New pictures finally posted....

As you can see by the top photo, the porch has been started. The picture is from a couple weeks ago, and as of yesterday they were able to keep going on the porch along the side of the house. More siding is done as well, than you see in the photo to the right. It's been messy out there--from rain last week to 8" of snow yesterday, it's been difficult work in those weather conditions. Unfortunately the garage doors weren't put in this past week because of some sort of miscommunication. So, apparently they'll come Monday, provided Mike has done something to the openings of where the doors will go. Mike thinks they'll work on the roof of the porch tomorrow & Monday. Not much new, since I haven't been out there since the 21st. My most recent pictures that are posted are from that day. I plan on taking a ride out there either tomorrow or Monday. Until then, Happy New Year!!

Yippee!

So I went out to the house the other day before the kids got out of school, and I was by myself. So I could really take time to walk around and look at everything. I just smiled from ear to ear the entire time. It is SO awesome. I took so many pictures, so I have to post those SOON. I was able to walk down the STAIRS into the basement--yes there are stairs!! I walked upstairs (which still freaks me out), and into the bonus room--there's not a gaping hole below to step over now when you walk into the bonus room! Mike and JP (brother in law) started siding the back of the house. I took a picture of that yesterday. Garage doors were supposed to be put in this past week, but weren't...I'll say it's because of weather, but I don't know. It's been incredibly mild, 40 degrees, so the lot is incredibly messy. Mike was up to his knees in mud. Supposed to get frigid cold tonight, though. Other things going on, still haven't finalized the front door. Well, I found the one I like, but it's a matter of us finding someone that carries it. I am supposed to have the cabinets and layout done in the kitchen, but I torn on what to do with the oven. Freestanding double oven, or built in double oven...we have to know because it changes the location of the vent for the stove or something. I just can't decide. Now I am thinking I should have a small sink on the island, too, but I think it's too late for that. I also decided to shrink the closet in the mudroom to make the cubbies bigger.

I am so excited about decorating this place, it's crazy!! I want to get a weathervane, I have a vision of what I want the kids' bathroom to look like, too. I decided I am going to frame a black and white picture of each of the kids when they were about the same age (18 months old or so) in the bath. I think I have colors of each room picked out, too. I found pillows I love for the window seat in the kitchen. After Christmas I want to go buy a bunch of lighted garland on clearance for the porch for next Christmas, and for the mantle and the staircase. Now if only we could sell our current house!!

Nothing too new...

Nothing much new to report, no new pictures. With all the snow, I haven't made the trek to the house (it would mean parking on the street and walking through the snow--we haven't plowed or shoveled of course, and my minivan would never make it into or out of the driveway with the snow!!) Even if I had been in the house in the past week, there's nothing too noticably different. Mike and his Dad did start building the basement stairs Monday night. The lumber was supposed to be delivered last week for that, but just came Monday I believe. The big thing we are waiting on now is for the excavator to come and back fill where Mike poured the footings for the porch. Another thing that was supposed to have been done last week. Oh well. I think Mike will be really irritated if it wasn't done today, seeing as he is off work tomorrow, and intended on working on the porch for the rest of the weekend! The porch hasn't been started yet other than the footings...hopefully by the end of the weekend, it might start to look like a porch : )

This week, the heating/AC and electric guys were supposed to have come in. We had a pretty big storm Tuesday, so I am guessing they haven't been out there. Mike and I are supposed to meet with the electrician next week to talk about where everything will go--talk about tedious! Every outlet, every light switch, every outside light...it will take some good thinking to make sure switches are in good places! We will just be sure to have plenty of outlets in every room to make it easy.

Garage doors were ordered last week, also. They will be installed next week. They are very much like the ones in the new picture I posted (sorry, I can't figure out how to make it bigger!)

