Construction has been delayed (surprise, surprise) for quite some time due to our local utility company, PNM, refusing to do their job. This has meant deep, open trenches and sky-high mountains of dirt blocking the path to our house. No one has been able to do any work, interior or exterior.
Somehow, Sexy Nerd and I still managed to get inside without any trouble. We were even able to move in a long, cumbersome vanity for the guest bathroom, as well as all of the cabinets Sexy Nerd built for my closet (a ton of cabinets...I may have gotten carried away), even though every member of the construction crew was helpless to access the house until PNM arrived. Weird how that works, isn't it?
Not to complain though, because guess what? PNM has finally come and gone and the trenches have been filled!
If you can handle more construction drama, check out The Best Kitchen (N)Ever. *sigh*
Somehow, Sexy Nerd and I still managed to get inside without any trouble. We were even able to move in a long, cumbersome vanity for the guest bathroom, as well as all of the cabinets Sexy Nerd built for my closet (a ton of cabinets...I may have gotten carried away), even though every member of the construction crew was helpless to access the house until PNM arrived. Weird how that works, isn't it?
Not to complain though, because guess what? PNM has finally come and gone and the trenches have been filled!
After
So beautiful.
Before
Ack!
If I'd started with this hideous photo, in typical Before & After fashion, you never would have clicked the link to this kick-@ss blog post. You're welcome.
There's even more good news. After a million years, our house has finally been stuccoed!
Behold, our mountain dream house in all her chocolatey glory.
It's beginning to look like the plan!
Truth be told, it's not the dark, rich brown we'd wanted. Our new HOA wouldn't go for that. (Or so our builder says. They also said "Oh, I haven't gotten you a sample board of the color yet?" and then finally brought one for our approval many weeks later when it was too late to change the color anyway.) After so much waiting though, we'd be happy to have a lime green house.
I bet our Hersheys-colored stucco would seem awesome to the HOA if that had happened.
The color complements the tongue-and-groove on the covered patio nicely. Just wait until we install the light fixtures over these and the other exterior windows.
They're all sunshine yellow. The HOA may have overlooked that little detail when they approved our plan.
Oh, and guess what else?
We have a real garage door! Not like that phoney baloney garage door, patched together with scraps, that everyone kept complimenting us on.
I will never trust you people again, BTW. You know who you are, garage door flatterers.
Our interior doors might even be installed soon. See them stacked in the garage, ready to be painted dark blue and put to use? Any moment now.
Actually, our doors have been sitting there for months. Our construction crew is a tease.
Sort of a jerk, too.
Everything related to the construction process ticks me off lately and the tile is no exception. The crew has created little tables out of our tile all over the house. It's not a big deal and I'm sure it's a common practice when laying tile and, really, it's even sort of clever. But I paid more than $6 per square foot for these 8x36" tiles. I didn't buy them to use as a table!
That said, we're really happy with how the floor is turning out, which is a textured wood-look tile that goes throughout most of the house.
It's Crossville SpeakEasy in Sweet Georgia Brown.
Here it is, all dirty and gross.
Just wait until you see it clean. These photos don't do the tile justice.
While we're on the subject of bad photos, the brick wall in our laughably tall bathroom (literally - people look up and laugh) looks amazing. It's also impossible to photograph.
Our skylights certainly smile for the camera though.
My closet cabinets? Not so much.
Our kitchen cabinets? Yes...I think. There are upper cabinets coming and I'm still on the fence about how this is going to look. The drawer fronts you see here are all being redone and the island is not installed straight. It's turned the wrong direction too, but I can't decide if I prefer the mistake to what we'd planned. I'm thinking that we can create something decorative for that plain side after we've moved in. I wonder how Sexy Nerd would feel about wallpapering it with a flower mural, like a small scale version of what's in our current dining room.
With dents in the brand-new doors, noticeable seams, and drawers that stick out instead of closing evenly, the quality doesn't seem to be there. These were too expensive to be so crappy! Sexy Nerd insists I just need to be patient though and not judge the kitchen while it's in progress.
Oh, and the cabinet builder measured wrong, so our beautiful, showpiece kitchen sink will not quite be centered with the windows and there's nothing that can be done about it now, otherwise the dishwashers won't fit.
*grumble*
Funny side story: Sexy Nerd built and stored the cabinets for my closet at our current house and whenever someone came over, they were excited to see that we had our kitchen cabinets.
"Those are only for her closet," he'd tell them, sharing a look like Yeah, she got carried away. Again.
I'd sympathize with that Sexy Nerd of mine, but he's just such a good cabinet builder. I'm pretty sure it's fun for him too, regardless of how adamantly he denies this. He'd have built our kitchen cabinets as well if he weren't being such a weenie. "I have a real job. When am I supposed to build an entire kitchen? I need to sleep!" Excuses, excuses.
Oh, and THE WALL has also been taking up a little bit of his time and energy lately.
Behold, a small section of THE WALL.
Fun Fact #1: In order to pass the final inspection, we need a retaining wall on 3 sides of the house, lest our dream home disappear into a ditch.
Fun Fact #2: We're both cheapskates.
Sexy Nerd has been building the wall one rock at a time over the past year.
Look at him go! Isn't Sexy Nerd the greatest husband ever, roasting under the New Mexico sun while I bask in the glow of Candy Crush in my pajamas, A/C on full blast? After being so perfect, I really couldn't say no to what he wanted last week...
He's so happy!
I'd have taken more photos, but being smushed to death by my husband's new tractor just seemed like such a terrible way to go.
Now Sexy Nerd can move rocks all day, every day, with the help of a loud diesel engine. I'm sure the neighbors are thrilled.
Now, onto the roof. Oh, the roof.
*rolls eyes*
Our roof has been sitting on the ground for quite some time. It was finally supposed to be installed more than a week ago, but the crew ordered the wrong screws.
Yes, you read that right.
GO BUY THE RIGHT SCREWS AND COME INSTALL MY ROOF, YOU %$^%*&%$&#%!!!
It's going to be a rusty metal roof (a relief after you saw these photos, right?) and the screw mix-up has me wondering if this is the first time our roofer has ever done one of these. The panels look terrible right now, partially rusted but mostly shiny silver and gross black. I sure hope they know what they're doing. I guess we'll know when the roof is finally installed. You know, in another 3 years or so.
On Sunday, I gave our new neighbors a break by coaxing Sexy Nerd off his tractor with a picnic lunch. Is it still a picnic lunch if you eat it inside? With no roof, I'm going to go ahead and say yes.
I set up hot dogs with a buffet of toppings in the kitchen and we were extremely careful not to get anything on our cabinets, which don't have a countertop yet...until noticing that the workers have already left coffee rings. I guess it doesn't matter.
Poor little Jack the Mini Cooper and Stealth the Chevy Volt. They want to stay here and live in their new garage, but we always make them drive back to Albuquerque. Will our house ever be done?!
It's going to be so nice one day. Just look at that view! There probably won't even be a dumpster.
If you can handle more construction drama, check out The Best Kitchen (N)Ever. *sigh*