Happening House

Things at the house are really starting to happen! It is actually starting to resemble a home. We have made a lot of decisions in the last few weeks, including several changes from our original plans.

we picked out our doors
we decided on trim
we picked paint colors
we finally decided on the stone for flooring
we decided on the stair railing
we changed our ceiling material
we decided on the fireplace flue

Our original trim plan was to do something simple, paint grade (MDF). But we both decided that we prefer wood. We picked unstained alder. So then we decided that alder doors would go well. Not only did we pick out the paint colors, the painting is DONE! Most of the house is a nice neutral beige, but some of the rooms have some color! My work room is gold. Part of our bedroom is red (kind of brick colored). And, for me, the most daring is the light blue guest room. Let's hope I can make it work the way I imagine. One of our big changes is the ceiling. Originally we were going to keep the whitewashed pine tongue-and-groove paneling. Then we decided to add some insulation. Rather than re-do a perfectly good roof in order to install insulation, we had insulation put on the ceiling and then another layer of paneling. We figured pine was the cheapest, but then we saw a house with Western Red Cedar and loved it! The material cost is the same, but we save the money we would have spent on whitewashing or staining the pine, because we don't like the look of it. We are really happy with that decision. The other change is in the stair railing. I wanted to do something modern and rustic by using steel mesh, but it just seemed too complicated with our GC, so we are getting a nice basic alder rail system. And today, we decided to wrap the fireplace flue with... alder.