Because I Live With Boys...

I love my boys. But I really can't stand looking at an open toilet. I get kind of skeeved out by the idea of all the stuff swirling around in the air after you flush. (Even though we have a water closet in our new master bathroom and a door between toilet and rest of the bath in the family bath, I still keep toothbrushes in drawers.) So, I had an idea. 

Eventually I am going to give up trying to win a Silhouette Cameo from one of my favorite blogs, and will break down and buy one. In the meantime, I really like the foam letter stickers from Thickers for projects like this. They are easy to adjust if  when letters are applied unevenly.

And sometimes, I use the Sticko flat letter stickers when I want to label something small like a tote tag, or the buttons on our dual flush toilets. I labeled all four toilets when we moved into the new house, mainly for our newly-potty-trained boy, but it's been very helpful for our guests, too. 

My little boy is actually better about remembering to put the lid down than my big boy. But since my hubby is nearly perfect, I let it pass.

Linked to:
At the Picket Fence
Between Naps on the Porch
Home Stories from A to Z
House of Hepworths
I love naptime
It's overflowing
Miss Information (Featured)
Mums Make Lists
My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia
Thrifty Nifty Things

More Last Minute Details

In addition to the carpet and chandelier, here a few shots of the rest of Friday's progress:

Our doorbell is in! This was of particular interest to our three-year-old.

After three trips to Lowes, we finally had all the components for our outdoor ceiling fans:

We ordered this water glow faucet temperature sensor. It changes the color of the water coming from the faucet to red if it's hot, and blue if it's cold. We're going to give it a whirl, and if we like it, we'll buy another one so we have one in the in-law suite, and one in D's bathroom.

The toilet lids have been installed. In addition to the WaterSense label, we chose these Toto Aquia II dual flush toilets for their sleek design. No knobs on the side make them easier to clean.

I'm so happy to have a water closet at last!

I finally took some full room photos of our master bathroom. I really like how we laid this out. It helps that it is a bajillion times better than our former bathroom.

I took a better picture of the laundry room laminate, to show detail, and why we want to have a new cubby build (eventually?) that hides the washer drip pan. Of course, now we'll have to work around that laminate cut out.

Painting the fireplace mantle will go on our "no regret" list:

The Delta Touch 2.0 faucet was installed in the outer island. This is the same one we have in the prep sink.

 

 Close up of the Hanstone Specchio White quartz.

This particular quartz is made of 24% recycled material: white and green glass and mirrors, which makes it reflective and pretty.  

Moving day is only a week away!

Another day closer!

My descriptions have been a little shorter lately because I've been battling the flu. Fun times. We'll do room by room posts after we move in where we give more details about specific finishes and selections.

I know I've raved already about my backsplash, but I really, REALLY love it! Today, Tim put the grout on and I'm very pleased with the choice. It's just the right white. 

When we first started thinking of a backsplash, I fell in love with Ann Sacks Matchstick Mosaic on Houzz.com. It took awhile to track it down, and at $65/square foot, I fell out of love. Even though I still think Ann Sacks' tiles are gorgeous, I'm so glad I went with the Solistone...and saved a ton of money!

Solistone Mardi Gras glass tile in Carrollton, with Snow White non-sanded grout.

Here's a close up of one of the tile remnants. The lines are on a grayish-green piece of paper attached to the back of the glass.

Moving on to another favorite selection: my pendant lights! We bought these ET2 Fizz pendants from Whitmer's Lighting. ET2 has really cool modern lights. Our vanity lights are from ET2, as well. So fun!

The lights were installed last week, but tonight they were finally turned on!

In addition to being mesmerizing to look at, they put out a good amount of light. Niels and I were saying that between the pendants, dining room light, command center lights and under cabinet lights, we probably didn't even need the cans above. But, I'm sure we'll be happy to have them as we age.

The pantry light is working now, too. There's a sensor on the door, so the light comes on when the door is opened. A nice energy saving feature. And convenient, too!

We also got to see the light in D's room for the first time.

And Jim Duffie, our electrician has been busy in the basement, too. Although we aren't finishing the basement yet, we are doing a few things to make it functional until we do.

Yesterday, we saw the water line in the house. And here's the front yard evidence:

But I like this evidence even better!

Along those lines, John, our plumber, was busy with fixtures. Here's the Moen Eva faucet installed in D's bathroom, without the base, which we think is a more modern look.

The Moen Eva shower fixtures were installed, too.

