Construction update 3.13.09

Today I finished tiling the laundry room--just need to seal the grout in a day or two. The only thing that I need to finish up is touchup painting and some trim. Should only be a few more hours worth of work. Phew!! Matt still needs to prep the floor for carpet--meaning chip out the high spots where the original cement footings were and smooth it out. Then it's cabinets, bathroom flooring, and carpet. We are getting so close!! Hopefully it will be by the end of the month. We had a little snafu with the cabinets so they are the time limiting step right now. They should be installed within 2 weeks. 

Yes, I did finish the stairs and no one got hurt, amazingly! Now I need to figure out what sort of artistic elements to add. It's a whole lot of tan, tan, tan. Here's the challenge: 1) the wall on the right is concrete 2) the one on the left I think has enough visual yuck on it with the railing and the electrical box that I don't want to draw anymore attention to that side 3) The far wall, well it's tall, really, really, TALL and it's sheet rock just glued to the existing concrete wall... So I can't really nail anything into the two walls that need some gussying up. 

I was thinking that I could do some sort of vinyl art/lettering. But I'm not creative and can never pick a good saying for those things. 

I need your help!!

I don't tend toward the corny, lovey, religious, or mushy family stuff. 

I would like it to say something generally inspiring or something about friends gathering, having a good time, etc.  (Heather S., I know you have friend who does vinyl lettering) 

I've also seen come cute designs that might be cool. (Erika, I like your funky style) 

Any suggestions?? Send me some links to what you find.... paleeeese

The living room (on the left is the hallway to the kids rooms & bathroom). 

The wetbar is to your immediate left. Check out the dual climate wine fridge we got. Guess I have no excuse to not work on my tolerance level, which, by the way is pathetically low. Anyway a desk will go on the brackets you can see on the far wall. 

I just had to post a picture of the hallway of doors. It's a good thing that I'm excited about the doors (Matt really likes them too) because when you go to this hallway, that's all you see. I'm expecting that it will be a rare occassion that all the doors will be closed at the same time. I do forsee future games of Let's Make a Deal by the Kleins. All that trim and those doors were super fun to paint by the way--NOT!! I figure that each door took me approximately 2 hours to paint... and with 9 doors--thats 18 hours of just door painting. They came out great. Worth the work I keep telling myself. 

Cooper's final colors with the door in place, black granite desk to be in the cubby.

I have since figured out that the dark colors show dust and dirt really well. This is a shot of the wall just below Cooper's window. The window sill is covered with cat prints also. At least now I can track where the cat's been. Looks like Patrick (the cat) spends a lot of time on the window sills. Carpet will be a welcome addition for more than one reason.

Here's how Adriene's tape line turned out. I have since figured out through trial and error--and talking to a painter at the paint store after the fact that the trick is to leave the tape on for as little time as possible. i.e., put the tape on, paint a few coats and peel it off when the paint is barely dry to touch. I left the tape on for about 24 hours. I peeled a TON of paint off when I did Adriene's walls, I touched it up and you can't even tell unless you look closely. Oh well, live and learn and overall I think it looks great. Adriene is thrilled!!