A Nugget and a Doodle

I'm traveling this week, which is a good thing because I'd probably want to drive up every day to check on progress.  :)  I'm told the lumber will be delivered on Monday, and the framing will start on Tuesday.  There's no rain in the forecast all week, so even if they are delayed a couple days there should be SOMETHING to see on our usual Friday evening trip up there. Here's all the little bits I haven't updated on individually...as I think I left off with the rough plumbing. After that the concrete guys started on the post tension engineered slab.   In a post tension slab system, steel cables are criss-crossed throughout the foundation area before the concrete is poured.  Then after the concrete is poured and begins to cure, the cables are tightened to add tension and strengthen the slab, making it even more solid than it would normally be.   While traditional re-bar helps hold the foundation together to minimize cracks, the cable tension grid provides...

Finally!!!  I'm so happy to debut these chairs.  I put a lot of time into them - more than it may seem just by looking at them since dining chairs are the easiest re-upholstery project there is, and it's easy to slap on some paint, right?  Read on friends.  NOTE:  If you don't care about all the drama or the who, what, where, why, and how... just scroll to the bottom for the chair reveal.  :) We bought an inexpensive dining room set in our last house for our formal dining room.  It was very pretty, but it wasn't good quality and the chairs never felt solid.  We didn't use it much though.  In our future house, we have a "casual" dining room which is open to the kitchen and living room, so it will be used regularly.  Maybe you've seen the table I refinished in my " Restoration Hardware Who ?" post... the table is solid solid solid.  I wanted some really high quality chairs to make an eclectic set...something frenchy with curves...a ...

So I posted pictures of the refinishing process for our dining table that was my parents table originally.  It makes sense that we'd want to hang on to that table because it's beautiful and it was theirs.  But my new found fascination for old or pre-owned things doesn't stop there.  When we built our first house and picked out furniture, if a piece had a wood grain out of place it was tainted to me.  Now I can't seem to get enough of the vintage, antique pieces that have long outlived me. I found this buffet on Craiglist, and it was the absolute exact size and style I wanted and I knew I could make her pretty again.  When we went to pick it up, we met the sellers, who were a bi-racial couple who said they purchased this buffet in an antique store in the 60s (in Dallas) not long after they got married.  Now tell me that family and that buffet doesn't have some stories to tell! BEFORE

So my last post was two weeks ago, and if you remember I said if all went well I'd be posting an update about our rough plumbing one week later (one week ago).  Well, you see where I'm going with this.  Another week delay, but alas, we have rough plumbing.  I'm sure it doesn't look like much fun in pictures, but it was a lot of fun to walk through the "house" and recognize what purpose each pipe will serve.  Please try to ignore the nearly completely framed house on our rear neighbor's lot (yes, they started the same day as us.)  Our builder and project manager are quick to point out that it's not a race and that they'll continue choose quality over speed everyday, which we value.  But a LITTLE speed would be nice once in a while.  :)   Here are some updated pics: The giant plywood box on the left with 1450 on it is a temporary dumpster.  Classy right?  Our subs don't just leave trash on the ground - they build a box around it! ...