I just realized I haven't posted a picture of the fireplace. The firebox has been built, and now it just needs a tile surround and mantel. Also the chimney is progressing - slowly.

Progress has been slow. I got one exterior door stained a few days ago - the kitchen door. Here it is:

We are currently working on kitchen cabinets, which, of course, are pretty detailed and time-consuming. Here's a picture of the boxes for the main wall of cabinets. The stove will be at the far end of this section, and around the corner to the left will be the kitchen sink, dishwasher and fridge, with lower cabinets only. We are planning to paint these cabinets, maybe the same color as the ceiling (Rice Cake), which is a light cream/barely yellow.

We have a couple more things done on the house now. Some of the window and door casings are up, and we got our transoms installed. Here are a couple of pictures of trim around the doors in the dining room and living room. We used 4-inch fluted casings with 4 ½-inch corner blocks downstairs (3 and 3 ¾ upstairs). I am going to work on the stain a little more now that they're up and also add a coat of clear varnish. The staining has been a LOT of work. We have probably more than half the casings done now, but we still have to finish those and do all the doors, windows, baseboards and crown moulding. Both the doors pictured here have glass transoms, but you really can't see the glass at all. In the picture looking through into the kitchen, you can see the beginning of the cabinets and also the chalkboard panel door that we got for the pantry.

OK, we have most of the house painted, and it is an ongoing ordeal. In the living room, we have Olive 3 by Laura Ashley. It is a pretty color, but I'm afraid it's too dark. I'm contemplating changing it to Olive 2, which is one step lighter.

In the downstairs bathroom, we have French Bistro in Kilz brand. It is much, much brighter on the wall than we expected it to be. The color is not accurate in this picture because the flash is on. It looks much more intense when you're in the room. Once again, I'm thinking about changing it to a lighter color. Whatever we do there will also be in the utility room across the hall.

Finally, we have Amaryllis Yellow, also from Kilz,

in most of the rest of the house (dining room/kitchen, hall and landing, upstairs bedrooms). It's a little "yellower" than I wanted, but it's too big an area to repaint, so I'm trying to embrace it. The color has been the most stressful thing so far.

We had a cedar post fence built around the yard. It's almost finished. Here are some pictures, including one of the garden gate and one of a stile or walk-through at the back corner of the yard. It's a little tight curve made from posts. People can walk through it, but cattle can't.

Here's the porch ceiling, which was covered with boards last week. We plan to paint it.

Here are some pictures of the rock work, along with the siding, and the fireplace that was just started yesterday:

Here are a couple of pics of our doors. The first one is in the dining room. The second one is the kitchen door and is identical to the front door except not as wide. They are Simpson wood doors.

Well, it's been about a month since we updated the blog, and lots of things have happened. All the exterior doors are on, most of the siding is up, a lot of painting is done inside, about half the rock work is done, the fence is almost finished, the fireplace was started today, and lots of other little things. Here's an overall picture of the house today:

Three small stained glass windows were installed this week, including one that is a transom over the front door (the first one). The other two are located upstairs in the bathroom and bedroom. They are really tiny. This is the only size windows we could put there because of how the roof on the one-story part of the house hits the upper wall.

Also, we got several little things finished up inside this week to get ready for sheetrock. For instance, they put this insulation in the attic (areas that couldn't have the blown kind). The sheetrockers are supposed to start on Tuesday.

Siding started this week. It's been delayed because we were waiting on the doors, but they were able to start on one side of the house where there aren't any doors. The siding is prefinished white Hardiplank (6 ¼). There is unfinished trim around the windows, which we will paint to match the siding. Here's a picture:

We finally received two of our doors and got them installed. They are fiberglass, which will be painted and/or stained. We haven't decided yet. These are the doors on the back of the house, where they are exposed. All the other doors, which are under covered porches, will be wood. (They still aren't here yet.) Here's a picture of one of the two we got in: