Building our Home

Paint, Paint, and more Paint!

2008-07-15T20:05:00.001-07:00

The drapes from Overstock.com arrived late last week. They are really pretty and the color goes great in the room. I only ordered three valances but realized after Brad hung the curtan rod that we really needed four. Oops! So I ordered another one, fortunately they were still in stock when I realized my error. The last valance should be here later this week! Once we get stuff hung on the walls, I'll take another photo and share the study in all of its painted, organized, peaceful glory!

Brad's step-mom came over last Thursday and painted our downstairs bathroom. The color is a little darker than I thought it was going to be, but it's still really nice. Now I just need to hang the stuff on the walls, and pick out some Cheri Blum prints and frames and hang those, too. I also need a shower curtain, a soap dish, a few hand towels, and maybe a tumbler and then I can call it finished. Oh, I also need to print a few things out on some nice paper and frame those as well, but will do that later on. It is sounding like it'll be a while yet before I'm ready to share photos of that bathroom! :-)

Finally, after eight or nine different containers holding almost two pints of paint in various colors, I have selected a paint color for the entry, kitchen, breakfast area, living room, hallway to the laundry and master bedroom, and the upstairs hallway. The color we're going with is Sherwin Williams Nomadic Desert.

Here are a few random photos!

The bigger square on the top right close to the light switch is the color we're going with.

See all of the paint colors? There are actually a few more containers in the bathroom under the sink. YIKES! Anyone want some paint?!

And for grins, here's a looooooooooooooooong overdue photo of our house with snow on it. I'm longing for the cooler weather!

Covered in Whole Wheat

2008-06-30T21:04:00.000-07:00

I was, on Saturday...and now the study is! Brad's step-mom came over Saturday morning and the two of us painted the room with Sherwin Williams' whole wheat super paint in a satin/eggshell finish. It took two coats and 2.5 gallons of paint. I've since ordered draperies in the sapphire color from Overstock.com:

I need to find a curtain rod that's 104 inches in length. Then I have to hang all of that, and we are going to move the furniture (two bookcases and Brad's desk) into the room this weekend. And poof, one room in our house will FINALLY be decorated and finished. WOO HOO! One down, too many more to go.

An Ounce of Prevention

2008-06-24T20:54:00.000-07:00

In my haste to discover whether I liked the paint color I selected for our home office/Brad's study, I failed to bother to put down any kind of drop cloth.

Big mistake. Yep, I managed to drip a very small spot of "Open Seas" paint on our "Pale Clay" carpet. I panicked, and ran to the bookcase to grab two home improvement books. I turned quickly to the indexes (indeces?!) of both books and looked up "Paint." Would you believe that neither book contained any information on how to remove paint from carpet? Hello, these books are written for weekend warriors, and should include such things! Maybe a "Dummies Guide to Painting" book would have such a section.

So I went to my trusty search engine (aka Google) and typed in "remove latex paint from carpet." Aha, there was an ehow article just for that.

Here was its guidance:

Instructions
Difficulty: Easy

That "oops" you heard during that painting project in the other room is bad news - latex paint can ruin a carpet. [oh, crap!] Act fast or you may have to permanently place a potted plant in that stained spot.

Step 1 Remove as much wet paint as you can by blotting with a clean, white, absorbent cloth; work from the outside in to avoid spreading the stain.

**Translation: run around the house looking for a clean, white, absorbent cloth. Discover all kitchen towels are in the washing machine, completely soaked. Rummage through closet looking for a neutral-colored towel. Exhale a sigh of relief when you spot your old Chili's white beach towel lying on the floor of the closet, somewhat folded (so assumably clean, other than some dust). Run back to the flawed carpet and start blotting.

Curse in your head (because you have a toddler on your back who currently repeats EVERYTHING you say) when you discover you are managing to smear the dot around. Working from the outside in is very hard when the dot is really small, and you are working with a beach towel.

Step 2 Sponge with cool water and blot again (still from the outside in) until you've removed as much paint as you can.

**Translation: be thankful you just bought brand-new sponges for the kitchen. Grab the package, open it, and hope that even though they're blue in color, that they are colorfast and won't make a bigger mess than the one already in progress. Fill a Snack Trap bowl (sans lid) with cool water and return to the flawed carpet. Dip the sponge in water and begin to blot the spot. Curse in your head again when you realize that while the spot is getting lighter in color, it is starting to spread.

