Behind the scenes

The last three weeks have been the point in the project where things have gotten done but not things that are easily seen.  And I'm all about instant gratification, so it's been another test of patience for me, for sure!  So, this means that I've got no real pictures to give you right now, except we figured out a LOT of paint colors, so that's something...right?!

Aside from paint, here's a quick bullet list of what's been done since the last post!

*My awesome husband installed the central vacuum system, all by watching a 10 minute you-tube video.  Seriously, he's the best!

*We have garage doors!  It's been nice to finally be able to close up the house.  While the house isn't easily seen from the main street, that can be a good and a bad thing according to our electrician.  Copper wiring will make people do very bad things, apparently.

*We also have exterior siding, so it's protected from the spring rain, and by rain I mean monsoons, we have been having.  Now we wait until we get some dry days and the painting will begin!

*We finalized cabinetry.  I really didn't realize the amount of thought that goes into it.  Which way to swing doors, length of drawers....where to put outlets. I honestly sat down and wrote out what I needed a drawer for (tupperware, silver ware, tupperware, glasses, tupperware, pots, tupperware, pans....you know how it goes) and then planned it accordingly.  I'm pretty excited.  Phase 1 is being included in the home cost, but Phase II will be something we do down the road and consists of extra master bath cabinetry and laundry room cupboards and base cabinets to hide the laundry.

*We have permeant power!  That was a stressful few days and there were a few sleepless nights involved, but we got it approved on the first try, which is sometimes not the case.  The stressful part about it was that if it wasn't done to their specs, it takes another 5 business days for them to come out and assess it again.  With the entire project on hold until power was in, this could have amounted to huge delays.  But, (and another shameless plug for Seth and a shout-out to my brother) my husband, again, came through in the pinch.

*We are insulated!  It's awesome to come to a warm house when we go to the property now.  And, no more echo.  It actually feels like a house!

*We framed in the front door.  This proved to be a bit of a struggle because the framers didn't frame it correctly.  Thankfully we had a great family friend help us with the door and skills were greatly appreciated!!!!


So, what's next?  Um, sheetrock!  It's delivered, hanging out in various rooms of the house, and I'm hoping to see some walls sealed up today.  The kids are kind of bummed because they liked running through walls all day long.  Although I did tell them that hide and seek will be a lot more fun when you actually can't see people immediately!

Like I said, no awesome pictures, but here is one of the outside and I'll share some paint colors so you can see our hard work!

Colors have proven to be difficult for us, but I think we finally came across a picture that we both really loved, so these are the for the outside (minus the fluorescent green grass, of course!)

The interior house neutral is Oatbran by Valspar.  It's a warm grey/taupe color that seems to go with everything else we are doing and I think it's just enough difference from the white trim that it will look awesome.  I'm pretty sure we are going to go white on the ceilings, much to Seth's dismay.  We were able to budget in a paint sprayer, and if we would stick with a  color on the ceiling...it would make painting A LOT easier for him!  But I'm trying to do things right the first time so I don't get into the house and wish we'd done things differently.  And painting it right before we move will be a lot easier than re-painting it after!

Lastly, we decided on the fireplace surround brick for the inside and outside.  It's going to be awesome!  The picture doesn't show it well, but it's almost a bit shimmery...it will look cool when the afternoon sun hits it in the afternoon.  I can't wait to admire it while I'm drinking my morning coffee on the back patio!

The next post you see will hopefully show walls and some of these colors actually on the house!  As luck would have it, our rental home we've been in for the last 9 months has sold, so we have a 6 week gap where we need to be out of our rental and can't move into our house.  So, we are moving twice in 6 weeks.  The first move will take place this weekend and the next will take place towards the end of May.  If you happen to see me in the next few weeks and think I look a bit stressed...you are right :)  But, I'm trying as hard as I can to keep my focus on the end result and how worth it this all will be.

Updates!

(I had this post sitting in my draft box for a week or so waiting on pictures, so this was probably an update dated March 8th or so!  Sorry, life is hectic!)

I always love doing blog updates, because it means we actually have seen progress on the house!  In the last few weeks, we have gotten our real roof and the exterior doors and windows are in.  It makes me so happy to be able to close things and be sure the inside is now protected from the elements.  We securely boarded up the front door with plywood because we aren't installing the super cool front door until close to completion, so the plywood door will have to suffice until then.  For now, it sits wrapped in blankets and secured to the wall in all it's unfinished glory.  It will be stained to a dark brown color (I think it's called 'coffeehouse') soon!

