Drywall is being taped

What a strange week it has been! I guess we are at a building stage where things are moving quickly but the photos don't show it.

All the drywall is up and the first layer of taping and mudding is done. Now it has to dry, be sanded, then get another layer before the spraying of texture takes place.

This view is from the kitchen, looking over the half wall where the cooktop will be into the dining room. The pipe in the ceiling is where the hood will be - the very cool stainless steel hood.

While all this has been going on, we've been occupied with the picking of things from lighting and plumbing fixtures, to changing our counter choice and floor choice to problems with our fireplace that meant we had to go choose another. It's seemed very problematic, yet at the actual site, things have just kept on happening.

This photo give a view from the kitchen looking toward the living room end of the great room. Actually, I don't like the term "great room" for what we are doing. While the kitchen is partially open to the dining room, it's also partly closed off; and, since
the kitchen will also have it's own eating area, it doesn't have
the feel of the typical great room.

Also, the living room is far enough from the kitchen to avoid the feel of everything just running together.

This view is from the back corner of the kitchen, where the banquet and little round table will be, looking down the hallway. The door visible on the left is the back door. The opening partially visible (showing wood) is the pantry. Just past that, and not visible in the photo, is an opening to the right that goes into the den. Straight down the hallway is the half bath or powder room. Way back in the planning stages our debate was whether to locate the "powder room" toward the front or more public part of the ground floor, giving it a more formal feel, or locate it at the back of the house, giving it more a casual feel. We opted for the casual feel, both because we are casual people and because it puts the bathroom near the back door.

This is upstairs in the master bedroom.
It's funny how the rooms change their feeling as the building progresses. Right now the master bedroom feels much smaller than it did a week ago.

So, lighting choices are made. We are doing three pendants over what will be our loooong dining table rather than doing a single chandelier.
The kitchen table gets a neat weighted hanging light that can be pulled down, pushed up, etc., and will stay where you put it. Stainless steel of course.

My childhood friend, Yvonne - HI Y- is giving me a chandelier that will grace our bathroom! It's a very unique glass, girlie, but not too girlie, thing that will look superb over our old claw foot tub. The tub, for those who don't know, is a wonderful old clawfoot that we got from my inlaws. It was removed from their downstairs bath when we needed a handicapped shower for Ruth. We carted it to New Mexico, stored it for years in a barn there, carted it back and put it in storage here, and have finally gotten it out and spiffed up! It was have a place of honor in the master bath, with Y's chandelier above, and my grandmother's old pie cabinet next to it as our linen closet. The master bath is the one place in the house where I'm allowing myself to be openly girlie AND openly sentimental. I'm lovin' it! I can lounge in the tub, gaze out the window or up at the light, reach out and touch the old cabinet and think about and quietly THANK all the people who have been important to me.