Good gracious, choosing paint colors is hard. Who knew there were this many shades of “medium” and “dark” grey?

Yeah, yeah, I know – there are Fifty Shades of Grey. . . Anyway, the winning color for the exterior of the cottage (and the facia on the main house) is #1596 (“nightfall”). It’s dark and dramatic, but also a warm shade.

Speaking of the cottage, the old siding has been repaired and patched, and the new wall of siding is installed. Ready for paint!

For the exterior of the main house, my second choice turned out to be the winner once we painted a sample up on the house. “graystone” —

Sorry, you’ll have to wait a bit to see it on the house.

The first phase of insulation is installed–the closed-cell, spray foam insulation we’re using in the cottage and in the ceiling of the main house. It’s crazy-looking stuff —

It makes the cottage look like a gingerbread house —

And it makes for some cool patterns on the ceiling —

Hopefully this all makes for a warm n’ toasty house come winter!

Lev secretly wants to be a house painter. I’ve known this for a while, but the evidence is mounting. He was VERY excited to develop some custom stain for the cedar siding that will go on the tower and the soffits —

But I have to say, in the end it came out looking terrific! Here are some of the boards stained and ready for install —

And here’s the first batch of siding installed at the front soffit —

Kinda dark in this photo, but trust me — it looks great!

“Rough-in” is in full swing. Plumbing, HVAC, and electrical are all going in. It doesn’t make for very exciting photo ops, but it’s good progress! And we have to get the electrical in before insulation can be done. . . And insulation comes before sheet rock. . . So all the dominoes are starting to line up.

We’ve got a wall toilet for the master bath —

And four high-efficiency, zoned HVAC units, all suspended in the ceiling —

Here’s the electrical in the cottage that soon will be buried in insulation —

Plumbing in the cottage —

There’s lots more to do, but it’s good progress.

The first round of windows have arrived! Time for a window selfie —

Here they are staged and ready for install. . .

And here’s the first one to go in.

Excited to see the rest of them!

I finally got a chance to take some pictures that show the whole exterior of the house, now that it’s taking shape. It looks like a house! Obviously there’s lots more to be done on the exterior, but the form is all there.

We selected the roof materials and the wood siding for the tall tower. We’re almost there on the rest of the exterior finish – trying to shave the cost down a bit closer to budget!

All these are views from the street:

Hopefully the next round of pictures will show some roofing & siding!

Sorry for the long delay in posting, friends. For some reason the next post felt like a chore, not like fun. But the mood has shifted, and here I am.

Progress on the house has been ok, not terrific. We had more delay due to rain. . . Then we had several bids come in over budget, which required time-consuming redesign and “value engineering” . . . Then there were some vacations. . . But hopefully we’re back to a good pace of progress.

Here are some pics from just after the first of the year. Much more progress has been made since then, but I need to round up my pictures. But in the meantime —

Here’s a view from the upstairs bedroom looking out over the hills to the east, while the guys are getting the last of the sheathing up on the main floor:

All the roof sheathing was done! Here’s Lev proudly showing off:

Guys looking at stuff. (That’s Clark, the foreman, on the left; Lev in the center; Gar, the general contractor, on the right.) That’s what guys do:

Looking at the upstairs wing, with the balcony starting to be framed:

This will be the view towards the western hills from the big window at the top of the stairs – and also the view from the window in the front bedroom/office  (maybe someday my office?). Oh, and good news – PG&E says they will move those ugly power lines running across my yard to the neighbor’s house! 

More pics to come soon. I promise this time!

And yes, please come back again some other day. With the rain we’ve been having, this house ain’t never gonna get built. Here’s a snapshot of the radar from about a week ago:

See all that red? That’s rainfall of more than 4″ in a single day. I don’t think we got 4″ of rain in all of 2013 combined! According to the latest data I found, in November and December we had more than 12″ of rain. That’s just astounding. . . And there’s more rain in the forecast for this weekend. I know we need the water — we desperately need the water — but couldn’t the rain just hold off a little until we get the roof on??

As you can imagine, there’s been very little progress since the last post. I suspect in the week I was gone on vacation, nothing at all happened. I’m taking deep breaths and trying to be patient, but it’s tough.

With this project, we are trying when we can to preserve aspects of the old house that have value or meaning. One of the things we learned as we’ve gotten to know the neighbors is that the previous owner – now an elderly woman living in the midwest – was so very proud of her rose and citrus garden out front. So when we started tearing up the landscaping, we saved as much of her garden as we could. We relocated the roses to our Crystal Springs Road cottage, and added them to an existing rose garden. For the citrus trees, we hoped to transplant them into large containers and then put them on the decks of the finished house. We moved the citrus about six weeks ago, and not surprisingly, they went into pretty severe shock and dropped all their leaves. But the fruit on the trees continued to ripen, and we’ve had a steady supply of limes and meyer lemons!

And then this weekend, there was an unexpected surprise – the trees have actually put out  new blossoms! So despite their naked, leaf-less look, I think they’re doing just fine and will survive the move.

The hydrangea seems to be doing well, too.

And of course, we have more framing! Ceiling joists went up in the master bedroom suite:

And the long – really tall – wall along the side of the living/dining/kitchen wing is up:Great progress, and beautiful signs of life for the old garden!

I told you when I got back from my travels there would be walls! It’s amazing how fast the framing goes up. Here are some shots of the main house —

Looking into the master bedroom suite from the pool:

The entry foyer:Still a lot of work to be done for it to really take shape. But what’s exciting is that the vaulted ceiling in the old cottage is done. What a difference it makes! It’s going to feel so much more spacious in there. Take a look —

Unfortunately we found a few termites when we opened up the old walls, so it’s time to get an exterminator out. Bugs be gone!