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.