Step 3
Mix one teaspoon mild dishwashing detergent in a cup of lukewarm water.

** Tell the computer screen, "Thanks, but I'm going with OxyClean on this one!" Head to master bathroom and run the hot water. Add the OxyClean and stir.

Step 4 Blot with detergent solution solution, using a clean, white cloth, working from the outside in.

** Return to spot and dump water onto flawed carpet. Breathe another sigh of relief when you see that the spot is now gone, and you are left with wet carpet.

Step 5 Let the area dry completely and vacuum.

** It dried and there is no blue on my nice tan carpet. I have yet to vacuum and I don't have to resort to putting a potted plant behind the door.

You better believe I will ALWAYS use a drop cloth from now on! Thank goodness for Stainmaster carpet. And I'm not totally sure I love the blue color. It's REALLY BLUE.

Downstairs Bathroom

2008-05-17T20:40:00.000-07:00

I have a theme or whatever, finally! I found a bunch of cute cottage-type stuff at Michael's last night for 60% off, so I got it. I selected a couple of paint colors, and went to the paint store today to get samples. I'm quite amused by the fact that they're on the same green-based paint strip, one is just a darker shade, I guess...but when I put them on the walls, one looked very blue and the other looked very green. I'm leaning toward the blue one. The green is darker and I just like the blue better! Hopefully soon we'll get the whole bathroom painted.

Here's an album with the fun stuff I got, as well as bad representations of the paint colors. The lighting in the bathroom is all goofy. There are also some photos of the only thing I've managed to actually decorate so far!

House Update

2008-04-05T21:13:00.001-07:00

I haven't really updated because there hasn't been much to talk about. But today, Brad, his dad, and two of his brothers accomplished a HUGE task - they put down flooring in our walk-in attic! We have probably 300 square feet of storage space in our attic now. Remember way back when our house was being built and we wanted them to move the furnace over to the right of the attic instead of in the dead center of it? It was quite a battle, but we won and they moved it. It's a good thing, because otherwise we would not have a third of the great storage space we now have. Woo hoo! The guys started early (before 8 am), worked through lunch, and finished up around 3 or so. It looks amazing! And no one fell through the ceiling, and no one had to go to the emergency room, so it was definitely a successful project!

In other news, I found bar stools yesterday! Nothing I ever do is easy, though. I was at Target yesterday afternoon when I ran across these bar stools on clearance.

The store only had the 25" seat height, which is too short, so I got online after dinner last night and discovered that there was a 31" seat height. I didn't check while online to see what stores had them. No, I drove to a different Target, the one closer to our house, and they didn't have any of the 31" stools. So when I got back home, I looked up the stool again and clicked on the option to locate the product in a store. The Target way down by where I used to work had them listed as, "Available," where the closer Targets either said, "Out of Stock," or "Limited Availability."

SOOOOOOOOOO...after I picked N up from Grandma Coni's this morning, we headed down to that Target. I was actually heading that way to pick up some clothing for a friend of mine, expecting that N would fall asleep in the car, but since I was going right by that Target, and since N was wide awake at that point, I opted to stop in and see if they had them. I had had the foresight to take Brad's car, but really should have taken his brother's rental truck instead.

I was delighted to see that they had the 31" stools, that they were both on clearance, and that one of them was even marked at $49.98 instead of the $69.98 price tag that was on the other three stools in the store. I made sure I grabbed the $49.98 stool, after locating a Target team member to get one of their heavy cargo carts for me. The cashier was really confused about the price tags and charged me $69.98 for both, so I just went over to guest services after checking out and they did a price adjustment and refunded me $43! I got the two bar stools for what one would have cost me, so I am pretty excited. I wasn't really looking forward to dropping $200+ on two bar stools.

SOOOOOOOOO...a Target team member, N, and I all head back out to the car where we start trying to put the bar stools into Brad's trunk. His car is SO fired for carrying things like this! :-) The round foot rest part of the stool was too big to fit into the trunk all the way. After MUCH fanagling, which included me having to move the car seat base over to the other side of the car (thank goodness the seat fold down is a 67/33 split!) we finally got the stools wedged into the car safely enough for me to get them home. BUT...one stool was hanging out a little bit so I couldn't close the trunk. And there was no rope in Brad's car. I was going to just leave it and drive home REALLY slowly, but as I was getting into the car I spotted my pink Petunia Pickle Bottom Boxy Backpack diaper bag. I realized that the shoulder strap would make an excellent tie-down for the trunk, since it's actually made out of seat belt material and has heavy duty clips on either end. I attached it to the trunk and it worked beautifully - I was quite proud of my innovation!

I took a lesser-traveled road to get home, and what would have been a 20-minute trip on a highway took me over 45 minutes, but that's ok. We got home safely and now our new bar stools are standing proud at our bar just outside the kitchen.

I'll get photos of all of this new stuff in the next day or so! Stay tuned!

Couch Photo

2008-02-19T21:31:00.000-08:00

See why I almost didn't sit on it? The color is SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO not my style!

I failed to get a photo of the nice pecan swatch. Oh, well...hopefully sooner than later I will have our actual sofas in our living room to show you instead!

Sneak Peek

2008-02-19T21:22:00.000-08:00

We've been saying we aren't going to do any painting or decorating until we're all unpacked, but I cheated while at Hobby Lobby today and bought the following stuff:

For one of the rooms in our house. Stay tuned (for a long time!) to find out where it ends up!

Craft Room

2008-02-19T20:30:00.000-08:00

So this weekend Brad moved all of the stuff out of the craft room and into my photography studio room, and then moved the craft room furniture into the room so that I could begin unpacking all of my stuff and get it put away.

This is what it looked like before he started:

And what it looked like once he was done, before he moved the craft room furniture in:

These first two photos are post-furniture but before I started dragging stuff out of boxes.

Standing in the doorway to the room

Standing in the northeast corner of the room.

The third photo is after I started unpacking! It looks a lot worse tonight with way more stuff all over the floor, but EVERYTHING that belongs in that room, except for my albums and magazines, is in the room. Now I get to start making piles of stuff to organize and figure out where to put it all. Yippie!

A Tale of Two Sofas

2008-01-24T12:55:00.000-08:00

About a month before Christmas, I went on a hunt for new sofas for our living room. I first went to Bassett Furniture, where I found a style I liked and a fabric that was pretty nice. But the couch itself was uncomfortable to sit on. So my next search took me to JC Penney. I sat on probably a dozen sofas there, and really sank into one called Melody. I almost didn't sit on it, because it was this really bright rusty orange color. But then I spotted a swatch book, found a fabric I liked, and decided to give the couch a try. It was really comfortable and looked pretty nice. I took Brad back there to see it and he agreed that he liked it. On another visit, we took my parents up there and they also agreed that it was comfortable to sit on. It was also on sale for $400 less than the retail price.

So we got gift cards to JC Penney for Christmas. Brad and I went up there a couple of days after Christmas and were disappointed to see that our couch, while still on sale, was $100 more than it had been before Christmas. Since the gift cards didn't expire, we decided we would wait until the sofa went back down to the price we originally thought we'd end up paying.

I'm up at the mall frequently because of StrollerFit. I went by there on Tuesday and the couch had gone back down to $400 less than the retail price. I talked with Brad and we decided that now was the time to buy our sofas.

So Nyssa and I went to JC Penney today and ordered our two Melody sofas in the Pecan color. I was a bit nervous because they had changed the swatch book. The nice thing is that there were many more fabric options available now, but the not-so-nice thing was that the Pecan swatch was no longer in the book. ACK! The sales guy called and verified that the color was still available, so I didn't have to choose a new fabric after all. WHEW!

They say delivery should be in 8-10 weeks, but he told me to call them after five weeks and ask if the sofa was ready, as apparently it doesn't always take the 8-10 weeks!

I am excited to get our new sofas. Here's the floor plan arrangement we are considering once they arrive...MANY thanks to my interior designer friend Jennifer for the idea!!!

Clean Sweep!

2008-01-12T19:22:00.000-08:00

We decided a few weeks ago that today would be the day we were going to get our master bedroom, bathroom, and closet all in order the way we want it, the way we would have done it the day/weekend/week we moved in had we had the time.

I booked a babysitter through Seeking Sitters and was thrilled when we were assigned a lady I have met in the past at the local babywearing meetings. It was really a blessing, since Nyssa currently only naps in the carrier. I'm sure no other sitter would have been able to get Nyssa to take a nap, but this one did. We were quite happy. But this post is not about our sitter experience, please excuse my digression!

