Today Is The DAY!!!

 

It’s here! The long awaited day.

We are moving into our cottage today!! To say we are excited is an understatement. 

Last night we were talking last night and we still can’t believe we get to do this!

Throughout the week we have been taking over a lot of this and that’s this week and will continue to do so even after the movers move all the boxes and big stuff. 

The agenda for the rest of the week will be to try and find spaces for all our stuff, and there will  probably be some purging involved along the way. (kind of dreading that part, but all part of the process.)

The carpet situation got resolved on Monday. There were a couple of issues, but it all got ironed out in the end, and now we have the carpet that I chose. 

It looks just like I wanted it to look, and now the base of our home has a nice flow. Before it was, “ Hmmmm? I wonder what she has planned for these rooms?”

The wrong carpet was a greige with a green undertone. 

You might not be able to see it on your monitors, but trust me on this one, it was dreary. Also the wood flooring is more mellow than pictured with more brown undertones so the new carpet has a nice flow.

The correct carpet is a nice sand color, and it just flows with the hardwood and the tile in the master bathroom. In fact the carpet looks almost the same color as the grout, the counters and the shower walls. 

The other thing you cannot see in pictures is this carpet has a subtle texture, just a little pin dot, for texture, not a color just the weave has a pin dot.

The  take away from all of this is...

 ......make sure you get a sample of the carpet you chose, if at all possible. Also try to be there on install day to make sure they have the correct padding installed. 

We upgraded the padding, and when we stepped on the carpet it felt like there was not enough padding.

Once the carpet was ripped up my suspensions were confirmed, wrong carpet color, wrong padding. They had to scurry to get the right padding here.

 
We are up bright and early this morning and ready for the big job of the day!!! 

Next blog post will be written from our new home. Now that is exciting!!!

 

 

NEW HOUSE UPDATE: Making Some Progress!

 

When I left you last we had received the keys to the house, and we found out they had installed the wrong color of carpet. You can read about it HERE!

The last couple of days we have been taking over things/stuff to the new house. 

We have movers to move boxes and the heavy stuff, but I am packing up the kitchen stuff and making trips back and forth. 

We are not moving too quickly and taking our time, which is quite different than our first move from our previous home to the apartment which was a crazy fast move and I don’t move necessarily very fast anymore.

It has been a fun week of hanging paper blinds, putting shelving together for the garage, and putting items in the kitchen cupboards.

These shelving units are going to work out great for our needs and trust me they will be filling up very quickly.

We also have plans on adding overhead storage units. I will have to do a lot more purging I am afraid, and I am not looking forward to that, but I am looking forward to a neater, more organized area.

We got these at Home Depot, and they are nice and sturdy. They had 5 star rating, with over 600 reviews, and they are on sale right now!  If you are in need of some storage shelves you can find them here. 

All our walls and ceiling are sheet rocked and painted. We have never had a finished garage before, it sure is nice and so much more pleasant to look at.

I finally got to buy some Fall flowers and pumpkins for the porch and patio area. It felt so good to place them in our new home.

We have a nice side back patio area that we are really going to enjoy using. We placed our black wrought iron table that we got when we were first married 46 years ago, it has served us well.

I had custom cushions made in a bright cobalt with white trim to update their look.

On each end of the patio I placed our black Chippendale styled planters with white cyclamen. 

Cyclamen grow throughout the winter months here in California so if I keep them watered they will last for a few months. 

These planters were also purchased at Home Depot. They use to sit on each side of our front door at our previous home. You can find them HERE!

They need to get a quick spray of some black paint since they have been open to the elements for some time. Nothing prettier than a fresh coat of black or white paint to freshen something up a bit.

We made a fun discovery on our walk thru. Our oven and microwave ovens have a screen saver that you can change according to the season. 

The candle flickers in the jack o lantern. It is so cool. My kids are going to love this feature.

With each passing day the house is already starting to tell me what it needs. 

I am discovering different things each day and loving our new home.  I have already learned that it is going to live bigger than I anticipated, it has a wonderful easy flow and it already feels peaceful and welcoming.

Tomorrow they will be installing the correct carpet and hopefully our mover will let us know when he can move us.

