Wood sills and cabinets!

They started the wood window sills. Although not quite done, you get the idea. This is a sill in the main house first floor bedroom.

and here is one in the casita bedroom.

They also started to install the casita kitchen cabinets too.

And finally, here is Karin Lynn in her gardner's shed. :) It is not quite finished, but is built from nearly all recycled materials. She is SO excited to have her own gardner's shed. It will have a couple of windows and door on the front...should be done in early January.

Happy holidays dear friends and family! Here is our gift from NM...a view of the Sandia's and the lavendar fields at Los Poblanos Inn and Farm...where KL now works and right down the road from our house! We enjoy it every day and now you can! :) Love you all!

Stained concrete!

Although it is not completely done, the staining of the concrete floors is far enough along to share! I thought it was sort of fun to see this "before" picture (during framing) and now the "after" with the walls painted and concrete stained. It's really come a long way. :)

Here is a close up of the stain itself. It's called Padre Brown.

And here are swatches of our new leather chairs (color=cigar) and couch (color=citrus) from C&B. We think they are going to work. :)

So the concrete gets sealed today and then waxed tomorrow. What comes next (as we understand it) is that the wood sills and trim will be installed; then the kitchen cabinets installed; and then the concrete countertops will be templated, formed up, poured and installed. Tiling of the bathrooms should start sometime in the next couple of weeks too. We are hoping to have lots of reasons to update the blog over the next couple of weeks! We're about 6 weeks from move-in so lots and lots will be done between now and then! Stay tuned!

A sneak preview at painting

I've been holding off on posting photos of the painted rooms because I couldn't get there when the light would do the colors justice. But I've decided to go ahead and post anyway so you can get an idea of what things look like.

Here is a photo of what what we are calling the "mud room" which is really the vestibule that leads from the garage into the living room. The YOLO color is "Leaf.o4" In fact, we used this color for all entries into the house.

Walking through the house, the next room is the living room. We picked a light, yet warm color for it called "Air.02." This color runs through the main living room and up the stairs into the upstairs hallway.

This is the first floor bedroom. The color is "Air.04"...a little more color than the living room.

Here is a photo of the east wall of the dining room and part of main kitchen..."leaf.04" again (we really liked that color!!)

Here is the kitchen of the casita (and Joseph, our concrete-meister)...this color is "Stone.01." In fact, the entire first floor of the casita is this color.

Here is a picture of the bedroom in the casita. The plastic has yet to be taken off the windows, but you can still sort of appreciate the warm color called "Clay.01." The floors will be a wonderful yellow-tan marmoleum which we think will go nicely together with the paint.

I don't have photos of my office but it will be the most dramatic color...Clay.03. Very close to terra cotta. Also our bedroom is a warm, yellow-ish "Grain.03", which we also really like. I couldn't get to these rooms because they were barracaded off. Joseph had cleaned off all the concrete floors the past two days and is preparing to stain them today. It will take 3 days...stain, seal, and then wax. We plan to go back on Saturday and take photos of the floor. :) Stay tuned!

Stella in winter

Well, winter has arrived in New Mexico. We had a nice dump of snow last night and I though you all might enjoy seeing Stella in all her winter glory.

I know many of you will find this hard to believe, but I was out the door by 6:20a for workout this morning! I was a little amazed myself! Supposed to get down to single digits tonight. Brrrrr!

The walls inside the house are supposedly all painted...we can hardly wait to see. I am traveling to Minnesota today so we'll stop by the house on the way to the airport. We'll post more pictures later if the painting is done.

2nd (brown) coat of stucco in process

There are three coats of stucco...the first is the scratch coat. Here's a cool picture of the scratch coat.

The second layer is the brown coat. here are a couple of photos of that.

and another pic of them applying the brown coat to the scratch coat.

The inside of the house has been primed. Today's word is that they will finish all painting inside before staining the concrete floor. Target to begin staining is Dec 12.

Other news...we are headed into some chilly night-time temperatures here down in the teens. Therefore, it is time to winterize Stella (the Airstream trailer). This means that we will no longer have running water in the trailer for washing dishes, etc. bummer. But the inconvenience of hauling water will be outweighed by the peace of mind that we won't have broken pipes!

Also, today was Karin Lynn's first day on the job at Los Poblanos (http://www.lospoblanos.com/). Very exciting!

1st coat of stucco to be completed today!

Hi all! Here are some pix that KL took this morning at the house. 2/3s of the house had been stuccoed and they were moving the scaffolding to the front so they could finish today with the first (scratch) coat. Not certain when the next coat goes on but I know this one needs to dry a bit. But it is looking so much more house-like, don't you think?! :)

back of house with first coat of stucco

Casita with first coat of stucco

Stucco scaffolding moved to front of house to finish 1st coat

Other exciting news...priming is underway inside. And next week the concrete floors will be stained. It's all good....:) Happy thanksgiving to one and all!

Stucco has started!

The stucco on the outside of the house started today. Evidently it takes them about one day to put one layer of stucco on a house the size of ours(!). They will need to let it dry some, then put layer 2 on. the final (color coat) layer will go on at the very end of the project. Here is a great picture of the stucco process starting up!