Sean Flinn

We made our first visit in three weeks to the new home site this past Sunday — and man, what a difference! Our friends in the neighborhood had been telling us to drop by, because big things were starting to happen. They were correct.

The exterior looks pretty much done on the front, with the blue-gray color coat now on, and shutters framing the upstairs windows. Our neighbors have their places stuccoed now as well, so we now know what our part of the block will look like.

The back of the house has some initial coating and shutters, but still needs the final color.

Heading over, Katie mentioned that she hoped there would be some drywall up, as that’s the point at which she’d start to feel excited. “It will feel real to me, then,” she commented. Well, babe: it’s real. The entire house — all 3 floors — now has drywall in every room.

Big things we expect in the next couple of weeks: the roof, then cabinets & fixtures (although I’m sure there’s still some detail work to do that we’re not seeing).

We also went down to Vintage Design last week to pick out our carpet, tile and other design elements for the place. We have a couple of variables to work out on some upgraded carpet, but we at least committed to investing in an upgraded carpet pad (lifetime guarantee FTW), solar film on the windows (to make the house more energy efficient and reduce fading from UV exposure) and sealant on the granite counter tops (to prevent staining). Those all felt like good sound investments to us — non-cosmetic stuff that will save us money in the long run and help preserve the value of the home.

These will be some of the last elements to go into the home — you don’t want tradesmen walking over your new carpet to put in your cabinets, I suppose — so I imagine the place won’t look “finished” for quite a while (probably until we hit escrow in August).