were back again today too, since some areas inside looked re-mudded. I figured you guys have seen enough photos of drywall mud, so instead, here are the boys looking perplexed about why I will not let them further into the house. Dogs + drywall mud = disaster!

P.S. Thank you all sooo much for the comments on my recent posts on interior paint and garage door color selections. There were a ton of great ideas and tips that we wouldn't have thought of on our own - we really appreciate it! And now that I've got the blog bug you know I'll keep you updated on how it all turns out!