new house

A lot has happened since my last update on the construction of our new farmhouse! We are LOVING seeing the progression of the build and are getting so excited about all our plans and dreams for our little homestead.

For one, the second floor framing has been completed and sheathing has been placed on the roof rafters and on the exterior. It has also been wrapped for protection and the subfloor is completed.

An oblique view of the rear elevation of the house

The “great room”–where the fireplace will be

Having all the framing complete makes it so much easier to envision actual room sizes and the feel with the light from the windows and traffic flow.

Since we don’t really have a true “open” floor plan, having a living room that is two-stories high gives it a larger, more open feel and I love that. (Even if my husband thinks it’s a waste of space!)

View of second floor framing from our bonus room facing west

View of the girls’ bedroom and bathroom

Peeking into the kitchen facing south

They had to move the casement windows in the kitchen down a few inches (as much as they could) because I am fairly short and I couldn’t see very well out of them. I wish they could have lowered them further but now according to code windows have to be higher due to required outlets that have to sit at the sink in between the counter and the windows, or something like that. They joked that the builder can make me a little pull-out stool under the sink cabinets to stand on and see better out those windows 🙂

Our front door, unstained

Another huge change is the installation of the windows and doors! We chose an all-wood DSA Mastercraft front door with four-lights-over-one-panel and matching sidelights and a transom of five lights. We plan to stain this door with a walnut colored stain. I am planning to devote an entire post to the windows soon, but I’ll briefly describe them here: we chose a JELD-WEN all wood double-hung window, two-over-two sash that has an aluminum-clad exterior in dark bronze. The windows will be trimmed out and painted white on the interior.

The back French doors with transom leading to the screened porch are a Plastipro fiberglass, six-lights-over-one-panel that will be painted. I’m think I’m going to go with a dark grey or charcoal color for these. Already we know that our favorite room in this house is probably going to be this glorious screened porch.

The only other door is our laundry door leading to the screened porch which is just a simple steel door with one light in the upper half. Nothing fancy for that one.

Laundry room

Next week we are meeting the electrician and pretty soon we have to pick out all our flooring! Light fixtures too. So many decisions to make! It’s starting to get a little overwhelming 🙂

It’s easy to get overwhelmed when building a house–we have had plenty of stressful moments when making decisions and modifying plans in order to stay within our budget. Choosing paint colors is no exception to creating confusion and uncertainty.

And who knew there were so many different shades of white to choose from?!?

Since it’s hard to get a feel for a color like white, grey, or another light shade from a small paint card sample, I’ve been relying on seeing the paint used in whole rooms from pictures online or in magazines.

Since we are building a farmhouse, I feel that white is an appropriate color to start with for a clean, fresh slate for all of the rooms. Plus, I love the brightness and lightness that it will give to the house. I may gradually paint some of the rooms a different, darker color (perhaps the dining room and bedrooms), but to start I’d like to live in the house with white for a while to help me decide if and what color to paint before I make the plunge into color!

I am so nervous about committing myself to color and tend to go with a pretty neutral palette anyway….

The other night my husband and I got a rare “date” night to go out to dinner together by ourselves–want to guess what else we did? Went to the Sherwin Williams paint store, of course! I grabbed a bunch of paint chip samples that I knew were close to shades I would like to use in the new house.

At home I grouped them further into what I’d be using them for (see above image)–the whites for most of the interior walls, the greys for the kitchen cabinets, the mint greenish bluish colors for our master bath, and the others were just colors I liked in general. These are just the colors from Sherwin Williams–we have yet to look at other stores (and I’m not sure I want to!) so needless to say it will be a difficult decision.

Below are some inspirational photos from Pinterest with pretty neutral color palettes and various shades of white or light grey. I’m starting to lean towards a light creamy grey color perhaps for the kitchen cabinets, but I’m just not sure yet…..

Via Workbook by Westbrook

Via Jennifer Rizzo on Bloglovin

Via Décor Pad

Via DeVol Kitchens

I’ve always loved a “mint” type green close to a robin’s egg blue or jadeite type green in small doses–so I may use a color like that somehow in our bathroom or maybe as an accent color to some of the other rooms too. I’m also partial to deep chocolate browns–I feel like brown is a nice neutral for a lesser-used room.

And I couldn’t help myself picking out some light pinks because I know the girls will love them 🙂