Here we are, officially 17 days out from our closing date. Today made us realize just how close we really are in the final stages of our home build!! The carpets are finally in, mirrors are hung and we now have closet sliding doors! Can you say, woot woot?! We also noticed a few new outdoor finishings; a door bell, a mailbox and our address is finally slapped over the garage entryway! It can't get more real than this!!
I’m just going to go out and say this; our home looks fantastic. From the look of things inside, they've started patching up little problem areas on the walls and are putting the finishing paint touch ups this week.
Since the house is %99.9 complete, I thought I would give you a little house tour so you can see how much has been done since
day one!!
**Full disclosure: This is by no means a little tour.. this post is jam packed with photos.. so I'm sorry if this gets old fast...**
Let's start with the outside. As of today, our facade is pretty much finished. Aside from the front and garage doors still needing paint, this is as close as it's going to get for a finished product. We were told we would be getting grass and a paved lane way by fall of 2012, but we think we won't see that until next spring. I'm also not too thrilled about the steps at the front of the house, but they will have to do until we figure out our landscaping plan sometime next year.
I am so in love with the front porch. When we starting looking at homes, it was one of the 'must haves' of many on our list. I can't wait to plop 2 great big chairs at the front so we can officially start people watching our neighbours with the dog.
The front door will be painted red soon, and we are pretty pumped about the door bell and mailbox! We won't have a mailman delivering our mail, but the novelty of a mailbox is still very exciting none the less. I love getting a good flyer.. :)
In the weeks leading up to our final walk through, we started putting together a little list of details/things that may need some looking into with the builder. In the above photo, you'll notice a hole in the brick at the top right corner of the soffit. I'm not exactly sure if they would eventually be covering that spot up , but I will be pointing it out during our meeting just in case it is unusual. Other than that, we are pretty happy with how the front of the house looks!!
Moving right along to the inside of the house, you'll see that our carpets were installed this week! The color is neutral, which is exactly what we wanted, and it blends in really nicely with the wall color. I think the mocha stained railing adds a bit of 'wow factor' to the overall aesthetic. We are pretty excited about it.
This is a shot looking from the den/office all the way down the hall through the dinning room, to the living room/kitchen area.
This is a look into the entrance way from the powder room
and in reverse, the powder room / closet area.
My husband is turning the front den into his office space. It's a pretty decent sized room with lots of windows and a nook area ideal for a shelving unit which we plan on installing ourselves with the help of our good friends at Ikea.
Next up is the kitchen. This is probably our FAVORITE upgraded room!! We are so pleased that we had the island repositioned. It made the world of a difference in the functionality of the layout. We have lots of deep cabinets and an abundance of counter space, which is really nice for cooking meals. Eventually I'd like to change the island counter top from laminate to Quartz, for the advantages of the under mount sink, to enable us to get that extra space on the island for place settings. But for now, it'll be just fine the way it is.
Another great addition coming to the kitchen is the back splash tile we
purchased at Costco last weekend. We decided to go the DIY route for this one as we wanted to save a little room in our budget for other upgrades on our priority list. We think it's going to look really awesome on that bare wall against this counter top!
The view from the kitchen island looking into the living room area
The cornered fireplace. Ahhh how I love this feature. During our purchase meeting, our sales guy told us the fireplace couldn't be placed in the location of the original floor plan therefore meant we didn't really have a choice in the placement. It had something to do with an easement and the gas line.. To be honest, we prefer it this way (and we saved a few $$ along the way which we were totally fine with - as this is normally an upgrade). We also decided to add the conduit package as an upgrade in order to reinforce the wall above the fireplace for a TV mount. We didn't want the TV nor the wall to eventually come crashing down because of all the extra weight. The fireplace will also be stained in the same color as the mocha railings.
Here is an angled view looking from the living room to the garage entryway and basement door.
Again a view from the living room, but this time looking into the dinning room. This room is so much more spacious than we expected. It's going to be a great space to host our family dinners!
Ok! So that is the main floor; let's continue the tour upstairs!
This pretty awesome nook/area is going to be my office. I'm not too sure how I'm going to configure it just yet, but I may have a few ideas brewing...
Here is a shot of the upstairs hallway looking out from the laundry room. (say hello to our friend Magda!)
The view from the nook into the hallway (well hello there husband)
The view from the master bedroom looking into the hallway (at the end of the hall is the laundry room, access to the second bathroom and front bedroom)
So let's start at the front of the house where guest bedroom 1 is located.
I absolutely love this room. It's every little girl's dream to have a bay window/seat bump in their room. Well, it was mine anyways. This is the smallest room in the house, but we had to give a little to get a little on this one. We love it so much!
The other great feature about this room is the cheater door entrance to the bathroom from the bedroom. (That's me looking into the mirror!)
If you look at the mirror, you will see that there are 2 doors in this washroom. The first door (which is closed) is the hallway access to the bathroom and the other (the one I am standing in) is accessed from the bedroom to the bathroom. This is super convenient for when we have guests stay over; one could say it's the best of both worlds! They get to stay on the other side of the house AND have access to their own bathroom. (yeah!!)
You'll also see, we requested to have cap lights installed in all the bathrooms instead of the regular vanity bulb lighting. Once we move in, we'll get to pick our own light fixtures!
Up next, we have the laundry room! For the sake of uniformity, we chose to have the same tile installed in both upstairs bathrooms and in the laundry room. It will look pretty awesome with our white front loader washing/dryer set.
There is also a large linen closet conveniently close by for easy storage access for towels and linen.
Moving our way down the hall is guest bedroom 2 also known as the future nursery **Disclosure, not preggo, just planning ahead**
This room is a pretty great size! There is a quiet wall between the back end of the room and the master. We also could easily convert the nook area into side by side closets or just keep it as is. If turned into a nursery, the nook area will most likely be where the change table will be located.
And the
piece de resistance.. last but not least, the Master suite.
Awesome space, right?
Our walk in closet is pretty awesome. There is a ton of space to hang all of my crap; I mean our crap.
The master bath is also quite impressive. We love the big bright windows, but what we don't love is our not very private view of the Mattamy sales centre parking lot. We will eventually be backing onto single homes, but for now, the parking lot is the eyesore du jour. We are also currently looking for a frosting material to put on the windows that will allow light in, but at the same time keep it private in order for us not show the world what we've got (if you catch my drift).
Look at all the cabinet space we have! We've already decided the logistics of who gets what.. and I am totally going to turn into one of those
bath people... I just know it!
I also love our tiled shower. I know we're going to have to be careful with keeping this thing super clean, but common, look at it!! I bet if you had a shower like this you would be scrubbing it all the time too!
So friends, that concludes our tour of Casa de Gibby; I hope you have enjoyed it!! We are walking through the house sometime next week with our builder to check the hardwood out.. and then our PDI walk through should be soon too!
Yeah 17 days to go!!
