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.