Think Spring!

Okay, so I am really tired of winter. The cold, the ice, the snow...it can melt any time now!!

It was a pretty productive weekend at the house. The side of the house where the porch wraps around is almost completely sided. I'm assuming the back is complete, though there is so much snow back there, it's difficult to go in the back yard! The porch roof is completely sheeted, and some of it is ready to be shingled. I don't think they started shingling the porch roof, though. A crew is supposed to be out there today working, I am assuming they will be siding everything but the front of the house (waiting for the crown moulding stuff for the windows to be delivered). I would think they'd shingle what was left, too, since there's not much left to do (just the porch). Mike moved the pantry in kitchen over the weekend, to go with the new plan. There's some other odds and ends work he will do until we get the final bid and specs from the cabinet guy, telling us the exact measurements. After we get that we can call in the plumber and heating guy and have them change what they need to change.

We had a home inspector come to our current house this morning, so it looks like everything is good with the buyers. Their financing is all set, so now we just start packing and wait for April 7th I guess!!! Not looking forward to moving 2 times in a short amount of time...

Accepted offer!

So we got an offer on the house, Monday night, and we accepted it last night. Hopefully it all goes through okay, and we will have a sold house! Closing date is set for April 7, which guarantees we will not be ready to move into the new house which is a bummer. But, oh well. We'll have to stay with someone for a while, and store all of our big stuff.

We have furnaces in the house as of yesterday. There are two of them, and they will heat 4 separate zones in the house.

Also I gave the cabinet guy the go ahead with this layout for the kitchen (except that ovens and fridge are switched). I think the finished product will look beautiful, I just hope it's as functional and practical as it is beautiful. After thinking and rethinking, and then going through our entire current kitchen and deciding where everything in the new kitchen would go, this one seemed to work out the best. Except I couldn't find a good location for easy access to spices, olive oil, etc. But I am thinking a drawer next to the cooktop might be okay, or even underneath the cooktop (which will be a cabinet with shelves or drawers). I don't want them in the glass front upper cupboards which will be on both sides of the cooktop as the upper cabinets. I am so worried about regretting doing or not doing something just right. I've wanted double ovens from the start, but then I started reconsidering that. Mike said he'd be disappointed if after all this time and talk, that I didn't get the double ovens (he may have been being sarcastic!). The kitchen is the most important room in the house, it's where you spend the most time, really. I just want it to be as close to perfect as possible. I hope this is it. I am a little worried about the counterspace, but really with the big island, it shouldn't be an issue, at least that's what I am hoping.

Ice, anyone?

Initially there was a prediction of 12" of snow for today, but instead there's a front where north of it is snow, south of it is rain. We are in the middle, so it's ice. Lovely! It's terrible outside, like a skating rink. But Mike went to work on the house (he went to work on the second flight of basement stairs--the stairs from the garage to the basement.) It's not terribly cold out since it's kind of raining/icing & not snowing, but he'll be inside, and there is a heater in the basement. Yesterday was sunny & dry, not bitterly cold (20's). He sheeted the porch roof across the front of the house by himself. I have no idea how he did this alone, but he did. He set up scaffolding and went to work. He said while working on the porch roof it became really noticable how there really will be no light coming in through the downstairs windows covered by the porch (which would be the dining room and our bedroom). Which also means not much light will come in through the front door. The house faces southwest, but more south than west. So we started talking about windows we think about now that would've been good to do--more windows on the side of the house, stop the porch on the side of the house a little more than half way and have more basement exposed windows, windows that wrapped around the side and back of the house where our bathroom is (we just have a small window in the bathroom), and we really had wanted transoms across the nook area window, but there wasn't enough room. It would've been nice to have transoms across the tops of every door and window, but it would've been costly and impractical since it probably wouldn't have helped that much with light coming through with the porch anyhow. Transoms would've helped with light in the kitchen. But oh well. Maybe then the dust in the house won't be as visible if there's not as much light (hehe!).

While things have kind of been at a standstill with the cold and crummy weather, once things pick up again they will really pick up. If we just get some good weather this week, it's possible the house will be completely shingled (there's the porch roof to finish yet and a small part of the house roof that runs into the porch roof) and sided. The plan is to have some people that Mike's brother hires to get the job done. So provided things work out for weather and time, it could be done. Once the outside is finished, the inside will take off. The electrician will get in there and do his thing, the house will be insulated, then drywalled. I can't wait for things to be moving along again, not that I'm in a big hurry, but I like it from the taking pictures aspect. My pictures have looked the same for a while now : )

I found a website a couple days ago that would've helped alleviate the problems we had in designing the house. This site actually has multiple "base" houses (all colonial or farmhouse in nature) and you pick one and customize it yourself, right there online. So you choose square footage and there's a basic description of the house. Then there's a heading for first floor, second floor, garage, exterior, and porch. Literally, you click on the little boxes (fireplace, island, larger mudroom, 1st floor laundry, wraparound porch) and the house transforms to what you want before your very eyes!! It's really cool. While there wasn't one exactly like the house we are building, I played around with it and it came up with something pretty close. You can choose siding color, shutter color, and front door color...I chose the tan siding, black shutters, and red door, and it looked really nice!

