Wa-Hoo I'm on a Roll!

So I didn't do multiple posts on Friday.  I wanted to, I really did! But the internet here went down, and I don't know about y'all but I can't post without internet :)

This week has been busy! Came in Monday morning and our office phone system was down for a few hours.  Plus side-no phones ringing, down side-customers think we died.  We have had orders coming out of our ears, and its great! We shipped out roughly 24,000 pre-programmed RFiD labels yesterday and have orders standing by for another 45,000 that will ship no later than next Tuesday! (if anyone is wondering what I do check this out Super Awesome RFID Company ). On the personal side of life, TJ is out of town for possibly another 3 weeks (been two already).  My birthday is next weekend, one I'm actually looking forward to for some reason.  My poor little Jeep has been in the shop all week.  Went in with all sorts of lights on and has been problem after problem.  So far we have replaced: ABS System, 2 Wheel Speed Sensors, 1 wiring harness for one wheel speed sensor, front passenger marker light housing, socket, and wiring.  Will be interesting to see if anything else is wrong with her, at least she's under warranty for another 4,000 miles.

And now to our main event, what all of you (both of you?) are here for.  House updates! I left off with the progress as of 7/22.  So I will start there.  You might want to grab a cup of coffee or tea, this one will be a long one!

7/23/2011- This was a Saturday, and I wasn't actually expecting to see any changes since it was the weekend.  We were driving in that area so we stopped in, and SURPRISE!!! My amigos are awesome :) Also they had the entire thing done, cleaned up, and they were gone by 3pm!

7/25/2011- What a day! The electrician was here, the HVAC guy was here, there's stuff all over! As I showed in the last post our deck was finished today.

The garage is filled with bits and pieces of HVAC materials, this was actually the first day that the site wasn't 100% clean.

But they made this cool little table for them to bend metal on, pretty nifty.

The heat pump and main ductwork is ran. As well as some of the main electrical.

They also put the tubs and showers in the bathrooms that they go in, how they did it? Don't ask me!

7/26/2011-  I like today, today has happy changes :) Dominion was out and marked the line where they will run the cable from the pole on our property line to the house.

There was a lot more electrical work done, the ductwork was framed in, someone wrote Tornados on out main support beam in the basement...and this:

I love this picture, it makes me smile.  The sun was slowly thinking about setting, the sky is so blue, there is a little patch of green grass.  Such a happy place.

7/27/2011- Hello Mr. Plumber! I have been waiting for the plumber, if you remember there is a window in the basement that has a pipe coming up in the middle of it.  That pipe goes up into the kitchen, that's where the kitchen sink is.  I was wondering which way they were planning on taking that pipe and how they were going to do it. So here it is:

The capped piece on the floor is the piece they cut off that was sticking up through the window. The pressure tank is in place and a lot of the plumbing is roughed in.

This cool dude is also installed.  This is one of my top 5 favorite things about the house.  Why you may ask?  A mantle! I have dreamed about having a mantle to hang my stockings from for years.  (And all the stockings were hung by the mantle with care...) I had our stockings custom made last year from re-purposed sweaters and they have our (me, TJ, and devil-kittens) initials.

7/28/2011- No real pictures for this one, but still stuff was done!  The tubs and showers are installed and were filled with water to help them set.  The plumbing is 98% roughed in, electric is completely roughed in.  They put in a little tuft of insulation above the fireplace.

7/29/2011-Happy Birthday to mi madre! My parents got back from their vacation this afternoon, I dropped my poor Jeepster off at the shop this morning, and I officially felt like I was 15 when my parents showed up at work to pick me up...
We went out to the house after dinner for my mom.  Again no huge changes but the door bell and outdoor lights are wired.

8/1/2011- Wowwee Wow Wow! So I'm excited about the little things.  It keeps life interesting.  I pulled up at the house with a headache, sore back, and tired.  This is what I see.

I grew up on a farm.  I love my moo's.  Having cows in the field behind our house makes me smile.  All the pictures I took inside the house are all slightly blurry.  I'm a picture snob, so I'm not posting slightly blurry pics :(  Most of the insulation is in, there are a few places in the ceiling that still need it.  Walking through the house now it is so quiet and sealed up.

8/2/2011- Delivery! I didn't notice any actual house changes but there was a nice pile of boxes outside when I pulled up with mom.

All of our siding and soffit has been delivered.  We have nice white soffit:

And our beautiful Flint siding:

They finally put doorknobs on all of the exterior doors and I LOVE the satin nickle that we chose:

Well they also locked the doors :( My heart sank a little bit, I'm locked out of my house. Well I thought I was.

