Paint and Cabinets Going In

 Hi, everyone. We're in the final stretches - well, another 1.5-2 months... but progress is being made left and right. The trim guy finished up and we were left with these beautiful railings, check out the wood detail on the sides of the steps-

Here are our wood stairs. Recall, Zack had the architect add one more stair so that these wouldn't be as steep as originally proposed. They look and feel great.

 Here's a quick view of what the vents downstairs look like in the rooms with wood floor.

 Better view of the single twist, double twist railings and the wood trim details.

 Here is the sweater box that is behind the master closet door.

 My side of the closet. I get half a wall of single railing and half a wall of double. Zack gets a wall of double hanging rods.

 View from the screened porch door, looking through the eating area into the dining room.

 Zack and I went back to Rugworks, the flooring store, to select our kitchen back splash now that we had chosen our granite slab. Of the infinite options... here's what we went with. The back splash will be tumbled stone 4x4 squares, set at a diagonal. There will be accent inserts of the tiny tiles on the left (each insert will be a 4 tiny tile by 4 tiny tile square scattered throughout. Our granite is on the bottom. The long "stick" is going to be a border that goes around a big square/rectangle of the tiny tiles behind the stove. The tiles on the right were some shiny options that Z didn't care for. (I loved them!)

 Closer look at the accent tiles.

 Painting sure makes a world of difference in the feel of our home! Here is the bench that you see as you step in from the garage.

 Here's the "staghorn" color throughout the house. Z/Isaac are standing in the foyer and I'm in the dining room.

 Mara highly approved of the rhapsody lilac color!

 AKA purple.

 Love the blue that the boys chose for Isaac's room! Quite bold, but beautiful, imho.

 Our hallway built-in shelves, trimmed and painted.

 Here's a shot of the kitchen painted.

 A big chunk of the front yard (and road buffer) had to be taken out to accommodate the septic. The builder is concerned that the septic approvals and inspections will not come through in time. We shall see and keep our fingers crossed.

 Even the garage gets painted. How nice.

 BAM!

 That would be our cream colored cabinets with chocolate glazing, and my wonderful darker island. The bottom cabinets on the far wall all have pull out shelves, and we got a lazy susan in the corner.

 Better view of the rich coloring of the cabinets. The far right cabinet on the island is a pull out set of trash cans. We are still missing all of our handles/pulls since they weren't finished installing everything yet.

 It was already like 6:45/7:00 by the time we got to the house Wednesday night... so the lighting was pretty poor in the areas not close to windows. Here is a dark shot of the butlers pantry. There will be glass in the upper doors (no bubbles in the glass, we didn't like that look).

 All the hallway bathrooms were finished and had the marble counters/sinks in... pictures to come soon. Here's the master bathroom so you can see the dark espresso finish of these cabinets (darker than the kitchen island color).

 View of the finished paneling/chair rail/paint in the dining room in the late evening (no lights).

 Front view of the house from part of the clearing.

 We always have to take a walk to view whatever machinery is on the property. This big dump truck gets Isaac's heart a-racing. It's carrying away trees from the clearing.

 And I had to throw in a picture of my handsome men at the company softball game from last night. Love them.

Tile floors/tubs should have been started yesterday and the cabinets should be finished. Granite comes in next week. We chose our kitchen sink (single large bowl with square edges on the granite) and faucet (This one, but cheaper from Lowes). We are going to finish up our lighting/fan selections, then start on the small accessories (TP holders, towel bars). We're nearing the finish line, with the exception of the septic. I'll try to post some more pics soon of the finished bathroom cabinets/counters. :)