Another thing that has come up, something called fypon...so I had assumed that there would be some sort of casing around the windows outside, almost like crown moulding. Many new houses have this, and it is something all houses with hardi-plank siding have. I wrongly assumed we would have this around our windows. You don't do that with vinyl siding (which is what we are doing). I was a bit disappointed; our plan showed the moulding above all the windows on the front of the house, and I love the way it looks. Mike's Dad to the rescue!! He brought me a catalog of this stuff called Fypon. It's made out of urethane, but looks like wood (so it never has to be painted, and it is moisture and insect resistant). Mike is thrilled to be purchasing this stuff (a little sarcasm there! : ) It makes such a difference in the look of the house. It's a white trim that goes above (or around) the windows. I chose just to do the windows on the front of the house since you can't see any other windows really anyhow. I also chose NOT to do the first floor windows or front door...I am thinking the porch will cover them to the point that whether or not you had the trim of above the window wouldn't be noticable. I hope I am right about that...the stuff is not cheap, so eliminating windows where I can is a good thing.

We've had four showings on our current house in the past couple weeks, which is amazing since we went months without a single one, and now we have another one tomorrow. We even had a second showing yesterday of someone who had come earlier in the week. There was talk of them needing 60 days to close...but we haven't gotten an offer yet. It would be pretty tough if not impossible to have the new house done by then. SO we'll just cross our fingers that it all works out somehow, and we won't have to be gypsies for too long living with whomever will take us in : )

So here are all the kitchen options. I got another 3D drawing on Friday. I haven't gotten the 3D of the one drawing yet, which is really the one I want to see 3D. It is so much easier for me to visualize and think about things when I see them realistically, and not just sketched on paper. So here are the 3 final considerations:

#1

except the ovens and fridge would be switched.

#2

I don't know how I feel about this one. I don't know if I like the ovens by the doorway to the dining room like that. Uh, also the countertops will NOT be that color!!

#3

SO hard to see...I need a 3D drawing of this one to get a better picture of what it would look like. Double ovens would go where it says microwave next to the pantry, microwave would hopefully fit somehow by the fridge.

New front door & kitchen decision...

So, here's the front door. Color still undetermined. This is the door I had Mike's Dad bid out last week. So it looks like this is the one. I don't know whether or not it's officially been ordered. Also along with the door, we are having sidelights. I can't find a picture with the sidelights, but the sidelites will have glass that goes half way (just like the door). The glass will match the glass in the door.

I was gone all weekend, so Mike didn't work on the house. But with 40 below zero wind chills on Sunday, he wouldn't have anyhow. Ugh. I wish the weather would cooperate just long enough to finish the outside, because then it won't matter what the weather when they are working inside.

I am pretty sure I have decided on a kitchen layout, well I think so anyways. No perfect spot for the microwave, but I am hoping to fit it somehow next to the fridge.

This layout seems to make the most sense. Except, I'd plan on putting the double ovens where the top leftmost area cabinets are as you are looking at the layout and have the cooktop and cabinets surrounding that shift down toward the pantry. I've given the kitchen so much thought, probably too much. But in this design, there is plenty of room by the dishwasher for easy unloading and cabinet space for plates, bowls, cups, etc. The fridge is in a central location, so if someone is cooking, they won't be in the way of someone grabbing a soda from the fridge. The fridge is also close to the pantry which makes for easier grocery unpacking. I am hoping to somehow fit a microwave in the corner by the fridge, either under the cabinet or in an open faced cabinet. I just don't know how much room I'll have. There is a little room to play with, I could shift the doorway a tad, maybe even shrink the pantry the littlest bit to make just enough room for the microwave, which if I can get it in that corner by the fridge, I think it's a great spot--so often leftovers are being warmed up from the fridge, so it would be nearby. The island has a small garbage and a sink basically just for filling pots and straining pasta, as well as rinsing veggies. Am I missing anything?? Does it seem like this could work? Anything that seems like it would be a problem? I think it works. I don't see any flaws, or areas that would be cramped if a few people are in the kitchen at the same time. As of now, I think this is the layout to go with.

No changes...

If I were to post a picture it would look no different than the last I've posted...except for the big snow storm yesterday, so picture it with over a foot of snow on it. WHat a bummer. The weather has not been cooperative with Mike on the weekends unfortunately, and this weekend it's not looking any better. High of 2 degrees on Sunday means no siding will be getting done.

I'm still on the fence with the kitchen, and haven't heard back from the cabinet guy either. So he probably thinks I am a looney with the four or five kitchen designs I came up with! Mike has had all inside work halted at the house, because the outside really needs to get finished before they can go any further inside.

One thing new, I had to pick out a different front door. That door I initially had wanted only came in wood, which doesn't hold up exceptionally well in Wisconsin weather. So I chose a new one. Very different than the one I had wanted, but I do like it and I think it will "fit in" with the house just fine. Not sure about color still, though, but luckily that doesn't need to be decided yet.

We are supposed to be checking out light fixtures, but haven't yet. Hopefully in the next couple weeks we'll get around to that, and hopefully we'll have better weather for outside work, too!!