Someone is about to lie to you

I'm completely unpacked and everything has been put away. The move is done! 

No, not really. That's a lie. There are still plenty of boxes laying around and loads of stuff that needs to find a place to live. But it's better than the picture above from a week and a half ago.

So even though the place is still an absolute mess there are a couple new pieces being added. I went to West Elm last night and ordered

a couple of these chairs (on the left, not the stool) for seating at the island,

bought this rug, which is too small for the dining room area where I intended to put it but feels great on the tootsies so I'm keeping it, and a box and candle just for fun.

Still on the hunt for a rug for the dining room, soon I'll figure out that I need some other things that aren't on the radar right now, and someday I'll start thinking about the yard. I did buy something fun for the front door but that's also on order and won't ship for another month or two. I'm thinking it'll take about 8 more weeks before it starts feeling like home.

Move It

The big move happened on Monday and the remnants at the old place were loaded up and moved on Tuesday so I'm officially in at Huron.

Right now I'm living in the midst of packing boxes and trying to find the essentials. My winter coat (still very necessary here), printer, books and drinking glasses are all mia. No alarm clock or table lamps. It's a little unsettling, I like when my stuff is where it belongs.

Most of the contractor's work is done, just a few minor fixes left. And then it'll be onto the furnishings and figuring out the yard.

How to Make a Decision

By mid-week the plans for the move should be set.  I'm hoping to get out of here and into there soon. The floors need to be cleaned and sealed, the house needs to be cleaned and that's it. Well, the fence hasn't been built yet but that's not holding up the move and anyway it should be in by the end of this week. It'll take time to get used to not operating on super speed and having a billion build-related things to do but as a consolation prize the house needs to be furnished and landscaped so the spending spree won't end any time soon.

Now that the floors and stairs are stained and all the painting has been done the house is like a gooey chewy piece of chocolate cream.  It's all this gorgeous dark brown offset by clean white walls. It's unexpected, I didn't realize the browns would play such a strong roll in the color scheme. I really kind of love it.

Choosing which whites to use was super tricky and then super easy. One day I was on the phone with Mark (sitting right on those stairs) talking about how much trouble I was having picking out my paint colors and he scampered off to check with Alisa, his friend from New York and my friend from our trip to Pennsylvania, to find out what colors she used in her place. It took about two seconds to decide to go with the same thing. Alisa's really cool and she has good taste and I'd seen pictures of her apartment because it was in O Magazine about a year or two ago. So with all of that I reckoned there wasn't much of a risk to just do what she did. I'm really happy with it. It's warm and there's exactly the right amount of contrast between the walls and the trim, it's really lovely. I mean, you can judge for yourself.

But you need to look past the filthy floors.

Yum, Benjamin Moore Moonlight White on the walls and Simply White for the ceilings and trim. Thanks Alisa.

And then there's this super yum chocolate pudding color on the front door. The trim needs an adjustment, when Bill saw it he suggested a way to correct the misstep. Once that happens it will be perfection.

Wrapped in Plastic

More progress to report.  As of today the floors have been stained, the countertops, fireplace and bathroom stones are all in and most of the light fixtures have been installed. The painters have also been hard at work which means that the inside of the house has been draped in splatter-proofing plastic wrap. So put on your x-ray goggles and take a look around.

The kitchen cabinets, island and most appliances are in.  The ceiling lights in the kitchen and living room are super simple.  

Just a porcelain fixture with an exposed bulb.  Right now they're all hanging by a thread so the painters can get up underneath their business.

The island pendants are from West Elm and they're also very simple: plain black canopy, black cord and black shade.

I found most of the light fixtures for the house on ebay and at salvage stores.  But when I saw these West Elm pendants they reminded me a teeny bit of the fantastic industrial salvage pieces you can find at http://www.skinflintdesign.co.uk/.  Like

 

this

and this. And since I was suffering from re-wiring fatigue (well, loading the car, hauling the lights over to the lighting store, paying someone to re-wire and restore the fixtures, picking them up, hauling them to Huron and unloading them through 10 inches of snow) I decided that the ready-made versions from West Elm would be just fine.

One more glance at the kitchen, here's the fridge and pantry cabinet.  Can you see it all coming together?

Underneath these layers is the stained hardwood flooring.  I really like how the floors turned out.  There are spots that need to be touched up and massaged but overall I'm super happy with the color. 

This is the dining room. For a long time the temporary stairs sat here so it was easy to ignore this spot.  There's a cut out in the first floor ceiling right above here so when you look up you see the second floor ceiling soaring above and, offset slightly, the skylights that are above the landing on the stairs. There are two large lights that hang down from the 2nd floor rafters that have the potential to look great. They're another ebay purchase and the jury in my head is still out on them. But huge thanks go to Sharon and her cousins who picked them up from some guy in Michigan and stored them for me for a couple of weeks. Once the table and chairs are in I think it'll be easier to see if the light choices are a success or not and be easier to appreciate Bill's design for this area. If I don't screw it up it could be really dramatic and lovely.

I love holophane lights and found two for the front part of the house.  One hangs in the entryway and one is in the library.  These came out of a factory in Racine, WI and the guy I bought them from was super nice and he and his wife were very hospitable. And their little girl was a peanut so this transaction was an all around pleasure.