This last few weeks, we have had rough in for plumbing and electrical, so more has been happening on the inside of the house than the outside.  We had a difference of opinion with on of the plumbers on the location of the washer and dryer hook ups.  It ended with a not-so-pleasant conversation between Seth and the head guy and ended with the connection where we wanted it and me bringing pizza as a peace offering.  I really hope he didn't seek revenge by poking holes in any of the pipes or 'forgetting' to seal something properly!!  With rough in for plumbing, that also means that the tubs and showers were installed.  Bennett was not excited when I told him it was time to take a bath at the new house because there was lots of dirt and debris in the tub.  And I thought boys liked dirty baths?!

The electrical guys were AMAZING.  I seriously loved them.  The first day we met, he walked me through all the electrical connections and made recommendations and moved things without batting an eye.  I'm so glad we were able to meet up because there were a lot of random things not communicated to them and if I wouldn't have caught them in the 'easy fix' stage, it would have been huge headaches down the road!

So, now we are at inspection stage.  We should be getting those this week and next.  We will also have a team caulking all the exterior walls which meant that I spent three hours vacuuming the house on Saturday to prep the floors for that.  After that was finished, I marched right home and ordered the central vacuum system!  3000 square feet feels a lot bigger when you have to vacuum up pounds of sawdust!

Once inspections are cleared, insulation will start.  They dropped the exterior siding (which you will see in pictures, in the garage), so I'm hoping to be pleasantly surprised and see that starting soon. We are still deciding on exterior colors, so the paint will not be on until later in the process.  Any suggestions are welcome.  Picking paint may be the most difficult thing yet!

In other HUGE news, we (we = Seth) spent long hours at the property with the help of an awesome land developer working to pull all the stumps, level and backfill the cleared area on the property.  It looks awesome!  Aside from some gnarly tree roots that are hanging out in the front corner of the property, it made such a big difference.  If anyone has any pinterest projects that involve huge tree roots, feel free to come and get ours!

Here is what it looks like now!  I'm busy picking out all the flooring and paint right now, so stay tuned for a post on all the materials we are going to be finishing with.  I really hope I can figure all this out.  I definitely didn't get the decorating gene and am relying on some friends with great taste to help me out-

The BEST day

You know when you have one of those days where everything just feels GOOD.  Good breakfast, good hair day, the kid are getting along, the laundry is done....just GOOD.  Valentine's Day was that day for us.  We spent it at the property and I couldn't have asked for anything better.

We started off with doing something I have dreamed of doing since we began this project.  We decorated our house with bible verses.  Tons of them...on the insides of closets, on the floors, inside doorways....and I can't tell you how good it feels to know that the FOUNDATION of our house, the supports that hold up our walls, are covered in God's word.  It was such a comfort to know that this house is starting off right.  I know that those words, even though we won't be able to see them for much longer, will be something I remember as long as we live there.  Which, better be for a LONG time because I don't plan on moving :)

After that, we cleaned up the house, boy can a work crew make a mess.  Nails, scrap wood, and a HUGE collection of vitamin water bottles were packed in garbage bags or burned and we spent the whole day just playing and having fun.  The weather was amazing, and I found myself often daydreaming about this summer and sitting in the back yard, with a BBQ going and kids running around the yard.

Once it got dark, it was amazing to see the amount of stars you can see when you distance yourself from the bright lights and big city, er, big suburb :)  And even louder was the frogs.  Luckily our kids like noise when they sleep, there will be no shortage of nature sounds in our neck of the woods!

Next on the agenda is getting the roof on, which will be comforting because of the rain that is constantly looming in the forecast.  The windows and doors are there, so I'm hoping those are going on soon to get everything sealed up.  It's so fun to turn the corner onto the property and see what happened that day.  There are days nothing happens and it's disheartening because you feel like you lose momentum, but there is no sense getting frustrated about it.  If anything, I have learned that.

                   

                           

                       

Morning Sickness

(Let me preface this whole post by saying I am NOT pregnant, so don't freak out.  It's a metaphor, people!)


