We heard from our Field Manager today with some updates on how the next couple of weeks will go. The roof/shingles should be installed either today or tomorrow. We tentatively have a walk through scheduled for Thursday in the morning sometime, but won’t know if that’s a definite until tomorrow evening. Our windows are unfortunately on back order and won’t arrive until next Wednesday. Without the windows we can’t start electrical, but it is my understanding that rough plumbing and rough HVAC will start soon and that we will probably hear from the electrician sometime next week to set up our walk through with him.
The electrical walk through is definitely something we are looking forward to for many reasons. Most of those reasons boil down to figuring out what we are going to need to spend out of pocket with the electrician to get all of the little detailed things we’ve talked about accomplished. It doesn’t sound like much, but extra indoor and outdoor outlets, additional lighting we are paying to have installed outside of the Wayne Homes contract and home loan, under-cabinet lighting, possibly special wall plates in some areas for electrical/ethernet/coax, things like dimmer and 3 or 4 way switches, a freezer circuit, setting up the electrical panel for a generator, etc. Our list is extensive and all of that stuff will add up, so it’s the next out of pocket expense we will have and I would like to know what we’re looking at financially.
We also need some information from the electrician on the installation of our ceiling fans. We’re starting out with 3 ceiling fans: 1 in the great room, 1 in the sunroom and 1 in the master bedroom. All of these rooms have higher ceilings in one way or another and I think they can benefit from the air circulation. However some of them will need sloped ceiling kits, others will need long downrods and we need to figure out all of these details before we can completely decide on the models we want and order them.
Currently we are looking at this one for the sunroom, but I am contemplating the brushed nickel housing to match all of the other brushed nickel hardware throughout the house. I fell in love with these fan blades when I saw them on Pinterest as they seemed perfect for a sunroom and the multi-colored aspect to them means I don’t have to worry about them clashing with any of the other wood/brown colors in the house.
We’re looking at this one for the great room. I’m not completely sold on the look of it, so I am still window shopping to see if there’s anything out there I like better. My husband loves it because it can be controlled via Bluetooth and I like the size of it for the room, but it’s a very expensive fan and I feel like I should LOVE it for that price.
And finally here’s the one for the master bedroom. We looked at this style early on and liked it but not for either of the other rooms, but I think it would look nice in our bedroom. Again it has multi shade coloring so hopefully it will not clash with any future furniture we choose as we are planning to replace our bed and night stands in the next year or less.
Another reason I am looking forward to the electrical walk through is finding out if I will be able to have a chandelier over my soaker tub. When I originally added it to the plan it was with the idea that this will be my little bit of girly space in a house where I am surrounded by testosterone. ? I envisioned a beautiful, delicate crystal chandelier and had managed to find one that even reminded me of my mom that I fell in love with as the crystals had a bit of a butterfly look to them. Then as I was researching I found out that even though we have 9 foot ceilings on the first floor, I would need to an have either damp or wet rated fixture if the lowest point wasn’t at least 8 feet above the highest point of the tub. No one mentioned this fact when I added it to the plan and I was heartbroken that I couldn’t have the one I picked out. I almost scrapped the idea entirely but eventually I found several damp rated chandeliers that I liked well enough to consider. I have narrowed those down to 2, but before I decide and order anything I need to make sure the electrician signs off on what I have chosen so I know it will pass code inspection.
Here are my final 2 choices. The crystal one on the left is the closest in style I have found to my original choice, but the black one with the leaves is appealing as well since the window behind the tub is facing our woods and I am planning to bring a bit of the outdoors…in…wherever I can without making the house look too ‘country’.
Speaking of not making it look too ‘country’, I’ve been having a dilemma of what style to decorate the new house. You see our old house was entirely nautical themed. No we didn’t live near the beach or have architecture that screamed beach house, but nonetheless my decor ended up all nautical themed as my husband is from a beach area and I’ve always loved the beach. It was a little way of bringing a sense of his home area to our primarily landlocked mid-western state.
When Richard and I first got married I had a lot of country decor. Part of it was stuff I had when we got married, some we were given, and part of it was stuff we bought from yard sales to decorate our small apartment when we got married. We gained even more of it from my parents when they moved into a small retirement apartment complex and had more decor than they could possibly use.
When we bought our first house I continued to use a lot of country decor even though it really didn’t fit my style anymore because we honestly didn’t make our house into a home with more personalized touches for several years. We had multiple businesses we were involved with and a non-profit organization we were heading up and had little time that we spent really focused on our house and to be honest, I didn’t really love our house so I wasn’t motivated to decorate it. I had contractor white walls for the longest time! It was so bland. Once we got out of a few obligations, we slowly started making the house more than just 4 walls and a roof to us and I decided to go all nautical themed.
So I have been sitting here deliberating for months on what I want my decorating style to be for the new house. My storage units right now are filled with 15 years worth of nautical displays, plaques, statues, images and sayings. Do I ditch it all? I really love some of the pieces. Do those pieces get displayed in a corner or never even make it out of a box? Does the setting in which we are building our house force me back into a country style I now despise? Did the fixtures, cabinetry, countertops and stone work that I love and picked out for the new house create a different feel that would clash with a lot of my current decor?
Hey, if you haven’t met me, my name is Mindi and I tend to overthink things! Especially artistic things because deep down I am an artist myself and I rarely fit in a box with my style. I really got onto this train of thought recently because everywhere I go there is beach and nautical decor on sale! It’s summer, so everyone from Joann’s to Kroger Marketplace have all their best beachy stuff displayed. I’m drawn to it like moth to a flame and have thought about buying a couple items for the new house more than once. Then I remember, nautical isn’t going to work anymore in this new setting with this new style house!
Last night though I think I finally had a mental breakthrough. I can ditch the nautical without ditching the beach! Yep, that’s what I am going to do and I think it will work. So out will go the boats, boat wheels, anchors, fishing nets, navy and white stripes, liferings, and even part of the lighthouses (although my Lefton lighthouses are not going anywhere). BUT I will keep the beach, ocean, sand, shells, and maybe some of the natural looking sea creature decor I have. Then I will be combining it with other natural elements found in our new house and hope to pick up some more natural decor that will give a more cohesive theme without looking ‘country’. Our new house will have a 2 story stone fireplace and matching stone on a half wall, granite counters, a barn beam mantle, and we’ll be adding stained barn doors to one room as well.
We already have some other natural decor in mind as new pieces. Richard and I fell in love with these beautiful leaves from an amazing artist at The Columbus Art’s Festival a couple weekends ago. He bought me a small one on a vine for my birthday in my favorite colors which I will be putting in my craft room, but we also want to buy one of these huge ones for the house in more realistic fall colors. Here’s the one he bought me for my craft room and a look at some others in the colors we would want to buy for other rooms in the house. They are gorgeous and made from real leaves!
We also took a card from this artist because we loved some of her stuff as well. Here’s a sample of a couple that caught our eye that would be great for our woodsy setting. She had some non-realistic ones I loved as well.
Anyone who knows me also knows I love hand blown glass and have a collection of art glass pieces. I have everything from glass pumpkins to glass seashells to beautiful art vases. I definitely plan to display them more (many were hidden up in my craft room to prevent breakages when Creative Kid was small) and maybe add a piece from this artist.
I also plan to make some of my own decor for the house. It’s who I am and I want to put a lot of personal projects in the house. It may take me a while to get it all done, but the process is half the fun, right? 😉
Thanks for reading!
Dont forget you have a hand blown erickson ash tray