Reaching the Summit

They always say that the third time is a charm. After having to make a few cuts, on the third try, Travis' dad placed the final piece on the upstairs fireplace. We officially reached the summit of the fireplace at 8:53 pm on Saturday night. Here's the picture of the final piece being placed.
The final fireplace. We still have to finish the mantle and the hearth, but the rockwork is complete...and it looks amazing!

While Trav's dad was finishing the fireplace upstairs, Trav started work on the fireplace downstairs. We went with a smaller rock because the area is smaller. It still has quite a bit of color and is looking really nice. There will be a slate tile border going around the fireplace.

I made a lot of cuts for the tile in the kitchen area, but we ran out of the smaller tiles, so I have not finished that area. I also wanted to work on something different for awhile, so I started tiling the Jack & Jill bathroom. The tile is really dirty from the tile saw, so I will post a better picture later this week after I can clean it a little bit, but here is a picture for now...

Trav's mom also was a big help by cleaning up around the house. I don't know where we come up with all the garbage! By the end of the weekend, we were all pretty tired...including Mocha:)

Stone and Tile - Make Me Smile:)

As you can tell, Travis helped me with the title of the blog. I think all of our creative juices have gone into designing our house, so unfortunately, this was the best we could do with the title. We had Trav's sister and brother-in-law up from Houston for the weekend to show off our house and Travis wanted to keep our progress a secret. We enjoyed being able to show it off, but now that they have seen our progress, we can share it with the rest of you...

Travis has been rocking away on the fireplace and it is looking great! He is hoping to be done with it by Friday, so then all the rock will be complete for the upstairs. We haven't decided which route we want to go with our mantle, so for now, we just have the board as a place holder. Mocha really likes the hearth we put in to. I don't think we will be able to get her off of there once the heat is on!

While Travis was working on the rock, I was tiling away. Over the weekend, I was able to get all the tile laid that didn't need to be cut. The tile runs from the garage entry way, through the kitchen, and includes the laundry room, powder room, and hallway to the Jack & Jill bedrooms. On Monday, Travis showed me how to use the tile saw and I have been cutting away. Having actual flooring down makes the house feel so much more like a finished product.

We did a pinwheel on a diagonal with 18x18 and 13x13" tiles.

Another fireplace picture - looking on from the kitchen

Still Working Away

We continue to keep working on a whole bunch of projects. Travis has been putting up more and more rock. Over the weekend, he was working on one of the larger faces of wall. It was a little more time consuming because he had to keep climbing up and down the ladder. My dad and I also managed to get more painting done. We are getting closer to being done with paint. Below are the most recent pictures of the rock on the outside of the house. You can also see that they have started putting up the gutters. The gutter people are getting a lot of practice because they started putting up gutters that were the complete wrong color, they were almost black!

Here is the rock around the dining room columns. These are much more time consuming because it is such a small area. We are still really pleased with how the rock is looking. A sill plate will also go on top of the rock columns too.

I am also in the process of procrastinating on finishing up the texturing and painting. I know I have said it multiple times, but I am hoping by the end of the weekend, we can be done with painting. Travis is hoping to get the columns and the fireplace rocked by next week. We are also putting down more backerboard, so once the rock is up and all the rooms are painted, we can start tiling. We were actually able to get a lot of backerboard put down last night because I accidentally mixed too much thinset and we had to use it all. We now have the kitchen and nook area ready for tile and are working our way down to the garage entry. We also had a water line hooked up to our well the end of last week, but we still don't have water because they haven't put the pressure gauge in yet (I think). So hopefully that happens soon and it is almost time for the septic system to get put in.

More Pictures

Travis was able to rock another wall before work today. The next wall is taller, so it is going to be exciting to see how it looks.
The deck is almost finished. They only have to put the railings on and it is good to go. It looks great and I think the columns are going to look great in the same rock that we are putting on the front.

We are also working on finalizing the taping and texture touch-ups. We are hoping to be done with painting on Saturday and on Sunday (Trav's day off this week) we are hoping to be able to start tiling. It seems like after we got done with the sheetrock (for the most part), things seem to be moving so much faster because we can see progress.

Updated Rock and Deck Pictures

We were able to put up more rock after work today. I think we made pretty good progress and I also think that the more we do, the quicker we get. I hope that continues because we still have a lot to go. We are working out of two boxes, and we may have gone through about one of the 19 boxes...

The deck is getting closer to being done. We were able to sit on the deck for a minute just to take in the view and get a glimpse of what it will be like to actually live and relax in our house. We had a moment at the house tonight where we are started to feel like we can see the light at the end of the tunnel. I am starting to get really antsy and can't wait to live there and more importantly relax on my weekends!

Rock Competition Results

As promised, the poll has closed, so I will reveal the results of the samples. For the rock that goes on the outside and the upstairs fireplace, Sample A was the clear winner. This was done by the experienced "rock"star, Travis. For the rock that goes on the downstairs fireplace and bar, Sample C was the winner. Sample C was put together by none other than me! There should probably be an asterisk by me being the winner because I took a crappy picture of Travis' sample. It was a fun little competition, so thanks for voting. Thanks for making us both winners because I don't know if I could handle Travis having complete bragging rights around the house for awhile:)

Weekend Warriors

This was a big weekend with lots of different activities going on. We had Trav's parents up again as well as help from my dad. Dad and I were painting fools again. We managed to get almost all the walls and ceilings painted that could be painted. There are still rooms left to paint after we finalize our taping and texture. Trav's mom did painting touch ups in all the finished areas. It was so exciting to be able to take the plastic off the windows and say that some rooms were complete. Travis and I got to thinking and we had the plastic on the windows for five months. We had forgotten how good our view was!

Working on the house is a lot more fun when you can start a new project, so this weekend was pretty fun. The weather cooperated so we were able start rocking the outside of the house.
The guys were discussing their next move and Mocha was supervising.

Travis' dad layed quite a bit of hardiebacker in the kitchen/nook area so that we could start tiling. The process was so time consuming. I think each board takes 54 screws and that doesn't even include all the time of putting the thinset down or making any cuts. As you can see all the plastic is gone in there too!

Trav and Mocha were testing out the deck. The contractor got about half way done on Saturday and will hopefully finish up tomorrow, including the railings.

Here's how far we managed to get on the rock for the weekend. A sill plate will go between the rock and the trim, so that is why there is the gap there. It is fun putting up the rock, but since the pieces are not perfectly square, the process is also very time consuming. We really like our choice though because the rock looks really natural.

The rock looks great close up, but it looks really cool from a distance too. The sky looks really cool in this picture as well. We managed to have perfect timing for cleaning up because you can see a big rain storm brewing. Thanks so much to Trav's parents and my dad for their help as well as to my mom for making sure we were well fed! If anyone is having trouble sleeping, we can put you to work on the house, and it's a guaranteed good nights sleep:)