Front steps

We knew the entire house, including the front steps, would be made of brick.  This is proof that these aren't going anywhere!  They are built on a concrete slab with lots of reinforced concrete block.

Driveway

These photos show the layout of the driveway.  We were blessed to have a good friend do the driveway and sidewalks.  He actually bought the paving business from my husband's father several years ago.

This seemed like something that would be easy and quick, but ended up causing some conflict.  I knew I wanted brick spacers in the driveway and sidewalks, and we had plenty of bricks left over, so that part was easy.  How the driveway curved and connected to the sidewalks was a bigger challenge.  Since we were using concrete, we couldn't change our minds!

Finishing the floors

April 2012 still

One day the builder said we needed to go look at the stain samples and choose one that day.  Good thing I had a time limit!  However, this was not a hard choice. My decorator was out of town so my husband and I were on our own.  We done good!  There were about six colors when I got to the house but two looked just like the rough floor.  I knew I wanted a dark stain and always really wanted Brazilian cherry floors, but everyone (my uncle, my builder, etc.) talked me out of that because not only because it is costly but it apparently discolors.  They said you can't move furniture or rugs, etc., because there would be shadows.

The top photo is Will's room, which turned out gorgeous with the reclaimed heart pine flooring.  The study is also pine and it has an interesting background story. My in-laws built in 1989 and had a lot of their pine flooring leftover (which they stored behind a sheetrock panel), so we decided to do the study with the pine.  Will decided he would prefer wood to carpet (his sisters demanded carpet!) for his bedroom since it may help with his allergies - and it looks good!  I have been told that pine is soft and easily scratched, so it would not have been good for the high traffic areas.  We used 5" oak for the foyer, dining room, great room, halls, stairs, powder room, and master bedroom. The bottom photo is the master bedroom, although it's a little dark and hard to see the actual color.  The floors are gorgeous and I am not bothered at all by the two types of wood as I had feared.  We used the same stain on both although the pine takes the stain differently. Absolutely beautiful!  The Lord has truly made me feel,
SEW Blessed

May 2012

This is a photo of the elevator guys taking up bucket after bucket of (apparently) very heavy hydraulic fluid.  I found this so ironic since they had to go up two flights of stairs to carry each bucket so that the elevator could then work, hence making this job tons easier!

Master bath countertop

April 2012

The cabinet samples and tile samples went with me everywhere!  I looked at slab after slab of marble and granite for months, it seems.  I went all over Savannah and to South Carolina.  We even went to North Carolina on a business trip and went to a stone warehouse.  I immediately found my kitchen countertop at a huge stone warehouse about the size of 4 football fields when I found a gorgeous slab of stone that had no black going through it.  I had not realized that almost all granite has black veins, but my husband wanted granite in the kitchen and I was fine with that. (Kitchen photos later).  The marble I originally chose for the master bath was Daino Royale and I thought it was gorgeous.  At one point, many trips to my favorite stone place later, I walked past a slab and thought, "I hope that's not what I picked out for my bathroom", went back and looked, and it was, in fact.  I changed to Crema Marfil, which is beautiful, but eventually changed to the one above because it looked so much better with the floor and cabinets.  Turns out it is also botticino marble.  That concerned me because I thought it may be too much, but it all looks beautiful together.

Colors

Choosing paint colors was something I was dreading.  I have a hard time making decisions (just ask my builder).  However, my decorator told me she was "great with colors" and she was right!  When I saw the color wheel with about 2,000 colors, my heart sank.  She said not to worry because there were only a few "good" colors.  She knows I like things neutral and I told her I like blue, yellow, white, and beige, beige, beige!  Since my current house has been yellow for years, I was leaning towards not using yellow in the new house.  My decorator did talk me into painting the kitchen a bluish/gray shade called Icecap - she said I needed a little color!  It is so pretty and we all love it.  The majority of the house is Featherdown and the master, Sarah's, and Will's rooms are Bone White (which is actually creamy beige), but those two look alike.  For Elizabeth's bedroom and bathroom, we wanted a very pale blue that leans toward gray (so the bathroom marble would match) and ended up using Fanfare.  It was just what Elizabeth wanted and I love it, too.  The only thing that didn't work out was that we painted the great room Icecap and the fireplace looked like it clashed with the cabinets, and I didn't care for the foyer/dining room being beige and the great room blue, so we changed it later.  Great choices again!

Cabinets

We have been blessed to have my uncle do our cabinets.  He got us good prices on very nice cabinets and installed them ahead of schedule.  Did I mention he owns a cabinet shop?
The first photo is the master bathroom cabinets sitting in the master bedroom for the time being.
The middle is the kitchen (love the paint color!) and the bottom is Will's bathroom cabinet sitting in his bedroom.
Great choices here!