the true countdown has begun!

I know, I've been slacking on my blog posts. But between finishing my undergrad (FINALLY!) & doing a new store opening - things have been rather hectic. And it's only going to get even busier!! Ryan and I have made several attempts to "break into" our home to check out it's progress, but we haven't had much luck - finally, last Thursday - 2 weeks before our official closing day, WE GOT IN! Luckily, we were Aiden free, we were able to take a ton of photos and just grasp the whole idea of us being homeowners soon. We cannot wait.

We were in complete, jaw drop mode

- so happy with how our little home is turning out :*)

Ryan starring out our bay window - thinking, "wow, this is our home".

Peaking into our kitchen from the formal dining room.

Our kitchen :*) - minus the granite counter tops & the double undermount sink.

Ryan checking out if the cabinet space is sufficient and to his likings :P

Closer look of our kitchen cabinets, glad we chose to go dark.

Was def iffy about this feature, but pleasantly surprised with the OTR microwave that we ordered through Mattamy.

Check out the shelves in our (ok, Ryan's) walk-in pantry.

The tiles in our kitchen & throughout our main floor.

Okay, so I just need to keep telling myself that this is not the final product. We'll stain the stairs when we go hardwood with our floors in 2-3 years time ... this is not the final product .. this is not the final product ... this is ...

Aiden's own bathroom, he better keep it clean - teehee.

The light fixtures in A's bathroom, love!

The colour combo that Ryan didn't let me have in the kitchen, I just did in our master bath :)

Ain't it a beauty? :)

I also took a video tour of our home this day, but it's almost 5 minutes long, don't know how long that would take to upload. But the video shows the lovely space that is my walk-in closet and you get a better gauge of the space of our home. It's truly starting to sink in, we move in next Thursday - a year goes by, just like that.

falling in love, with seating?

Westport / Pottery Barn $2469

PB Square / Pottery Barn $2600 +

Am I really going to splurge 3K on a couch?

the night that JJ & I successfully broke in!

After a night of indulgence at 168 with Janelle and JJ, we decided to drive out to the house to see what kind of luck we would have. JJ followed me as we ventured out into the darkness of scary unpaved roads & when we finally got to our part of the terrace - blockades were preventing use from driving an closer to the house. Crap. & as I stepped outta the car to maybe remove the blockades by hand - a lovely security guard came walking along. I started making some small talk, he told me that I could just walk past the blockades, BUT that the houses were locked ... & don't try to get into them - uhh, ok, sure - whatever you say, hehehe.

So we took the walk & SUCCESS!

JJ was able to go to our backyard & through our walkout to then unlock the front door! Note for next nightly visit: bring a flashlight! (so that my photos are actually taken straight - hahaha).

This is a perfect example of a non-straight photo standing from the front door - trying to capture shots in the dark.

View of our home standing from a corner of the breakfast nook. The arches get me every time.

Well look at that, they're getting the walk-in pantry ready for shelves :*)

The definite hot spot in our home. Where most of the action will take place. View of our lovely kitchen - can't wait to see what the breakfast bar, cabinets & quartz will look like :D

Our naked, unstained (still regretting that) hardwood stairs.

I'm hoping that next time we go to visit, we'll have our cupboards in and possibly the toilets? Stacy (A's potential baby sitter) who closes 3 weeks after us already has her cupboards in - so it's making me question the logic of these Mattamy people, hehe. Well, I'm also just super anxious. So many things to do in the next few weeks and so much paper work to handle.

can't

freaking

wait

dressed in all white

Finished 1/4 of my final assignments.

Treating myself to a little bit of surfing, found this:

Kinda fell in love.

I can only imagine the kind of damage that A would do to this.

But ain't it a beauty!

& all points of entry were blocked

Strike two.

Second time that we've made the trip down to Milton & couldn't access our home. Thumbs way down, way down. Ryan even squeezed into the tiny opening that they left with the garage door and still, the entry was locked. Pretty shitty, considering we drove down with mom, dad and the entire fam in hopes to show them some of the progress on our home. No such luck.

Started packing some of our stuff today & quickly realized how much I dislike packing. This is going to be one tedious task.

Also, Aiden has hit a peak on his terrible 2s. This will be ... interesting. (enter sarcasm here).

the inside is coming alive!

*As of March 31st, 2010

Drove down to Milton with Cha, A and Nanay a few days & luckily our house was unlocked! The last time we ventured down, our house was locked and all I could do was just admire the exterior of our home. It was a sad day, lol. We called Nanay our lucky charm :) Things are really starting to come alive. We got some of our trim done the siding on the side of the house is almost complete, the bay window looks better & look a garage door! Something seems to always be blocking the front of our home, always. Almost ONE MONTH until our closing day!