With almost all of my pregnancies, I went though them pretty easily.  I had light cases of morning sickness, most of it just felt similar to reading in the car too long.  I never had to run to the bathroom when I caught a whiff of something I didn't like.  I could eat meat, I craved watermelon.  I didn't eat crazy things like potato chips dipped in ice cream.  With my last child, I didn't even feel contractions until I was almost 9 centimeters.  That was pretty awesome!  I LOVE being pregnant.  And I miss it sometimes.

So I was trying to come up with a comparison to how building a house feels.  And one day a friend said something that was an 'ah-ha' moment.  'It's like being pregnant.' And just like that two words came to mind: MORNING SICKNESS.  Now, like I said, I really didn't have it.  But I had friends and family who did.  And it sounded awful.  If I had that, I'm sure we would have been a 'one and done' family.  I don't deal with sickness, especially when it lasts, and lasts, and lasts.....so when morning sickness was compared to building a house, I finally can now say I am dead in the middle of morning sickness.

It seems like the building process is a roller coaster.  One moment you are feeling great, then next you feel like running for the bathroom.  You wake up feeling like you are ready to kick butt and take some names, and then you get the call that the crew has the flu, the company is 'reorganizing' and all your contacts have changed, the truss truck breaks down, details get missed and things get framed wrong.....all these little bouts of issues that make you want to rewind, go back to bed, and start again tomorrow.  And for the record, all those things have happened to us in the last few weeks.

I'm being negative, I know.  In the grand scheme of things, progress has been made, we now have walls framed!  And the trusses are re-scheduled to come out tomorrow.  The crew is about 50% better, with most of them finally breaking their 103 degree fever.  A list of measurements that need to be fixed, or noted, or changed has been communicated across the board and should be right.  We got a crazy good deal on a front door that is going to be UH-MAZING.  We ordered granite, sinks, light fixtures and are in the middle of picking out paint colors.  We know our flooring, we just need to order it.  So there are silver linings.  The project is moving forward, if nothing else, by the amount of air miles we are accumulating buying all of these things on our credit card.  (And yes, paying it off every month.)

So, I'm going to try to focus on the little steps forward, have more grace with the big steps back...and I may dig out my sea bands that I used to wear when I did have days when I wasn't feeling so hot in those early months of pregnancy.  They worked when I was pregnant, maybe they'll help while we build this house :)  And I'll try to keep in mind that being pregnant and morning sickness was totally worth it in the end for every pregnant person I've ever talked to.  The hard parts are worth it when you are holding a new baby in your arms, or in my case, a new house key!


I'll end with pictures, because that's the fun part anyways.  Hopefully things will start moving more quickly in the next few weeks and a new post will show tons of progress.  See, look at that optimism returning....writing is so therapeutic!

Lots of lumber!  This is the construction access with the start of the garage framing.  Behind it is the entry way into the laundry room. 

Doors are there, which means they are on deck!

As are the windows!  I'll be happy to get the house sealed up from the rain!

This is mid-framing.  I'm standing in the far north corner of the house, which will be our bedroom. Front door is on the left, with the dining room next to it.  The hallway with the mudroom, kids bath and their bedrooms are all over that direction. Open space is the great room/kitchen. The office is in the foreground of the picture, with the powder bath and closet marked off.

This is the opening for the super-sized door.  Dining wall to the right, school room with french doors to the left.  

And for all of you that missed it on Facebook, the door that will be going in.  It's unfinished, so we will stain it (most likely dark).  Doesn't it make B look tiny?  I was worried about the windows in the door not being frosted or something for privacy, but the door is so big, an adult can't even see in...problem solved!

Merry Christmas!

A little late, you are thinking?  Nope...right on time.  Today is the day framing starts and it feels just like Christmas morning here-maybe even better because the night before I wasn't up until 4am wrapping and frantically getting things just so for the kids.  This day is for the big kids...Seth and I.  It's been a labor of blood, sweat, tears and an 'open bar' tap on our bank account for the last few months.  Now that framing has started, our home builder takes over.  This means that from here on out, with the exception of a few finishing steps, we are not as involved in the daily activities.  I can do what I do best, which is taking pictures, picking out paint, re-purposing furniture and buying decor.  Yay!

