You can see carpenter Tim hard at work putting the boards in place to finish the closed portion. Screens aren’t in, they’ll go in as one of the very last steps.

The front and back porch are integral pieces of the house, not add-ons that came later. We intend to spend substantial time outdoors, and both porches are concieved as outdoor rooms connecting our house to the property. The porches are as well-equipped as the interior rooms, with speaker connections, plenty of power outlets and lighting, the ceiling fan in the back, and network access via wireless access points in the attic.

Call this project “almost finished.” The horizontal beam you see needs to be covered, and that will be done with vertical planks like the ones at the bottom, with a cap to protect the endgrain. We’ll add a screen door near the house on the right side also.

Enough yapping, let’s see some pictures of this:

Having the tiles mostly intact is a big win for me. It took some forethought, but we were pretty adamant about it early on. Even if you use ceramic tile, having as few cut down tiles as possible really adds to the look of a fireplace.

So here’s some tile pictures. Mouse over them to see the description.

Overall, we’re pretty happy with how the tile came out. We briefly considered DIY, but there’s no way I could have done as nice a job as these installers did. A lot of money went into this, but the interest that the different textures added to the various rooms was well worth it.

The painters wanted $300 for each additional color, so $600 to get the kids’ rooms painted. What we worked out ultimately was the painters primed the rooms, bought the paint in the colors we wanted, and I did the painting. It took about two full days, plus an hour or so to do touchup later. What a deal.

Actually, since they primed the walls, and the trim was painted already, it wan’t too much hassle, definietly less than repainting an existing house (don’t even get me started). So we were all cool, and the painter foreman offered me a job after he saw my work, so it couldn’t have been that bad a job, right?

So here’s the pictures. Mouse over them to see the description.

We upgraded to eggshell finish paint for the improved durability. That was an expensive upgrade, but with two kids I don’t regret it. We’ve consistently made choices that are intended to make maintenance easier. So anyway, you don’t want to read my writing about what color the walls are, you want to see the photos, I know. As always, mouse over a photo for some additional explanation.

Taking pictures of white stuff is hard, okay? Hopefully what will show through is that the semi-gloss texture of the trim is made quite a bit more convincing by the incredible smoothness of the surfaces beneath it. This represents several man-days of work, of which probably 90% or more was prep.

As you can see in the last few pics, the trim is now taped off and the walls are being prepped and primed. With the wall color on, you’ll really see the trim pop.

Welcome to my kitchen. The first picture is the overall look, then I’ll take you around the various cabinets.

The finish on the kitchen cabinets adds so much depth and richness to the wood, it’s remarkable. I’m so glad we chose not to stain the cabinets. The pictures make it look a bit more glossy than it is in real life, just due to the flash glare. This is a semi-gloss lacquer.

The utility room cabinets and vanities aren’t painted yet, but the painters are priming them now with a spray-applied alkyd primer. They’ll get a semi-gloss white to match the trim.

We chose laminate countertops as a way to conserve money while leaving the upgrade path open for the future. Sure I’d like a solid-surface countertop, but sacrificing cabinetry to get it didn’t make sense. This way I can go back and upgrade later, but the cabinets are not going to have to be chnged a bit.

First, the kitchen:

And then the vanities and utility cabinets:

We did a “kitchen design” with the people in the Home Depot and at Lowe’s and got a bid on thir mid-grade, semi-custom cabinets. The custom cabinets from Shamrock were more cost-effective and definitely better constructed in my opinion. Plus they were installed by Shamrock, not a third-party contractor. I’m very high on craftsmanship, and I have to say from that perspective, I’m really pleased with our cabinets from Shamrock.

I have taken hundreds of pictures of our cabinets, but I’ll try to refrain from overwhelming you, and we’ll just hit the highlights here. Not everything is done yet (no trim is on) but you can see the door style we picked. I really liked the fact that you will not see end grain in the cabinets doors, because they are mitered. There’s a gentle roundover to the rails that is very subtle, and unlike any cabinet doors I’ve seen. These kitchen cabinets are made of Alder, and I plan to finish them natural.

Shamrock also made our vanities and utility room cabinets. Other than the guest bath vanity, we got paint grade, so we used MDF doors. What’s real impressive is that the face frames are still hardwood, and the cabinets are really well made. Our utility room will be positively filled with cabinets–two pantry cabinets, plus a spot to tuck a fridge in, with cabinets running above all those, and we can even stack baskets on top of those for more storage. On the opposite wall, there will be cabinets over the washer and dryer. I’m told you can’t have too much cabinet storage.