I looked up and see this! YAY! I can get in :) Turns out there is a key outside each door...I'm short, I never see the top of the door ;)
I saw this little thing when I opened the front door, it made me smile :)

I'm beautiful underneath! This is great! I need to look and see if all of the doors have this or if its just this one.
And a view of the cows in the field beside our house :)

And the last update!!!
8/3/2011- Yesterday was another delivery!

SO MUCH DRYWALL! There is drywall in every.single.room. There's drywall in the basement.  There's drywall in the garage.  There's drywall in the hallway. Seriously its everywhere!

I'm super excited for what will be tonight!Ok super-post is now complete, you may proceed with your normally scheduled programming :)

Maybe Post 1 of Many for today :)

So...I'm slacking. I'll blame it on the summer, even though I sit at a computer all day long no matter what.  TJ is currently in PA for work for the next few weeks, my brother has been redoing the only bathroom at my parents house all week since they've been out of town, and its HOT.  Not only is it hot, its humid.  As in this chick isn't straightening her hair kind of humid.  On a happier note my brother proposed to his girlfriend and her two kids and they accepted.  We all couldn't be happier, they are perfect for each other.

On the house front.  Holy Batman these dudes are quick.  Like super-quick. I thought building a house took time, but leave it to these guys and you'll be moving in pronto. 

Here is a picture from EXACTLY one month from ground breaking.  I'm amazed.

We have a deck!

That picture obviously gives away a ton of the progress from my last post.  So here are some of the progress pictures of whats happened in the last two weeks.

7/18--Framing for main level is almost finished, a few closets needed to be framed in.

7/19--All the plywood is up and so are the trusses!

7/20--Plywood on the roof and grating the yard

7/21--Roofs ready for shingles.

7/22--House is wrapped and we have windows and doors!

What a story with these windows.  I was following a blog about a couple in Texas that just built their first home. The House That We Built is Henry and Shannon's experiences.  Well Shannon had a ton of issues with these windows in her bedroom. They were in the wrong place, wrong number, anything that could go wrong with these windows did.  I felt so bad for her.  Well we have this bay window.  Its beautiful, I love the view and the placement.  I can't wait to watch the snow fall and the lightning dance down the power lines.

So here's the issue.  We have our bay window, and the center window fits perfectly.  However the flanking windows are supposed to be 24" windows.  The holes are set for a 24" window. What size window was delivered? 18"...That just won't work folks.  I'm surprised I don't have a great picture of this window since they put the windows in but you can see the lack of window to the right of the center window.

So that's where everything was at at the end of last week.  This week has been all inside stuff,  but I'll post more about that later.  Here's a pic of the outside as it sat last weekend. It finally looks like a house that could be lived in!

A real roof! With Shingles and stuff!

Week Three: What a change!!

I've been slacking...I know :(  I have been out to the house site everyday during the week, so I have day by day progression :) So story by pictures.

I'm sure you recognize this picture of when we broke ground:

Hole-y Moley ! 6/25/2011

Basement Foundation--7/1/2011

 

7/5/2011--Backfilling, waterproofing, little things but big importance

7/6/2011--Leveling ground to pour concrete

7/7/2011--Roof Trusses Delivered

7/12/2011--Concrete Poured!!

7/14/2011--Basement is framed in! (HUGE rain storm on 7/13)

And 7/15/2011--We have a subfloor for the main level!

As you can see in the span of 3 weeks  A LOT has happened.  We have also had some really nasty summer storms but I've seen progress almost daily. Around 7/10 we had the rest of the lumber delivered.

It's really awesome to be able to walk through and be able to see the bathroom, and closet, and stairs.  It really now looks like a house :)

We have our kitchen appliance allowance from the builder so we are starting to decide on what appliances we are going to go with so that when we can we can go on a buying spree! Just waiting to hear how much the allowance is on washer/dryer and if we can swap tank hot water heater for tankless.

Interior Picks

 I got back from Columbus late on Thursday and had a meeting with my wonderful Real Estate Agent and the builders wife on Friday morning.  We went through all of the carpet, tile, marble tops, counter tops, wood flooring, and paint that I could imagine.  So after an hour of going back and forth on this tile vs that tile, decisions were made.

Marble tops for bathrooms

Ceramic Tile--The white line was chalk, not included :) Going in all bathrooms, kitchen, dining, laundry, and basement foyer.

Valspar Paint for all walls.

River Gemstone Countertops, its a Formica type countertop but solid surface.

The whole deal, carpet is in upper corner and is Honey Graham.

