Looking Good

It has been dry weather all week but rain is expected over the weekend so we were happy to see the plywood floor of the second stories on both the garage and house. That should keep some rain out, shouldn't it?

Standing in the kitchen looking into the great room and out to the lake. A sitting area in front of a fireplace will be at left.  French doors and dining room table on the right side. We're happy.

one color leads to another

It began with my niece Lanie showing me a photo of her bedroom color, BM Water's Edge 1635. She said it makes her feel happy. Happy is good so I tried to envision it for our new master bedroom and bath.   As I continue with this story, keep in mind that neither of the paint samples shown above is true to color but it will give you the idea.

As a test, I painted my current studio this lovely grayed blue and I like it a lot. But, I'm not sold on how the two large walls in the master would look in this color - I think it might be too much. How about if I use it in the bath only where each large wall space is broken with Sherwin Williams (SW) Dover White 6385 window and door trim? That leaves me still needing a color for the master bedroom walls.

Then, while playing with my SW color fan, I came across the color 6170. I love it! I do not love the name of it. As much as I loved the words Water's Edge, I dislike the words Techno Gray. Techno? Really? What is techno? Either a 1980's abbreviation of the word technological or a style of fast, heavy electronic dance music, typically with few or no vocals. Huh? I will refer to it as 6170 and try to forget the name Sherwin Williams gave it.

 

Would the master bedroom look good that color? I needed another test. My laundry room, which also serves as our back entry/mudroom will need painting before we can rent this house so I bought a gallon of SW 6170 and started painting over the gold/orange walls. Jay's first comment was that he missed a bright entry so I plan to paint the new house entry Ralph Lauren Mexico City Yellow (the color of our upstairs bathroom). I finished the laundry room this morning and both Jay and I love the color. However, when I stand in the laundry room and look into my blue studio, these two colors aren't great together for the master bedroom and bath.

SW 6170 is a little lighter and cooler than the color I planned to paint the great room so I think we will use it there with the main floor trim color, SW Navajo White 6126. Meanwhile, I'm thinking about BM Water's Edge as the exterior color for the french doors on our new house.

The results of the two tests:

BM Water's Edge 1635 - forget the master bath, use this color for the exterior of french doors. I will like the way the 12 lite panes will break up the color.

SW 6170 Blue/Green/Gray (Techno) - Great Room, main floor

SW match for Ralph Lauren Mexico City Yellow IB65 - Entry, main floor

I still need a master suite color. I'm eyeing our guest bedroom for a test!

thinking about water

A cold, bright mid-November morning. Thoughts on water.

what a difference a day makes

November 15, 2014 Mill Pond Cottage Garage

Our Saturday morning visit and we were surprised and happy to see the framers working - perhaps to catch us back up to schedule after the power outage day. Jay's garage has exterior walls now.

November 15, 2014 Mill Pond Cottage Studio

 Surprise! The house had three exterior walls when we arrived. This is the view approaching the house. The doors and windows West wall belong to my Studio.

November 15, 2014 Mill Pond Cottage, three exterior walls

Jay and Annie walking around in the house on this bright, cold November morning.

November 15, 2014 Mill Pond Cottage Garage, West, North and East walls

November 15, 2014 Mill Pond Cottage view from the dock

The silt fencing has moved toward the lake and it looks like our lawn dirt has been cleaned up and graded. Neighbor Marlene's pedal boat has drifted over to our dock and neighbors Marci and Ken will paint their house two beautiful shades of gray soon. Standing on the dock, our garage at left and house near the big maple are beginning to look at home here.

November 15, 2014 Mill Pond Cottage lake view

Power On

It is sooo exciting and encouraging to see upright lumber! The power is back and the first walls up are the garage. Yay!

North side of the garage, first floor.

The house has a floor!

Power Out

The past two days have been cold and very windy in our area. As I was counting our blessings that we still have power here at home, we received news that our building site has been without power since yesterday. The plan is to rent a big generator to power the framer's tools so we won't lose our crew to another project.

As of 4:30 p.m., crews have restored power to more than 188,000 Puget Sound Energy customers. Around 26,000 customers remain without power as of 5:15 p.m. The map above shows our building site as the red dot. The other markers are power outages.

Sunday visit November 9, 2014

A dark and rainy November Sunday afternoon at Lake Sawyer. After a couple days of framing it looks like all the floor joists are in and the slab in Jay's garage is marked for interior walls and stairs to the second floor.

Day 2 of Framing

 

Lumber! I love it. My father was a carpenter and I have fond memories of the smell and feel of lumber. I even drew pictures on his lumber scraps. This photo was taken standing at the NE corner of the house. You can see the home of our neighbors Marci and Ken to the South. They are about three months ahead of us in the building process. The change of direction of the floor joists in the great room is where the fireplace will be.

This photo is looking North and gives an idea of how our house sits in comparison to our North neighbors, Marlene and Matt.

These pillars look like free standing space modules (if you read my previous post) but actually they are the supports for the sky bridge that connects the second story of our house to the second story of Jay's garage. Torrential downpour this morning so we have standing water on the new garage cement slab and lots of lovely mud. Click on these photos to enlarge. Annie found a plastic water bottle.

Let the framing begin!

Good news today! Framing has begun. Our builder, Chris, encouraged us to visit often because each day there are big changes. I hope we can go take a look (and take photos) tomorrow.

A little about the Craftsman Cottage style of our house. In the beginning, we considered a very modern style - boxy with big expanses of glass and clean lines. Then we fell in love with our old favorite, the Craftsman - at least it will look like that from the outside. The design of the inside of the house began based on duplicating the kitchen remodel NCompass did for us three years ago when we thought we were going to stay in our current house forever. We love our cherry cabinets (Baywood) and our stainless KitchenAid french door refrigerator and dishwasher. I do not love my JennAir downdraft range. The gas burners are great but I have never bonded with the gas oven. My new range will be dual fuel so I'll have my electric oven back.

