Mid-March

We got some new photos showing some of the progress. We are now one month away!

This first shot is of the shower in the master bath.

Now don't you know that my voice will sound just like Andrea Boceli in there?

This second shot is of the den with shelving and paneling , but before the stain and finish has been added.

The third photo is of the great room with the lower shelves of the built-ins completed, but the upper section still incomplete. It does, however show the ceiling with the trim completed. (The fireplace is hiding behind the wood.)

Finally,we have a photo of the progress on the outside. The columns are in and the railings for the stairs are in but unpainted. The louvres are completed but none of the landscaping has started yet. You can see the bridge between back deck and the FROG is finished so the guests can come to visit the main house.

February - nearing the end!

Things are moving quickly now, as we get near the end of this project, so we drove down on Feb 14th for another round of decisions and revisions. Arriving late on Thursday we got up at the crack of dawn and headed over to the house for a full day. As always, the weather was great but a fog hung over the marshes giving it a beautiful ghostly appearance (see photo).

Our first meetings were with Dennis and Dave the project foremen, to discuss issues such as the size of the painting to go over the fireplace, height of the mantel, the location of the gate on the side of the house, location of the railings and all those things that not many people spend much time over - but we do!

Our tour of the house confirmed that we are in the final stretch. As the photo shows, the painters are in , the railings are going up and the place was buzzing with activity. It was nice to see the wall color in the kitchen (not blue, this is the primer under color) so that we could make some decisions about backsplashes. The fireplace coping is on, but the surround was awaiting our comments. Pool and decking are in, the final touches and interior coating for the pool will be one of the last items.

Next to arrive was the "Wall Candy" lady who is doing the faux painting in the power room. Wait until you see the color David picked! She was followed by the shower door guy to discuss the type of glass we wanted for the shower doors. I bet you didn't know that, in addition to different thicknesses, you can get different types of beveled edges, framed or unframed yada yada. You will just have to wait and see what we eventually chose. The final visitor of the morning was the Landscaper who stopped by to discuss placement of individual pieces and was assured that we had full confidence in his decisions.

Catherine Lee joined us after a quick lunch and we headed over to the ceramic store to pick out a backlash for the kitchen. Did you know that they make the 1/4 inch glass mosaic tiles worth $7 each! We quickly moved to our preferred solution of a graduated mosaic with different colors (It's hard to describe) and looked at a couple of back-up options in case we didn't like the actual samples, when they arrive. I wonder why it is that whatever option we seem to like the best, is outrageously priced?

Back to the house to meet with the architect to get his views on some proportions in the great room, louvres under the house, gate placements etc.

We were on the road by 4:30 headed for Columbia SC for the night. In Columbia we dined at Garibaldi's, a hoppin' Italian restaurant. We ate at the bar and sipped a some delicious white wine, nibbled on calamari while we waited for the best flounder that Donna has had in years. We got back on the road early Saturday and headed to High Point NC for more furniture shopping! And then home by 9:00 pm - tired and hungry.

David's quick visit

David made a quick visit to Charleston on Tuesday 22nd as decisions had to be made - again! This time it was to sign off on driveway layout, make the final selection of paint colors, approve landscaping plans and sign off on design of column supports and more... It was cold in Washington but much more pleasant in Charleston once the morning chill wore off. The paint decision was a choice between two finalists where the differences were subtle and the main concern was to avoid going too dark. Unfortunately the primer was baby blue and it is hard to look at any samples without being influenced by the blue background. Nonetheless, David summoned all his courage and decided! (We now know who to blame).

The upstairs deck is now finished and looks great! Only some trim and railings are missing. I can see us now with a margarita in the late afternoon... The pool tiling and coping was being installed although the final finish to the pool must cure underwater and is one of the last things to be done. Most of the activity was with kitchen cabinets and trim work on crown molding and wainscotting. Trust me, the blue walls in the photo will not be staying!

Another feature that is looking very nice is the staircase. We are very pleased with the look.

A tour of the property with the landscaper, a meeting with the electronics company, a quick bite for lunch and then back to Robert Morgan to go over the budget. (ugh!) The final discussion was over stain colors for the panelled study. A direction was determined but no final decisions. That will wait until our nextvisit in mid-February. By then the painters will have completed their first run and we will have a much better idea of what we have created.

The Holidays

After a wonderful visit, great food, and movies with Noelle and Stuart in Toronto for Christmas, we dedicated the rest of the holiday season to the house. On Boxing Day (26th), we drove to High Point, NC where we camped out at Furnitureland South for a couple of days. With over a million sq ft of showroom and very good prices, we exhausted ourselves for two and a half days walking back and forth through the showrooms. Our objective was to make sure that our visitors would have nothing but the best to sit on, lie on and party on when they visit.

There is little else to do in High Point but to look at furnishings however, we did manage to have a very nice evening at Noble's Restaurant near the hotel. The highlight was our waiter who confided in us that he is a competitive Elvis impersonator (the early years) and has competed all over, including Canada. We were spared any impromptu songs but thought that with his current girth he might want to move over to Elvis' later years.

We made it back to Wasington in time to join friends for dinner and dancing at the Country Club of Fairfax for our final New Year's Eve. We resigned as of December 31st due to the pending move and the fact that January and February in Washington are not conducive to golf.

