Thanks sooo much Buckhead! Just looked at Justeen Oess site. Fantastic! I really enjoyed that. Thank you!

What is you square footage of the main two floors? We are working around 3300-3500 sq feet, but adding a finished walkup attic (not sure how big) and finished basement. I'd really like to add alot of nooks and character. I don't think our architect 'gets' me because I'm very 'not by the book'. Thanks again!!!

That's funny. Justeen designed our addition, also. And she now has her office close by. Too bad the GC we picked was worse than a dud.

thull, I'm sorry your GC was a dud. Ours was a sweetheart and he just loved building this house. I think Justeen and Denise have an amazing feel for proportion and livability. This house is just so light filled and cheery and easy to live in. Do you like your addition?

Very much so. It fits pretty much seamlessly with our '49 house and we now have a giant open kitchen and dining room, as well as the master suite we really needed.

We were really trying to do the job with a tight budget, and the GC was someone a co-worker had used to do a smaller but similar addition. Turned out that ours was beyond his technical and financial means to execute (and the co-worker I think had to fix a bunch of water leaks, etc before selling). Add to that a healthy-plus level of machismo and we had a recipe for disaster.

He ended up walking when he must've decided he wouldn't get paid as much as it would cost to finish. I did most of the finish work myself, bringing back subs as needed. Then he did us the favor of suing us six months later, using a lawyer who was suspended at the time and was disbarred a couple years later (used to live on Peachtree Battle, FWIW).

We're still here, six years later, and I keep ticking away at little projects on the old part of the house (and a couple of fixes on GC's work that didn't have to be done ASAP). I think I'm finally to the point where, if I ran into the GC, I'd just shake my head rather than look for the nearest baseball bat.

Another question for Buckheadhillbilly... I was looking at the pics on your blog - beautiful home! I was wondering what kind of hardwoods are on the first floor - width, wood, finish? Also, I love the depth of your baseboards and crown in the dining room. Could you share ceiling height for this room and molding height? Thanks in advance!

Momto3kiddos, the floors are random width quartersawn white oak made from the trees that once stood where the house now stands. We finished them with tung oil. There are some posts about it on my blog. I'll try to provide more detail and links later. Right now I have to go pick up one of my 4 kiddos.

Thank you! I will look a little further on the blog for the info. I was leaning towards white oak with a medium finish and the pics of yours are exactly what I was hoping to acheive. Is the tung oil finish very shiny or more satin? I am thinking that a more satin finish would be easier to keep clean. Your kiddos are older than mine, but I am sure they can be pretty rough on floors, too. :)

Momto3kiddos, our floors are 3", 4" and 5". I didn't want to get any wider than that because then you get into gluing the floor down which doubles the cost of installation. The tung oil is a satin finish. I like it, but some might miss the shine.

I'll link the posts that have to do with the process starting with felling the trees.

trees to floors part 1

trees to floors part 2

trees to floors part 3

trees to floors part 4

trees to floors part 5

trees to floors part 6

Sorry it's so much, but it took a long time to complete the process. I'd be happy to answer any more questions.