House update; Merry Chrismas!

We found some slate we really like. It is 16" X 16", from India. See above. It is called "Copper", and has a lot of interesting colors and textures. It is honed so it is fairly smooth, but not polished so it won't be slippery when it's wet. The stone looks like it is rippled but that is just the texture of the material. It should go very well with the Ipe flooring we will put on the main level. We're planning on using the slate for the foyer and running it up to the powder bath and into the kitchen. We got a pretty good deal on the stuff, too, since the store was closing it out.
Here's a photo showing the front of the house, with the "scratch coat" applied for the rock work. The forms for the front porch are also being installed.

We call this photo the "funky patio" shot. We got a call from our contractor who wanted us to come take a look at the patio before it was poured. A good thing, because we didn't like what we saw. The steps occupy a large portion of the patio and look pretty clunky, too. We got with the sub who was laying it out & decided to extend the patio 2' further back and widen it toward the window well (on the left side of the patio, as you face the back of the house). We also will shrink the size of the steps to the minimum needed for code. As we understand it, the steps come in two flavors: with and without a hand rail. If we go with a hand rail, we can shrink the depth of the steps by a substantial amount, so that's what we will do. We also want the patio raised as much as possible, to bring the patio closer "up" to the main level. There are limits there: the foundation sill is just a little above the lowest row of clapboards. So we'll do what we can.

Dry wall!!! This photo shows the family room/nook area, from the stairs. One of the drywallers is taking a break.

Drywall up in the upstairs rec room!

With the dry wall going in, the visual size of the rooms has shrunk quite a bit. Now the upstairs bedrooms feel a lot smaller (but adequate: we don't want guests TOO comfortable, eh?).

One issue with the insulation job has come up. We're not happy with what was installed between the storage room upstairs and the rest of the house. The storage room is unheated (altho insulated on the exterior walls). So we're concerned about heat loss through the shared walls. The original plan did not call for insulation OR sheet rock in the storage room so we figured that the shared wall would have the "good stuff" installed, i.e., blown-in; but that didn't happen. We didn't get a price break for the batt insulation so we think the job was not done as specified. Well, we will work it out -- I'd be very surprised if there weren't a few glitches during the building process.