Champagne Taste Beer Budget

Okay, I'll be the first to admit I'm VERY thrifty and yes, I have champagne taste on a beer budget, but who doesn't like to bargain shop.  First lets start with bar stools...

I found this stool in the Restoration Hardware catalog and I thought they would be perfect in the Fired-Up Farm House.  One small problem they were $295 and I wanted 5 of them for our island in the kitchen, out of my budget.  Then I saw this...

I order them from Overstock, free shipping and they were $119.99.  That's much better on the pocket book.

Then I fell in love with this light fixture, just not the price.

$299 in the Pottery Barn catalog.  

Or $149.99 Overstock, and yes, you will see it hanging in our house.

I shared in an earlier blog post the laminate floor we purchased from Sam's Club for the upstairs bedrooms.
Pete started installing it this afternoon with Izzy's assistance.

This is really nice flooring for the price.

I have been searching for the perfect fixture for our front porch.  It needs to be BIG, a 12" pendant would look silly, but everything I liked that was the right size was $500+ and out of my price range.

Then I walked into Lowe's Monday morning to buy some wood and took a stroll down the lighting aisle and there is was...

(Imagine picture rotated or just turn your head because every time I load the picture into blogger is turns sideways.)

 this 27" beautiful lantern, calling my name.  It was so big I needed help getting it off the shelf.  The nice man David in the lighting department said this pendant has been way up on the top shelf and he had just brought it down and placed it on clearance for $99.  I couldn't get it into my cart fast enough.  They also had matching fixtures for the garage doors just placed on clearance too.

Here's the garage light without having to turn your head.

On a not so thrifty note, the Acacia wood is being installed and it's gorgeous.

Here are the first few boards that were installed on Monday.  We had a small bump in the road yesterday, but Craig Wenke came out and met with Pete and the installers and they are back on track.

I wanted the wood floor to run on a 45 degree angle, when they cut around a floor vent it threw the angle off and they were getting gaps between boards.  Craig was able to spot the problem right away, it's unfortunate that they had to take out 1/3 of the floor that was installed.

This picture turned out dark, but you can see the angle of the floor.

I love the variation in color.

This afternoon we had a trifecta of flooring installation.

Pete was installing the laminate in the bedrooms, Wenke was installing the wood floor on the main level and Tim Moran and his crew was installing tile in the bathrooms.

 Dennis is installing tile above the girls shower.

Ray is fixing a floor tile.  Apparently, it shifted and wasn't straight.  I hope it's not because someone (kids) walked on it too soon.

Pete finished up the back porch, this is the ceiling.

Tomorrow I will get a better picture, these don't do it justice.  

I Hope This Post Makes Sense Because I'm Really Tired

I'm not even sure where to start with an update.  It was another busy week...

Pete threw me a curve ball on Wednesday night and said, he would really like ceramic tile in our laundry room.   Since he does all the laundry (NOT) I decided he should have his way, the only hard part was I needed to pick out tile the next day so it could be installed on Friday with the other tile.  Grrr... I thought I had all my decisions made for flooring.  So off I went to the big box hardware stores to look for tile.  

I found this at Menards, it looks like wood, but it's ceramic tile.  It was the right price so I loaded up.  

Here it is installed., not too bad for a spur of the moment decision.  

While at Menards I did some shopping for Pete for the ceiling in our front and rear porch.  I'm not sure how we would have done this project without a smart phone. 

Jesse our electrician was back this week and installed some of our light fixtures upstairs.  These cuties are in our upstairs hallway.

He also installed our ceiling fan in the master.  Yet again, our decision to add the tray ceiling was confirmed with the fan install.  If you missed the post about the oops of the tray ceiling, I've attached a link to it:  Tray Ceiling Oops!

The siding is complete,  Jerry finished everything up on Friday.  The french doors off the dining room open to the screened in porch.  I designed it this way so if we have a big party we can extend the table right out to the porch.

Lee and Jerry packed everything up on Friday.  I must tell ya, I was sad to see them go.  They arrived on our jobsite on August 29th and finished up on my birthday, December 7th.  We were extremely fortunate to have them work on our house and I can't even tell you how many times I had someone say to me, "Lee McDonald is framing your house, you got the best."  When they first started framing, Pete would bring his level to check the walls and they were always perfect.  Finally, he stopped checking.  

So, a huge thank you to Lee McDonald Builders.  Tomorrow will be exactly 4 months from when we broke ground and we never would be this far in our construction journey if it wasn't for Lee and Jerry.  They were a huge part of making our dream come true.  

This past Friday was my birthday and the night before I could hardly sleep because... TILE WAS BEING INSTALLED the next morning.

This is the mud room and bathroom on the main floor.  I worked with Wenke Tile and carpet for our flooring.  I have received superior customer service from their designer Gina.  

This is our wood on the main floor.  I wanted a solid wood not an engineered wood floor, and I wanted  variation in color, light to dark to hide dirt.  When Debbie Wenke came to measure for the floor she mentioned that the wood I chose, Acacia wood is mentioned many times in the Bible.  I was embarrassed to say that I didn't realize it.  Of course I did a little checking and found out that the Ark Of The Covenant was made from Acacia wood.  I chose this wood because I thought it was beautiful not realizing the Biblical ties.  

Max's bath 

Pete was up early Saturday morning to work on our ceiling of the front porch.  When I showed up in the afternoon, Pete and Scott were staring at this white box.  Apparently, Pete did not like this white box for the light fixture.  

When I came back out of the house this is what he was working on.

Goodbye white box.  Now, to find a super cool light fixture!  

It's a long way up there.  Our friend Scott is on an 5' ladder.  Pete is on two levels of scaffolding.   

You get a better idea of the size with Max on one level of scaffolding.  Also, a big thank you to Scott Kirklin for handing Pete boards and moving the scaffold!   

Izzy tried it out too.  Tori was at a birthday party and missed all the fun.

While we were taking pictures our friends Steve and Ann ran up the (muddy) drive-way.  

Today Pete finished wrapping the columns with cedar.  I took this picture in the rain.

When I left the house tonight he was working on the back porch.  It was dark and the picture didn't turn out great.  It's almost 11pm and Pete is still working.  One more day of work and he's off until January 2nd, he'll be working at our house for the next 2 1/2 weeks as his full time job.  

When The Game Is Over...

We hosted our small group at our new home this Friday night.  

Everyone was great about the dim lights and lack of indoor plumbing.  

We are doing this study by John Ortberg.  

The book has a great message about winning the one game that really counts.

 Now for a house update...

 The stone is on the columns and the garage stone was grouted.  

 All our interior doors were delivered and installed.  I love the doors in our entry.  They are 8' tall to match our front door.  I would never have thought about doing this, but saw it in a parade home this summer and new it was something I would like to have.  

Every Fired-Up Farm House needs a barn door.  Max is standing in front of the barn door that will be installed outside of Pete's office.

 Work in progress...

 More work in progress...

 Hummm, so many choices.  

Vote for your favorite Paint color...

 The trim carpenter showed up this weekend.  He is very cute, too.  

 I'm doing a very simple trim.  This is Tori's window, the bottom board still needs to be installed.  

 This was taken on August 25th, Max's birthday.

 The table in the "Someday Dinning Room".  That night was one of my favorite of the summer.  We laid on the floor deck and star gazed with all the kids for almost an hour.  

Max

I took this picture on Sunday afternoon.  The siding is almost complete.  As I update our blog tonight, Pete is still at our house working on trim.  Thankfully he has 2 1/2 weeks of vacation saved for the year and will be off work, but trimming our house come December 11th.