dark...like black coffee...

 Loving the new dark floors...yummy like coffee..

warm weekend and staining the floors

 Isn't he a cutie? He's growing up so fast! He is so happy - and especially loves riding on his Daddy's shoulders - so tall!

 He also loves crawling in the kitchen cabinets (it's easy now as they are empty!)

 This past weekend was *beautiful*...it was great to go to the park and check out all the progress at the apartment. You get a better view of the rubber floors below..

Can you believe it's that time already? The guys sanded all of the floors today (except Hudson's room) and then left samples for us to choose. We prefer the darker one, but that is "two coats" as opposed to the "one coat" lighter one. We've asked them to go as dark as they can with one coat as that is all we have time for. The floors will be done by Friday morning and they will start the bathroom on Wednesday. Hard to believe that we will be moving in soon!

 Hudson's room still needs some work...

See how big the kitchen looks with the living room and dining room empty! So exciting!

making a little light..

..Or rather, not so little light. We were inspired by our friend's beautiful lamp that they have installed in their dining room...

They hooked us on these beautiful Lindsay Adelman lights. At $10K + a pop, they really aren't budget friendly for normal people. Not that we're normal, but we definitely have a budget....And the Lindsey Adelman custom lamp doesn't fit in it. 

Neither did this *beautiful* David Weeks lamp that we fell in love with...(why is lighting so darn expensive?)

There is a silver lining. For those who are industrious, you can follow directions on Lindsey Adelman's website and make your own light fixture! As designers, we decided to color outside the lines. We planned out a three arm fixture with nine bulbs total.

 So we laid out the plan and ordered all the parts from Grand Brass.com. We laid out all the parts...Dave had spray painted all the stems flat black and left the socket covers and connectors brass...

It took us about two hours to wire it up and it works!! It is hiding safely in our attic till we can install it in our living and dining area! Can't wait till we get it installed and  adjusted!

lots to be thankful for!

 This past week zoomed by! I can't believe how much work got done. It had to, but it feels like tons of progress! They patched the wall where the old kitchen nib wall used to be...

 ...and started to layout the assmbled cabinets. It's really starting to take shape. Our host found this 5 panel door on CL for 20% of the actual value (someone had ordered the wrong size) We snagged it on Tuesday night and dropped it off!

 ...by Wednesday evening it was installed! It's coming together!

 They also installed the rubber floor in our kitchen - it is hard to tell from this shot, but it looks really good in person. The contractor really liked how easily it went in over his excellent leveling job. He said it "feels so soft" under foot. Should be nice next time I drop a plate!

 And they installed the attic ladder! So much nicer to have a new aluminum latter to get up to our crawl space.

 Work in the bathroom is making progress- the green board and cement backers are going in!

 And one last shot of the kitchen - getting closer! Seeing the fridge and stove in place makes such a difference!

closing up the walls!

This week has been very exciting! The contractor has been updating a lot of the switches and the outlets (adding them where we wanted) and putting in j-boxes for our pendant lights! More exciting - the drywall has started to go up! So much easier to visualize the space!

 View of the kitchen - with drywall!

 the entryway...

 ...and the washer dryer closet!

 This is the plumbing for the sink. We had them rotate the outlets above the counter to be horizontal so they will blend in better with the backsplash.

 And this is the beginning of the patch of the ceiling where the original nib wall was!

The bathroom should be closed up tomorrow - more to come!

everything but the kitchen sink..

So Dave whipped up the kitchen cabinets last weekend in between throwing a first birthday party for Hudson. He did a really great job! Our contractor will be installing the cabinets at the beginning of next week, which will be so exciting. Once the appliances and cabinets are in, it will start to feel more real!

There were seven lower cabinets and four uppers to put together. Love having a handy husband!

putting in the guts

Our contractor has been busy - running all the plumbing and gas line and updating the electrical. This part doesn't look like much, but is so very important to get right! 

We were hoping that he wouldn't have to turn off the gas to the whole building in order to run the new line to our dryer closet. Turned out that the line is not sub-metered; consequently, we had to turn off the whole building. The contractor was very careful to re-light all the pilots in the other apartments and to the boiler. 

When he put in the tub, he set it in cement and filled it with water to make sure it it settled. He also checked all the lines three times before considering closing the walls and the floor. Always better to check twice and close once!

The plumbing, vent and gas line to the new closet - love it!

 

Also, we got to see what Hudson's subfloor looks like:

I'm now obsessed with painting it white. After seeing this post on desiretoinspire.net, I really love the idea of painted floors. Reminds me of southern porches :).

Beautiful, no? And back to reality...They are doing a lot of patching to our walls and trim in preparation for paint. Still a couple weeks from painting, but it is never to early to start prepping!