No! We Won't Be Home For Christmas! But...

Ugh...yes, we are still working hard to get everything done. No, we won't be moved in for Christmas, and YES I'm very sad about that. YES I'm getting to the end of my rope living in the basement with seven kids and no Christmas tree and my new tree skirt and decorations sitting in a box buried in the storage container.

But, we are making progress! That counts for something.

Here's what's happening...

The sheet rocking and painting is all done! That is until I get a hold of some of Laurel Bern's paint colors. I'm not allowed to touch the walls until everything else is done, but don't worry. I will!

Tiling is taking a lot longer than planned. This is our first time doing this extent of tiling and James is a perfectionist, for which I'm very grateful, but, I am struggling to be patient, since we were supposed to be in before fall and now it's December!

Before I get to the house, this is our little angel. She really is the sweetest. She is so quiet and kind all the time. She had a dance performance this week.

And here are some pictures of the updates. I'm a little behind. The floors in these rooms are actually finished. They are a Calacutta porcelain tile. I almost bought real marble and I'm so glad I had a bad feeling in the shower and decided to research it more. Marble is for temples and grand halls, not for people with children and budgets. Trust me. You don't want to deal with the maintenance, beautiful though they are. So I picked a tile that resembles marble, but is tough and doesn't need any maintenance other than a mop.

I don't know if you can really see the color I chose very well. It's from the Laurel Bern Paint collection. It's called Benjamin Moore Cotton Balls. (Actually the above picture may be pre-paint, primed) Anyway, Cotton Balls! I LOVE it! She said this color does what you want and it's a wonderful, warmish white. I was nervous because I didn't try it out the way I should have first, don't judge, it was a really bad week and we only had a few days to paint. So I just ran with it and it worked great. But I do recommend testing paint first!

 This little guy loves to help with everything. He never seems to get bored of tools. We are installing Durock here. Very important before tiling. We also got a tile leveling kit which helped make sure the tiles are...well level. Good idea too. 

Here is part of the kitchen with the tile leveling kit. It takes 48 hours to dry  before you can take the duck-like things off. If I hadn't been late for a date and my phone almost dead, I would have taken a picture of the finished product. I'm glad I didn't choose my grout before I saw it finished too! I would have gone too dark.

This was an exciting day! We moved the ugly storage container onto the land! All my dishes and precious things are inside. Not that I get to open it up anytime soon. We still have lots of flooring to do, but it was exciting and I snapped this shot while driving behind it. You can't see from the picture, but there's a lot of snow and I got stuck three times and had to have my brother in-law, my father in-law and James pull me out. I'm learning how to drive in this weather. I'm not great at it yet, and very nervous all the time.

Ok here are some fun things...this is the part I really love. I can't wait to decorate and I have been saving and saving and saving to buy some new furniture! Every time I've saved enough for my living room pieces, some other dumb thing happens! I want to rip my hair out! First the well, then the electricians, then the plumbers, then the electricians again! Argh! But I am saving once again and in a few months I'll have enough to buy what I need. PS. The reason they are taking my savings is because we vowed not to drop one extra penny onto the loan so we are cash-flowing as much as possible. I am a huge proponent of using cash whenever possible and Dave Ramsey is one of my heroes. He is always my shoulder angel reminding me that going into debt for furniture or anything else like unto it, is a dumb idea. 

In order to make better decisions (and my budget is not very big!) I copied Laurel Bern and made some fun collages. This helped me A LOT. It also helped James understand the big picture. When he first saw that Chesterfield love seat, he wasn't very impressed. But he likes the collage! This is all from Wayfair, BTW. 

The lamps aren't horrible, they aren't authentic, but I want some chinoiserie and can't afford what my grandma used to buy (She had great taste and a huge budget!) How I wish we'd kept some more of her nice things.

This is option number 1 and everyone's favorite:

Option number 2: I like it a lot, but the family chose the other one

And this is the collage I sent to my cabinet guy...AKA my brother in-law. I hope it turns out ok. 

I have to decide if I want the enclosed shelves on both sides or the open shelves on both sides. I don't know yet. I won't do both like below. Just one or the other. And I may nix on the shelf over the transom window. I stole these cabinets from DeVol Kitchens (Whom I am in love with and found on Laurel's website) Their kitchens are amazing. 

Had to throw this in. This was also posted on Laurel's website. I want this room! I think the paint color and the drapes make it so luxurious. I'm going to try to talk James into it once he recovers from the building process trauma. 

Another collage of the kitchen. It's not exact, and for some reason the cabinets are lighter on the right side, even though they are the same cabinets. This is from floor planner.com. I used this cute little website to help me design the bones of the house. 

So, there are some sneak peaks and updates. I'm guessing February before we feel settled. James may try to get us into the main floor before then, but I'm not crossing my fingers. I'll never cross my fingers again. We were supposed to be in for my birthday! Grrr to sub contractors! I lose sleep over all they've put us through.

I have to say, I liked the sheet rock and mudding crew a lot.  

Ok, more updates to come...for now I have 4 sick kids to take care of :(