Anyway, we had a sitter to entertain Nyssa while we worked uninterrupted in our room. It took us a few hours to find homes for everything, but we did it and everything feels SOOOOOO much better! I can't wait to get to paint and buy new bedroom furniture, but we won't be doing that any time soon. In the meantime, it's still a nice place to be now that it's not cluttered with things that had no home. Our house already feels more peaceful.

And I even had the forethought to take before and after photos.

Bathroom before:

Bathroom after: (AAAAAH, that's me breathing a big sigh of relief)

Bedroom before, from the doorway:

Bedroom after:

Bedroom before, from my nightstand (northwest corner of the room):

Bedroom after:

I bet we sleep SO much better tonight. We have just a few other things to do with the bathroom as far as storage goes, and then we're going to call the bedroom done and move on to Nyssa's room.

Mouse update (long and boring!)

2008-01-12T19:12:00.000-08:00

The dead mouse smell went away after just a couple of days. Thank goodness - I had read that it could take 2-3 weeks to go away and I was seriously dreading that.

Last weekend, Brad went to Lowe's and bought some mouse traps. He came home with three kinds - well, two kinds of traps and one of those ultrasonic pest control things that you're supposed to plug into outlets to keep the critters away. The FTC issued a statement against those and everything I've read say they don't work, plus I don't think they're safe for the birds, so those went back to the store. He got a few of the electric zapper traps and a few of the traditional snap traps.

While he was gone, I went into the bedroom with Nyssa to get the carrier to put her on my back. As I walked into the room, I saw another mouse go running back into the bathroom. I slammed the bathroom doors and threw some clothes at the bottom to keep him from escaping.

Fortunately Brad came home 5 minutes later. He smeared all of the traps with sunbutter, which is similar to peanut butter but made from sunflower seeds (don't knock it til you try it - we have no peanut butter in our home since Brad's allergic to peanuts). He put one of the electric traps in the bathroom. An hour later, the trap light was blinking to let us know it had zapped a mouse.

I did not sleep much that night, expecting to hear a snap trap go off at any moment. What didn't help was that the vent hood in the kitchen had a loose flap that kept banging in the wind. I'm sure that woke me up several times making me think a mouse had met its demise with a snap trap. Brad got up a few times during the night to check the traps but they were all empty.

We've been checking the traps daily for a week and haven't seen any flashing lights notifying us of a dead mouse inside. Well, until last night. The trap in the laundry room closet, where the hole is that we think they were using to get into the house, had a flashing green light last night. Brad disposed of the mouse and put the trap back.

I checked again this morning and sure enough, that green light was flashing again. UGH! Brad emptied the trap and put it back. We haven't seen any more since then. It's gotten colder outside so I guess they're coming back in for the warmth.

We've stuffed steel wool into the holes in the closet until the patch guy can come by and fix them. I noticed a big hole in the door frame of the attic door upstairs, so Brad went to Lowe's and got some foaming fill stuff to fix the hole. He did that this evening, so hopefully no mice will be able to get through it now.

UGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGH.

2008-01-04T21:45:00.000-08:00

We had something, most likely a mouse, die in the cabinet or wall of the kitchen. It stinks. UGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGH.

I. HATE. MICE!!!

House Update

2008-01-03T14:24:00.000-08:00

I know it's been forever since I've updated, but I'm not sure anyone is even reading this blog anymore!

We've been busy since we moved in. We traveled to Barrington, IL for Thanksgiving weekend. Then the insanity that was December last year set in and something was going on every.single.weekend. We've managed to get the downstairs fairly settled, or at least operational, but the upstairs looks like a ransacked storage facility with half-open boxes everywhere. The studio doesn't look too bad, but I have to be able to function up there so it needs to stay reasonably clear. Some day we will have paint and decor on the walls and nice matching furniture but we don't expect it to be any time soon. :-)

I went through the house and took some new photos. Here's what we look like two months after moving day.

We've made several service calls - two more to the plumber and one to the electrician. The bathtub faucet in the downstairs front bath was constantly dripping. And then on December 23 we woke up to a huge puddle of water in front of the master bathtub. It was coming from underneath Brad's sink. He shut the water off and the plumber came by later that day and tightened something to make the water stop dripping. The electrician came because we've noticed a power draw when the AC or refrigerator kicks on. Also, some of our outlets and light switches are sparking when we use them and that doesn't seem right. Nothing serious, I'm sure, but better safe than sorry!

