Cold Stone, no wait, I mean Stone Cold.... and that is a problem....

It has been so darn cold here that the stone has been slow. Any of our warm days have the masons out working. Saturday, Sunday, they were there, but these chilly days, well, not so much. Finally, today it was 65 degrees (yes, I know the rest of the country was experiencing a blizzard) so they were there cranking out the stone. Lloyd wanted it all done by today....I'll bet they are still there trying to get it done. It is really getting him frustrated because as long as there is very messy stone work to be completed, he has to leave roofing sections incomplete so the stone guys don't damage the shingles and metal roofing. Since the roof is not completely sealed, we can't insulate and drywall. So the inside is really at a standstill until the stone is done and then the roofing is done. I will be very excited to see the more activity inside the house soon! Here is where we are on the outside.

The siding is still the primer color, but it looks nice to see something other than Tyvek!

The retaining walls have been capped with flagstone. They just got a bunch of palettes of flagstone in and they pulled it aside for us because they thought it was such a thick and especially beautiful batch. It is very pure and light looking, almost like limestone....of course I'm partial to limestone being from Indiana. But, in this application, we got a bit worried when we saw the palettes, they are SO white, some have beautiful purply swirls and are very sparkly, but the majority is just pure white. Looking at the neighboring palettes, the stone is very rough looking and much more thin than our pallets, so it wouldn't combine well either. It started growing on us and I think it will be beautiful. They also started building our little columns for the retaining wall. We'll put a gate there which will ideally mimic the arch of the window above. Lloyd sent it off to Walpole Woodworkers for a quote. Their gates are very pretty, but more than we have in mind for an afterthought kind of project.

Also off to production are our barn doors for in the kitchen area. What is very cool is to give Lloyd a drawing and have it come back the next day from the company making it and it is exactly what we have in mind!

There will be 2 of these doors.

Also this week, I've been working on our door hardware. The plan is for a 5 panel "farm door" and for these awesome knobs. Only one problem, they are expensive. I think we'll get the great ones for the main floor and then maybe something not so pricey upstairs. We'll see how we're going to make it work.

I'll have to post a picture of them soon. They are so pretty!