Off to charleston early on the 1st - and was it ever cold! Well, cold for Charleston and we were not dressed for it. The Brazilian crew were there putting some final touches on the shakes and they opined that the weather was not to their liking.

The schedule was hectic as always: door hardware, landscaping, fencing, closet designs, paint colors, crown molding, swimming pool colors, sign-offs on granite, lighting, built-ins, final flooring approvals and more. We dedicated the three days to details and made decisions we never thought we would have to make. When you visit, we hope you will open the drawer to the bathroom cabinet and think "wow what a nice knob and by the way the colors in this bathroom match the granite - they must have been difficult to select, but just look at the lighting in this room - it is perfect" (memorize this if you want to be invited back!).

Things are moving quickly now and we will have to go back again fairly soon. They did a great job on the outdoor fireplace and are getting ready to put in the barbeque and outdoor kitchen. The next visit will see forms laid for the driveway, color on the walls most of the trim work completed. A few selections remain largely because we decided to await wall colors, and kitchen cabinets before making final choces.

Little was open for dinner on the 1st but we did manage one nice dinner at 39 Rue de Jean French Bistro on Thursday where we had a perfect (what else?) steak/frittes.

December 2007

Donna was in Charleston on business in mid December and while David suffered in cold, wet Washington Donna contended with 80 degree weather and a round of golf with colleagues. However, once our builder heard that she was in the neighbourhood he took advantage of the opportunity to have her run errands and confirm a few more items related to the house before she left town.

The place is coming along and the work has moved indoors. The cabinets in the master bath are installed and apparently look very nice and the work on the outdoor fireplace has begun as you can see in the picture above. One big OOOPS is that the contractor has installed the wrong flooring which must be removed and replaced. Given the number of decisions we have made, I guess it is not surprising that there is at least one mistake. Anyway, we are assured that it will not slow us down. Other meetings included the pool contractor to select coping and tiles, the closet lady, and the decorator for preliminary color choices.


This picture of the house was actually taken in November before the foundation was painted, but at least it shows an unobstructed view of the house without dumpsters etc. More news in early January - stay tuned.

November visit

The "Ryan Residence"

It was cold when we left Washington but the weather in Charleston was beautiful on Thursday Nov. 08 when we arrived for our latest visit. As you can see from the photos, the house is coming along and looking more and more like a house rather than a construction site. The shingles are up and the sheet rock has been installed on the ceilings; the staircase is in and the roof is almost there. We love the detail in the shingle design and are very happy with the roof.

As always we covered a lot of ground. First we met with Dennis, our project manager (see photo) at the house where we ran through the lay-out and reviewed a number of small issues. After a quick lunch we met with Laura Boyle our decorator who is helping us pull things together. We reviewed furniture, rugs and lighting selections and discussed paint colors. From there, back to the house to meet with the carpenter who will be building our "built-ins" on either side of the fireplace. This is a tricky decision as the ceilings there are 13 ft high, which is a lot of space to fill.

While admiring the shingles, David discovered that the siding crew were all Brazilian, so he had a good old chat, made some friends and was immediately enlisted as translator. Apparently the majority of the siding crews working on Daniel Island are Brazilians

Dinner at another local Charleston eatery "Coast Bar & Grill" where obviously seafood was the dominant choice. A casual restaurant with a very good menu and reasonable prices, we were not disappointed with the food or the bill. - A keeper.

7:30 Friday morning found us at the house with everyone invovled - Wayne, the architect and his assistant Marc, Bob, Dennis and the two of us. Decisions about a couple of design features caused this conflab - we scrutinized pillar sizes and discussed the addition of steps from the deck back down into he backyard.

We then met Catherine at 9:00 to begin foraging for granite. Having made preliminary selections during our last visit we intended to confirm these choices - not so easy- what we liked before was no longer available. So off we went again to various wholesalers and found some replacements, with just the kitchen remaining to be selected. On the way to one of the more remote granite places, Catherine introduced us to the "My Thai" Restaurant which turned out to be surprisingly authentic and tasty lunch.

One final stop at the house to meet with Dennis before heading for the Club for a glass of wine, then the airport and home.

About turn!

We were back in Charleston on Sept 18th to take a look at the color samples first-hand. As we mentioned last time, the ARB was pushing us in a direction that we were not comfortable with and which we thought would make the house too dark. After a few tries and the exchange of some photos by email, we decided that we needed to see for ourselves. Bob had prepared another sample of shingle and trim colors at our request and we decided that we liked them much better. So now we go back to the ARB again. A photo is attached.

Obviously we went through the house again with Dennis ,the foreman, to confirm decisions and see what progress has been made. Wire has been pulled and plumbing roughed in. The pool is also coming along, awaiting inspection before going to the next step. We also stopped in to the cabinet store to squeeze a little more out of the price without changing the design.

The weather was nigh on perfect and the golf course was busy - but all that did was make us jealous as we rushed around to look at lighting again. We hit four different lighting distributors before heading for the airport for a smooth on-time flight home.

Oh yes, we did have a very nice lunch at The Mustard Seed.

These pictures are for Noelle, who wanted to see what all of the talk about the views from the outdoor living room were about. Above is the eighteenth hole and the back of the clubhouse. The picuture below is of the eighteenth fairway. As you can see we have extensive marsh between us and the fairway and will not have to worry about errant golf balls.