Cool ride of the week.25

I couldn't choose a favorite this week, so we have two Cool Rides. First, this nice red '56 Chevy. Exterior trim intact, wide whitewalls, the works. Beautiful.

Then we have this Austin-Healey in British Racing Green with a yellow stripe. I doubt those are the original wheels, but who cares? It's still a cool ride.

A new variety of oak

Our blog followers in Texas have all heard about the "Treaty Oak" in Austin, a 500 year old live oak that figures heavily in Texas history (look it up on Wikipedia). As our builder winds up the last few items to finish our house, he told us our front yard had to have two trees to pass the City's inspection. Here's the tree we already have, remember it from last March?

How can another tree thrive under that canopy? Well, our builder has found a new variety of oak. He didn't name it, but we have: The Bureaucracy Oak.

Isn't it darling? Shhh - the builder stuck it in the ground, in the pot it came in, and added some mulch. After the City signs off, that little tree will be yanked out and donated to our landscaper.

Drum roll, please. . . .

Today, an outside vendor (not our builder) installed the stained glass windows we recycled from our old house. Here's the "before" shot of the entry, taken this morning:
Check out the "after" shot:

Here we go again - here is the family room, "before":

And "after":

These windows were taken out of our old house back in February, and we haven't seen them since then. Worth the trouble? YOU BET.

The professional inspection

Today, our independent inspector checked the house. He found a few things that we hope can be fixed in the next several days. There he is, in the kitchen, doing whatever he does. Look, the floor is uncovered and showing itself off:

Here's another look at the floors, I can't get enough of them.

One of the things we found during our walk-through yesterday was the fireplace. The box was crooked in the opening. Our builder marked it and today, they had ripped out the tile and were getting it fixed:

Walking through our jardin

No pictures today, sorry folks. We did our walk-through with the builder today, pointing out all the little things they need to fix before we close the deal. Paint chip here, nail pop there, level that cabinet door, etc. We were pretty fussy (hey, why not? It's a lot of money). The walk-through took about 3 hours. Tomorrow we have an independent inspector who will check things out, too. The builder was fine with that. It's just some added peace of mind.

I'll go over at lunch tomorrow and get some pix. We hope to be moving in about a week! We'll keep the blog going for a little while so you can see our landscaping and all the final touches.

Cool ride of the week.24

Ok, it's not a Motown muscle car, but it's still a cool ride! Here's hubby in 2007, about to take a spin in an L-39 Albatros. And the real pilot let him take the stick for most of the ride. THAT's cool.

Shutters on - but shut out again

Locked out of the house again for the weekend. That's okay, we don't want our new stuff to disappear. We peeked inside and they have installed all the door hardware. On the outside, they put up the shutters.

Kind of a rustic look.

Also, they tore out the brick by the front door, moved the sidelights outward a few inches, and bricked it all back up again. Now the sidelights align with the arch window above. It's a little thing, but it looks better.

We're supposed to have our "walk through" early next week, then they'll fix all the little things we point out, and we hope to get the keys by August 31. AWESOME!