Our front door is looking a little shabby, hopefully they'll paint this soon. We didn't have a choice on the design of our front door - although I didn't love this one at first, it def is starting to grow on me.

Totally noticed this as we toured around our home. Our construction men drink cheap beer.

The arches, they make me tres weak.

Our Aiden baby standing in the walk-in pantry. Let's not forget that this pantry is the reason we bought this plan. Oh how Ryan will love this space.

The rest of the doors for the house are being stored in my fav room. Still debating on what we'll use this space for. Top choices are the comp room avec ry's cookbook, my novels & textbooks. Or maybe I can even convince Ryan to let me have this little nook as my scrapping room, hehe.

I totally forgot that we chose a dark tile for our master bath, but I was pleasantly surprised at the turnout! Good thing I didn't start buying things for our master bath.

The master tub. We deleted all the ceramic accessories in the bathroom, so we'll have to purchase these on our own sometime. Can't wait to see how all our choices come together. With all the excitement, I totally forgot to take a photo of our stairs. So glad that we chose the newall posts instead of the standard, but still sad about not staining them. Guess it's something that I'll just have to live with ... for now, lol.

I still can't believe that we purchased a home. & we did so at possibly the best time ever. The market was a buyer's market, the HST wasn't in effect yet and prices were reasonably low. Not to mention, our mortgage interests aren't bad either. So excited, did I mention that?

framewalk day!

My mom notified me that she told her coworkers about this little blog of mine,

but that they couldn't comment - I have changed the comment settings, so feel free to leave a note!

Finally! The call came and it was time to do our framewalk :D

*Note to self; must change the primary contact number to my cell instead of Ryan's.

Luckily, I didn't have Friday lectures to attend and neither did Wayne, so he was able to watch Aiden while Ryan I headed to the site. It would have been super difficult having A around, not to mention kinda scary. There's definitely so much action on our street now since the closing dates are just around the corner.

*As of March 12, 2010

Still quite a few things missing on the front of the house:

• Lights surrounding the garage
• Drywall in the garage
• The garage door (lol)
• The trim and finishings of the bay window
• Our windows are supposed to have shutters
• The sidings of the house
• The exterior trim

Of course, this is just a list compiled by a 1st time home purchaser. Missing in terms of what's obvious in my eyes, hehehe. Maybe there's a ton more that I don't even know!

Taken right out of the Mattamy University Reference Guide ...

Your Framewalk is an opportunity for you to:

• Meet your Builder (Andrew)

• View the features of your home prior to the completion of the walls

• Review the Design Options you chose at the Design Centre

• Ask a Building Professional any questions you may have

& basically, that's what it was. It's hard doing all this for the first time, cause we don't know what's to be asked and what to look out for. I guess we just have much trust in the builders. But everything seemed to be ok. Andrew was great. He explained everything and the little amount of question we had quite well. He also let us know that if we ever wanted to go back into the house (to measure windows, show it off to family and friends during the construction process) to just let him know 24 hours in advance & he'll make sure that our place is clean, swept and presentable. Thought that was nice. Especially because some people on our street are complaining on the forum how the security guard on site is giving them a hard time when they go to visit their homes. Thankfully, we haven't had any of these encounters!

Okay, onto the photo update :)

Not so much has changed in our bay window room, except for the drywall smack in the middle of it. But this is still my favourite room, so I have to photograph it every time I go.

Here's Ryan checking out our space for the "living room", he's letting me know of the decorating ideas that are floating around in his head ... c'mon now, we all know I have the final say :P

Ryan & his walk-in pantry! (Probably his most favourite room in the house, lol). The reason why we opted out for an island in the kitchen. Decent size, no?

Our unfinished basement looked a lot cleaner this time around. It's still not poured, but the space is an awesome size. Can't wait to make use of all the space a few years from now when we finish it up!

There were even "secret-like" spaces in the basement. See underneath the stairs, behind the stairs and even behind the "wall" ... love all the nooks that can we can use. The black piping like material on the right is where our 3-piece bathroom rough-in.

I didn't take too many photo of the upstairs area. It's still hard to imagine the space because we can still see through the walls. I'll wait until the drywall is in to post those.

Lastly, woohoo! Carissa & Alex have cutouts, hehehe. They've started the process on their house. She was so excited when I sent over this photo to her :)

One month & 3 weeks until closing.