Ok so, somehow, November turned into December and now the year is over… 2020 gave us plenty of blessings but it was by no means a great year (no year wherein a pandemic essentially paralyzes the entire world could ever be classified as a great year…). I think I speak for everyone when I say “bring on 2021!!!”.
November:
We started the month by meeting with our builder’s interior designers. Our builder provides the services of an independent designer as part of their package – they are there to ensure we keep on track timeline wise and they can offer suggestions and design advise, if needed (we’re pretty set in our ways and know what we want but it’s still nice there is someone there to bounce off ideas, if needed).
Mid-month, we met with the plumbing suppliers to choose our fixtures. Another good thing with working with a builder’s suppliers – they have your plans, know your budget and know your builder! So after visiting the store a few times to try to nail down what we wanted, we set up an appointment with a representative and he walked us through each room and helped us make our selections. We ended up with a broad range of choices – from black plumbing fixtures in boys’ bathrooms, gold in the powder room and chrome in the ensuite!!!
As for the our land – the foundation was completed!!! We can now see our elevation and how high our house will sit on the lot (the engineered pad we placed to secure against any water issues meant that the house is going to sit higher than we expected but we love it!).
December:
Our house has taken shape!!! The carpenters worked hard in December and almost managed to finish framing the entire place! Unfortunately, they ran out of time before the holidays and weren’t able to install the trusses as they had hoped but we can now walk through the main floor and see each room division, window sizes, etc…
View from the Front 
View from the Back
Paolo and I visited a tile outlet (Eurotile) and purchased some tile for the house that we wanted to save on. Outlets are great for savings but it means you have to take possession of the tile right away – so we both carried about 800lbs of tile from the store, to the basement in our rental and will later bring it back upstairs and deliver it to the lot when the time comes… Totally worth it since we saved, on average, at least 40% on the tile.
We also met with the designers again to go over our wish list for the millwork. We already knew that we weren’t going to fit everything into our budget, so we’ve decided to focus our resources on the kitchen and, hopefully, the bathrooms. The rest, such as the pantry and mudroom, will be projects that Paolo and I will take on in the future.
All in all, November and December were definitely the biggest months thus far in terms of progress. Our government has instituted another lockdown for the holidays and into the third week of January, so I’m not sure how much we will advance next month or whether it will cause delays in the end but, for now, we’ll just take our time walking the property and admiring what is already there…
While we didn’t get to “wake up” in our home for Christmas this year, we did visit the house on the 25th with Theo – he got to keep his pjs on and see his future room! Hopefully, this time next year, we’ll be wrapping up our first holiday season in the CasaCres forever home 🙂
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