FINALLY, an update!

Life has just been a ball of crazy lately, and although I am really disappointed in myself for not updating sooner, I am also pulling a billion cards, including: pregnancy, going on maternity leave, living between the house and the apartment, and the craziness of life in general.
Since my last post, there have been quite a few updates.  Most importantly, Joern and I spent our first night in the house last Friday.  We intended on it being a "sleepover," and well, it is so darn warm and cuddly in here, we have stayed every night since last Friday.  No, we haven't officially moved in, there is still a ton of stuff in our apartment, and its kind of weird, because I feel like we're cheating on the apartment, but it is so nice here!  Of course, the pregnancy hormones aren't helping, and every time we run back to the apartment to pick up something, I leave in tears, because I am sure going to miss that little place.  But, I'll leave all that for a tribute post.  For now, I'll focus on the good stuff:  the house!
I think that its easier just to go room by room, instead of doing anything chronological, so I'll start :)
Kitchen:

Dining Area:

Living Room:

The tables are actually our end tables, and serving as our temporary coffee table.  The chair is only in the corner because it was in the way.  But, I kind of like the chair in the corner when its just us.

Master Bedroom:

For the record, I normally always iron our bedding, but it just wasn't in the cards last weekend.  This week's bedding will be ironed, and I'll post a new picture.

The second picture is of the exterior blinds- love!

Master bath:

Joern painted the ceiling in the shower and installed the lights.  Then, the plumbers came and installed the rain showerheads.  We just need the shower door, but I have to say, I adore our over-the-top shower!

And yes, we need to buy something for storing our toiletries!

Erbse's room:

Tee Hee, two showers threw up in Erbse's room.  We are desperate for the furniture to arrive.  Its currently in the UK awaiting customs clearence.  Fingers crossed its here in the next week or so!

Staircase:

The lights for the stairs have been installed.

And much to my horrified surprise, and Joern's delight:

Oh my dear lord, they change colors!  I don't have any clue of who okayed these, and when, but this was NOT my decision!

Cellar, well, actually the whole house:

It seems like a slightly dumb picture, and its hard to know what you're looking for here, but the central vac is installed and useable!

The house is about 90% liveable.  It is really difficult living without countertops, working water in the kitchen, or a working stove, which made for a rather sad Thanksgiving this year.  But really, we're getting there.  We can sleep comfortably, the heat is working better than we ever expected, and we have one semi-private bathroom.  I'm looking forward to the first week of December, when we are expecting our interior doors, and next week when the rest of our exterior blinds are installed, and I can use the toilet in the powder room (hooray! no more running up to the master bath 20 times a day when I have to go to the bathroom!)

Kitchen! Day 1

Our kitchen actually arrived yesterday!  Everyone, dance with me!!!!  Partay time! 

The delivery guys brought the kitchen in the morning, and the carpenter came to install in the afternoon, I didn't get to the house until last night around 5, and I must say, I was totally impressed with what I found.

And of course, we had to take cheesy photos of us in the kitchen:



But the breakfast wall is pretty much installed:

What was super-exciting here is that the cabinets under the appliances all have roll-out shelves.  I love the thought that the shelves can roll out because there is nothing I can stand less than cabinets that you have to root through to find things.  This is so exciting!

I also had to tour our living room, because it was full of goodies:

Here are a few of the more exciting components:

The top picture is our range hood, and the bottom is our farmhouse sink!

I also snapped a picture of the makeshift workshop the carpenter set up in the dining room.  Pretty cool!



We did have a mini-problem though.  There is a visual break at the end of the kitchen on the side of the "breakfast wall," and a cork line between the kitchen floor and dining room floor.  The problem is that this creates a very easy to see "end" of the kitchen.  But, there was a cabinet that went beyond this line, on the opposite "window wall," which looked like we had a cabinet spilling into the dining room.  Plus, we weren't sure if it would be taking up too much room in the dining area. 

We brought up our concern with the carpenter, who offered to go with us to pick up the dining table, so that we could make a best-informed decision as to wether or not to nix the extra cabinet.



We were impressed that the table does fit nicely.  But, that little white cabinet next to the dishwasher just felt like it was "creeping in" to the dining area.  We decided to nix it, which left us with a new dilema:

We're not entirely certain what to do with the extra wall space past the dishwasher.  Of course, the side of the dishwasher will get covered, and the countertop will end at the end of the dishwasher, but now we have this little wall.  Here's what we're considering:

1.  Remove the extra tiles, and just paint.

2.  Put a glass plate on the wall to cover the wall and prevent splashes on the wall.

3.  Install a slab of granite on the wall that matches the countertops.  Hmm, this isn't my favorite choice.

4.  My new thought today:  build a mini- wall out of drywall along the side of the dishwasher.  We would then remove the tile and it would make the dining area look a little more like a room.  We would also make the wall a little higher than the countertop, creating a definite end, and protecting the other side of the wall from splashes. 

We need to decide in the next few hours what to do, because the plaster guys are coming today and tomorrow to finish up.  Oy!