The Painting is Done!!!!!

Wow, what a relief!  The interior painting is done!  Well, almost.... We think we might need to tone down the guest bedrooms with a bit of "linen white" (I bet that color is long gone from 7 years ago) on the ceilings, but otherwise it's done!  We used a neutral color called Tusk throughout most of the house and it turned out great!  I worried that it might be too white or too pinkish or too tan or..... (Can you see a pattern here?) Anyway, they took all the plastic masking off the windows today (for the first time in over 3 weeks) and it looks great!! Whew!  It looks a lot like raw canvas for those of you who are painters.

Our wood flooring got held up in Illinois on train car due to weather and electrical outages.  It sounds like it might put us a week behind!  Grrrr....

But, maybe, just maybe, we have chosen our countertops!  What a task that was.  We saw some great granite and quartz slabs while walking what seemed to be miles through slab warehouses.  It is an experience even if you don't need some.  What a beautiful variety of natural rock formations.

Thought I would include a picture of the camellia that popped up behind the bamboo in the back yard!  It's beautiful!  I have a feeling we'll be discovering more wonderful plants as the summer goes by as our neighbors tell us that Pete, the previous owner, was quite a gardener!

We're thinking this yellow might be a little bright, but we
can always tone it down by painting the ceiling a gentle white.
(That't a trick we learned at our old house.)

We can see out the back windows again!  Yay!! Those are the railing posts
along the edge of the loft floor.  We had to quickly put them in and wrap them
before they installed the drywall!  A little lesson in planning!

The master bedroom now has a cozy feeling.  We're loving it.

Where's the huge fireplace or hole in the wall?  GONE!  We love how this
wall looks  and there is no huge air intake box at the top!  We are looking
forward to designing and finishing the new, smaller, gas fireplace surround!

Here are the new steps and a good example of the Tusk color we
chose for most of the house.  We'll add other colors as time
passes and we live in the space for a while.  (I can just hear my
friend Karin saying "Yeah, sure!"  We never repainted a wall in
our old house, while she, well Bob, repainted theirs several times!)

Okay, after walking through warehouses of granite and

quartz products, we think this is what we'll use for the countertops!

 We love all the colors in here (Silestone, Black Canyon) and the fact 

that it will provide some contrast to the maple

without overwhelming it......

We think........

The camellia I spoke of!!  These usually bloom in February! Did I mention
it was cold here this winter!!!  It snowed here Monday!  That's unusual even in
January most years!