Cabinets and Neighbors

Saturday morning was really nice. That's a commentary on the weather, but more importantly, it was a nice morning at the house and around the new neighborhood.

It has been a long long week for both of us. I've had clients in town and have been up in Duluth and here in the Twin Cities doing events for AT&T. Sara, while still working through the final weeks of her MBA program, is insanely busy at work. In fact she was at the office Friday night until well past 9pm. I suppose I was technically working prior to picking her up, but my work involved an event with wine and desert and speeches by two prospective presidential candidates. So don't feel sorry for me.

After the long week, Sara and I got up relatively early and went over to the house. We parked the car and took a nice long walk around the new neighborhood. It was gorgeous and sunny out. And there were others either walking or running around the neighborhood.

We had a chance to check out that last house in the cul-de-sac that is under construction by Accent. That is the couple from New York that is hoping to close before the expiration of the tax credit. They are moving fast on that house. It is basically all framed up and it looks like they are getting ready to insulate soon.

We walked around a lot of Aspen Bay where we will soon live, getting ideas for landscaping, talking about picking up a kayak for the lakes and looking ahead at more walks and bike rides around the series of lakes.

TJB started construction recently on one of the lots that we had considered at the beginning. They are flying through the construction of that house too. It isn't at the point where they need to lock it up, but it is nearly totally framed.

We spent a little time walking around in our house and checking out the cabinets. They are all in place now and are ready to be stained and then affixed with hardware. Most of what is done with the cabinets can be seen in prior posts. However, a few of the items have been completed since our last visit to the house. (at least since my last visit, Sara had a chance to go there with Melissa on Thursday evening).

We've purchased all of the knobs and handles for these cabinets and at some point after they stain them have to bring the hardware for them to install. We walked around to all of the cabinets to get an accurate count of how many of the knobs and handles we need to leave at the house.

Here, Sara is looking at a desk just off the kitchen and writing down what they'll need of the hardware we've purchased. The cabinet on the wall wasn't installed last time I was in the house.



This is the view of the kitchen from the informal dining room off the back of the house. They have the top of the hearth fully installed since I was here last. Of all of the selections we had to make at Village (tile, carpet etc) the one item outstanding is that to put in the hearth above the stove, and what to use as a back splash. We've picked out a few really cool options of glass tile. But we're going to wait until the cabinets are stained, the walls are fully painted and the granite is installed before we make our final selection.



The bookshelves and cabinets in the great room next to the fireplace are set as well. I'm really excited about the way they turned out. The only thing here we're unsure of is the cabinetry under the mantel that boarders the fireplace. We picked out some awesome tile to go around the fireplace and I think were planning on the mantle being freestanding affixed to the wall. It saved us a bunch of money cutting back on the linear footage of tile we need around the fireplace, but we hope we don't lose the effect we were going for.


With all of the cabinets in place and most of the trim done, they are getting ready to pain and stain, which we believe is happening Tuesday. The stairs are nearly complete which the exception of the iron, which will also come after the stain.

We were getting ready to leave after spending time at the house and we ran into Tom, the neighbor in the cul-de-sac three doors down. He had a UND sweatshirt on. I wasn't sure at first if it was Notre Dame or the University of North Dakota. It was the University of North Dakota, which just this week seemingly gave up on its last battle to have its team name and mascot (the Fighting Sioux) taken from them. I think he thought when I asked "what UND?" that I was a gopher fan. It turns out Tom is from Grafton North Dakota north and west of Crookston. As I was preparing to play the small world, who do you know game, he said he's related to most of the town. I couldn't recall the name Henry Wosick who my dad rented farm land from, but will ask him next time I see him. He did say he roomed with Ladd Knotek from Crookston, and knew Corey Sondrol who grew up on the same street as I was. He also roomed in college with Dixon Ward who was one of the hockey players for the Sioux during their Dream Team years in the late 1980s. Totally small world.

Tom and I had talked earlier about his landscaper who he was very happy with and who is apparently reasonably inexpensive. He had the guy's business card in his garage, so we walked over with him to his house to get it.

He seems like he'll be a great neighbor, and it helps to have that familiarity. He was home doing some yard work yesterday as he is on-call. He's a cardiac anesthesiologist at the University of MN Hospital who specializes in babies.

We were talking about lawns and landscaping, and he said all the guys in the cul-de-sac share a few pieces of equipment (aireator, fertilizer broadcaster, etc) that they all use. I'm looking forward to getting to that point where we have a nice lawn to take care of. It's all coming very soon.

We met up with Adam, Jes and Jackson afterwords for an early lunch, and then purchased some stuff for the bedrooms. Sara had a chance to bounce some color options off Jes and get her opinion. I think we're going to do something a little different in the bonus room to add some brighter colors to the upstairs. We'll see.

We're just over a month away. . .