The past 30 days have definitely been a stress.  I completely understand the understanding nods and sympathetic looks from people when I tell them we are building a house 'Oh....really.....'  After getting the stem walls done, the footings quickly followed.  And then we worked with our general contractor to determine if back fill was the real next step.  Because of the wet dirt, he thought the better option would be to compact the garage and use that for their main 'walkway' to the house to build so that we can avoid making the surrounding dirt a mud pit.  The plan made sense, but of course, it now added a delay to the lumber being delivered because they needed a place to put it.

Backing up a bit, our initial 'dirt guy' came recommended, but unfortunately we did not have a great relationship with him.  He caused a good majority of our delays, accidentally cut the power to our neighbors, cut a corner too closely and took out a fence and a gate and drastically underestimated the cost of the land prep that we needed in order to build.  While I can't say that some of those issues wouldn't have come up with even the best contractor, he has been a proverbial thorn in our side.  And even though his work is done, there are still fixes that need to be made to the fence and gate which might have to involve some legal persuasion on our part to get him to do the right thing.  Thankfully the neighbors are understanding, but I think we will need to host a few BBQ's complete with steaks and beer in order to be sure we stay in good standing!

So, because we essentially fired our first dirt contractor, compacting the garage wasn't exactly a 1-day job.  We had to re-hire, re-bid, re-visit and re-explain the plan and then wait for their schedule to have availability.  I suppose the fact that they needed a week to schedule was a good thing, showing their popularity.  And they did a great job, came in right on budget and everything was what we needed it to be.

If anyone else dares this adventure, I can definitely throw you some names of who, and more importantly, who NOT to hire :)  So, today marks Christmas morning for our new house.  Visions of hammers, nails 2x4's and busy bee workers are dancing in my head.

So, here you go....the calm before the storm.

All I want for Christmas is CONCRETE!

Timing is always something that has been an interesting part of this project so far.  Timing for things to happen on the property, timing for things to change in our personal lives, timing for finances to open up just when the call comes in that we need to add to the budget.  I know it's not a coincidence....

This week was another great scenario.  We got our Stem wall poured on Christmas Eve!  It very well was the most exciting gift I got this year (although the wrapped ones were all a close 2nd).

(this is a view of the house from the left corner of the house.  The garage is right out of site on the right side.)

Thankfully Seth's hard work saved us a lot of extra fees with the re-framing and pour of the concrete. We took a little jaunt over this weekend to check on everything, and it looks great!  It's funny how the concrete makes it feel small, in a strange way.  Luckily I was told to expect that.  I really felt that there was NO way our car would fit in the garage, but I'm sure it's fine.  And, if anyone knows the amount of things we have in our garage, I'm not expecting to drive the car in the garage right away, anyways!

Tearing down to build up

December 12th update: (I accidentally sent this one to draft, and managed to delete the pictures, so this is all you get!)

The last week has seen a few steps in the right direction, but we did have to take some giant steps back to take some baby steps forward.

First of, lets discuss double-dates.  I'm sure most of you would think it would be dinner and some kind of fun activity with friends.  Conversation, laughing...no kids.  Always a night to look forward to.  This week we had a double-date with my brother and his girlfriend.  It involved dim lighting and lots of laughing, but also head lamps, ice, rebar, 2x4's...and some impromptu ice skating.  Fun times.

In an effort to save costs on re-forming the foundation, we opted to tear down the existing forms ourselves.  We learned on Wednesday that our dirt guy was coming out to fix the compaction issues on Friday, which meant we had very little time to get everything ready.  And when that happens, you call in reinforcements.  So we left six kids, chicken nuggets, french fries and ice cream bars in the capable hands of Papa and the four of us went to work.  Surprisingly, it only took about 4 hours to pull up all the forms, and rebar and stack it neatly on the side of the property.  It think it would have went even faster if we weren't working on top of thick layers of ice from the freezing temps we had earlier in the week. There were a few falls and some impromptu skate moves, but we got it done!

So, with that done, we had our dirt guy come back out and fix everything and now it looks pretty and the Geologist thankfully agreed.  So, onward and upward we go.

Patience.  This is something I have never had much of.  I peeked at Christmas gifts when I was young, I always read the back of the book to know the ending...and Seth will probably a very embarrassing story about my lack of patience and the ultimatum I gave him before we were engaged. Yea, safe to say patience is NOT something that comes naturally to me.