We have several unwanted house guests - ants, spiders, crickets, and MICE. With the colder weather we haven't seen too many crickets or ants, but the mice are looking for warmth and I guess they find our house a suitable location. UGH. You can read my diatribe on the rodents here

service calls

2007-11-12T12:06:00.000-08:00

we've been here a week and have made two service calls already. the first was to the a/c guy. the drip pan for the ac was overflowing and dripping outside the window. apparently there were a couple of pipes that were set up incorrectly. it's fixed and the pipe isn't dripping any more.
the second call was to the plumber on saturday night at 10:30. the downstairs toilets were not draining. not good, especially when you have house guests!!! a little roto-rooter-ing did the trick.

thank goodness for home warranties - those weren't cheap bills!

We've Moved!!!

2007-11-09T15:19:00.000-08:00

It will be a week tomorrow since we moved into our new house! It has been a wonderful week, even though it's been frustrating being surrounded by boxes and unable to find the things we need for the simplest of tasks, like taking a shower. My poor husband used my pink bath robe the first day we were here because we hadn't yet located our box of towels. I'd rather have a fresh-smelling hubby wrapped up in a pink robe than a stinky hubby who didn't shower because there was nothing with which to dry off!

Here's an album of the state of our home after the movers left. The kitchen wasn't as bad in the pictures because I was able to spend a good chunk of time getting it organized.

From Moving Day

Brad's step-mom came over and brought us food (HOORAY!), dinner in the crock pot, and then kept Nyssa occupied and entertained so I could focus on unpacking the kitchen. That made me very happy!

That'll be the last album I post until I get some rooms decorated. The first order of business is to finish unpacking. We'll get the big couch, tv, and desk out of storage and get those set up in the living room next weekend (hopefully). I'll get Nyssa's room painted and decorated first, then we'll probably have the entire downstairs painted (entry, kitchen, informal dining, living room, hallway to the laundry room, and up the stairs, as well as the hallway upstairs). I want a new bedroom set and new comforter (see a few posts back about what I want to do in there) and we'll paint the walls accordingly, but it'll be a while since the bedroom set I want is pretty pricey!

I have a couple of other projects I want to take on over the next year. One is to add bead board (so called because I can't spell wainscoting and don't want to look it up) and a chair rail to the craft room, and painting the upper half of the wall lavender with diamonds (I have a vision in my head, it's hard to describe!). The other is to remove the current fireplace mantel (mantle? No, that's the famed baseball player. Right? I digress.) with something else. I have never been a big fan of it and am eager to get it changed out. We'll probably frame out the tile on the wall and add a less-tall mantel on top of that. I also am picturing a finish a little darker than the current one, though the current finish matches the stair banister and kitchen cabinets, so maybe it would be good to keep it the same after all. *shrug*

But first, we must get our boxes unpacked and stuff put away! We're making good progress, but we have a LOT OF STUFF!!!

Updates will be more sporadic now that we're in and the changes we make will be spread out.

Photos!

2007-11-01T08:49:00.000-07:00

Here are the last set of photos you'll see without all of our stuff in the house. After the movers get everything done, I'm going to go around and take pictures again, and then as we decorate each room, I'll update photos one more time!

From Final Walk Th...

We are Homeowners!

2007-10-31T18:28:00.000-07:00

we closed on our house this afternoon and got the keys! woo hoo!!! more later!

closing date delayed

2007-10-29T14:11:00.000-07:00

we are now supposed to close on wednesday afternoon after our final walkthru that morning. we figured it would be delayed, so no biggie!

walk-thru

2007-10-28T20:07:00.000-07:00

we had our first walk-thru w/ the construction manager on thursday. when we were done, it looked like a smurf had thrown up in our house. there are a lot of paint touch-ups that need to be done, as well as some other minor issues, like switching the hot and cold water on my vanity sink in the master bath, and replacing a broken window, and installing the frosted glass window over the master tub. as far as we know, we are supposed to close on tuesday! wow. we have the movers tentatively lined up for 11/2 and will spend this weekend moving and getting settled! that is, unless something goes really awry with our closing dates.

we looked for a fridge today and found a good one, but the place will only hold it for 3 days. we are opting to wait and go after we close to purchase the fridge. that is, if i don't find something else between now and then!

as far as decorating goes, we are going to do one room at a time and are starting w/ nyssa's room since i have all the decor and furniture for it. i just need to get the room painted and start hanging stuff on the walls!

for our bedroom, i am thinking of using these three pictures as my inspiration point since i already have them. the colors are much more vibrant in person. i am only posting one of them, but you get the idea.

i love this bedroom set:

and like these bedding choices:

we'll see what we end up doing!

closing date!