I am pretty sure I have changed my mind on the front door. While I absolutely love the doors with oval shaped glass or stained glass, I am just not sure it'll fit the house. If it was more Victorian, I don't think it would be a question. The one door I found is much simpler, to go with the rest of the house. I don't know if I can upload a picture, but I will try... I actually saw the door in a house magazine I have, and it's also on a door of a new house down the street from the new house. I just am so stuck on what color of a door to have. I love the dark stained doors but white might be better on our house?? Mike says I should be good at this kind of stuff...he says it should be like scrapbooking on a bigger level! If only I could look at it that way!

All windows are in!

It was incredibly messy Saturday--we were hit with winter weather around lunchtime: snow, sleet, rain, ice. Mike, his Dad, Brother, and Brother-in-law worked quickly to get the remaining windows in. They did it, but not without getting soaked in the process! But, it's done. All windows are officially in the house, and they look beautiful!! I am so happy with the great room window. From the outside the windows look smaller than they are, especially the great room window. But I took a picture of Maddie by the window, and it's no small window!! (I have to upload those pics yet to the computer!) The siding was delivered, but the weather made it impossible to begin. and yesterday, Sunday, it poured for a good hour. Just a messy weekend. There was plenty of inside work for the guys to stay busy with, though.

So today garage doors have to be picked out and ordered. I'm pretty sure on what I want--I want the doors that look like they open like barn doors (there's a groove down the middle to make it look that way). I believe the name for them is carriage house doors. Also have to finalize the front door. That's a tough one, I have a couple in mind. I also want a screen door--you know, the kind like I think I've seen in "The Wizard of Oz"--an old looking, wooden one that makes lots of noise : ) Once the garage doors and the front door is put on, the house can be locked up. I guess we've had some nosy neighbors, so it'll be nice to close it up. That way too, hopefully the guys will be able to leave some stuff out there. As of now, Mike hauls tools, etc every time he goes out there, and empties the truck when he gets back home.

Busy week!

This week has been busy. On Wednesday, when I went out to the house the windows were being delivered, there were 2 cement trucks there, & a large truck with a trailer holding a digger. The masons began pouring the basement floor this week, and also they poured the garage floor. Yesterday they poured the steps in the garage for the entrance into the house. The digger will pour footings for the porch. The porch itself will be started after several inspections during the process. The windows were delivered and by the end of Wednesday all were in but the garage (still couldn't walk on the concrete, so I'm guessing that's why). Also the window in the great room still needs to be framed and then the window can be put in. For some reason they didn't deliver the round top windows that will go in the great room and bonus room, but they should be delivering them today. Today the siding is supposed to be delivered also. Unfortunately weather is predicting a snowstorm to begin tomorrow afternoon and go on till night. I don't know if they intended on starting siding, I am guessing with a snow storm they wouldn't, but who knows? Well, who knows if the weather guys are right anyhow. It snowed last Wednesday night, and Thanksgiving Day Mike was up on the roof shingling! He said it was a little slippery! Went out this morning and the front door is boarded up (until we put the door in). Now that the windows are in they are working on closing up the rest of the house, too. Doors won't be put in quite yet, but we are supposed to order it ASAP (which means I have to decide now what I want! I have a general idea, just don't know what color to go with...)

I posted a couple recent pictures from this week. They are just from the exterior. If it's not too cold today, I may take some more interior pictures.

Should we change the color of the house to....

Green and Gold??? I think we should consider it!!! Not sure what the neighbors would think, but I don't care!! How awesome are the Packers??? I've been looking for a little Green Bay Packers flag to stick out by the building permit.

So FINALLY my camera is ready to pick up (which I will do tomorrow) and I will be able to take pictures again. The shingling is nearly complete, there are steps to the upstairs 2nd floor. The tub/shower modules are in the house, and the plumber has started putting in the pipes/drains already! The skylights in the bonus room are in. Alot on the plate for this week. The footings will be poured for the wrap around porch. Once the footings are poured work will begin on the porch--the posts, the roof, etc. Windows in the house will go in sometime this week, as well. The basement floor is getting poured, too. Not sure if siding will start this week or next. Lots going on this week!! I met with cabinet people last week, have the laundry room finalized. Going with white beadboard cabinets, figure it may be the only room I can get away with white all over and that it won't get too dirty! Still torn on what to do with a vanity and a corner cabinet in the master bath. Apparently there is no such thing as a ready to buy corner cabinet that is 36" deep, so I need to figure something out for that! The kitchen cabinet layout is still up in the air a little bit, too. We did go look at the appliances the day after Thanksgiving, but I don't think I saw exactly what I was picturing so I have to look some more.

