Things finally coming together????

The kitchen cabinets.....

I told Mike we are going to be in the house by July 31. That doesn't mean living there, but to me that means done with what needs to be done to get the occupancy permit and able to move stuff in. While I am anxious to live there, since we're lucky we don't have a date we have to be out of a house, I'd rather have the kitchen all put away and all the major stuff situated. Whether we actually will be ready by the end of July is another thing...


Vinyl floors were done today. MASTER BATH--

KIDS BATH---

Countertops are what our current hold up is, because no plumbing or setting sinks can be finished until the coutertops are on. Supposedly they may be at the house early next week, then Mike will have to cut them. Electricians were supposed to be out there this morning, Mike went out there and they never came. Supposedly they'll be at our house tomorrow now. We can't do the carpet upstairs until the stairs going up and the balcony railing is done. Hopefully Mike and his Dad will have the supplies to work on that Friday. Mike will be out at the house alone for most of the weekend, though. Just found out tonight though there has been problems ordering it for some reason, so we don't even physically have the stuff to do the steps or balcony yet.

Looks like someone may be out next week to pour footings for the stairs for the porch, as well as move our dirt around according to our final grading plan.

Cabinets were finally delivered last week Thursday night. The kitchen ones look really nice, and so does the laundry room. The "L" shape bench isn't exactly what I had in mind (the back of it looks goofy)But when I saw the master bath I almost fell over. As Mike put it (and he is pretty laid back and doesn't comment on much of anything) he said "It looks like he grabbed a bunch of scraps of wood and put it together." The vanity looks awful. The doors on it don't match the drawers, besides the fact that the bathroom cabs. were supposed to look just like the kitchen ones. Then the lockers---they're fine, but I wanted space for boots underneath, and there is no way boots will fit. That's not a huge deal, we'll just have to leave the boots in the garage, which is fine. The kid's bathroom cabinets are fine; especially now that tonight I repainted the bathroom. The aqua color that was in there did not go well with the color stain on their cabinets. I went and bought a disney color yellow of paint today, and I'm glad I did. It's the perfect color to go with the cabinets, and the shower curtain. It looks nice with the floor, too. I made a huge mistake
with the kitchen design--I believe I counted 17 drawers. Only one is a deep drawer; the rest are normal drawers. So one big problem--no place for pots and pans. I had in my head I'd have a really deep drawer for some of the pans, but I ended up doing 4 narrow drawers on the island instead of a cabinet or deep drawer. So we are thinking either put large pans in the pantry, or maybe a hanging pot rack?? I have 2 cabinets, one on each side of the cooktop, but they are pretty small. So, we are thinking of taking out 4 drawers and making them into 2. We'll see how it will work out though...

No end in sight

The kids and I have been keeping busy--swimming, sprinkler runs, ice cream, Great America (took the 2 older kids with my sister), the zoo, baseball, and more. I also signed up Maddie for some dance and gymnastics, and I am considering signing up Cal and Kaycey for gymnastics, too. It's nothing major, just for 5 weeks for something else to do to keep us busy seeing as we aren't going to be in our own house anytime soon. Probably will sign them up for Fall soccer. Crazy to think sign up is in a couple weeks, and school registration night is alreayd a month and a half away.

Yes, sadly it's been 3 weeks, and I haven't posted. Mostly because there wasn't much to say about the house; there hasn't been a whole lot going on. As of a week and a half ago, the cabinets still weren't done being built, let alone stained or painted. I had to drive up there (again) to get the color right since the first time it was off. We've had to reschedule appliance delivery twice so far, probably another time, too. SO while the cabinets are supposedly being delivered Thursday night, they have no doors because the doors aren't done. That means the hardware isn't on them yet. I wonder if the shelves are even in inside the cabinets. This has been one of the most ridiculous parts of the whole house process. I've spent more than 10 hours in the car just driving to the cabinet place. That doesn't count how many hours I spent there, or spent at Home Depot, Menards, and Lowes looking and pricing out cabinets there. What a joke. They better look damn good for the time it's taken and the time I've spent driving and dealing with all the crap.

I wish I would've gotten a picture of the area above the cooktop, that looked awesome. Here are some of our unpainted unstainted cabinets sitting in the warehouse. These are the bathroom & laundry cabinets.

