River House Diary

Yesterday, our sister-in-law stopped by River House and took several photos. Since we left North Carolina last week, the electricians finished the rough-ins, the duct work for the heating and air conditioning systems is being installed and shingles are going on the roof. All wires lead to the future location of the main electrical panel; courtesy of Dawn Jennings HVAC ducts in the floored attic space, which we decided to add heat and AC and drywall; courtesy Dawn Jennings Roof shingles going up; courtesy of Dawn Jennings

I've ordered many very nice home decorative items from Ballard Designs  before, but the swatch I received of the area rug for the Great Room was extremely disappointing from a quality perspective. This is the Amarone Rug . According to Ballard's website, it "has the look of an elegantly faded heirloom" ... made of a "soft cotton/poly blend in warm tones of mineral, taupe, gray and stone." And it may be all that, but when you can see the woven rug backing through the carpet pile, you are looking at a poor quality rug. The Amarone Rug is simply very, very badly made. Poorly made Amarone Rug from Ballard Designs; personal collection

Our builder’s new carpet and tile supplier recommended Shaw Floor’s Magnetic Loop carpet instead of the Masland Carpets’ Urban Escape in Rushing we had initially chosen for the Bonus Room as a cost savings. And it’s hard to sneeze at $1.50 per square foot. Now for the really tough decision ... what color works best with the fabric choices? Shaw Floors Magnetic Design Loop color options for the Bonus Room; personal collection We decided to stay with the Masland Carpet's Urban Escape in Contented  for the guest bedrooms as there wasn't a good Magnetic Design Loop color that compared well and the quality seems superior. Zuniga Interiors helped me with the color selection. Shaw Floors Magnetic Design Loop in Honey Pot; personal collection

Zuniga Interiors design concept for the Bonus Room arrived when we were in North Carolina. They've continued the color palette from the main level of the house and made it a little more vibrant. The office area of the room; courtesy of Zuniga Interiors The TV wall; courtesy of Zuniga Interiors The seating area; courtesy of Zuniga Interiors The textiles; courtesy of Zuniga Interiors Some of the decorative items we can purchase as needed; courtesy of Zuniga Interiors

Remember my tile flip flop ? When we met with our builder's interior designer and I told her about it and why, she and Pete ganged up on me -- in a good way -- and I've flipped back to the lagoon color. Zuniga Interiors design concept for the Bonus Room arrived while we were in North Carolina. After seeing their design the final flip back to lagoon was the right thing to do. Bedrosians 360 3/4" x 3/4" floor tile in Lagoon ; courtesy of Bedrosians That meant round two of shopping for a shower curtain. I found this pretty little number at Saffron Marigold : Blue Batik Contemporary Fabric Shower Curtain ; courtesy of Saffron Marigold Each shower curtain is handcrafted using intricately hand carved wooden blocks distinguished by the work of the artisan, the particular lot of dye and even varying weather conditions.

Williams Sonoma Home is having a sale! So Pete and I went to our local store and tested the comfort of the chairs we plan to use in the kitchen. We purchased the Harvest Dining Table  and Bistro Side Chairs (in the Honey finish). Our first furniture purchase for River House. Williams Sonoma Home Bistro Side Chair; personal collection Unfortunately the St. Martin counter stools have been discontinued and are no longer in stock.

I have followed Maria Killam 's Colour Me Happy  blog for years, attended one of her 3-day classes on color, consulted with her on paint colors for our Oakton house and purchased all of her ebooks. She worked with Maryanne White , using e-landscape design services, to design her gardens after purchasing a home outside Vancouver. The before and after photos are stunning. Maria Killam's white garden designed by MaryAnne White; courtesy of Maria Killam I contacted Maryanne a few weeks ago and she will be designing the landscape plan for our new home. She asked that I send her a topographical map of our lot, the house location survey, and the house plans, as well as some photos. Maryanne will send me a sketch of her proposed landscape plan in a few weeks and we will talk over her ideas. Her final deliverable will be CAD drawings a local firm can use to install the landscape. Thank you, Maria, for allowing me to use one of your photographs!