So today out at the house, there was a WOLF in the back yard. I totally freaked out. The kids were in the front playing and Mike's Dad saw it first in the back yard. It then dashed into the neighbor's yard, and disappeared. The kids found wolf tracks by our garage doors. So I am totally freaked by this and ready to fence in the entire yard. I'm not sure I am ready to be a "country girl", and totally scared of anything more than rabbits and squirrels running through the yard. I do wish I would've had my camera, though.

I can't wait to post recent pictures!!

November 15

No new pictues of the house to post as of now! A good portion of the back of the house is shingled, though. Mike will be out there again on Saturday and Sunday, as long as the weather is dry, to keep shingling.

Tuesday, I met the plumber out at the house and discussed the basement plumbing. Yes, the plumber is already to begin roughing, WOW! Monday he will start the first floor of the house. So my assignment for tonight/tomorrow is to finish picking out faucets & sinks. We already have some items, but there's plenty left to choose! Mike and I also met for lunch on Tuesday and went to a couple different fireplace showrooms. The first place didn't have anything that really jumped out at me. I had a vision in my head, and I had a picture to base it off of. But I am such a visual person, I need to see it. So, we went to a second place and walked in the door, and upon walking in, BOOM. There it was. I pointed, and said, "That one." Boy I wish everything was that easy. I uploaded a picture of it from the fireplace site. I have to get over to get our final cabinet designs done as well. Nearly every room in the house could have built ins or some sort of cabinetry as far as I am concerned, but of course, that's not possible! It would cost an arm and a leg...but for sure we need the kitchen, the great room, the laundry room, and our bathroom. So lots more decisions to make. I am really struggling with the laundry room layout. I want to make the most with the room we have, and I have to keep the washer, dryer, and sink where it is in the plan no matter what. So that makes it complicated. I'll put my thinking cap on and see what I can come up with!!

Perhaps this weekend I will have new pictures to post! : )

Lots to be done...

and soon! Not too much has changed in appearance on the house this week. The wall was put in the open space on the front upstairs part of the garage. Otherwise it's been alot of work not so visible. Yesterday I picked out the shingles and the siding. Mike is hoping to shingle this weekend, along with is brother and brother in law (Mike's Dad and Mom are on their way to Africa today for almost 2 weeks). Anyhow, amazingly enough, they are out of stock on the color I picked (a color called weatherwood). Mike's brother is calling around to see if he can find some somewhere. Not a big deal, Mike says there are enough other things to do all weekend if for some reason they can't begin shingling. For one, the window in the kitchen is being raised up because I want to be able to have a built in sort of corner bench/window seat thing and I don't want it to be to close to the window. There are plenty of other things to do. So as for the siding color, it's called pebblestone clay, similar to the color of a vanilla cappucino, or maybe coffee with cream, I guess (I don't know for sure, I don't drink coffee!). Another thing on the to do list, I need to go through the house and mark the exact places of all sinks, showers, tubs and toilets for the plumber. It sounds like fun to me!! We don't have everything picked out, so that makes it a little difficult to think about where everything is and the size it will be. Other news, the windows are ready whenever we are, so in the next few weeks that will be a project, too, maybe when they are close to finished with the shingling. we have to finalize the fireplace ASAP, too, because right now in the house there is nothing where it is, and after we do pick it out, Mike will have to build the area. Oh, the floor is in the bonus room above the garage. I bravely climbed the ladder the other day to see it. Well, to get to it, you have to step over this open space which looks in to the garage (there will be 2 steps eventually, but not yet...) I almost had a heart attack. I was so scared!! But the bonus room itself is awesome! I can't wait to do something with it (the plan is to have part of it walled off and used for my scrapbooking/craft room). Part of it will be a playroom, too. I'm trying to convince Mike that upstairs we need another shower, and i thought a kitchenette would be cool somewhere in the bonus room (I'm losing the battle as of now) I thought it would be nice to have a small sink, a small fridge and a microwave up there so that when the kids are bigger it could be a movie room or something cool for them. There's even a little area we didn't have in the plan, but that Mike and his Dad did as a storage area or closet or something--I'm thinking it will make a great secret hideout for the kids! i didn't bring the camera upstairs...I was too worried about not falling off the ladder! I hear all the time that once people start building a house they are thinking "I wish we would've done..." or "I wish this room was bigger/smaller..." The only thing I'm worried about (which it's too late to change anything!) is the location of the laundry room. I didn't even think about it when we drew up the plan. But it is as far from the bedrooms as it could possibly be, and there is no way to have a laundry chute. So I'm a little concerned about that. I wish we would've done a different window in the master bath, but I don't really care. That's honestly all that I would change, I think. I love this house!!

