Sometimes you just have to be lucky.

After thinking long and hard about the majority of our house decisions, we essentially flipped a coin to decide the finish stucco colour. We really had no idea what it would look like when the dust cleared.

As it turns out, it's the perfect colour to complement the white trim, the natural look of the stone on the pillars, and the cedar support brackets under the eaves.

It's almost like we were making an informed choice.

THANKS, GAIL

The same could be said for the way the different kinds of flooring came together. It looks like we pulled the vinyl, hardwood, carpet and ceramic tile from the same colour theme, as they all flow perfectly together.

Of course, that's largely thanks to the expertise of Gail at Curtis Carpets, who listened to our colour and texture preferences and selected the perfect options for us.

We've found it's crucial to lean on the knowledge base of the experts when making selections.

Just look at our light fixtures. Mical at Total Lighting not only helped us find the exact Craftsman and Mission style of fixtures that we wanted, she also utilized her experience to place them in the rooms effectively. It's one thing to buy the right fixture, but it makes all of the difference to know where to put it.

The organized chaos of the past week resulted in the installation of:

• The Heat Recovery Ventilation system, furnace and hot water tank in the basement;\
• The fibreglass insulation in the basement, as well as the expanding Icynene foam in the floor joist area of the basement;
• The plugs and switches in all of the rooms;
• The railings on the front and back porches.

Wait, there's more...

The painting crew colour-matched the cabinets and stained the mantel;

We met with the shelving contractor Monday night and confirmed our wire needs. Peter from Alt Shelving came up with an excellent plan for our master suite walk-in closet. Essentially, we'll be going with two rows of hanging on the centre and left walls, and a row of long hanging for pants and other odd-length items on the right wall. He'll also include a shoe rack below the long-hanging rack.

One of the few oddities to arise out of the entire project involved the bulkhead above the kitchen and eating area.

The pantry part of the cabinets actually protruded past the bulkhead, which looked very strange. I called Trevor as soon as we saw that, and he had it reframed the next day. Now that it's been drywalled and mudded, it looks perfect.

Knowing we don't have to worry about the bumps in the road makes the process much less stressful.

We now have a firm move-in date -- Wednesday night after the cleaning crew goes through the house to take away all of the building dust and debris.

Next week -- the final product.