Trim carpenter is within one day of being finished! Today he built my mantel and FP wall trim. Fits my vision exactly. Love this guy.
The wires you see are for the outlets in the mantel.

RHD, our floors are Hickory, at this point unstained and unfinished.
After the painters are out in two weeks I expect they'll come in to sand, stain and finish the floors.

This post was edited by mlweaving_Marji on Tue, May 6, 14 at 18:21

We finally are seeing some of the areas cleaned up a little too since the masons are done with their work in the courtyard. It was a beautiful day today at the site.

This post was edited by musicgal on Tue, May 6, 14 at 18:26

This is the door wrap our carpenter dreamed up for the dining room.

This post was edited by musicgal on Tue, May 6, 14 at 18:31

Another picture

mlweaving- when do they say it will be ready for move in? Things are looking very finished.

My text keeps double posting. Sorry. Anyway, illini- your garage ramp is another good example of a simple way to make life easier for many years. Good for your garbage rollouts and accessible for someone with a walker or dolly full of heavy boxes.

This post was edited by musicgal on Tue, May 6, 14 at 18:52

Marji, are your FP built ins also Smoky Blue? They look darker than the island on my screen, but it's common to repeat the same colour. The dark colour is something I've considered for my island.

oh my gosh - our build mantra's have changed and they are getting scary as we near the end:
In the beginning - "we are closer than we have ever been" (can't go wrong with that one as no matter what it's true)

As we were in the midst of major DIY, "it looks pretty darn good". That is now how we are judging our projects-if it looks "pretty darn good" it passes inspection, perfection just is too much to ask right anymore.

And now that we are so close and exhausted - "just throw money at it and make it GO AWAY", lol! Eeek. All of a sudden this and that isn't too expensive. I guess we are in the we have more money than time spot right now. I do not want to live in this rental and pay one more months rent, period. End.of.story!

I am 'resting'. I swear I can't even squeeze the toothpaste with my thumb my hands hurt so bad from holding a brush. My thumbs are calloused. :( I think we are kind of down to the punch list although we own the list so ya know, it is what it is. DH set the cabinets that flank the fireplace. I need to stain our mudroom benches and crown - which needs to be cut and sanded yet. Granite to be templated on Thursday. Carpet the 14th, appliances the 19th (I am *sure* I will need to bump this out). We are waiting on the plumber, of course he is super busy when we are ready. More excavating on Monday next week, shower door to go in. Ummm, I am sure there is more. Still choosing cabinet pulls. No time to shop. Oh light fixtures - dh is working on hanging them but so far just the boys closets and that is not something exciting to photograph.

Thanks for all of your kind comments on my painting, I am just so relieved it is finished! I haven't been back to the house since Saturday between work and baseball no time.

jujubean-I hope we are in by the end of May too. We need our driveway approach poured also but more dirt is needed first. Not sure when we can get that part done.

jdez-I love your cabs, I'd not fill those knots either. :) How is insulating going?

mommytoty-sigh, it looks awesome! You have got to be so antsy to get in there! Keep the pics coming. :)

musicgal-a beautiful day indeed, look how calm that water is. :) Your entertainment wall looks great. My dh would probably love a tv that size too.

mlweaving-looks good. Any more updates on your counters or should I not ask?

illini-your ramp is genius. Were you able to skim off some of the shelving you had planned? Where did you end up cutting? Your pantry is going to be great.

robyn-2 days? Really? You think you can do it? Have you succeeded? I know there is no way I could not look at the camera if I had one! I am very curious to know if you made it! :D

Wishing you all great progress this week.

Our builder is presenting our plans to the Standards Committee of our gated Community to get them approved sometime next week.

Hard to believe after ten years of owning this property we will be breaking ground the end of next month!

mlweaving_Marji

Are you by chance building the Calabash Cottage by William Poole? It looks very similar to the house we will be starting in August. LOVE the choices you are making and would love to see more interior and exterior pictures if you would be willing to share. Looking forward to more of your posts!!!

Terri

mlweaving - Your house is starting to look like a beautiful home!! LOVE the blue you chose. Yes, it does look really close to the Normandy we are using.

musicgal - WOW! Love it all! Keep sharing your pics!