Another great weather weekend

We have had no rain or bad weather at all. That is simply amazing, given that it is now November, and November is so unpredictable. As long as we don't get snow or heavy rains anytime soon, we should be okay.

Sadly, my camera is not in my possession. How can I cope without my camera? ? It is almost like a 4th child...I rarely leave home without it. It was sent to Sony to be fixed, and we should have it back within 2 weeks. I do have our old digital camera, which I pulled out of the closet, dusted it off, and reaquainted myself with it. Unfortunately the batteries didn't last long, and they are currently dead, so I need to buy new ones (rechargable!). I have pictures that are more recent, but can't upload or take more pictures until I get new batteries (which will be first thing tomorrow morning!!) I haven't driven by the house since Thursday, but Mike tells me a good portion of the garage roof is on, as well as the back of the house. I am assuming they hope to have it fully sheeted by the end of tomorrow. Mike, his brother, and Dad (and a couple other hired hands) have been working many days a week sun-up to sundown on the house. You guys are great! I'd like to bring you lunch tomorrow, but I don't want to miss the Packers kick off at noon! hehe I actually plan on bringing an early lunch to the guys. Mike told me not to rub it in that they won't be watching it, but hopefully they'll have a radio out there to listen to the game!
I'm excited to see the progress since a few days ago. It won't be long till there's a lot of time between notable progress, especially with plumbing and electric. Once the house is shingled and sided I wonder if I'll have as many pictures to post and as much to talk about.

Oh, and there are a couple friends who might have to battle it out to be our nanny (haha, I wish sometimes!) Don't worry, Morgan, you get first dibs : )

UPDATE: I found batteries! So there is a new picture. So the most recent picture I have is listed as November 1, 2007. It's a small picture, but I can't figure out how to make it bigger.

October 29, 2007

Well, the weekend was fabulous. Lots of work done, and five gorgeous days to work on the house was a blessing. I'm really bummed though ....my camera was dropped yesterday and it doesn't work anymore. The pictures are on there, not uploaded yet to the computer. Mike is working on a way to figure out how to fix the camera, or we might have to replace it. Things are still moving at a remarkable speed. So much was accomplished this week, it's amazing. So over five days, the house grew...the second floor was set, as well as the exterior and interior walls upstairs. I went "upstairs" the other day and nearly passed out. There are no steps in the house yet, only ladders. I did not know how I was going to get down. I was freaking out! I did finally make it down, though I don't know how. The spot where the balcony will go is completely open to the great room below, as is where the stairwell will be. The stairs and rails will come later.... The kids wanted to go up and see where their rooms will be, and Mike carried them up one at a time. I couldn't even watch them up there...I didn't realize I was so afraid of heights!! Also over the weekend, the roof trusses were placed and set. And yesterday, they started sheeting the roof. Yep, the roof! It looks so different in just a week, and it's unbelievable how it's changed in a couple weeks. It sounds like they hope to shingle the roof in a couple weeks or so. After that comes windows!!!! I can't wait to post pictures from the weekend!