Each stair tread is wearing a warm wooly toupee right now.  I suppose they're covered up because of the painting but it's also nice to have them protected from the many many feet that have been coming in and out of this house.  I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that there have been more people in Huron while the work has been going on than I've had over to my apartment in all the time I've lived in Chicago.  The other morning 4 friendly faces smiled down from the 2nd floor as I was dropping something off before running to work.  I'm going to miss the crowds and the mayhem when this build is done.

Here's another angle on the stairs where you can see the coffee brown stain peeking through.

Door knobs were a trickier choice than I thought they'd be. The front door hardware was a splurge and it's really beautiful. The door is painted a dark, high-gloss bronzetone and the hardware is white bronze. The rest of the interior doors (bathrooms and closets) are all painted white so I opted to do the opposite of the front door and go with light doors and dark knobs. The shape of the knobs sort of match so I think it all might be okay in the end. I have wondered if I spent too much time thinking about this...

On the 2nd floor the doors for the bedroom and guest room are still in the design process. They'll be sliding doors with the hardware mounted along the wall above the door openings. Remember when Bill was featured in Chicago Home + Garden magazine? A few pages after his piece there was an article on a design collective here in town so I shot them an email to see if anyone wanted to make some doors for Huron. This project is in the very initial stages, no decisions made yet, but I'm hopeful that someday there will be custom sliding doors for both of the bedrooms.

Here's the view back at the guest room / office. One more project on the to do list is to install a window unit over that half wall. I have some ideas about it but no source to do the work yet. Maybe the guy who's making the doors will have some thoughts on that. Mystery project, it remains a giant TBD.

C'mon Baby

Light my fireplace.  Soon this

and this

will become one.  You can see that this marble has tons of movement.  The dark indigo blue is really vibrant and dynamic.  Natural stone is a pretty amazing thing to behold, the colors, layers, veining and depth can be mesmerizing. I walked through the stone slab warehouse, saw this piece and knew it'd be perfect for the fireplace.  The owner tagged it for me; check out the handwritten label on the blue tape in the picture below.

It very clearly says "COUNTERTOP LING."  Or maybe it's "COUNTERTOP 4NG."  Based on the label it's not surprising that when I went back in the other day to make final decisions on the kitchen slabs the stone place didn't have this piece identified as mine.  I found out later, through a slip of the tongue, that after I chose it in December they tagged it for someone else and had to do some fancy footwork to get it back for me and rectify the situation. Working with this place was foolio central, they screwed up in lots of ways, but in the end all that really matters is that I love the pieces that end up in the house.    

Saturday I'l go out to the fabricator's workroom where they'll lay the templates for the fireplace, kitchen countertops and bathroom marble directly on the slabs.

That's when I'll get to pick out which part to use for the fireplace surround 

and which to use for the hearth.  

The plan is to keep the stone fairly intact using one piece for the surround, cutting out the middle for the fireplace opening and folding it over at the bottom for the hearth.  It kills me that there will be leftover stone that will probably go to waste.  I asked to have it all delivered to the house but as much as I might have you fooled I don't know how to cut slabs or make marble chairs or stone ottomans.  So let me know if you want any of this before 4NG gets his hands on the leftovers.

Do you see what I see?

Walls!  They're covered with primer and looking bright, white and clean.  This is progress.

  

Wrap It Up

Next phase was insulation.  As I've mentioned, it was cooooooooold in that house for a while.  Once the gas was connected (that was a whole other story, the Gas Company behaved exactly like one would expect) a furnace was put in and turned on but without insulation the heat was flying out through the old brick walls and into the greater Chicagoland sky.  When the insulation was in it was a billion times warmer. Plus it helped to visually define what the rooms would look like when the walls were in.     

First floor looking toward front door.  

The library, which is at the front of the house.  This is to the left of the front door in the picture above.  The fireplace will have built-in bookshelves around the sides and over the top.  I can't wait to get the fireplace surround installed. The stone has already been picked out for that and it's absolutely beautiful.

First floor, back of the house.  Living room and dining room (which is currently occupied by the temporary stairs.)

Also at the back of the house, along the wall opposite the living room and dining room, is the kitchen.  The stone for the kitchen counters is pretty great but there have been some bumps in that process and it may still be in New Jersey.  I'm really hoping the stone place pulls through on that and I can get the slabs I like.

Looking up into the guest bedroom / office.  I love the exposed beam ceiling on the 2nd floor.  I would have been happy just to stain it a clear finish but Architect Bill thought it might look too unintentionally unfinished so it'll get a coat or two of dark chocolate brown paint instead.

Up the stairs and around toward the second floor you can see more of that ceiling and a glimpse into the bathroom.

The full bath is at the top of the stairs between the two bedrooms.  There's a soaking tub in there that looks pretty inviting.

Now up on the second floor looking from the guest room toward the master bedroom.

The closet in the guest room will house the washer and dryer.  So convenient.

Second floor looking back toward the guest room.

Master bedroom complete with large garbage bag.  It's those kind of extras that make it feel homey even at this stage.

And here's the entry into the walk-in closet in the master bedroom.  Next up...walls!