Time Flies

It doesn't seem like it, but we've been in the house for over 5 weeks. We're really enjoying the house so far. We've found a few things that need fixed/addressed, but nothing major. We're still getting used to living on this side of the city and so far away from Downtown. Dan's adjusted to his commute, but I'm pretty much late to every meeting I've had in the city.

We have really great next door neighbors that we've hung out with a few times and everyone else on the street seems really friendly too. The lots on our street are selling at a pretty steady pace, and from what we've heard they expect to sell out in the summer and finish building by the end of the year.

The work to repair all of the damage from the kitchen flood is finally in progress. The drywall in the basement was repaired and repainted last week, but there are a few spots they have to touch-up still this week (mostly in the stairwell).
The carpet in this room still needs to be replaced and the drywall dust needs to be cleaned off of everything, but at this point Dan is going to start setting everything up.We went with Restoration Hardware paint in "Stone" in the subtle velvet finish. The painters said the quality of the paint was really good, but I think when we paint upstairs we'll have everything color matched at Sherwin Williams.We were both really pleased with how the color came out. I even suggested using this color on the 1st floor too, but Dan wasn't thrilled with having to "share his color," so we'll see.

I'm still undecided on paint colors. I think I'm going to put a medium gray on both the top and bottom of the chair rail in my office. In the dining room we're either going to do a two-tone bluish gray or two-tone greenish gray (eventually I'd like to wallpaper part of this room). I'm leaning towards doing the hallway in a different color than the family room, kitchen and mudroom.
My initial choice of Silver Sage is now my #2, but still Dan's favorite for the majority of the 1st floor. I'm afraid it will blend in to the couches and make everything look washed out.I'd like to make a decision on this before the new flooring is installed. We ended up going with the same carpet we already had, but we're changing the wood. Initially we had the standard 2.25" Gunstock Oak. We're replacing it with a 3.75" bamboo. The color is similar to what we have already (although a little less orange), but we're getting the wider plank that I initially wanted. I really like what we selected. When I first mentioned bamboo, Dan was afraid it would look like a yoga studio, or Ikea. But once we started looking at the different options, we were able to find something that had the look we wanted without screaming "bamboo."
It's been a while since my last post, so here are a few shots of the unpacked kitchen.
The mudroom in the Milan is pretty small and has 3 doors that open in different directions (garage, basement and powder room). I found this piece at Pier 1 and it fit perfectly (especially around the Guardian keypad and light switches).
We had a storm door installed last week too. I hated that we got no natural light in the front hallway because of the front door, so I'm really happy with the new door.
Our yard is still a mess. We had a drainage issue at the back of our back yard that they started to address yesterday. They installed a slope drain and a yard drain, so hopefully that will help (they're actually doing this to all 4 houses that sit at the bottom of this hillside). We haven't really been able to walk into the back yard at all yet because it has been so muddy. I don't think I've ever posted a picture of the outdoor speaker Guardian installed, I haven't had a chance to test it out while standing in the yard, but from the kitchen, it sounds pretty good.
Back to the yard... The pool of water in this pic has been here since we moved in.
I'm pretty sure they installed a french drain where the mud pool was and filled it with gravel. You can see the yard drain they installed right where the guys are standing. This is tied into the drain that our gutters are connected to (I think).They dumped a ton of dirt and started to level the yard, so as of today it looks like this...
To my surprise they also started leveling the front yard too. Although, I don't like that they didn't remove the huge pieces of concrete from the front, instead they just covered it with dirt.
They've poured a few sidewalks recently, so hopefully ours isn't too far off. I can't wait until we have grass too, but from what the PM said that's another few weeks away.