Countdown Catchup, Landscaping, and Ceiling Fans Galore

Note:  PM continues to pull thru - Granite Breakfast Bar has been re-cut and installed and this time it is solidly in place.

#8 - Walk-in Pantry - This ties in with the Organization.  In our existing house we have "pantry" stuff all over the place...in a standalone cabinet in our breakfast room, in the laundry room on shelves and in the garage.  We are looking forward to all the space right off the kitchen to organize it all...no more stacking stuff on top of other things just to keep it sort of close by.

#7 - Man Cave with a Bar and Space - When we finished the basement in our existing house we purchased a front bar and had a custom back bar made, moved our family room furniture to the basement, and bought a 45" Mitsubishi that was HDTV ready before there was such a thing.  However, the basement did not have heat or AC so we installed a little electric fireplace which provided "some" heat in the winter and had the fan running in the summer to keep it comfortable...not too bad a Man Cave, but the new one is beyond expectations...our PM has done a fantastic job of taking the bar design and building it to include the column that is right in the area...he added filler pieces to the base cabinets so they go right up to the column and he had the top granite made longer so it extends out and curves around to run right into the column...really really nice job...throw in a nice set of comfy couches, a 60" Plasma, a pub table, and awesome surround speakers...well lets just say the Man might not come upstairs!!!

#6 - Solarium - When we decided to get the solarium it was more to get the storage space underneath then it was for the actual Solarium...even though we both loved the room and all the windows, we just didn't really know what we were going to do with it...well now we know...it's going to have a wine bar theme and we have already been in the room and watched some gorgeous sunsets.  While the furniture and decor is very much up in the air for this room, the theme has us very very excited for what the end result will be.

#5 - Sunroom - This is truly one of our favorite rooms in the house.  Being at the back of the house, the sun will come up on that side of the house...we are looking forward to sitting there drinking a cup of coffee, reading a book, or just relaxing listening to some music.

We were at the house today and there is still a bunch of work to do and TONS of cleaning....there is blue tap all over the place and we found more things that need tape.  The hood vent over the stove is now installed but the venting needs some sort of cowling installed.  The foyer light fixture is still not in.  The basement bathroom fixture and pub table light have finally arrived so they can get installed.  One base cabinet has the wrong color base trim installed so that will need rework.  Correct Kitchen Faucet has not yet come in.  All of this quite easily could be completed before Thursday, but the item that has us most concerned is the 3rd inspection failure for the gas line.  It has yet to pass the pressure test and we are not sure what the problem is.  That's a pretty important thing to get right!!!

Landscaping - We finally got RH to agree to allow us to have our own design installed and at the time they agreed to give us a credit for the "landscape package".  The credit they offered was ridiculously small....especially since it was supposed to cover 33 shrubs, installing shrub beds, and mulching it all.  Needless to say we told them to forget it and just deliver the 33 shrubs and we will see if we can figure out how to use them...we do not have the backyard yet figured out, but perhaps we can figure out something to do with some of them around the back of the house.  As for our actually landscaping, we will be having a sprinkler system installed, our shrub design with trees(RH had no trees included at all) and some accent lighting.  We finalized plans for our fence and submitted that to the HOA for approval.  We are also having a few of our downspouts run underground and extended out away from the house and shrub beds with popup diffusers on the end to control the water flow.

Ceiling Fans - WOW - we spent the afternoon trying to make decisions on all the ceiling fans we need...9 in total...after many hours at the orange and blue stores we finally loaded up the car with 8 fans...made decisions about all but the master bedroom and we think we have that one picked out too, but that meant another trip back to the orange store and we were too tired and hungry at that point!!!

Thats it for now...Go Phillies...Go Eagles...Go Hawkeyes....Happy Building!!!