The Ghosts I Want

These are the only ghosts I want inside the new house ;). Not inside our closets but in DH's office and DK's work area in the loft.

Ghost Chairs

They will arrive in 2 weeks. I've been crushing on these gorgeous chairs. I think they're perfect to be used as office chairs.

Whatchathunk?

It has been one productive day today -

• We just did the 30-day inspection. Nothing major on the list except for the crack in the whirlpool. Unfortunately because it wasn't reported on the 24-hour report, builder is not going to fix it. Dang!
• The rollers in the kitchen and family room have been installed. We got them from Benjamin Moore and we're pretty happy with the overall service. And oh, I like the colour too. Colour is called "slate grey." I'll take photos of it tomorrow. I know some friends are in the lookout for reasonably priced window coverings.
• And yes, the sinks have been delivered. So if Mr Handyman a.k.a. DH will find the time to install them, we might have at least one working sink in our ensuite this weekend.

Sneak Peek of Our Kitchen

... and a quick update of our move.

1. I realized moving is not as easy as it used to.
2. Our dear friends came over, brought some food, and helped assemble most of our furnitures to ensure that we'd have comfy beds to sleep on on our first night in the new home. We are so lucky to have very helpful, loving, and caring friends.
3. The kitchen was the first area in the main floor that became functional.



That's MDH's gadget - a dual fuel, convection oven

4. The only fully functional washroom in the house at the moment is the powder room. The other 3 bathrooms do not have the countertop sinks installed. Blame it on A* S*. The vessel sinks that I want for the bathrooms are back ordered. At first they promised they will be available on June 14th, then June 28th, and then mid-August. Boohoo. We're looking at another alternative which is a bit pricier but I don't care anymore. I just want sinks in our bathrooms. I am so darn tired having to go downstairs to wash my hands, brush my teeth, etc etc. Not fun.
5. I am loving our kitchen.
6. DH is quite admirable. He will have his French Language Test tomorrow and in spite of all the ruckus in the new house, he still tries to prep for his test. Whatta guy! As a reward, I made sure that his office was ready ASAP.
7. Other parts of the house that are already a-okay - living room, dining room, DH's office, laundry, powder room.

And because the title says Sneak Peek ... blah... blah... blah...., here are some pics -

Love this faucet from Moen. It has a pullout too.

Our island. You can see part of the dining room from the kitchen

Bar sink on the island. We find this very useful.

I will post some decent pics of the kitchen later. At the moment, there are still some work to be done like putting up the valance lights, changing some of the cabinet doors to glass, and so on and so forth. The list is endless. But I don't mind.

Backsplash: Honed Carrara Marble in mosaic rectangular strips
Countertops: Kashmir White Granite
Cabinetry: Chalk White; Shaker
Kitchen and Bar Faucets: Moen
Kitchen and Bar Sinks: Kindred
Pendant lights (all light fixtures in kitchen including chandelier for the nook table): Kichler

All packed and ready to go

Today is the day. We're saying good-bye to this beautiful place we call home for almost 10 years.

After packing a gazillion boxes (and I thought we're not pack rats :)), patiently waiting for 11 months and working tirelessly with our builders, in 2 hours and 15 minutes, the movers will be here to help us move to our new home.

Here's to another new adventures with my boys!

I have my cake and eat it too

Today has been quite productive. We've had most of our appliances hooked up. And while DH and the installer did the work in the kitchen, I made myself useful by trying to finish the drapes for our living and dining rooms.

I've decided to put sage green in our living room and dining room. The shade is very similar to the shade of my plate and cup below, only lighter. I hope it will look nice with the orange/terra cotta accent colour I'm planning to use in the dining room.

It makes me sooo excited thinking that the next time I will make the dessert above, I will be doing it in our new kitchen, in my new wall oven :).

I say "my ..." because DH and I have each our own oven :). DH's will solely be for meats and anything that's neither cake, bread, nor pastry. It still has to be installed btw. He got the dual fuel convection range, with 6 burners - perfect for a guy who loves to cook for us.

And oh, I was pleasantly surprised to see the huge available space below the oven. We are planning to put another drawer for pots and pans in it.