Our project manager mentioned that our mahogany front doors would need to be stained soon in order to maintain the warranty. I selected Minwax 273-Espresso. This is the darkest stain we will be using in the house and will match the kitchen island and the shelves in the great room built-in cabinets. Our front doors stained in Minwax 273-Espresso; courtesy of Austin Bayliss

Siting the outside compressor units for the heat pumps was a lot easier than siting the sewer collection box and pump. There was only one logical place and that was tucked in behind the closet extension on the right rear side of the house (green square below). The only downside is that they will be along the wall of the primary guest room. That makes the noise decibel rating more important when Pete selects the units he wants installed. Green square indicates the location of the heat pump compressors; personal collection

Our lot has 15-foot drainage and utility easements on each side centered on the property line — so 7-1/2 feet on each side is the building setback. The side property boundaries are not perpendicular to the road but the house is. It pretty much takes up the entire buildable area side to side. When we walked through the house with our project manager last Wednesday, the main sewer line came out of the left side of the house. This meant the sewer collection box and pump would be buried in the drainage easement. This concerned me. I called the Craven County planning department and spoke to a very nice, informative planner. After providing a verbal legal disclaimer, his advice was basically don’t do anything in the easement area that would expensive or inconvenient to change. I emailed our project manager and relayed this advice, but he was already on top of the situation. He had made a site visit with the subcontractor who will be installing the pump and collection box, and they decide...

We have passed this dilapidated building on Old Cherry Point Road countless times. Who knew they would be fabricating some of our counters? Pete tells me not to worry. It’s just like “hole-in-the-wall” restaurants that always seem to have the best food. I’m still a bit skeptical, but TAB hasn’t steered us wrong yet. CreeKraft Marble Products; personal collection

Yesterday, Pete and I played construction receiving grunts in 100-degree heat (with high humidity) and inspected 28 boxes of tile. The DalTile Emerson Wood mosaic tile for the floor in Bath 2 arrived in perfect condition. Shame on Roca Tile USA for the flimsy packaging of their gorgeous Maiolica ceramic tile. Out of 11 boxes (22 pieces per box) 20 tiles were broken or chipped. We’re using it on the Kitchen and Pantry backsplash. Isn’t the color beautiful? Roca Tile USA Maiolica field tile in Aqua Crackled; personal collection

We had our first visitors at River House last Thursday ... all the way from San Antonio. Zeke and Aubrey had fun in our Bonus Room though they came to grief on that plastic pipe a few seconds after this photo was snapped by their grandmother. Our first visitors from San Antonio; courtesy of Dawn Jennings

Our builder has already had the site prep people out to push our new, good dirt back into place after some severe thunderstorms. It's done nothing but rain since we've been in town and the erosion situation is getting bad again. Erosion as of August 17; personal collection We're told we're in a race to get the roof and siding on the house so gutters can be installed. Once the gutters are on, the water can be channeled to other places until it's time to install a French drain closer to the end of the construction process. And now we know why there is a 15-foot drainage easement on that side of the lot!

Our bulkhead lost the top board during Hurricane Florence. Our builder had that repaired earlier this month and we got our first look at it today. You'll also notice that both our neighbors lost their docks as well. We'd like something similar that has stairs down to our new small beach ... courtesy of Florence. Looking up river. Our new bulkhead top boards are in the foreground; personal collection Looking down river. We lost some of our riprap rocks during Hurricane Florence; personal collection

Yesterday, was all about our house. We met with TAB's interior designer yesterday morning and went over all our outstanding questions: We chose two panel Shaker style, or slab interior doors (more expensive, of course) We finalized the casing trim for the doors and windows We selected the stucco color for the foundation We finalized our hardwood floor selection (white oak 3-1/2" wide stained in place) We determined where the handheld shower head would be installed in the master shower We specified the stain color for the front entry doors We located the returns for the two HVAC units (pantry and laundry room) We signed-off on the configuration of the Master Closet  We got the bill for all the the extra electrical outlets, switches and lights we wanted We finalized all the tile for the house and who is buying what tile We decided against heated floors in the Master Bath and Closet Our house as of August 14; personal collection Then in the afternoon we met ou...

The rough-ins for the sinks in the Kitchen and Pantry as of last Friday. Kitchen sink rough-in; courtesy of Dawn Jennings Pantry sink rough-in; courtesy of Dawn Jennings

It seems a silly thing to blog about but every house needs them. The plumbers got the toilets roughed in Friday. Master Bath toilet rough-in; courtesy of Dawn Jennings In the next photo, the Master Closet is to the left and the Laundry Room is to the right. Half Bath toilet rough-in; courtesy of Dawn Jennings Bonus Bath (upstairs) toilet rough-in; courtesy of Dawn Jennings I don't have any photos of the toilet rough-in for Bath 2 (guest bath).

My sister-in-law stopped by our house Friday and took a few photos. The tub/shower units for the guest and upstairs bathroom were delivered. I don’t envy the person who has to carry one of them upstairs. Tub/shower units for Bath 2 and the Bonus Bath; courtesy of Dawn Jennings

Our builder was meeting with the electrician to talk through the electrical rough-ins for our house and messaged us lots of questions: How high from the floor did we want the Foyer wall sconces and what was the gap between the two sconces and the mirror over the chest? How high from the floor did we want the wall sconces in the Great Room and Den? Where did we want the wall sconce in the Pantry and how high? Where did we want the two sconces in the staircase and how high from the stair tread? What are the sizes of the mirrors in the Master Bath and Bath 2? How high did we want the wall sconces in Bedroom 3 and on what wall? Where are the TVs going? Drawings like this one flew back and forth. Drawing of Foyer wall sconce placement; courtesy of Austin Bayliss It took almost all day to answer our builder's questions and I hope I like my answers.