Autumn - Your poor fingers! It will be over soon, right? Just hang in there! Nope, I didn’t make it two days! LOL!!

mommy - Just GORGEOUS!!

zoe - Congratulations!!! That is so exciting!

Okay, update...... Nope. I couldn’t even last one day without checking our online camera of our build. For those that don’t know, we are building 3 states away but will be moving there in just 3 weeks. YAY!!! It will be so much easier to be in the same city or even state as my build. Having to finalize a stain for some of the cabinets is almost impossible without seeing it in person. My cabinet guy is going to send me over a couple of samples. I need to make those decisions soon.

Nothing much was happening today over at my build until about 3 pm when our trusses showed up!!! OH THE JOY!!!! So excited about that!!! Here is a quick pic.

Robyn, I'd set up a second monitor at work just to watch the construction .

Robyn- trusses! That is an exciting day!

mlweaving and musicgal- you both have such lovely details! It really makes the home.

autumn- ha! the shelves. yes, I did cut some, and also the trim lead 'helped me out' a bit. some of it was just reconfiguring (for example regardless of the length of the shelf it counts as one shelf, so instead of having two sets of shelves on opposite sides of the closet I could reconfigure to one longer set of shelves on the back wall with a divider running down the middle and that cuts the number magically in half)

You are getting really close now! Looking great.

Lisa, a variation of your mantra is one that is also employed by husbands around gift giving time - Christmas and birthdays most notably. The closer it gets to deadline the more $ they're willing to throw at the dilemma to just get it done! It's all looking really good. I'm so excited for you that you'll be in this month.

Robyn, I didn't think you'd be able to stay away. Aren't you excited that you got to see the trusses being delivered. As an aside, we didn't have any trusses. Our house was constructed on site using a roof ridge pole. I'm pretty sure Jujubean's was too.
Musicgal, I really like your casing/trim. It's going to be a beautiful house.

Thanks all on the comments. Paint starts next week, then I expect to see another big transition. Amberm, the living room built-ins are the same smoky blue. It's the light. We only still have natural light in the house, and it's nearly impossible for me to get pics in the LR where those built-in's aren't in a big shadow. OTOH I think the blue is a bit darker than the island pic makes it look. Whatever, I love the color.

Good luck Zoe on the permits. It took us absolutely forever! We broke ground 6 weeks later than we thought, waiting on permits! And we're in a platted development.

Herewegoagain, I just googled the Calabash cottage plan and looked at it. In some ways it is remarkably similar to our plan. Our plan was drawn for us for this lot, so it's unique. We are building in the low country in South Carolina, and the plan is typical Low Country .
Similarities are obvious, the differences are - The Calabash is a 4 bdrm, 3.5 bath home, we're building a 3 bdrm, 2.5 bath home. Our master bdrm suite takes up the whole left side of the house, our porch wraps all the way around with a screened porch living area on the back corner, and we have 3 dormers across the front with a front load garage. We wanted a side load but simply couldn't swing it.

Our back porch, which has since been screened in

An early picture of our front elevation

Robyn - I'm excited for you to see your trusses going up. Like Marji, we didn't have those delivered. Our roof was built on site as is the usual practice around here.

Mlw marji - I thought of you this morning on my way to work when I saw a gator on the side of the highway. It made me wonder how your neighborhood was adjusting to having lost their friend.

The rest of my week has been mapped out already with no time to work on anything at the new house. Boooo. We also figured out (amidst our insulating) that we need to go buy some coax and run cable for satellite tv before we close up the walls. So, I'm supposed to go buy all of that stuff at some point. I wish I had another me to send on errands while I'm busy.

Autumn--Your mantra is alive in our house too. We got an email from builder today saying the cutout for our rectangular wet bar sink was done wrong--should have been long side from front to back but instead is long side from left to right. Brand name of sink will now be on the side instead of in the back. They offered to replace butcher block counter and re-cut or get a bigger sink so that they can adjust opening size. Even though they offered to do this at no cost to us, both alternatives require energy we just don't have at this stage in the build. DH said "They have worn me down, honey. Only so many things you can get mad at. So, let's just live with it the way it is." I said that's fine, so long as every time you go to use that sink you are not cursing under your breath! ;-)

mlweaving and muscigal--Beautiful interiors and exteriors!

robyn--Trusses are very exciting! Coming along quickly!

mlweaving_Marji

Thank you for all of you info. Things are looking great! And, although its not the exact plan we are using, I'm finding lots of great inspiration:) Can't wait to get a peek at your finished home!!!! Happy building!!

Terri

garage doors! yay! The windows are up top and the others are down around the house sort of hidden, for my husband's fishing boat and other storage. Anyone think they will look good with body color Revere Pewter and a dark coolish brown trim (Terratone)? My door will be natural wood color, light-ish stain? Otherwise we need to paint.

Cannot load image 2 but its the same without windows. GW is fighting with me :)

I rarely post since it is difficult to do from work, but follow this thread religiously. Our build is in a suburb of Seattle on 5.5 acres and we're almost done! Drywall and Paint now complete, kitchen cabinet install starts this weekend. We're on the home stretch!

Still need to select a color for our gables. Body color is SW Tiki Hut, Trim is SW Sanderling, Fascia is a custom color match to the Amarr Garage Door Brown. We're finally getting to the fun stuff.

Hey Everyone!
I am SO sorry that I have been MIA for several weeks. We had some stress and then more stress and more drama. It is finally all coming together!
Going to try to share a few pictures!

MLWeaving - Your house is looking gorgeous!

JDez - Moving along!

MaggiePie - WOW! What a lovely home!!

To everyone else, you guys are all moving along and there are too many gorgeous homes to keep up with!

One more...

Kitchen to Gathering Room

Dining room through foyer to art niche....

upon-wow that is so gorgeous! Congrats! So are you in or when is the big move?

Hilltop - your house is gorgeous. I'm most jealous of that perfect yard with green grass. We have dried mud with weeds. More pictures plz.

EDIT: Over there to the right of the screen, the girl's face in the compost ad is really bugging me. It's just creepy.

This post was edited by JDez on Thu, May 8, 14 at 8:01

uponthehilltop, love the house. Can't wait to see more pictures.

Upon, so nice to see you post. I knew you were done, thought you might be in already. Aren't you glad you did the arches? I love your kitchen pendants, Love that buffet wall (for lack of a better term, I'm sure there is a correct word). Would love to see more of the kitchen, more of the rest of the house. What are your floors? I think that's the color I'm going for.

JDez, I agree. I certainly hope we don't have that ad to look at for the next 3 months, which seems to be the ad longevity around here.

So I just scored big on some fixtures. Ferguson's closed their showroom here about a month ago. Their contractors window is still open, but to look at the stuff in the showroom we now need to drive about 30 minutes to the one in Bluffton. Anyway, they had a one day sale to sell off showroom sample stuff. No advertising, no word of mouth, just a few hand written signs placed on the curbside at the edges of some roads. There are so many political signs I totally missed their one-day-only sign, but my mom saw it.
I picked up the outdoor light fixture for the back door that we spec'd for our house for $136 - I bought it yesterday for $45.
I got a Currey and Co. silver leaf chandy for my bfst room - for $75!!! It's not the one I want - which sells for $1400. But it's close enough for now. Now I can give my son the dragonfly fixture that he really wants and I get mostly the look I want in my room.

(this is the one that I wanted - still want actually.
I picked up this mirror for the foyer wall - for $68. And another mirror by Capital Mirror for the powder room.
It's all stuff we were going to buy anyway. And it's saved me $$$.

uponthehilltop - beautiful! Hopefully the stress is thinning.

mlweaving_Marji - nothing better than a great deal and a sharp mom!

NWHobart - love those doors.

Not much to update on my side, but I can say we are getting much more efficient with our chainsaw. A few more trees down last night, I can't believe there's only another 5 or so to go before we can start moving ground for the barn. Too bad the other 5 are much bigger than any others we have done.

We are browsing barns on Saturday morning to really get a feel for the size and style we want. I can't wait!

We are getting a roof line! They had to take yesterday off due to the weather but are plugging away today!

hilltop- what a gorgeous home!

Marji- love those light fixtures and mirror- good deals!

Yay Robyn!

mlweaving -- SCORE! That's how *I* like to shop :)

Today is off to a scary start. I sent a note to the cabinet guy about swinging by sometime today with a couple of flooring samples to see which one goes best. The reply was, that our kitchen is the last project they're taking and are closing up the shop today actually. The cabinets are done and he offered to bring a door by and drop it off but the remainder are going to be safe and sound until after floors are finished.

The pantry doors are not done / not started. They were intended to match the cabinet veneer and for those I have NO clue how to proceed. I could call around to see if another cabinet place could do it but I expect that the cost would be much higher since by itself the three doors + sliding track are a much smaller job, assuming it would come out matching anyway. The alternative is to go with opaque glass doors but I have no clue from where.

No meltdown here; I just get really, REALLY frustrated. T&P for my coworkers today.

This post was edited by schicksal on Fri, May 9, 14 at 10:00

Almost exactly two years since first posting here...

Excavation started yesterday and should be completed today! Footings start on Monday!

Big mcHuge thanks to SummerfieldDesigns whose ideas were almost entirely incorporated into our final plans!

Here is a link that might be useful: First post!

Upon, The house looks great. Congratulations on finishing.

Autumn, You have done an amazing paint job. All the hard work you put in really shows. When are counters going in? You must be getting anxious to finish and move in.
Enjoying the new job?

Mlweaving, Great finds on the lights. Can't wait to see them in your house.

To everyone else who is just starting or mid way through keep going. All your houses are looking great.

On my front have been reading the thread at night but have not had much to contribute so just following along silently. We hope to have basic landscaping done in the next week or so and then I will post pictures of the almost completed house. I have been so busy that I have actually not take one picture after we moved in or unpacked. We have our first party in the House on May 17th with about 40ish people so better get the house ready before then :)

Edited to correct typo's

This post was edited by akshars_mom on Fri, May 9, 14 at 13:39

shicksal- that whole situation must be stressful, but the glass is a great option.

ZGAnderson- congrats on the ground clearing. The planning stage does seem to go on forever, like the summer lines at a theme park.

On the todo list today for me- call my 2 granite fabricator runners up and pick the winner. Make sure the painters are cutting in upstairs with the correct color- they weren't the other day when I stopped by. Tomorrow we take a day trip to Louisiana to buy airstone for our entertainment center surround. Lowes in Texas doesn't have the color we want, and they won't ship the product directly to us or interstore. Wanted to show y'all a picture of the bits and pieces of fluff I have been stashing in my rental "living room". Fans, lights, faucets... oh, and that big box is an Orion telescope... my Mother's Day present. Moving can't come soon enough.

double post edit.

This post was edited by musicgal on Fri, May 9, 14 at 13:38

Somebody in our new neighborhood drove by yesterday and took a great picture for us. It an angle that I can't see from my camera. It just looks beautiful and helps me stay excited about moving!

schicksal-uh oh. If that doesn't feel like a kick in the stomach. For the pantry doors - is it JUST the doors, as in the boxes are finished? I know there are a couple places around here that only handle doors and not boxes so maybe you might have some luck with that around you? Feel for you. :(

robyn-woweewow girl! That is a beautiful picture, both house and landscape. That would be a great motivator for moving.

ZG-long time coming! I hope you are refreshed for the start and ready to kick it in gear.

akshars-howdy! Missing you. :) So the 17th for a party. That is not far away! I bet you are so ready for landscaping too. Job is good, it really is and I think I am going to love the work...adjusting to full time, well that is another animal all together. I took today off for Track and Field day for my 5th grader and it was rained out - rescheduled for next Friday. Well I can't keep taking days off especially being new and I haven't worked Friday's in YEARS so I am super bummed. I have been anticipating this day for a long time (I know probably silly but it's like the last hoorah before middle school you know and he is my oldest). Thankfully dh will be able to go but that is little consolation since I was so looking forward to it. Counter go in NEXT WEEK! Woohoo, so excited. I'll post a bit more about it below.

carson and marjorie-I think I should hire you to be my personal shoppers! ;)

Okay so templating finished yesterday. I went to the fabricators early this morning (before track and field was to start) to look at my slab and my sink and determine what portion of the stone I wanted. So happy to see my slab there with my name on it and my sink. Love my sink! We used this fabricator before in our last kitchen but with uba tuba so no need to determine what piece of stone you wanted since it has no variation really. It was cool to picture it when he held the template up and moved it around. :) :) :) However, I have no pics. The lighting in there isn't great and I was still in a hurry even though I was there by 7:15. He hopes to install by Wed-Fri next week. Woohoo!

Timeline for the next few days:
Sat-Mon: Plumber (YES)
Mon: Excavator (we need cement work yet but this has to be done first)
Tues: Shower door install
Wed: Carpet/Screen porch guy
Wed/Fri: Kitchen Counters
Mon: Appliances (maybe I won't have to reschedule them afterall)

We still aren't ready to call for final inspection though and the holiday is coming up so I'm not sure if we will have our permit by the end of the month but I am crossing fingers we WILL!

Getting down to the last things Autumn! Yay! Glad your job is going well. I hear you on the last hurrah- they just grow up so fast!

Things are now in the phase where it doesn't change much day to day. Lots of prep for the painting. Some of the priming started today and I'll show those because it gives a sense of the 'white' kitchen which is kinda cool.

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close up of hood:
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custom utensil drawer inserts:
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front door:
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lockers:
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laundry (cubbies for baskets on the right)
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drop zone (that's right outside the kitchen, across from the lockers- you can see the door opening to the kitchen there, and the stairs to the lower level on the left)
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powder room- that's a bench with a drawer for storage on the bottom right there
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illini-yippee! It still is a very exciting stage even though it *seems* like not much is changing. Thanks for posting pics. :) Love your hood. Yeah, ds got all teary when he realized I can't go this coming Friday. Huge pangs of guilt. Ugh. I might have to try to work something out but I feel way too new to just take days off like that. Argh.

Autumn,
Totally understand the guilt and feeling sad about missing out on the track and field day (or any kids activities). That is one thing I hate about having to work full time. Hope you can some how attend at least part of it. May be go in late or leave early depending on when the event is. Being present even for part of it may make your and DS feel better.

Can't to see your counter tops installed. You are almost there.

illinigirl, You kitchen is going to look great. I wish we had a mud room with all the storage and cubbies.

Autumn, the pantry is built more similarly to a closet. It's about 9' wide and a little under 3' deep, on a wall with no other cabinetry. This is the concept.

The agreed upon plan was to have three doors on a track like this one, each built up with the same walnut veneer the cabinets have with 5 horizontal windows per door with white opaque glass. When we talked yesterday he said he could get me in touch with the company that basically absorbed a large part of his tools and a couple of people. There was apparently a sort of understanding that at this point we were late in the project (kitchen cabinets done / doors not yet started). Of course they're under no responsibility to honor any prior agreements that I had and the schedule went from 2 weeks from now to ??? so I'm exploring glass again as a backup plan.

I'm sure to the acquiring company my business is quite small but I will be in the market for two full / one half bath, an entertainment center (more furniture than built in), and whatever we decide to go with in the office over the next two years. Hopefully something will work out.

Our more immediate issue is that we're having a REALLY hard time picking a finish for the flooring. This sample is the best of the three and is so close, but in person it appears almost with a slight green hue in the pieces towards the bottom. I'd like something that retains the tan a bit better but lightens it up, and think that we can achieve that because he uses a lot of Loba products and the shade we want is on the background image on their website. This is the sample with the panel from our cabinets that hides the vent hood. Close...

This post was edited by schicksal on Sat, May 10, 14 at 7:00

Schicksal-oh boy. Now that is a horse of a different color. :(. Hopefully the new company will want to honor your business no matter how small. That is so very close. That would be a tough task as well.

Cason oh carsonheim where are you? Do you want a jumping buddy? I just noticed today that one of my uppers, just one (of 5) has a center stile so the doors don't align like the rest. Speechless. Frustrated. Wanna give up! Crown already installed. What the HECK!!! It's a 32" cabinet. What in the world. It loses much of its flexibility for me. Dh thinks - well get doors that butt up and no big deal. I don't know what to do!!!! Grumpy the rest of the day. I know I know it's not a big deal in the scheme of life but I want to MOVE ON!!! Planned on bakeware there. Bowls will fit but not casserole dishes, etc.