2007-10-23T21:31:00.001-07:00

we have been informed that our expected closing date is 10/30!

MAJOR PROGRESS!!!!!!!!!!

2007-10-19T20:47:00.000-07:00

WOW. When the ladies on the worship team at church said we'd be surprised at how much would be accomplished on our house in the last week, they weren't kidding. I was quite skeptical, but the construction guy called Brad today and let us know what had been done and what was left to do, and wants to schedule our final walk through for Wednesday or Thursday of next week!!!! WOW WOW WOW!!! Can you sense my excitement?

Anyway, as you'll see in the slide show below, we have carpet, wood flooring, 1/3 of our iron spindles for our staircase banister, electricity (it was fun running around flipping light switches on and off), a doorbell (ding-dong!), landscaping - bushes, sod, and a tree (oak, we think)...they fixed the kitchen backsplash and it looks a thousand times better than it did!!! The gas cooktop and dishwasher are in. They're installing the oven and microwave on Monday, the painter will put the final paint coat on the walls next week, and there are a few other finishing touches they have to do (paint the pull-down attic door, finish the iron spindles, and other things I am not thinking of). There was a lot more, but I can't remember it all.

We may close before the end of the month! WOW!!!

More Progress

2007-10-11T19:46:00.000-07:00

more progress...we have a mailbox, a fence, tile in the kitchen, laundry, bathrooms, and fireplace surround, lighting fixtures, outlet covers, light switches, kitchen counters, and a kitchen sink! click the link house 10.10 to go to the album and see the comments. :-)

closing date!

2007-10-05T16:44:00.000-07:00

we have been told by our mortgage company that our expected closing date is 10/30! that's only 3.5 weeks away! woo hoo!!!

drywall detail!

2007-09-26T20:18:00.001-07:00

entry
Originally uploaded by joana1n

Here are some shots w/ my spiffy wide angle lens. the album has notes, hover your mouse over the boxes to read them.

update!

2007-09-23T21:07:00.000-07:00

yeah, yeah, i know, i know...I'm slacking big time on the updates. excuse the lack of caps, as i am working w/ one hand right now.

since the last update w/ the framing:

they finished getting the outside ready for bricks:

they installed the ducting, electrical, and fixed a few things (like moving the master bedroom doorway from the laundry room to the right place).

then, they started bricking:

and finished the bricking within a week:

the dry wall went in:

then they installed the cabinets:

brad's vanity

my vanity (lower for my height!)

laundry:

upstairs:

they built part of the mailbox:

and today when we went, the interior doors had been installed and they were about halfway done with the baseboards.

what's that you're asking? where are the photos of the front of the house? well...

What is wrong with this picture?

I'll give you a hint...we decided not to put stone on our house because we opted to spend our upgrade budget inside the house instead of outside.

Do you see what I see? Is that STONE on the front of the house? Oh, I think it IS!

look at just how much stone!!!

good thing we wanted it! isn't it gorgeous???

we are thinking we will be closing in early November. wow!

House Update

2007-08-24T21:57:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I made an update! So far our house has electrical, plumbing, and duct work installed. As of last weekend, we have two bathtubs. The (wrong) French doors have been installed, and while they're not the doors we are going to end up having, we can tell we will really be happy with the change we made from the one door and side window to the French doors.

We're going up there tomorrow or Sunday to take photos of the house and the model with my brand new 10mm-20mm wide angle lens. I can't wait - you'll be able to see SO much more with the wide angle lens! Woo hoo!

Last Sunday (8/19) we went and wrote some scriptures on the door frames of the major rooms in our home. Here's the link to the Picasa album with the notes of which rooms and what scriptures we selected. It was really neat to do that as a family.