WOWSERS!

SCROLL DOWN TO SEE RECENT PICTURES!
Though Friday was pretty crummy weather, Saturday and Sunday were unseasonably sunny and warm. Great days for working on the house!! Well, so much has changed in a short amount of time. I will post lots of pictures!! The kids and I went out there and brought the guys lunch Sat. and Sun. It's a great excuse for me to go take tons of pictures. I have lots of scrapbooking to do...

I never thought a pile of wood would make me emotional, but seeing our walls stacked on our driveway Friday, I was so excited!! I felt like jumping up and down, doing a happy dance, cartwheels, whatever. I seriously felt like I won the grand showcase on The Price Is Right or something! I get butterflies driving to see the house when I go to see how far they've come on it.

This morning, Maddie and I walked through it. All exterior and interior walls of the first floor are set. The garage isn't up yet, so all the pictures I post do not show a garage. It was so strange to walk through the house we pretty much designed ourselves (with help from Mike's Dad and an architect!). We never walked through a model of our home, we walked through lots of models and tried to take all the ideas we liked and put it into one house. Then we tried to fit all of that into that picture I found in the magazine. So once our plan was drawn up, we saw it on paper for so long and just had to visualize what we thought it would look like, or what we hope it would look like! But now to walk through and see where the walls are and say "this is a good sized closet, this is the bathroom, oh sure I'll have plenty of room for a desk here". It is so strange. I've been told that it seems much smaller than it is when it is in this stage which seems ridiculous, but it is hard to actually picture it all finished & drywalled (which we are months away from!!). I am still in shock that we will live there, I think!!

We (I mean, I) have so much to pick out yet. Mike pretty much put me in charge of that "small" task (haha!). If he doesn't like what I pick, he'll let me know : ) We are going with all white woodwork and doors in the house. I know, we must be crazy fools to have white everywhere with 3 small children, but I don't care!! We have the idea of the cabinets in the kitchen picked out (they are going to be stained maple with some kind of glaze over them) and that needs to be finalized and they need to be ordered relatively soon. I have the cabinet layout drawn out of the kitchen, even a head on look at what I want each wall to look like. I am just not sure on a couple of the things...like how many drawers do I want in the island?? Do I want the pull out garbage here or there? Such minor things to think about, but it has to be done...I think I could draw our plan to scale with my eyes closed. Especially the kitchen. I've drawn and redrawn it so many times...I should become a designer, I swear. We still have to get a kitchen sink picked out, too. And appliances. I'm still fighting for my double built-in ovens, which Mike is attempting to veto. I'll fight till the end : ) So also I have to decide if I want white cabinets in the laundry room or not. I always wanted white cabinets, and since we aren't doing them in the kitchen, I thought the laundry room would be a good spot to do that. I have ideas for paint colors in every room, though we are pretty far away from that, too. I find that I have a really hard time not thinking about the designing aspect (like what pictures will fit on which walls) and that is really not important right now. Gotta decide things like what carpet, what tile, what hardwood floors....while I am searching the internet for cute ideas for kids bathrooms. Oh well : )

It's a beautiful day...

...to sit in the house and read a book, or maybe watch a movie. It's one of those chilly, dreary, October days with a fine misty rain. They say scattered showers, but with the looks of the sky, it seems like it could be one of those all day rains.

But, the guys are out working anyhow, today! Pretty sure Mike said it's not good for the floor trusses to be sitting in a pile, especially in the rain. So today they are setting the columns and steel beams that will hold up the house. Amazing! Once that is done, they can start the floors trusses. After lunch, the walls and the floor board will be delivered (I'm not sure what the floor part is called. I don't know if it's OSB, if not it's something like it--whatever it is that you can actually walk on). Maybe they'll get the trusses and the floor down. It's probably too dang windy to do anything else. I hope it stops raining! It can't be much fun to work in this kind of weather. Thankfully, it's supposed to be a really nice, sunny & warm weekend. If the weatherman is right, that is!!