Tonight I'll go to bed with a big smile on my face because our kitchen in the new house is starting to look like errr.. kitchen. And today btw felt like Christmas morning, unpacking each of the appliances from their respective boxes. Now if only packing our stuff to get ready for the big move in 2 weeks feels as exciting, I'd probably be done packing by now hahaha.

A special thank you to our architect friend, Rads, who has been quite generous with his time, support, and guidance. He is our go-to guy whenever we are unsure of things. I'll talk about our friend in one of my upcoming posts.

Floored and More

So like I mentioned in my previous post, we finally had our PDI. It was a looong one. It lasted for almost four hours. I am not complaining. I just didn't expect it to be that long. There weren't that many things left undone. We are sure that the house will be "almost" ready when we'll go in on May 25th :).

I will let the pics do some of the talking :)

So this is how the exterior looked like during the PDI. No paints on the doors yet but the house number and lights were already installed. We tested the doorbell - Dong for the front door, Ding-Dong for the back :). I thought that was cool. And one other cool thing was the bilingual fire alarm. It would have been nicer if it speaks Filipino too.



From the inside, this is what we saw -

You can see a crane "parked" outside the house. They were still doing some finishing work on the exterior. Most of the trims were already in place except for the window trim of the den. This was one of the last windows they've installed.

And this is how the hardwood floor looks like at daytime -

Love, love it. Most of the floor in the main is hardwood, including the kitchen. It's hard maple btw.

Deciding on what wood stain to use was one of the most difficult things. The sample in the design centre was only a small piece. I just trusted my gut feeling, crossed my fingers and toes that when we'd see the floor, we'd love it. We do love it.

Now this I have to share. When we went inside the Master Ensuite, the builder rep commented about our choice of colours. DH said he left it all to me to decide and that he was sleeping when I was "happily" working with our designer. The builder rep said something like "good thing you just slept. she did a wonderful job." eherm ;)

A day after the PDI, we went back to the site after DH's birthday dinner. We were greeted with the painted doors. And here it is, just like how I imagined it to look like -

Hope you enjoyed my show and tell.

Good night!

Bundled good wishes for the Birthday Dude!

Happy, happy birthday to my bestest friend and ever loving husband. And the bestest father in the whole wide universe.

DK (around 5 at the time): Papa, have you ever made a mistake in your life?
DH: Of course, anak (son). Many times.
DK: Really? (with a surprised expression ;))

Woohoo!

Another milestone. It's the Pre-Delivery Inspection day! And what perfect timing. Tomorrow is DH's birthday!

Will post some pics and updates later. Gotta finish the checklist. For now, cheers, everyone!

Granite

Grateful and relieved that we (more like I actually :)) found the right granite for our kitchen. I originally went with the cream/brown colours. Unfortunately, or I should say fortunately, the right shade was not available. When I saw the cabinets in the kitchen and how they look, I did not hesitate to change my colour choice. It's gotta be white. And white is what we'll get.

At first, DH was a bit hesitant because of the red garnets he saw in the tiny sample that we originally looked at. But as soon as we saw the bigger slab in the shop, he was fine with it. They aren't red. More like burgundy and the splotches are not that many. The overall colour is still white with some hints of gray and yellow undertone which I think is perfect with the wall colour of the main floor. Check this out -



I think it will be just perfect. Whatchathunk?

And this, btw, is what I'm reminded of when I saw the granite -

Sun kissed

Sunkist oranges are my favorites. Sweet and seedless. And this is how I like them served - cut crosswise, in wedges. And even better if I can have them in our white kitchen 'cause this is the kind of orange I want to use as accent colour to the yellow wall and dominantly white cabinets in our kitchen :) I think pale yellow and orange look home-y together.

And speaking of kitchen, it is starting to look like... well... kitchen. And I love that even at 7:45 in the evening, it is still bright! Very bright. I love how the sun seems to never leave.

DH and I must have stayed there over an hour measuring unfinished cabinets and spaces, having pretend conversations with our pretend grandkids hahaha. Oh it was fun! Too bad DK wasn't with us. I can imagine the three of us cooking countless meals and sharing endless stories in this kitchen. Can't wait.

Brick-a-brac

The exterior isn't quite done yet but most of the brick work is. The brick is called Heritage Gray.

I can't wait for the front door and garage door to be painted. I think it will look like this -



:)

And here's how it looks inside, behind the front door -