The chimney is finished! Here are some pictures. We have several other things done, as well. The floors are underway, and the interior doors are all in. We also got our electric line buried and hooked up, so we have power and heat now! (no lights yet)

The railing is partially finished around the porch. It will be painted white, as will that strip of trim on the outside between the posts and rock. The floor will be gray.

The tile is down in both bathrooms and the utility room. It is a black and white check pattern in all three. We also have the hardwood started upstairs. It is almost finished in both upstairs bedrooms. Here's a picture in one of the rooms. The window in the picture still has to be stained.

Our hardwood floor was delivered Friday. It's 3 ¼-inch wide prefinished oak boards. Here is a sample of it. The color is "Ozark vista." Some of it looks lighter than what is pictured here, but I think it will all blend together and look OK.

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: