We have a retaining wall

The retaining wall was finished today. It's just made of CMU blocks and then plastered over. We needed to build a retaining wall both to level off the front yard and to create some sort of barrier between the front door and the very near sidewalk. One day we hope to put a black aluminum fence on top, but for now it'll stay as is. Hopefully the painters will have time to paint it later on to match the house.



Hopefully we can do some nice landscaping in this front yard and it can be a nice place for the kids to play one day.




The front view of the house looks so different now!

BIA Home Show

Since we're in the process of building a new house, we thought it would be a good idea to check out the BIA Home Building and Remodeling Show at the Convention Center. I'm so glad we went because we got to check out a lot of different vendors and get lots of ideas for our house. These are just some pictures we took while we were there:

Exterior is painted

The outside of the house is now painted!



After a long time of deliberating, I decided on "Harvest Brown" by Behr as the paint color. Jared wasn't too picky and left the big decision up to me. I actually thought about doing a two-tone: one color for the top floor and another for the bottom, but ultimately decided to be conservative and stick to just one color for the entire house.

Does it look a little "mustard-y" to you? Eh, I think it will grow on me - we can't change it now!

Siding is up

The siding has been put up. This isn't the actual color of the house, though.




Don't mind the date on this picture. Obviously it's wrong.

Cabinets, cabinets, and more cabinets

We met with a kitchen designer at Hardware Hawaii Showroom in Kailua to create a design and concept for our cabinets not only in the kitchen but throughout the entire house. Who knew cabinets would be so expensive? We had to decide on the style, type of wood, and color of cabinets for two bathrooms, the laundry room, and the kitchen. Besides that, for the kitchen cabinets we also had to think about the functionality aspect: where we were going to put certain items, what size drawers we would need, etc. As it turns out, so much more goes into choosing cabinets than we thought!

Here are some of the initial drawings the designer came up with:

Kitchen (maple wood in "Autumn"):



Laundry room (maple wood in "Nutmeg"):

This was so not what we ended up with, but it looked nice!

Kids/Guest bathroom (maple wood in "Nutmeg"):


Master bathroom (cherry wood in "Coffee"):


The brand of the cabinets is "Showplace Wood". Click here to check out their website.

We have walls!

The house is now closed up and we have exterior walls, windows, a front door, and a roof! Now it actually looks like a house from the outside!




This is where the kitchen will be


Also, your first video tour of the house - enjoy!

Outside progress

Here's what the house looks like today!