The house plans specified two shower heads in the master shower. We've had that before in our Oakton home and changed it to a single shower head during a remodel. For River House, we opted for a rain shower head and a handheld shower head. In preparation for the plumbing rough-ins our builder had a couple of questions. Where to put the bar for the handheld shower head and where to install the valves? They proposed putting the valves on the half wall, but we decided not to do that because that wall will have two niches and a handicap grab bar. Shower configuration changes; personal collection

The plumbing rough-ins were scheduled for this week and preparing for that raised a couple of questions. One was where do we put the hot water heater. This question was easy to answer -- in the garage storage area. Proposed location of hot water heater; courtesy of Austin Bayliss

We planned to tile the wall (behind the toilet and vanity) in the half bath from floor to ceiling using Daltile’s Premiere Accents Pearl Herringbone Stone Mosaic Wall Tile . We learned it's a tile made exclusively for Home Depot so it was something we would have to order directly instead of through our builder's tile supplier. However, when I went to order the tile, it was out of stock and wasn't expected to be restocked until late August. So I went looking for a replacement. I found a very similar tile on Houzz.com from Stone Tile Mosaics. It was $9.00 a square foot more, which made me unhappy. Just before sucking up the extra expense, I decided to check out the Home Depot website to see if our preferred tile was still out of stock. This time the website let me order the 85 sheets we needed. Score! Pete and I will pick it up in Jacksonville, North Carolina, later this month. Our first choice on the left from DalTile via Home Depot. Our second choice from Stone Til...

Friday was a big day at River House. Most of the doors and windows were installed; my sister-in-law visited and took a slew of photos, which I've posted over the last couple of days. And we learned over the weekend, the bank inspector also visited Friday and declared the house 39.28 percent complete. The inspector’s report included several photos. While they will never win any photography awards, we saw a couple of things we had not seen before. This is the left side of the house. The doors go to the garage. Left side of the house; courtesy of Trinity Inspection Service This photo is of the master bathroom taken from the door to the closet. You can see the linen closet in the back right. The vanity will go in front of that closet along the right wall. In the left foreground is the shower. The half, or pony wall, is new and was not there in previous photos. Master bath framing; courtesy of Trinity Inspection Service

These are more photos taken by my sister-in-law on Friday. I never get tired of seeing photos of the view from our master bedroom windows. Master Bedroom; courtesy of Dawn Jennings Dawn is standing in the master closet. Our bathroom is the space with the two single windows. To the right of that is our bedroom. In the right foreground is the laundry room. It will be accessible from the closet via a pocket door. Taken from our master closet; courtesy of Dawn Jennings Dawn is standing in our kitchen about where the island will be looking at the eat-in area and great room. Kitchen and Great Room; courtesy of Dawn Jennings The very large pantry -- something I think is necessary in an open plan home. It's at the front of the house opposite the eat-in area. Pantry; courtesy of Dawn Jennings This photo was taken from the great room looking at the foyer and front doors. Foyer; courtesy of Dawn Jennings And the river view from the great room. River view...

My sister-in-law stopped by our house yesterday and took many photos. Thank you, thank you! Pete and I pored over them, comparing them to the floor plan and I realized I'd made a few window mistakes. The first one is in our office upstairs. I thought we would put our "T" shaped desk under the window so Pete could view the river while he is working. But I didn't tell our architect that and the window is too long to put a desk under it. Windows in the Bonus Room (aka Office); courtesy of Dawn Jennings The next photo is of our pantry. I love the size! There will be a sink under the window so that I can wash dirty dishes in the pantry without have them cluttering up the main public spaces in the house. I wish now I would have made the window a double one. On the plus side, more wall space equals more shelves for storage. Pantry; courtesy of Dawn Jennings This is Bedroom 3 or the back bedroom. It has a sliding glass door to the screen porch and looks out to...

Thanks to my sister-in-law, we know we have windows and doors now. Thank you, Dawn! Our house as of 2 August; courtesy of Dawn Jennings

Our builder sent us another photo today. The house is wrapped up like a Christmas present ready for its roofing shingles and siding. Construction progress as of today; courtesy of TAB Premium Built Homes Next on the schedule is having the windows and doors installed and the cabinets laid out. The roofer, plumbing and electrical subcontractors are scheduled.