I know it’s been a hot minute since I updated our home progress… but boy is it progressing! I can’t believe we are going to be moving into this beauty in just 5 short months (you hear me dad…. FIVE MONTHS)!!! My dad is building our house and I like to jokingly give him a hard time that it better be ready by May (except I’m not really joking am I?). I feel like it was just yesterday that we dug the hole for our foundation and closed on our loan.

So, a lot has happened since August! We officially got our windows in and I absolutely love them! We went with Pella’s fiberglass line in black. Honestly, they were one of the only vendors who make black interior and exterior windows that are suitable for the midwest. Sure, places like Pinterest show a million cool houses with black windows, but as my dad pointed out – those houses are out west or down south. I guess something with the energy efficiency and such makes it pretty impossible to get steel windows here in Chicago. After literally months of searching, we signed a contract with Pella. I really wasn’t going to settle with normal white windows because wanted the black interior frames to act as art on our walls. They are so, so, so beautiful in person.

Interior framing, plumbing, and electric is completely done and now we’re waiting to get gas. Rough inspection should be sometime in the next week and then drywall goes up! Our brick guys have been working now for about 2 weeks on the fireplaces and the sides of the house. This week brick started going up in the front and it should be all done by the end of next week. We chose a creamy marshmallow white brick and we will accent with a black front door and shutters.

Other things that are done: We bought all of our appliances (KitchenAid), picked out all of our tile (it literally only took us 3 hours and it was so so fun), and found and purchased all of our lights. Funny story about the lights, I asked my dad what I needed to accomplish next for the house and he told me lights. I literally spent about 5 days obsessively picking out lights when my dad asked me why I was spending so much time browsing. I was like, “um, because you told me we needed lights” and he said “No, I meant start looking at lights. You won’t need those until April.” What the whattttttt!? Me and Nick clearly heard him say that we needed lights next… PLUS, you cannot tell a super hyper gal to just “browse” for 6 months – that’s just not going to happen. So, within one week I found and purchased all my lights and now they are patiently waiting at the rents house for installation. One of my favorites has to be this cool vintage chandelier we got from Turkey that was made in the 1950’s.

That’s about it from the Stammen house. I included the above pictures to show some of the progress and share some of the colors I am leaning toward incorporating in the new home. We are doing a very neutral home with colored accents. I’ll put out another update in the next month or so after the brick is all on and dry wall is up.

Such exciting times!
-DBB