Furniture and Appliance Shopping!

Okay.... so it's window shopping for now. Or more specifically, online shopping.

We have known for a while now that we will need a refrigerator.  Most definitely did not want to pay what Ryan Homes wanted to charge for a fridge, or consider the fact that we would be paying a 30 year mortgage on a fridge if we bought one from them.

So, we started browsing refrigerators.

We had our eyes on an LG one that was super neat, but reading reviews kind of backed us away from it.

Here's the LG we were looking at.  We just kinda fell in love with the little "door within door" feature.  Pretty stinkin' snazzy.  Well, reviews say that this design makes you slam your fridge door a lot to make sure it's closed, and the alarm constantly goes off because that door within door isn't always shut.  Still. It's neat.  But the design just made me see that it wasn't gonna be something that made us happy.

You can check out this fridge here if you want to.  It's from the Lowe's website since I am pretty sure this is where we are going to end up buying our fridge from.

So back to the drawing boards we went.  It didn't take us long to find something similar, with better reviews and to me, an overall better design.

Check it out.  It's a Samsung Food ShowCase.

It's sleek, pretty, and has that nifty "food showcase" door.  The latch to close this one is much better and not as hard to use as the LG one is.

Check out the product here.

Here's our dilemma.... Do we buy this one, which is 24.7 cubic feet, or do we spend MORE money and get the 21.5 cubic feet one that is "counter width"??

The counter width difference from the "regular" one is only 5 inches.  Not a huge difference.  And, our kitchen is open and full of space so it wouldn't bother that aspect of it.

I was originally leaning towards the counter depth version, but after looking at them, I think the larger fridge is better.

There are some AWESOME 4th of July sales that are happening that would allow us to save a ton of money if we get the counter depth one now.  Same goes for the 24.7 cubic foot one, just not "as good" of a deal.

But we are also on the fence as to whether or not we actually want to spend that much money before we close.  It's nice having a big ole fat bank account right now and we kind of want to wait til we close to make sure everything goes smoothly. [insert skeptical laughter here]

So.Many.Decisions.

Luckily, we have a washer and dryer that we LOVE that we have only had for a couple of years.  So we don't have to worry about that on the appliance end.

And, then there's the TV unit we want.

IKEA is literally five minutes from where we live right now.  We go there pretty often and just walk around and admire everything, and occasionally find a thing or two that we like.  Well, on one such occasion we found a super amazing and awesome set up for a TV stand and we fell in love with it.

Check this bad boy out:

It's massive.  And we love it.

We decided a few weeks ago that we were going to go ahead and purchase a few pieces at a time until we move, just to have everything and to lessen the blow of spending THAT much money on something all at once.

And after we decided this, we also decided to modify a few things on it.

The cabinets across the top will all have glass doors.

The side cabinets will have glass doors on the top two and the bottom one will be solid, like it is in the photo.

Here are a few stock photos from IKEA.  Obviously not with our modifications to it, but you get the idea.

We love this because it's that brown/black color that a lot of our stuff in the house is, or will be.  So it's nice to keep that consistency.

So the funny story about this.  We stopped one of the IKEA workers to ask about modifying some things and he gave us our very own shopping sheet complete with diagrams.  Well, halfway through him  helping us, I have a revelation.  I keep quiet til he's done, but immediately look at hubby and say:

"I don't think this is going to fit in between the two windows in the family room where we want it to go"

Cue the sad violin music.

We love this thing.  We have dreamt about one day having it, even before we started building a house.

So, I sit down at one of the set up living rooms in IKEA. I sketch things out.  I devise a plan that will make things work.  It means that we have to put it back on the solid wall in the family room, and that the couch will sit in a way that we will block off the kitchen, so the room is going to seem smaller... but we are gonna make it work.

Keep in mind- we scrambled to get Guardian to come out to the house and move one of our cable locations because we decided we wanted the TV between the tables and not on the empty wall.  And here we are moving it back to where we originally had it (luckily Guardian kept that cable there and just added another where we asked them to).

Yes, that's how much we love this thing.

We head out to the house, and I am pleasantly surprised and think that maybe, just maybe.... this big ole thing will actually fit in between the windows like we originally planned.

Well- we picked up a tape measure this past weekend because mine has gone MIA.

We measured for the frige.  Yay.

Then, we measured between the windows.

Drumroll, please..........

The distance between the windows is 121 inches.

The length of this TV unit, end to end:  118.5 inches.

Hurrah.
Yay!
Jump for Joy!

We are super pumped.

We also are thinking that these may be the tables we end up purchasing from IKEA for our family room..  We don't currently have a coffee or end tables because our town home is just WAY too small for them....

Wanna check em out on your own?

Here's the link for the coffee table  and end table.

And, just for fun.... if y'all do the whole Pinterest thing... Here's my Pinterest board for furniture.  I love to browse online sites when I'm not busy, haha!  I have soooooo many ideas in mind for when we get into this house.  Even if I hate the vinyl in the bathroom and the stain is wrong on our rails {haha}.

Hoping for good news in the next day or so about our dilemma with the floors.  And the mistake with the stain on the rails!

Week 9-- Front Porches, Flooring, Stone Siding and TRIM!!!!!

Okay. So- let's just start out by saying that trim week is most definitely the most exciting week after framing, haha! I absolutely LOVE how everything went this week. Well, almost.

