Starting to move in

The house is really close to being ready, but we're still waiting on a yard fence before we can officially move in. However, we've already been carrying over a few boxes of things every time we visit, and we've also started putting together some new furniture we purchased at IKEA.

We're planning to move in more small things over the weekend, and then finish moving all the big stuff next weekend.

This past week, we got all our final inspections, and we passed everything! That means we're officially allowed to live there. Thank goodness. :-)

Also, we got a brief mention this past week in an article on Passive Houses in the Oregon Daily Journal of Commerce:
http://djcoregon.com/news/2010/05/14/passive-house-popular-in-portland/

Here are a few photos of what's happened in the past week. One of the coolest things outside is that we finally got our porch railing. It was the final detail on the outside of the house, and it looks great! It's very sturdy and low enough to sit on as well.

Inside, we have our new dining table and chairs from IKEA. The new table will seat six as-is, and has extra leaves to seat up to 10 people. I'm looking forward to having more friends over for dinner.

And at the bar, we have three new stools.

I've started sneaking some books into our built-in shelves under the stairs.

For the mud room, we found a nice shelf that also works as a bench. We added clear drawers that allow us to store things, but keep Pippen away from our stuff. He has a tendency to eat shoes if they're out in the open...

Upstairs, I have a new writing desk in our master bedroom.

In the bathrooms upstairs, we got our full-size mirrors, the sliding glass shower door was installed in the master bedroom, and a white subway tile backsplash was installed above the sinks.

Getting closer

As I said in the last few posts, were are getting very close to finishing the house. We will likely be moving in sometime in the next two weeks. Right now, the builders are working on the last details, both inside and out.
On our front porch, they installed Trex composite decking for our steps and the floor. The decking is made out of recycled plastic bags and will last for a really long time. We chose a dark brown color to match our windows and some of our trim.

Inside, we now have a kitchen faucet from Moen. It's stainless steel and includes a pull-down sprayer.

Also in the kitchen, the builders have started putting up our tile backsplash. We chose black subway tiles, and they will have white grout. We chose the same type of tile, but in white, for our upstairs bathrooms. That will be installed soon.

 Door handles have also been installed both inside and outside. We have the same handle on all the inner doors, in brushed nickel.

And here are the outside door handles, in a very dark brown.

Finally, all our new concrete has been poured for the sidewalk and for our driveway strips. You may recall I talked about having strips rather than a full driveway, because it helps prevent lots of runoff going into the sewers.

The final details left to finish inside include the rest of the tiling, installation of bathroom mirrors, another buffing of the wood floors, and a few more outlets to be added. Outside, the builders will add a railing to our porch, and they will install a backyard fence -- a necessity to keep Pippen in!

Fun day

We had a very successful open house today. Many people from the neighborhood came by to check out our house, along with a few builder and architect types who are interested in Passive House design. Thanks to everyone for stopping by.

I know we've been kind of bad about posting updates lately. We'll try to post something later this weekend that shows what's been happening at the house. We are edging quite close to completion!