Late spring at the Lunger's

We took this shot from across the street at sunset to get a perspective of our house and the beautiful setting behind us. As our shrubs, bushes, and annuals mature we will post closer views of our landscaping.

Finally moved in.

We did move in on August 4, but it has taken us all this time to unpack, have new furniture delivered and setup, and just get acclimated to a comfortable new environment. Here you can see how some of our rooms turned out.

Here’s our living room looking down from the top of the front stairway. We have a few of our previous furniture and a few new pieces.

Our dining room is very much the same with our favorite Scandinavian dining room set. The French doors take you onto our screened porch.

Our kitchen reflects the way we want to eat and prepare foods. The peninsula offers a great place to kibitz during meal preparation, and also a nice place to get a meal ready. At the rear is our home office and entrance to the garage.

We also have a wonderful view from our porch into our dining room and beyond into the living room.

So come on down to visit with us, anytime. We’d love to have you over.

Finishing touches

Sorry for the delay getting this blog out, but we have been fighting many dry days and keeping the grass seed watered morning and night.

We have occupancy and are moving in tomorrow; with lots of carloads of boxes and items done ahead of time to minimize the van loads.

Here are some finishing touches on the house that is now completely done.

The front door is complete with stain and polyurethane. Inside we have the living room with fireplace, the kitchen and office viewed from the dining room, and the dining room with French doors onto the screened porch.

There is also the completed staircase to the loft and 2 second floor bedrooms and bath.

We are particularly pleased with our lighting choices including kitchen and hall pendants, as well as numerous recessed lights.

Final details

This week has been completing everything needed for occupancy inspections. All items have to be in and functional, especially lighting, outlets, HVAC, and hot & cold water. We passed the building inspection, and now have to wait 1 week for the local township occupancy inspection; then on to closing. The final detail of the dining room is crown molding around the ceiling.

The main stairway and railings have been completed, as well as the one into the basement. Here you see the open stairway railings and posts up to the second floor, and the railings along the front of the loft. All of these are stained oak.

The screened porch final got its screens, stairs and railings, as well as a railing along the top of the exterior basement stairway. Porch lighting, both in and out, is also in and working.

Landscape views

The grass is complete, as the lawn crew came back at 6 AM today to finish up. Here’s view from the southwest that shows the garage bed and chanticleer pears. The tan carpetlike material is called curlex and will handle downspot runoff so the water doesn’t erode the seed. Curlex is located around the house and especially in the swale at the rear.

Here’s a view from the east with its bed of plantings. This will offer a great morning view from the 4 large casement windows in the loft.

The south view shows today’s seeding. The grass area along the bottom of this shot is part of the required right-of-way that goes out to the road.

Grass seeding

With the landscaping complete, it’s time to start growing grass. The seeding crew started by doing the final grading to smooth out the topsoil and remove rocks. Hand raking was done along the edges of the mulch beds and walkways.

We used the hydroseeding approach. A huge tank mixes together grass seeds, fertilizer, tackifier, mulch, and water. The mix is sprayed on the areas to be seeded. The tackifer is glue-like and helps the mix stick together and to the ground. No hay spraying is needed.

The final result is a greenish surface that almost looks like grass. Grass should start showing in 5 days. Lots of watering to do, and the need for a riding mower within the next month.

Landscaping Day 3 and Driveway

We are 99% done with our landscaping, having only 1 shrub, a few fence rails, and flagstones for the patio area to finish tomorrow. Here is a view of our east bed that highlights 5 gorgeous Cryptomeria Yoshino shrubs along its back, the royal birch, and 1 of the 2 October Glory maple just off the front of the screened porch.

Here’s a view along the south end of the property. In the center is a bed with 5 green giant arborvitae, dwarf forsythia and “tea” viburnums. The bed on the right corner is matched by the one on the left rear corner, and includes burning bush and “sparkleberry” holly. The bed in the foreground covers our well pipe and includes boxwoods, roses, and grasses. You also see 2 sugar maples on the right.

The driveway crew arrived this afternoon and laid the driveway. Now complete, you see it and the beds along the front and side of the house. The beds include hostas, hydrangea, boxwoods, holly, cypress, and several grasses.