As you may have guessed from my long silence, things progressed nicely on the house front. In a one-week blur of C.O. nailbiting, final walks, punch lists, bank meetings, invoice haggling and frenzied packing the house was done. I moved in a week ago today, one year to the day from closing on the property, and I have spent the past week trying to get things in order. So without further ado, I present the mostly finished house before it was hit by the tornado of my belongings:
Studio/office
Living room/someday library, above
Powder room tucked under the stairs
Awaiting a dishwasher, due in next week
Laundry
Guest bedroom, downstairs
Guest bath directly across the hall
Sitting area at the top of the stairs
Same space from the master bedroom door
Master bath from front dormer
Master bath
Master bedroom
Master closet
As you can see, there is still a lot to be done. The storage-area access doors, built-ins for the master bathroom and master bedroom. I need to get the cover on my vent hood in the kitchen, and build out the closets. And then there’s the landscaping outside, front and back porch stairs, and finishing the back porch ceiling and screening in the porch. Oh, and the guineas need a coop!
But in the past week I’ve hung towel bars, got a phone line and satellite internet installed, installed window blinds and Dad put in the foyer and kitchen light fixtures. So we’re making progress. Even though there is still so much to do, when I think about how far I have come, those projects seem positively recreational!
And the best news is I couldn’t have asked for a more beautiful house. I had no idea a year ago that this would ever happen, let alone turn out so well. I am still a bit in disbelief that it’s a Real House. Everywhere I look, I see through walls to the underlying framing and systems. I still see this place as a collection of two-by-fours open to the the sky, and each time I climb the stairs I remember the months I scrambled up and down a ladder propped in that spot. It’s a hard feeling to articulate…To know something this intimately, to have lain awake most nights for the past year obsessing about every detail from start to finish definitely translates to an intensity of affection I’ve until now never experienced for a place. It’s what I’ve wanted my whole life, and it pretty much blows my mind.
Beautiful!