The top wood is the one we are going with, believe it was called Gunstock.

Its all basic and sorta greige, but I did it on purpose.  I wanted all of the flooring and everything to go well together and with as many color schemes as possible.  The walls will be painted flat valspar paint.  I think we will repaint a few walls right away before we move in, and I want to do stripes in the bedroom.  Not the stripes that are in your mind.  I want to get a few gallons of semi-gloss in the same hopsack color and paint wide stripes on the walls.  They will be the same color but a different finish.

My brothers girlfriend has already admitted that she loves to paint and will help paint before we move in.  I'm thinking about painting the living room/dining room/kitchen combo first.  I already picked up the shower curtains for the basement shower and hall shower, so I need to decide if I want to paint the walls in those rooms or leave it for now. 

Enjoy I'm sure I'll have an update later in the week.

Day 1 to 8 What a week!!

I had a voicemail last Friday (June 24) from my mom telling me I had my very own pile of dirt.  Being the literal one I assumed that they had a load of dirt delivered to try to back fill and even things out.  I didn't put one and one together that the pile of dirt came out of my very own hole in the ground.

I didn't get off work until a little late on Friday, so on Saturday after running a million errands I finally made it out there.  We have a driveway, a hole in the ground, and a pile of dirt!

Its hard to tell, but its a hole!  We have a garage level basement, so we can drive in to our hole :)

The famous pile of dirt!

Driveway! Complete with car :)

Sunday morning I left for Columbus Ohio for the week.  I was attending the DLA Suppliers Conference, it was great! I met a ton of current customers, and prospective customers.  My feet hurt and I'm happy to be back in my temporary bed (aka the guest room at my parents). 

TJ drove past the house everyday on his way from home and sent me pics on Wednesday to show that they had put up the wall forms! Since I hate seeing cell phone pics on blogs, and since I didn't upload them to this computer...just imagine the hole picture with wall forms :)

I got home late on Thursday and it was too dark to see anything.  My plan was to drive out there Friday with TJ, I was being nice and waiting alllllll day (I took Friday off).  Well he stopped on the way home without me :(  We ended up driving out there Saturday to look around and take pictures.  So in a weeks time this is what happened:

Walls!!

Pipes!!

Another view of walls!

It's going so fast, all of this was done in one week!! I love it! Another post coming about all the interior picks that were made on Friday.

Lazy Lazy Lazy

I'll admit it, I've been lazy. Lazy at home, Lazy at work.  Lazy in bed, Lazy on the couch. Welcome to summer time! All the children are out on the streets making it impossible to navigate through downtown, my mother is off of work and rubbing it in.  There are horse shows all over, and sales, and people on vacation.  My office is boring.
Ok end rant.

On the house front, nothing much has changed :( The farmer that was renting the land has moved the moo moos off and baled the hay.  The surveyors came out and remarked everything.  If there is one thing I learned about growing up with cows its this: you put a stake, or pole, or fence post out where they can get it, and they will knock it down while using it as a scratching post.

Look Hay! And if you look closely a stake!

Miss Utility has come out and marked the utilities that run along the roadside (and I'm sure anywhere else)

Little flags and paint! There is fiber-optic cable running through there, something else I'm sure too. 

Not sure what the wooden stake in the middle is for but if peer way out there you'll see a black stake on the top of the hill, that's the corner of the left side (short side)

FI's grandmother is cleaning out her barn, which mean lots and lots of dust and dirt.  But also means amazing furniture thats been "lost" for years.  Everything is still plastered in dust and such but I found what looks to be a beautiful rocker.  Low seat, high back, black with gold accents.  Looks to be in great condition too.  There is also an old dresser that is screaming to be sanded down and refinished. I'm thinking it would work beautifully in my formal living room to set a small TV on and some flowers.
Oh and my favorite! There is an old wood box probably about the size of a boot box from an old general store that was a candy box.  Don't remember the brand name, but it has "CANDY" stamped across one end :)

You've met the land, now meet the plan

I just realized the other day that I hadn't posted the floorplans.  Originally I was trying to get a better copy.  They aren't great, but they work.  So without further a-do I introduce you to The Woods.

I know the image is ginormous, but its poor quality so....yeah.  This is only the main floor.  The basement will be completely finished with a rec room that will run along the same side as the living room for the entire side (kitchen DR and LR side), there will be full bath roughly where the hall bath is as well as two large closets.  The rest of the basement will be an extended two car garage.  Our entire layout will be "flipped" because of how the land lays.

The front porch is covered, and the rear deck is included, which is very rare in this area.

Well there she is folks! Well most of her at least...