The art glass of the front door was installed today

The front entryway of the house is now complete.  Well, at least the structural part.  Later this week, I will meet with the landscape architect to make a plan for the landscaping.

Peter tries to open the front door for the first time!   (It was locked so he had to get in the house another way - anticlimactic)

The windows below the sweeping staircase have been dropped to their new location and are ready to have the drywall patched

For the lowest window, the move does not look hugely significant, but it was necessary.

In the master bathroom, the bali pebble floor of the shower has been grouted.  It is still wet though as Peter found out so we can't stand on it yet.

The grout color does work well with the pebbles though.

And speaking of colors, the painters have put big samples of the paint colors on all the walls of the house.  We did have an interior designer from Ethan Allen who helped us choose the various colors (okay, she actually chose them all on her own and again we nodded in agreement).  The colors are not quite true to life in these photographs but they are the best I could do.  If you are really curious, all the colors are from Benjamin Moore and you can look them up....

In the guest bedroom, we have a color called Thunder - it is a light grey color.

For the guest bathroom, the color Thunder has been tinted up 50% (lightened).  This color works really well with the accent tile that we chose.

The big monolith wall in the livingroom is going to be painted Lapland, which is a green color.  I am still not sure about the green color but I am going to step outside my comfort zone and let them paint this color on the wall.  It is a huge wall so there will be lots of green, but as the interior designer says "It will bring the outside in".  She hasn't failed us so far (we like the furniture she chose) so I will put my faith in her.

The master bathroom is Montpelier, again tinted up 50% to lighten the color a bit.  When I first saw it, I did not like it at all, but I think it is growing on me.  I have called the interior designer to come take a look because I am not sure it goes with the tile I chose....

The master bedroom has full blown Montpelier.  It is going to be a dark bedroom...

Finally, the study is going to be painted Safari, a yellow close to the color of sunflowers.  Interestingly, the study in our old house was yellow as well.

The big news though is that the first tenants have moved into the new house - no it is not Peter and me.  Today, I was standing on the back deck behind the dining room discussing the railings with the contractor and I kept hearing baby birds chirping.  At first, I thought they must be in the oak trees that are behind the house.  The oak trees are pretty close so they could have been in the tree calling to their mother.  However, I soon realized that the baby birds were much closer than that.  In fact, momma bird had made her nest inside the hole we made for mounting the outdoor speakers.  The speaker hole falls between two joists of the upper deck and momma has moved in.  She made a nest in between the joists about a foot away from the opening.  When Peter arrived later, he climbed up the ladder and stuck his head in the hole to find that there are four baby birds living in the nest.  These are the first occupants of our new house and we will have to wait until they move out before we can install the speakers!

I couldn't get a photograph of the babies as it is too dark in there, but here is a photograph of their front door....  The nest is sitting just next to the light fixture.