In my defense on not noticing right away, it's the only upper on that wall, the rest are around a corner so they aren't sitting side by side. I will take a pic when I go back out. I am mostly bummed about the loss of flexibility. Argh!

Another miss. Tried to stain the benches in the mudroom and they did NOT take stain evenly. Fussed with it again today and I surrender. Going to paint them a contrasting color to complement the crown which stained up beautifully. :(. Touched up ceiling. Half bath fixtures set and I love the faucet. So classic and kinda feminine I think. :)

No water to them yet though. I will be back with pics.

edit: typos - blasted i-phone.

I'll just put my pics in here since I am already in the message:

My fav faucet (in the half bath):

Range hood (with stile cabinet in the frame):

The issue of the day.......looking straight on no difference since the only other upper on that wall is not yet in as it sits on the counter top:

Round the corner and they all look like:

And of course I had to bring out a tupperware bowl and throw it in there for perspective:

Thoughts? Am I just entering into another over analysis project fatigue tail spin?

Happy Mother's Day tomorrow to all you Mother's out there. :)

This post was edited by Autumn.4 on Sat, May 10, 14 at 21:26

Autumn4 - if it was MY cabinet in MY forever home, I would get a new one with no center stile. I would first ask for a free one from my KD and if that wouldn't work, I'd just buy a new one and ask for a discount. As far as looks, it is hardly noticeable but you will be sooooo mad every time you try to fit a casserole dish in there on its side and at just the right angle. And there is always room for your "used" cabinet in a storage area somewhere like the basement. The four or five hundred dollars will not make a huge difference in your mortgage. Now, if it costs a lot more than that, then you might have a big decision to make.. Just make it right and be happy. My $.02.

yep, I agree with JDez.....it looks like it fits right in.....but if you are going to be forever cursing it when you use it- get it done now.

I s'pose you ladies are right. I am already cursing it since I can't just put whatever I want in there no matter what. On a whim. Change it up. Nope, no can do. Who wants some bakeware here and the bigger stuff over here cuz they won't fit in the cabinet??? I am tired though, so tired. I need to email the kd and see what he says. Since they are already installed I am nervous - that and the blasted crown is on. If it weren't for the crown I think no big deal, easy to swap it out. Wonder if we can cut the stile out? DH would be against that 100,000,000% but it would be more functional and we wouldn't have to uninstall and reinstall! I think if we pull the crown off it might ruin it - or for surely put more holes in it!

He was all set to install the UCL there today and I had him stop. I figure ask the question and see what KD says before we do anymore there.

Well Lisa, I'm going to come down on the other side. It's already installed, your crown is in. Really, you have a whole bunch of dishes that you can't fit in there because of a center stile? That's a pretty big tupperware bowl isn't it?
At this point, if I were facing taking out a cabinet, waiting while a new one was made, refitting crown, waiting on painting again, waiting on UCL.... I'd call it good and just know that there was a reason it was installed the way it was. Who knows, maybe that center stile will prevent you from putting something in that cabinet that would someday bring it down on your head.
IDK, I'm at the point though that I'm so ready to be done, something that minor would not cause me to delay finishing.

illinigirl, How wide is your range hood?

Autumn.4, First I'd check the order paperwork and make sure that it was suppose to be butt doors. Secondly, contact the kd and see what they have to say. That is one of the things that bugs me about Shiloh. Nice cabinet, but butt doors are an upgrade that you have to specify.

LOL Marjorie! DH is totally in that camp. It is a mixing bowl size AND the cabs around the corner are deeper, really deep. The thing is I wanted to keep baking stuff in that stile one and keep other misc. things in the others in that corner that would keep the rest of the fam out of my way while I'm cooking and what not. So I'd have to split the stuff up. It's not that it's far away, it's that I wanted to kind of put things in zones? The kid, hubby, coffee pot, toaster, make lunch zone is the corner part by the fridge. I didn't really want to put my casserole dishes there. However, I do also have a lot of drawers and I could potentially put the casserole dishes in there.

I am at that same point. Very same. I am ready to move in, running water or not. I need to be done!

I am going to see what KD suggests and then go from there.

Thanks building buddies. :)

Link to May 2014 Part II

This post was edited by Autumn.4 on Sat, May 10, 14 at 23:28