Blog 35 Pool retaining wall

Here is the wall looking towards the pool with my back to the outside fire place. This corner is where the hot tub will sit.

Here is the same wall looking at it from across the pool. I am standing by the back deck. You can see the holly trees that we planted to block the house next door. A wooden fence will go up behind the holly trees to offer a little more privacy.

This is the start of the steps that will allow you to access the covered patio if you walk around the garage. This is looking up towards the street from the covered patio. The wooden fence that will be behind the holly trees will turn here and will block the street view. So this will be a private space.

This is looking toward the kitchen. I have just stepped off the back deck. The pool is on the right. I think we are going to extend the bottom step off the covered porch so that the 3 vent opening are covered up. We do not need air vents and its too costly to brick them over.

Here is the lower level retaining wall with 2 steps completed. 

It is raining today. I hope the workers can work tomorrow. There are only 10 weeks left until we have 18 people coming to stay for a Stephanides Family reunion!!!!

Blog 34 Fire place face and curved wall face.

We considered stucco for the front of the wall because there will be a lot of stone on the ground and on the wall. After much thought we are going to go with stone and no stucco.

We considered this  cultured stone for the fireplace.

We asked if we could see this sone on a wall. We went and saw it on a wall. Not sure this color or stone is what we want. It is very different looking at it on the board and in real life.

We compared another cultured stone color (see board on left below) to a real stone veneer (see wall example behind board). That square stone is the blue stone that will be on the ground. This stone veneer is irregular in shape with mortar between the stones.

I asked if I could see this stone veneer up on a wall some where. Here is the same color of stone cut into squares. This color looks much better with our blue stone.

I think we would like the stones closer together with not such deep grout lines.

This stone has corners pieces too.

This may be the way we go. I'm becoming overwhelmed with all the decisions.!!!

Blog33 Almost Completed rooms
Here is the wall paper for the master bath. We are just doing one wall with the paper and painting the side walls the greenish color like in the photo.That is the color of the floor tile on the floor in front of the book.

We have the laundry room floor tiled and a cabinet is up. We still need the wall paper to be ordered and put up.

We have a garage door now.

Here is the garage painted. Still need the door painted. They had to tear up the driveway to fix a water problem. Now we have to plan on selecting another stone paver to put down in driveway. The old driveway is stamped concrete and the color is so old it can not be matched. More decisions.

This is the back of the garage painted.

Here is the front of the house painted.

The guest bathroom tile has been finished.

But the tile guy did not put a pencil tile on each edge of the penny tiles. this looks unfinished to me. I considered moving the glass door right up to the edge of the penny tiles but my contractor did not like that idea. Unfortunately, the tile guy has to take the last finger tile on top and bottom at each end and redo it. UGG these guys are probably pretty tired of me.....

Up next! What to cover the massive outside wall and fireplace with.

Blog 32 Lower retaining wall and curved pool wall

They have started the lower retaining wall. That square in front of the photo is where the steps will be to access the lower lot.

The wall is getting higher.

We have also started the curved wall at the end of the pool.

The lower retaining wall is on the right side of the lower photo. The white pipe is where the outdoor shower will be. The steps down to the lower lot will be to the right of the shower.

Here is the back of the wall looking at it from the lower lot.

Here is the massive wall looking at it from the covered patio.

This is the retaining wall beside the pool. You will be able to sit on this wall. The curved wall is to the right of this wall.

They have also started the outside fireplace which is at the end of the covered patio.

There will be 2 fire boxes on each side of the fireplace. This is under the covered patio.

Now we have to decide what to cover the fire place and the wall with. Do we do stucco or stone? Half stone???

Blog 31Outside Covered Patio

This view of the covered patio is if you walked around the garage and down the steps to access the covered patio. Fur beams were used for the main supports. See the pool in the back ground? There will be a curved wall at the end of the pool blocking the house you can see in the trees.

They used yellow pine boards stained a light brown for the cross boards. The boards are stained before they are put up. This is so there will not be a yellow pine colored  line showing when they shrink a year from now. This view is looking towards the road.

I am not loving the yellowish color. The fur beams will be stained, so I can pick another color that will darken the pine but not be too dark on the fur beams.

We finally picked out a stone. The floor of the patio and around the pool will be Pennsylvinia blue stone.  The 2 slabs below show  the color variations of the stone. The stone is in front of the grey color we will paint the house. That piece of fur (from the covered patio), below the tiles,  has several stain samples on it. We are also looking at trimming the house in a light grey ( see the far right board) or doing all it all dark.  

This is looking at the back of the house. This is the master bedroom. It is painted grey and we decided not trim it out. We are using the light grey color on the top eve and for the soffits only. The brick on the bottom will be painted.

Lower retaining wall coming up.

blog 30
The floor tile in guest  bath has been grouted.

The walk in shower in the guest bathroom with blue grey penny tiles has been started.

The tile in the jack and jill bathroom has been laid.

The tile into the Jack n Jill shared tub room has been completed.

Tile for the tub surround has been started.

Finished tub surround with 2 shelves.

The kitchen cabinet drawers have been fabricated. The blue tape is to help me determine what size pull we need on the drawers. 4" pull, 8" pulls, 14"pulls...

The kitchen island with feet has been made.

The column between the kitchen and living room has been wrapped. We are not sure we like the empty space at the top of column on this side. We may fill it in.

Outside covered space coming!

blog 29 Out Door Porch
We received the fur timbers for the outside porch.

It took all day to get one board up. Notice the new coping around the pool. They came and pulled up the old and rebuild the coping around the pool so it is straight now.

More progress on porch. This is looking out from the kitchen door.

This is looking toward the house. The window on the right is the kitchen window.

There will be 4 columns holding up the porch.

This is the end of the porch. This is where the outside fireplace will be.

We also now have a new garage door. We can not see the garage door down because we do not have permanent power yet.

More to come!