House Progress - Update #4

Last weekend, we made a quick trip to Royse City to check on our house.  We left right after breakfast Saturday morning and returned Sunday evening about supper time.  It was a quick trip, but we had a great time.  It's the quality, not the quantity afterall.

Parker was not fully awake yet, but enjoying some cartoons in his pajamas on the road.  

Daddy doing the driving (don't worry, we took this picture while stopped at a light). 

 Stopping for a little morning coffee.

 Driving through Little Rock headed to the Dallas area.

At last, we have arrived at the house!  We were so anxious to check on the house and see what progress had been made since our last visit in early January.  We were very pleased as there was more done than we anticipated.  There are lots of pictures so I may not give captions to them all, but I may highlight a few things or areas.

As far as the outside goes, the posts (front and back) still need to be stained and we will have a stained railing along the front porch that will be put up toward the end.     

 Welcome In!

 This little arched hallway leads to the garage.

This archway leads to the front bedroom, Parker's bathroom and Parker's bedroom.  There is no painting done so the walls, doors, closets and trim will obviously look different and better once that is finished - hopefully this week.

This long hallway leads to the rest of the house.  The first arch on the left leads to John's office and the second, the kitchen.

 Coat/Vacuum closet.

The divided light door leads to John's office.  He's going to have a great place to work - both personally and professionally.

 Laundry Room...

This huge closet in the laundry room is one of my favorite things about the house and something I'm super excited about.  It's hard to get a good idea of it from the pictures, but it has lots of storage!  

Our board game closet!  We are board game lovers in our family and in our last house we had an entire closet for all of our games so we made sure we had one in this house as well.  This is right off our bedroom and close to the living room.

Our room and bedroom.  I guess they stained the cabinets in here - ha!  They still have to prime and paint so no worries.

 A few views of the hall...

 Looking back down the long hallway toward the front door. 

Living Room.  The fireplace mantle is propped up on the floor ready to be mounted. 

The fireplace will have stone all around under the mantle and have a hearth area - so it won't be flat against the wall.

Several of the rooms have these window seats - they are awesome.  I think we will really enjoy them. 

 Looking into the kitchen from the living room. 

 Kitchen - a bit obvious I know!

This side will have adjustable cookbook shelves - so happy about that. 

This cabinet will have slats to divide cookie sheets, cutting boards, cooling racks, etc. Gotta love organization!

 Dining area...

 Pantry (plus remember we have more storage in the laundry room). 

The pipe sticking out of the wall in the middle is the future home of my pot filler - I am pumped about having it.  The microwave will be above it and stove bellow it.   

All of the wires hanging down under the cabinets are for under counter lighting. 

 Standing at the back door looking into the living room and kitchen. 

 Back porch...

A couple of other houses are going up around the street.

After we left the house, we headed to our home away from home for the past 4+ months - the Holiday Inn.  Parker can even say "hotel" - he enjoys it. 

Being the romantics that we are, we were excited to see our room number was our anniversary date - 2/08.  It's coming next week!

 Sweet Parker having fun at the hotel. 

After some rest time, we headed out for dinner at Joe's Crab Shack and a trip to Toys R Us for a few things.  It was a really nice night full of good family fun. 

We got cupcakes to take back to the hotel - mmmm, they are heavenly.  They are from Bliss Cupcakes.

Sunday morning, we were able to go to Sunday school and church.  We really miss our church and it was so good to be back.

After church we stopped for lunch and headed back to Arkansas.  We are getting closer to the house being complete - hopefully just a couple/few more weeks.  We are so excited about the new house and feel so blessed!

Until we meet again...
Riley