We got our hardwood, ceramic tile and vinyl flooring installed.

Trim carpenters came in and started on the trim.  Kitchen cabinets were installed {and they're gorgeous} as well as vanities in both bathrooms.

Our front porch was poured, FINALLY.  No steps leading up to it yet, but yay for a front porch! Can't wait to enjoy those Friday beers on the front porch like hubby and I agreed on :-)

Stone siding was also installed!  I adore it and it pulls everything together so nicely.  So nicely that you get to see a picture of it already!

We did our normal visits, on Tuesday, Thursday and a weekend day {Saturday and Sunday this week}.  Tuesday ended up causing A LOT of drama and it's ongoing drama at this point.  We are still experiencing The Great Flooring Debacle and still don't have a solid answer on that yet.  I'm not gonna dwell on it in this post though.  I've cried a ton and it's stressed me out to no end.  So once we have an answer as to what's gonna happen, I'll let y'all know.

We noticed a couple of small issues, which I'll show in photos as well.  Obviously, the vinyl flooring is an issue right now.  We noticed some dents and dings in the siding that is right next to the front door.  And we also noticed that the front door looks small.  There's light going all around the door like it doesn't fit fully in the door frame.  Some of our hardwood flooring looks like it has been cut too short, but I also noticed that a lot of that was resolved on our later visits during the week.

And now for the photos!  I'll try to keep them in chronological order by the days we visited, haha!!

First up is our front porch FINALLY being poured!  I did a light step from the front door onto the porch and it still seemed a bit wet so we didn't walk on it the first day!

Inside the garage.  I was so bummed that we haven't seen any "surprises" when we open the garage door. I so wanted to see boxes of cabinets, trim, etc.  They've all been installed or starting to be installed at this point!  Notice though, we FINALLY have steps from the garage door.  No more jumping up and down to get into the house!

Love those gorgeous cardboard floors! So glad we upgraded to cardboard ;-)

Sneak peek of the hardwood. This is in the morning room.

Our gorgeous hardwood floors.

Vinyl Flooring that I HATE and don't think is correct.

Sneak peek of the ceramic tile in the master bath

Listello tile detail in our master bath shower

Up close of the listello tile in our master bathroom.  I LOVE this!

Master bath. Tub and shower view {the shower has a seat!}

Master Bath

Master bath close up of listello and tile. This is on the tub

Master bath

Railing has been installed!

Trim started! Double vanity in the hall bath, along with the sample of our supposed vinyl.  Please note: I plan on staining these cabinets down the road to be the maple espresso color that our other cabinets are.

Kitchen!  I'm actually not hating the island as much as I thought I would.  I still think I want to have the extended "gourmet" island with the table, but this little island doesn't make me sad.

Railing in the basement was installed too

Walls have been prepped on the porch and garage for our stone!

Sunday visit! Check out everything that has been done!!

Rails have been stained! Basement rails here.

Close up of basement rails!

Trim photo.  All of the house has the baseboard and door frames trimmed out.

Kitchen Island

More kitchen cabinets! We measured for a potential fridge today too 

Morning room view into the kitchen

Pantry to the left, family entry to the right

Family room.  Pretty sure our sectional will be going on this wall.

Foyer. Check out the light coming through the door.  Not sure if this is "normal" or not, but I don't like that it appears like the door doesn't fit in the frame

shhhh. Don't tell anyone.  The house was completely locked. Couldn't get the garage door up, so I climbed up the front porch and through the window ;-)

Our gorgeous stone.  A piece on the bottom was off when we were there.

Because our house sits higher up, we were surprised at our pre-construction meeting by being told that we get porch railing.  I LOVE LOVE LOVE it!

Porch columns were installed too

View from the front door into the foyer

Railing upstairs has been stained too

Stacks of doors in the bedroom

Another view of the stained railing.  Whoever did it was messy.  There's stain on the walls and stairs and floors.  Luckily we get more paint and carpet isn't installed yet

big ole giant mirror in our master bedroom that will be going on the wall in the bathroom.

vanity in master bath

Damn vinyl flooring.

Front porch view.

More front porch.

Columns <3

I hope they clean the yuck up there.  But look at that gorgeous stone.

Problem photos. Check em out:


Rail staining.

We chose "Dark Oak" as our railing color during our selection meeting.  So look at the photo from our selections, and then check out what's on the rails.  I asked {and am waiting for an answer} to find out if it will end up lighter.... I'm a little concerned that once again, something isn't right.
The difference is- this time I kinda like the darker stain.  It matches our cabinetry in the kitchen and looks pretty sharp with the white balusters.  Not sure I wanna change it, but I still will be pursuing whether or not this is correct or not.  So yay for ANOTHER headache and stress-starter.

Siding issues.  We noticed there are quite a few dings and dents in the siding that is right by the front door.

And, if you've made it this far, you're rewarded with a video!  Shot a GoPro video while we were out there today.  Sound isn't the greatest and I was frustrated because my wifi wasn't connecting between my phone and the GoPro.  And it was hot out there.

Anyways.  Video :-)  Enjoy!

Can't wait to figure out what happens next for us! Not sure what it is, since our PM hasn't emailed us to let us know. But, for what it's worth- he's probably irritated with us and the whole flooring issue.  haha!  Have a great week everyone!!!