From House Dedication

Pics, pics, and more pics!

2007-08-08T20:43:00.000-07:00

They poured the foundation on July 31.

The cement has been poured:

Working the concrete (7/31):

Finished foundation w/wood in the background (8/1):

The wood with which to frame the house arrived on 8/1. They started framing on 8/2, and as of today (8/8), they had started putting plywood on the exterior of the house.

Just getting started - taken around 10:15 am on 8/2:

At the end of the first day of framing - taken around 8:45 pm on 8/2:

House Front:

View from southeast corner:

View from south side:

View from southwest corner:

View from back/west side:

View from northeast corner:

At the beginning of the day on 8/4:

I was delighted to discover that the model in the new subdivision is exactly the same as our floor plan. The model in the old subdivision was the mirror image. You can visit this album to see our framing compared with the finished, decorated model.

From frame vs model

Brad's dad is super-knowledgable about construction, so he is out walking the lot with us, and inspecting the work that's being done. It's a really nice thing to have - he's pointed out things we never would have even thought to notice. Here's an album of our current issues. Most of them would cause the framing not to pass city inspection so they'd be fixing them anyway, but it's nice to be aware of the problems!

From framing stuff

And just for fun, here's the album of the drain vantage point.

From Drain Viewpoint

Foundation and Wood!

2007-08-01T21:07:00.000-07:00

They poured the foundation yesterday. Nyssa and I checked it out around 10ish yesterday morning and they were in the process of leveling it out. Brad checked it out around lunchtime and they were still working on it. Nyssa and I drove back out this morning and it was done. Brad drove out there this evening to check it out, and they had delivered the lumber to start framing the house! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH! I'm so excited I can hardly stand it.

I also noticed/realized today that the model in the new community is the same floor plan as ours - the floor plan in the other community was the mirror image. I am going to get lots of pics of the model now since it is the exact same layout our home will have.

WOO HOO!

Pre-foundation State

2007-07-28T20:49:00.000-07:00

They are supposed to pour the foundation on Monday. Here's what it looks like right now! Click for a larger image.

A bunch of detailed shots can be seen here.

Plumbing!

2007-07-19T20:30:00.000-07:00

We have plumbing! The work has been inspected and approved. The next step is for them to pour sand on top of everything, add a moisture barrier, and then add cables for the foundation. Then that all has to be inspected twice, once by an engineer and once by the city, and then they can pour the foundation. That should be happening next week!

Here's a quick shot of our plumbing pipes!

Changes and Lot Progress

2007-06-24T14:12:00.000-07:00

On Wednesday, June 13, we had our plan review with the builder, who turns out to be the husband of a friend/former coworker of mine. We made a change to the upstairs bathroom and extended the closet in one of the bedrooms. There was some wasted square footage in the upstairs hallway, so we opted to wall it in and add a double bowl in the bathroom, as well as put the linen closet in the bathroom instead of out in the hallway. We determined where we wanted our cable & phone outlets, and then signed off on all of the changes.

Here's a rough sketching of the bathroom change we made.

Since then they have framed where the foundation will be poured. Next we expect to see plumbing work, but I don't know when they'll start that.

Check out our huge yard!

And a shot from the storm drain across the street, which is to be my constant vantage point throughout the process.

Hopefully we'll have plumbing pictures next week!

More Progress!

2007-06-11T20:04:00.000-07:00

On a whim (really, just because Nyssa had fallen asleep in the car and I wanted her to stay asleep), we drove out to visit our dirt. I was surprised to see the lot had been graded! There are flags up to show where the house will go, and in the back I could see where the driveway would be. I was quite excited!

Our plan review with the builder is on Wednesday at 2 pm. I am sure we'll see a lot more progress after that meeting. I can't wait! Time for weekly photos to begin!

Final House Selections!

2007-06-05T15:26:00.001-07:00

AHHHHH...finally, some house news.

We made all of our final selections today at the design center. I can't wait to see how it all comes together!

We chose Burlington Antique as our first brick choice. I can't remember what our second choice was. Something brownish. We also chose to have our basic 6-panel front door stained chestnut. Here are the samples.

We had the option to do hardwood floors or tile in the entry way. We chose hardwood in the following color. You can also see the darker neutral carpet we are getting.