I'm working on selecting exterior paint colors; the interior colors will be much easier to imagine when we have walls. I knew I wanted the exterior of the house to be a sagey green and I love the Sherwin Williams color, 6207 Retreat. While looking at Pinterest photos with that color, I found a blog called Life on Sunset Hill. The blog is several years old and is about building a home in the Ballard neighborhood of Seattle. Unfortunately, most of the blog images are missing which prompted me to email the blog author, Cheryl. She graciously sent me personal images of the house so I could see the color. Yesterday Jay and I were in Ballard and I had a chance to see the house in person. A beautiful home and I love the color!

I just finished painting my studio Sherwin Williams 1635 Water's Edge and love it. I did this as a test to see if I would like that color for the Master bath. I think the Master bedroom will be a little lighter, maybe 1634 Santorini Blue, the same color planned for a ribbon of color detail as shown on the sketch above. The main trim color will be 6385 Dover White. Our original plan was to have the cedar shingles on the house be natural cedar color but I am struggling with the fact that they will eventually fade and turn gray so my latest plan is to just paint them the main body color. Any or all of this may change.

Another cancelled inspection

The city cancelled our garage slab inspection for Monday and they don't inspect on Tuesday so that puts us out until Wednesday for an inspection. A few days doesn't sound like much of a delay but when you look at it against a schedule of people and equipment, it is frustrating.

The stump is gone and space modules

The stump grinder guy was at the property Friday and ground down/dug out the stump from the maple tree that grew on the property line between us and our neighbors. He also got rid of stumps along our North property line (that is left in this photo) so our Utilities can come in. We passed our inspection and have back fill. I'll see it in person today and take more photos to post.

When I first asked Jay what those round cement things are, he told me they were space modules. Sounded reasonable to me. They take up space and provide support? But, when he heard me repeat the words as I do when I want to remember exactly so I can post the information to this blog...our space modules are in!... he realized he should tell me the truth - that he doesn't know what they are called.

Backfill and waiting

I was away for the weekend with the women of our family for our 30th annual Women's Weekend. Jay and Annie went to the property to see the progress. Looks like we have some back fill! But, now we are waiting again...the city can't get there to inspect until Wednesday.

forms off

Mill Pond Cottage October 8, 2014

Today, late afternoon, Jay decided to drive out to the lake to work on lily pad removal. Annie and I went along. The forms are off the foundation and it looks very beautiful. Utilities and back filling comes next.

Foundation!

Mill Pond Cottage Foundation 10-5-2014

Mill Pond Cottage Foundation 10-5-2014

Foundation Forms

October 2, 2014 Foundation forms for our house

October 2, 2014 house and detached garage

October 2, 2014 detached garage

We are so pleased with the way Chris and Mike of cMac are moving this along and we are grateful for dry weather for their crew.

Sewer Permit

Another step forward, today we got our sewer permit. Last mention of Soos Creek Water and Sewer was in my post of January 29.  Thank you Lynn and Stephanie for your help.

Looking back

I just found these photos of our property taken in the summer of 2013, days before we started clearing.  All are taken from the road: the top one is looking south, the bottom one looking north. The center one shows our fence and the driveway. The property had been neglected for 20+ years and we were excited to liberate it. Lots of trash, ground bees and red and black biting ants lived there.

Wheee...

Wheee...here we go! Suddenly, our new home is materializing. A magical time.  For this photo I'm standing where the detached garage will be. That's the hole for the house closer to the lake, near our North property line. We are very pleased that we chose builder Chris Welch and cMac to make our dream come true.

Orange: fall and progress

The first fall leaves from our big maple match the bright orange stakes that mark the perimeter of our house - signs of fall and progress. We met our builder Chris and his Superintendent, Mike at the lake this morning (in the rain) to review positioning of the house. A slight adjustment from the original plan will give us a great view of the lake but minimal sight lines to the next door neighbor. Each lot is only 50 feet wide at the water's edge so it is important for everyone to be considerate of their neighbor's privacy. The excavator should be there tomorrow. I'll be writing much more about our builder and his team in coming posts. We are beyond excited.

Finally!

Hard to believe...we FINALLY have a building permit and can move forward! This is the front of the house, which I think of as the back of the house because it faces the street, not the lake. These french doors of my studio will open onto a private courtyard. Our excitement about this project is renewed. It has been a very long, hot, lake-less summer, waiting.

September 18 Good News

When all is said and done, farewell to summer yesterdays. We are happy today after receiving the good news that we can finally begin to build.

Sept. 6, 2014 marking stumps

A beautiful Saturday at the lake. We marked stumps for the stump grinder. The neighbor's house is looking great!

One Year Anniversary

It was one year ago today that we signed the papers to purchase our Lake Sawyer property. After the initial clean up of trash and the demolition of the cabin, there hasn't been much for us to do there. The property has just been sitting while we found a house designer, designed the house, decided upon a builder, then applied for the building permit. Today Jay mowed while I ran the weed eater. Annie spent most of the day on a long cable. We all look forward to a fence for her. My enthusiasm for the property has been rekindled. I spread poppy seeds for blooms next summer.

Imagine

Imagine our dog, Annie, stepping off our porch onto the grass on her way to the lake. Meanwhile, that is real-life progress on our neighbor's house.

progress...but not ours

Life goes on for the neighbors but we are still waiting for our building permit to be issued so our builder can begin. In a few days it will be four months that we have been waiting since we submitted on April 9, 2014.