And our port-a-potty days are over! Here's one of our Toto Aquia II dual flush toilets. Toilet seats will be installed shortly.

The painters were back, too. They had a little tiny drywall patch to do in the in-law closet:

 

 The first floor laundry platform was painted white:

And the mantle was painted espresso. I think that was a really good choice. 

We weren't at the house very long last night because Tim, the tile installer, was there quite late sweeping up and getting the floor ready for the carpet crew to get started today! We're really grateful for his hard work. 

Plumbing, HVAC and my Backsplash!

It's Monday, which means another busy week of work on the house. We're t-minus 11 days from move-in. We are so excited!

The first floor laundry platform was built today. It will be painted white. The 5" or so of height will make the side-by-side washer and dryer easier to use from a wheelchair, and will be easier on the back of all who use it.

Big decision in the kitchen was where to put the instant hot dispenser. We wanted it by the prep sink since it'll be closer to the tea cabinet and cooktop. I finally decided to put it on the right side, but centered.

The bench for the in-law shower today. Originally, we were going to tile in this shower with wheel-in accessibility. But then we found this shower, which will work pretty well for us for now. This is exactly the set up I needed after my last surgery. Of course, then we realized that we lost a couple of feet when the duct work had to go in, so it all worked out well. The decision today was where to put the handheld shower. We chose to put these in all three showers for ease of cleaning, but it was especially important in this bathroom. We decided to put the handheld shower on the outside of the shower rather than the inside  since the water will go toward the back, and because if someone is using it to clean or assist someone, they won't have to reach all the way in to get to it.

Another decision made today is to not use the vessel sink. It's just too high for ADA standards, so we're going to see if we can still use a regular undermount sink like we have in the other vanities. The whole reason we got the vessel sink was because we originally thought we were going to have the plumbing coming out of the wall, not the floor. We conveniently forgot that the bathroom is against the concrete ICF wall and garage. Oops.

Speaking of ICF, the one major disadvantage to ICF walls (and it's quite minor compared to all the advantages) is that moving electrical lines can be difficult. You want to make sure your electrician knows what he's doing! Fortunately, ours does. This is a close up of the command center, where I added a new line for additional lights.

A quick peek at our bathroom fixtures. This is the Moen Eva One Handle High Arc Faucet. We chose the one handle over the two handle partly for convenience and partly for ADA-ease. It's a lot easier to adjust the temperature when you only have one handle to adjust. We have a two handle faucet in our apartment and are constantly burning our hands!

Another burning question today. To use the base of the faucet...

Or not?

Here's the thing, D is most excited to see:

No more port-a-potty!

We installed all dual flush toilets, Aquia II from Toto, which are Water Sense labeled. Since we haven't had to pay for water before, we're very happy to water efficient plumbing fixtures. If you haven't used dual flush toilets, it's easy to remember, push the #1 button (the smaller one) for #1s, and the number #2 for #2. In addition to using less water overall (1.6 gallons per flush), it gives the option of using even less water for liquid waste (.9 gpf). For perspective, the average non-Water Sense labeled toilet uses between 3 and 5 gallons per flush.

Our handrails went up today. They look great! I'm so glad we went with espresso instead of white.

Going down to the basement.

Going upstairs.

And back to the main level.

Two of our thermostats went in today. Another energy-saving feature we included with the build is zone heating and cooling. Our house is divided into four heating/cooling zones: the upstairs, the basement, the in-law suite, and the rest of the main level. Each zone is controlled separately. So, we can set the temperature upstairs (where the bedrooms are) for a comfortable sleeping temperature at night, and a more conservative temperature for the rest of the day. We can heat the basement only when we use it. We made the in-law suite a separate zone so we don't have to worry about heating or cooling when we don't have guests.

The HVAC team was busy installing registers in all the rooms, including this one above the pantry. 

We had wanted this one centered, but the framing didn't let us.

And then, the highlight of our day came from Tim, our tile guy: My backsplash!!

First, I had to decide on the grout color. Platinum, on the right, was too blue, so it was easy to eliminate that one.

I decided on Snow White, which is not quite as bright as the other choice, which is fittingly called Bright White. Snow White is on the left in the above photo.

So I'll always remember:

Getting to work:

The first "square" is up! I didn't intend to match my paint with the backsplash, but I'm glad I did.

Here's the progress as I was leaving to take a tired boy home. I. LOVE. IT.

Now I'm just waiting for Niels to get home for a crisis-averting day at work so we can see the rest of the day's progress...and see if we can have the bath faucets put in without the bases.