Decisions, decisions

While Kevin nails down the plumbing, heating and electrical guys, we have been deciding on flooring, light fixtures, plumbing fixtures, kitchen cabinets, vanities, etc. This is the fun part - at least until you see the bills. We have been to Patriot Flooring (formally Hoboken Flooring) in Pompton Plains, NJ to choose the hardwood for the dining and living rooms and upstairs for the master bedroom and library. Since the dining room is below grade, we are required to use engineered flooring in that particular room. We decided on an engineered cherry in vintage brown for the dining room and since walnut was way too expensive in solid wood, we chose cherry with the same vintage brown stain for the living, bedroom and library. The third floor bedrooms we hope to use the original oak flooring that was in the master bedroom and library- it depends on the price of refinishing vs new flooring.


I used Lighting Direct.com for the light fixtures as they had the best prices and free shipping. I also used Hesco Lighting in Califon - they have a pretty extensive selection and their prices were good, too.

E&B in Bridgewater is the place to go for plumbing fixtures and Martha was very helpful.

Showcase Kitchens in Bloomfield is doing the kitchen. Haviva, Vito and Chris have all had in put in the design and great suggestions. The cabinets are being made by Crystal Cabinets.

Kevin Fleming's crew are going to make a few of the bathroom vanities using a design I saw in Pottery Barn. I will provide picture of everything as it is installed.

More framing

For those of you interested in framing,here are some shots of the awesome framing job done by Arturo and company.






This is the little English window I saw in a magazine and incorporated into our master bath.


And this adorable little guy is our new great-nephew, Rowan (with mom and dad) who was born at the same time we started on the house. I think he's made a little more progress than we have.

Help

Well we finally broke down and hired a general contractor to help us finish the house. Kevin Fleming of Kevin Fleming Construction has come on board to make our lives easier. He has a ton of resources and a great crew. The roof is finally on - we bit the bullet and used Lamarite slate and it looks beautiful. The weather guard our first roofer used is not approved by Tamko so it voided the warranty. They don't say that the warranty will be voided and they don't specify what they want and they are very vague on the phone when asked about it. The only response I could get was "if you follow the directions, everything should be okay". It's the word should that makes me nervous. The copper flashing was put on and we had copper put on the porch roof which was very expensive. We thought we would put an anodized metal on the roof, but it cost almost as much and could not be soldered just caulked so we went with the copper. The glass doors and transom were put on by Kevin's crew. We ordered the wrong size windows for the original stone house - all nine and that was when we knew we needed some help and called Kevin. We will use the windows for the garage. The new windows are in but have not been installed yet. Here are some photos of the house last year at this time and today.