Building the island & nook "L" bench

Here are kitchen cabinets and mudroom lockers(all the way in the background you can see the 4 side by side lockers)

The real kicker--the cabinet maker won't have time to install the cabinets now for weeks(really it was supposed to be his job) , so Mike and his Dad will be installing them. So Mike has little work he can even do out at the house until the cabinets are in. More frustration--I've called multiple places about the stone for the fireplace and no one calls me back. I even physically went in to a place and they printed a copy of the picture I want the fireplace to look like, and they haven't called back. There is so much to be done yet, really. No end in sight, so sadly don't ask when we are moving, because quite frankly it looks like never. Once the cabinets are in, the countertops need to be cut for the sinks, the sinks need to be put in, the faucets, the toilets, the fixtures for the tubs/baths need to be put on, the carpet will need to be put in after the fireplace stone is put on, the stairs need to be rebuilt, the entire porch needs to be started, the dirt has to be moved back where it belongs, the light fixtures need to be put up (was supposed to be done last week, electricians never came). All this to get our occupancy permit, and there may be other things too. Well, cleaning the entire house, too, before we would move. Mike is going to wait to do the closets (the interior design-shelves, rods, etc.) till we move in, which stinks, but he has so much to do, and closets aren't one of those things we need to do to get the permit to move in. They are #1 on the list of "to do's" once we move in, along with planting grass, finishing the bonus room, putting casing around the doorways that don't have doors, doing the bathroom in the basement,putting a deck on, pouring a patio, and so on... This is all a huge headache. I knew building a house was a headache and more, but this is freaking ridiculous. Buying a house sounds good right now.

wicked weekend

This was the view out the window on the way to school to get the kids Friday afternoon. Oh, and by the way, the tornado sirens were going off!!! While part of me was freaking out, the other part of me was thrilled. I am a weather fanatic, and I know many of you know my obsession with the weather and local TV weather personalities growing up. Well, the weather still fascinates me. Way back when I was a Junior in high school, I had looked into universities in Oklahoma and Kansas to study meteorology just to be in the heart of tornado alley and be able to be a storm chaser. Then I picked up a book on Cloud Physics...yikes. Needless to say, I am not a meteorologist.


The weather began beautifully Saturday morning; we had a birthday party to take Cal to, and a 5th birthday party for our cousin that Kaycey, Maddie, and I went to. It was hot, and very muggy. Then out of nowhere, it began raining. No big deal, it lasted 10 minutes. The sun came out again. Then it began to cloud up again, and I heard a neighbor's radio talking about tornadoes near West Bend, which is where Cal was for a birthday party. Huh, weird--we all thought. I called the mother right away and everything was okay right where they were. I stepped in the house to check the weather on TV, and WOW--there were tornado warnings everywhere, and minutes later, the sirens sounded for the second day in a row. It was amazing. WHile some of us made our way to the basement, some stayed on the main floor to watch the TV weather. This is the back yard at my aunt and uncle's house shortly after it began raining.





Their yard doesn't typically have standing water after a rain. My Dad called to tell me his street and the intersecting street 3 houses down was completely under water and over the curbs. He & Maria live just houses away from a creek. The next street down was under 2 ft of water. There was word on the radio that cars were floating down streets a bit northeast of us. Also we are on edge at my Dad's because his pump (he now has 2 or 3 going) can barely keep up in the basement, so we moved alot of our stuff up we are storing here to higher groud or upstairs (like all my scrapbooking stuff!!) Another Aunt and Uncle of mine had major problems with sewage coming up through their basement drain and they had to carry hundreds of buckets of water out of the basement. And then on top of all that, I had to pick Cal up 1/2 way to West Bend. The rain was still coming down, and there were so many streets and highways closed because they were under water. My Mom drove with me to get Cal and this was the view driving on I-45:






Seriously, there were a couple officers standing near the shoulder of the highway and it was up to their waist. I wish I would've thought to take video of it with my camera. My camera didn't take great pictures because it wasn't on the right setting, but just to get an idea...