In the kitchen, we are having solid surface countertops in the Gibralter solid surface Dry Creek Riverstone pattern. We're getting beveled edges.

We're getting a stainless steel sink that's split 70/30 and are having it undermounted, which I've always wanted! We're also upgrading our faucet to this one (per Brad's desire!).

On the backsplash, we are doing an accent strip. Ignore the tile on top, as we aren't using that one.

The one we are using is here, but ignore the accent strip, as it's not the one we've chosen - we accidentally pulled the wrong one first, but corrected it before it was written into the contract...whew! Here are the actual kitchen pieces, except for the accent strip on the backsplash. The tile will be 6x6, laid straight on the bottom, then the accent strip, and then the 6x6 tile will be turned on an angle. You can see the cabinet color (spice) and the sample of the countertop together with the tile and wrong backsplash accent strip here.

This is just an example of how the backsplash will be laid out, except we'll only have one row of straight tile on the bottom before the accent (I believe the tiles in this photo are 4x4 and not 6x6). This is the kitchen of a friend of a friend who lives in southern California. You can see what an undermount sink looks like in this photo as well.

This is the tile that will be in the kitchen and breakfast area. We went with a grout color similar to the one on the far right.

Moving into the living room, you've already seen the carpet. We are having our fireplace surround done in the following tile. It's really pretty in person; unfortunately it didn't photograph very well. It has lots of pretty dark browns, light browns, and some slate blue/grey in it. Very pretty!

We are doing a different tile in the master bath. The same 12x12 tile is going on the floor and in the shower. We'll also have an accent strip toward the top of the shower stall. I can't wait to see how this turns out in person!

The flooring in the other bathrooms and utility room is going to be this lighter tile color. I would have liked it for the kitchen, but figured it would be better to go with a darker tile since it'll be a high traffic area.

Here's a gratuitous shot of our carpet pad. It's 1/2" Eternity Foam and it has a waterproof barrier on both the top and bottom. It's very cushy and nice to walk on (the design center has it in their carpet room). It's not much to look at, is it?

I think that's all of the selections we made. I am really excited to see it all come together and can't wait to move in! We'll have our plan review with the builder next week and then they can start construction! Woo hoo!

SOLD!

2007-05-21T21:26:00.000-07:00

There's a SOLD sign in our lot!

I got price quotes from our design consultant today for upgrading to granite and putting wood flooring in the game room. I decided I didn't want granite bad enough to pay the difference, and we'll be happy enough with the solid surface countertops.

Tomorrow we are going to the design center to look around and talk about choices. Our final meeting with the design consultant is June 5, I think. Need to check my calendar to be sure!

Design Center Orientation

2007-05-08T21:44:00.000-07:00

I went ALONE to the design center orientation, while Brad and Nyssa stayed at home.

I am officially completely overwhelmed at our choices now. Even if we didn't select any upgrades, we still have to pick out colors for our countertops, carpet, and tile. I took some pictures that can be seen here.

More later...the wee one is finally asleep again, and I need to be heading that way myself.

Elevation and Neighborhood

2007-05-08T15:01:00.000-07:00

Here's what our elevation looks like - I don't think we're going to have that much stone on the front of our house, and we won't go with the red bricks for sure.

And here's a pic of how the neighborhood will look once it's all built out. Isn't it charming?

Today after StrollerFit, Nyssa and I went out and drove the neighborhood. I took lots of pictures of brick so we can decide what we want on our home when the time comes. The sales counselor advised us to do it this way instead of trying to look at a 12" square brick sample at the design center. I'm sure the neighbors were wondering what the crazy lady was doing taking photos of their houses. :-)

Oh! And there's a SOLD sign in our lot now! Yippie! We'll have to get pics by it this weekend.

We're Building a House!!!

2007-05-07T16:32:00.001-07:00

We'll put some stone on the front, but we don't know where or how much just yet. We liked this elevation the best because it has a little window above the front door.

Stuff we're doing:

We are converting the side door and window combination to French doors.

We are adding decking in the walk-in attic.

We extended the patio to the corners of the home.

We are going to do wrought iron spindles instead of wooden ones.

We're dropping one of the vanities in the master bathroom down, as the high height is too tall for me!

We are adding a heat lamp in the master bath - it's so big that I don't think it will get warm from the shower steam, and I hate getting out of the shower into a cold bathroom!

That's about it for now!