Progress is Real

Hello everyone! Today is a work holiday for me, so I am going to take this time to get you all caught up on what’s been happening around the “estate”. Our carpenter, Doug, has been hard at work. The addition and new garage are almost fully framed, and completely sheeted. This means that roofing (should start this week), windows, and siding are not far behind. We have been so very lucky and blessed with warm fall temperatures and dry conditions that Doug, and his partners, Walt and Bill, have been full speed ahead on the exterior parts of the project. The progress will make our lender happy as they have been worried about work getting stalled due to Minnesota weather. According to the 10-day forecast though, we still have many more warm and dry days ahead. The progress is truly real as we watch our vision come to light, even if for right now it’s only lumber that we see. I thought that today, I would take you through each structure so that you can visualize what is to come. For this post, I will focus on the vision that we have for the new addition.

This new living space will feature the family room, master suite, and the fourth bedroom/office space. Although about 30% smaller than we had originally planned, we are still getting all the rooms that we wanted, they are just a little smaller. The photo above is a glimpse of what things looked like after a couple of days of Doug being onsite.

We will call this the before photo of our master bath. It will be a bit smaller than the master bath in our previous house, but it helped us gain space in the family room where we will spend most of our time. We’ve decided on large white floor tiles in glacier with gray grout to help open the space and will likely do white walls. To bring color to the room, I am wanting to do a shower that has some color. We are toying with a white subway tile and black grout, but are unsure as of yet. We know we need to get moving to also pick out the vanity, sinks, faucets and lighting, but it’s so hard to visualize a space when we are still looking at studs. We are excited that we will have an awning window that faces east that will give us some natural light in this space.

The master closet is definitely smaller than we had hoped, but in the end we realized that we had to allocate the spaces we had to the most important areas. So we borrowed space from the closet to give the master bath a bit more room and to keep the fourth bedroom/office space intact. Jamie is already starting to strategize built-ins to help make the most of the space. This room too will have a small awning window facing north. It won’t open to let air in, but Jamie and I love natural light and so we tried to get windows in almost every space.

I will have to maximize this space through creative furniture use. The room is too small for a traditional bed and closet, so I am planning a loveseat that houses a pullout bed with a higher-end mattress under the north-facing window and a wardrobe that can serve as storage and desk space. It will serve us well as a bonus sleeping space when the kids are all home at the holidays or if someone just needs to escape the chaos. I had planned to dedicate this space to my sewing and crafting, but it’s better served for family use right now.

Our master bedroom will be wider than it is deep and will be perfect for the type of oasis I hope to create here. Lots of light will come in through the two large east-facing windows, and will brighten room along with the white-ish paint we will use. As far as linens, I am still deciding. I love the classic look of white on the bed, but our three dogs constantly remind me of why I can’t own anything white right now. We have some elements that we know will be part of the room (we have this awesome yellow arm chair that I adore), but we are still planning the bedding in all of the rooms, really. I’m excited to see how this space comes together.

Lastly, we end in the family room. This large room will have light coming from the north and west. The west windows will flank the TV and what we had hoped would be a fireplace. However, due to the size of our TV and our decision to go with 8 foot ceilings, we won't have room for a fireplace or at least one that wouldn’t look out of place on that wall. As a compromise, I opted to do an indoor fireplace from our favorite fireplace vendor, Solo Stove. We own and have gifted several of their outdoor items, and are now going to try one of their indoor items. The indoor fireplace will be a perfect addition to the new construction and will still give us the ambiance and warmth that we want in this space. We are excited for it to arrive this week, but will have to wait a while to put it into use.

The other features of this room include two large west-facing windows that will give us a view of the lake and this room will also be the connection the kitchen and the original house. We are working hard to create a seamless transition from old to new by keeping the flooring the same throughout the whole house (the bathroom and laundry room will have tile). We have decided to go with engineered hardwood from Hallmark Floors. It was the closest to hardwood that we could get, knowing that we couldn’t have traditional hardwood like we’ve had in everyone one of our previous homes. We chose a dark stained red oak that will stand out against our white-ish walls (right now I am loving Benjamin Moore’s Pale Oak which is part of the their Forest Finds color palette) and the accent colors from our linens, houseplants, and furniture.

Everyday brings us closer to the finish product, and we are excited to share our journey with you all. Before long this closed in wood structure will look more and more like a home. Take care!

Fall Colors, Northern Lights, and Kittens

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