Word is since yesterday there's been between 5 and 10 inches of rain. As I type, it's raining pretty hard still. And it's supposed to keep raining for at least a few hours. And possible heavy rain tomorrow as well. So there is a bit of water in the basement (at Dad's), we are just hoping for no power outages or more extremely heavy rain. Out at the new house, it sounds like some neighbor's driveways are under water, and culverts damaged. Our houseseems to be in good shape and our drainage system seems to be working out well, well it better be after they made us build so high up (which is a good thing I suppose)!! The sky earlier right after dinner while another big storm moved in.



By the way, alot of the baseboard and casement around doors and windows is done inside the house, except for where the cabinets will go (Mike and his Dad were out there yesterday, Mike was out there today). I saw my cabinet door and drawer (Mike's Dad brought a sample), and they look awesome, except the color didn't seem to go with the floors, so he's going to try a different color.

more pictures

Kaycey had her kindergarten graduation yesterday.

(Kaycey's in the middle, her two best friends are with her, Amanda and Madison)

Cute picture of Maddie and Cal.

The front porch ceiling is coming along...(the holes are where recessed lights will go)

Some doors are on upstairs (Cal's room below), no handles are on yet, though--I still have to pick those out...

Front door is here!! Yea!!! Still needs to be painted, though....I have to pick a color yet. The interior side will be white, not sure about exterior.

Hardwood floor view from kitchen into Mudroom and Laundry room

Appliances are officially purchased and will be delivered and installed on June 26th. We bought a Kenmore double wall oven, an Amana French Door Refrigerator (freezer on bottom, side by side fridge on top), a Kenmore Elite dishwasher, and a GE profile cooktop. We ended up spending more on a cooktop than we would've liked because we got one that didn't have knobs sticking out of it, it's all touch button controls on the side. Not sure if you can tell in the picture, but here it is...

I'm pretty nervous about having such high tech appliances since I am as high-tech as a Pilgrim (no offense to the Pilgrims). So I have my fingers crossed to start moving in that weekend after the appliances are delivered. The kids start baseball in Vernon next Wednesday. The only reason I signed them up was because I thought we'd be in the house by the time they started :(

Anxious...

Okay, I am slowly approaching the point of insanity now. I am sick of living out of boxes, backpacks, and laundry baskets. Once the kids are out of school, I am really going to go crazy. They are done next Monday. Mike has been spending up to 15 hours a day at the house Friday, Sat, and Sundays. Yesterday though was a *measly*-haha- 13 hours. He is out there again today. He is now off of work on Mondays and Fridays instead of Thurs/Fridays. The hardwood is taking forever, the one night all he was able to get done was a small 3 ft section. The problem is that the planks are only 2" wide, much narrower than a typical wood floor.

Bad news, Mike's truck was broken into last week. It happened while he was working his day job, he was parked on the lakefront. Someone smashed the passenger window and rummaged through everything. Luckily Mike doesn't really keep anything valuable in the front, there was a small saw stolen though.

I haven't really been on the computer a whole lot lately. We stayed at my grandparents part of the week and I don't bring my computer along. I also bartended twice this past week, and it was crazy busy. We shopped for appliances one night. We did pick out the appliances officially now, though we are waiting to actually purchase them this week because there was a 20% rebate being offered this week.

Cabinets are being started today. Oh, that's not starting to be installed, that's starting being built. He says it'll only take 3 weeks or so, which is hard to believe, but that would be fantastic. I met with him last week, and saw a sample of what our bench will look like and laundry room cabinets because he had another job with similar cabinets. They looked really nice. I am going to see if he can make us a custom kitchen table to go with the bench, so we aren't struggling to find a table that fits just right. I am hoping that cabinets is what we are waiting for to get in the house, but I doubt it because lots of flooring needs to be put in, the porch needs to be done, and the stairs need to be rebuilt, just to name a few things.

Good news is I have some pictures--hardwood floors are done in the dining room and entryway, and started in the kitchen. Just need to finish the mudroom, 1/2 bath, and laundry room, and I think maybe we'll do the upstairs hallway if it's not too late to order more flooring. Then at least the hardwood floors will be done. Still have to do the carpet and laminate though in the rest of the house.




The woodwork isn't on yet, but this is what it looks like placed against the wall--a 5 1/4" wide white baseboard.




The interior doors were delivered and are sitting in our garage. Mike's Dad started hanging some of the doors upstairsover the weekend! I haven't been out there since Friday, so hopefully I can get some pictures after school today.