Rain rain go away!

Well, last night it rained literally all night. I'm not sure how much we ended up getting, but the weatherman was predicting 1.25 inches of rain over night. I don't think we got that much, but it certainly rained all night. They were predicting rain for most of the day today and severe weather for this afternoon, as well. It ended up being partly sunny, but very windy most of the day. It did rain late afternoon, today. Anyhow, all the rain last night prevented any work happening today, unfortunately. It was pretty wet and muddy out at the lot, so it would've been difficult to maneuver the equipment used to set the floor. Mike mentioned today he thought walls might be delivered tomorrow! WOW! If the weather cooperates tomorrow, and it's not too windy, maybe we could have a floor and some real WALLS up by the end of the day Friday!!

computers, ugh!

So it appears it wasn't me...the problem was with the site, because everything has been running smoothly today! Ugh...so all the time I spent trying to upload and post, and thinking I was doing something wrong when really the entire time the site was having problems!

Well, the forecast is calling for rain tomorrow and Friday and that's a huge bummer. Hopefully they are wrong, as they often are.

Hopefully we'll have pictures with more progress soon! : )

Ready for the floor!

Unfortunately, I am having problems with this site. I've been attempting to upload recent pictures for days and it's just not working. So I'm pretty frustrated! I may have to find a new site.

Anyhow, on the home front...we had over FIFTY loads of stone brought in to fill the garage and driveway. That's ALOT of stone!! So we can now actually stand in the garage!! After doing this, the excavator also moved most of the dirt back against the foundation and the garage. The yard now looks relatively close to what it will look like when the house is done. There were an awful lot of dirt piles before...the yard was looking small, which I know sounds ridiculous for an acre+ lot. But now with the dirt moved back, it makes more sense! This past weekend the walls of the basement were finished. So if I can get the pictures to upload, you will see the exposed part of the basement where we will have 4 windows. It's hard for me to imagine that a first and second floor will be above these windows yet!! And very hard to imagine that the end of the wrap around porch will end ABOVE the basement windows on the side of the house!! So lots of steps will be built going down to the yard from the porch. The basement windows will look to the back yard. The house is also now ready for the floor trusses, which were delivered today. So provided the weather cooperates, that will be the work for the weekend! Also I think the stair well from the garage to the basement will be done, too. We also found out that our walls will be built afterall! This is what we had planned on, but last week we got word we may have to stick build the first floor ourselves. Not sure when the walls will be ready, but I think once the floor trusses are set, the house is ready for the first story walls when the walls are ready for us! Hopefully the weather will cooperate...it is supposed to storm Thursday, and Mike had planned on taking off of work Thursday and Friday to work on the house, as well as the weekend. I am really hoping the computer allows me to upload the pictures!!

Foundation is finished!

I can't believe how quickly things look so different!! There are walls! Basement walls, but walls nonetheless. It's so exciting! Sometime this week, fill (and lots of it!) will be brought in to cover most of the visible portions of the basement walls. Once that is done, Mike and his Dad will work on building the wood portion of the basement walls where there is exposure and where we will have windows. It will start looking like a house in no time!!

Hooray!

Earlier in September, after 5 months of waiting, we got our zoning permit from the county and days later got our building permit. We were able to get things lined up quickly with the help of Mike's Dad and so here begins the new house journey!! Our mound was put in eariler this week toward the back of the lot. The kids were excited--they thought it was a giant sand box hill for them to play on. The culvert & driveway were done earlier that same day. The basement was started yesterday. It's not a deep hole--I could jump in and get out without a problem. Much of the basement walls will be covered by fill and by the wrap around porch . We went out there last night after a meeting at school to check it out--it looks like a wave pool without water in it! We didn't stick around too long...the mosquitos were attacking us!

Things are happening so fast! I know it isn't going to always be like this, so we have to just go with the flow and get things going whenever we can!!