Moving teaches one to go with the flow, that is for sure. I will be busy unpacking and trying to decide where to place the furniture we already own. I think so far everything will work, but that is yet to be seen.

More to do and see, so come back and see what we are up too.

Next big decision is window treatments!!!

Until then I will continue to:

"Enjoy The Process!"

 

 

NEW HOUSE UPDATE: The UP's and DOWN's!

   

I almost don’t know where to begin, so much has happened in the last three days.

As most of you know we received the keys to our new home and she is officially ours. Read about it....

 Here and Here.

With all new homes there are always a few glitches. Before I mention the glitches, I have to say that Shea homes has been amazing on how they take care of the customers well being through the process.

For those of you that work in the design business, or building industry you know that mistakes happen.

After all we are working with imperfect humans and man made products.

Trust me when I tell you what the problems have been it still has not dampened our spirits, and happiness in this process. 

STUFF can be fixed and it is being fixed!

First problem was my beautiful island counter top had two scratches that Shea would not accept, and they had the top replaced, however the second top as beautiful as it was had a stark white dot the size of a match head, not acceptable to Shea, or to us, so it has to be replaced, and it might have to be replaced after we are moved in. 

Our counter tops are a Quartz product called Lyskamm by Arizona tile….

Of all of the quartz products I have seen that are trying to resemble marble this one is the most subtle in person. 

I absolutely love it, and would highly recommend it for those of you that want a soft white counter top with a bit of movement. I chose it because of the subtle movement. Since my counter top is over 9ft long and 4 ft. deep the movement helps break the large mass up a bit.

After we get settled we plan on having a subway tile back splash like I had in our previous home installed.

Now for the second problem. When I saw the carpet that was installed my memory told me it was wrong, then self doubt set in, and I wondered if it was a good thing I am retired because I had totally lost my eye for color.

I had taken pictures of all of my choices and it did not resemble the carpet in the image at all.

 

Since the builder is no longer carrying my carpet they had to send for a sample so that was the first delay, and then it arrived.

HOLY MOLY BATMAN!!

My design plan was to have a soft sand/beige that would give a creamy look with the white walls and go nicely with the tile and the wood floor.

The carpet that was installed picked up some of the darker gray veins in the tile ,but was not the look I was going for at all.

You can see how the one I chose  is almost the same color as the grout. Whew! I have not lost my eye for color, the sample was exactly as I had remembered it.

I am not sure if you can see the color clearly in the picture, but the carpet they installed is a greige, with a green base to it and there is NO way I would put green based anything next to the wood flooring, or the tile. 

Anything green based can bring up the red or pink tones in an element if there are those undertones present. 

My flooring is a soft subtle brown, but there are some planks that do have an ever so slight red undertone, so the carpet just made those show up. 

Color tip:

Remember green and red are opposites on the color wheel and they will make each other’s hue stronger. Whenever colors are opposite each other on the color wheel they will make each other look more vivid.

Next problem, they found out my carpet that I DID choose was on back order, so the hunt began.

Today we found out they found it in Irvine, Calif. and it will be here on Monday and installed.

We planned on moving on Monday so now we are waiting to hear back from our movers to  find out when they can move us.

We are fine with all of this, and going with the flow.

We are also very thankful that we have the freedom to go with the flow since we are retired, and we have a place to live until we move because we did not cut our time in the apartment too close to the move in date. 

Shea representatives have been so gracious and apologetic, and truly have done what they can to make this easier on us and fix the mistake.

Today :

• We had the oven repair guy check out why the oven light does not work, and he will be back because the oven doesn’t work either.
  
• There was a patch of texture on the wall that did not match the rest of the wall in the master bedroom so that was fixed.
  
• We had the tile and grout, counters and shower walls sealed.
  
• Hung the temporary blinds

I put pumpkins on our new mantel, that was so fun!!

I am sure there will be more things as we go along, that is just how it works with a new home and construction, but we realize it is just stuff, and it can all be fixed. 

We are so fortunate that we have a wonderful builder that gets to the problem right away and fixes it. They have been amazing.

So all is well at the Perdue cottage, and we are busily taking care of some of the issues, and calling for estimates for window coverings, more on that later.

We are still……

Enjoying The Process of:

Being new home owners.