OCCUPANCY....

on Monday?? Unlikely, since the inspector will probably find something that needs to be fixed or whatever to get our official occupancy permit. But, he is coming on Monday to inspect. One bad thing about this...the electrician hasn't been there to finish or fix things, which would be a definite NO on the permit. Besides the lights that don't go off at all, and the lights that don't go on, the pantry & front closet have no light or switch installed (though there is a hole in the ceiling for each of them) he installed the wrong light switches in the entire house (completely his fault--when they started with the wrong switches, Mike's dad called and told him they were wrong) and in the next few days they came and finished up the switches...but continued with the wrong ones (so in the house now is a regular flip up/down switch; we are going to have the kind where you can control the ceiling fan on the switch and able to dim the lights).

An unusual moment when the kids were getting along.

Posts on the porch!!!!!!!!!!!

So if by some sort of miracle, the electric does get done, there is a chance we could have the permit Monday/early next week. Which means more cleaning before moving stuff in. And I want to have all curtains/rods/shades whatever up before I would sleep there. All the stuff in good ole SAM (our storage cube sitting in our driveway) will need to be brought in the basement/garage/wherever for some time to air out because everything will stink of moth balls. There is a chance we could get a permit to begin to move in but not occupy the house. That would be good and fine with me too. There is so much stuff to be moved, it's ridiculous!! Two rooms full of stuff at my Dad's, plus a large portion of his basement & stuff in his garage. An entire bedroom full of stuff-- from floor to the ceiling --at Mike's parents' house, as well as stuff in their basement, too. Plenty of our stuff in my Grandma's basement to be moved. Uh, everything in SAM, too. It is going to take so many truckloads to move everything, I can't even begin to imagine!!

The inside stairs are close to being done, especially with the painters out there--they are painting all the white stuff (woodwork, doors, window frames, etc.) with paint and some other protective coat. ANyhow, since they were out there yesterday and today, I bet things are looking different and clean and white!! I'm excited to see it, and excited to go out there tonight and take pictures. The balcony looks awesome, and I'm sure the stairs will, too (not sure if they are finished putting the pieces together for those or not).

The very clean kitchen!! There is NOTHING in the kitchen that shouldn't be there! (ex. tools, excess dust, garbage....) except the hardwood floor is still covered with cardboard to protect it with working people still coming in and out so much. The kitchen is missing the cabinet doors, one sink, faucets, and appliances...you can barely see in the picture but the dishwasher is sitting in there (not in it's place yet). That ladder is where the fridge will go.

The floor of the finished fireplace:

Little helper (the kids come out there alot, and they like to "help", so Grandpa sets them up with hammer and a board with nails and puts them to work! They love it !!)

Some non house news....Kaycey goes to get her hairpiece fitted today. If it fits correctly, they'll style it/trim it up today, too! It'll be so different to see her with hair. It's been 3 1/2 years since she lost it. Oh, and Cal just got his head shaved (he wants to look like Cal Ripken, Jr.).

August already!

A PICTURE OF THE FIREPLACE BEFORE IT WAS FINISHED

So the fireplace people we went with were very reliable & fast. It was done when they said it would be done. It looks really nice, not exactly what I asked for (I had imagined square pieces of brick making the arch instead of the rectangles, and then squares of brick surrounding the fireplace itself) But it does look very nice. I am happy with the outcome and color. Now I have to decide whether I want the mantle to be stained to match the wood floors, or painted white to go with the woodwork (I am 85% sure I want white).


Mike, his Dad, and brother-in-law JP have really been putting the hours in over there. I've been there alot, too, but usually with the kids so I don't really do anything. I've cleaned up alot of garbage, sanded railings, did some staining. But thankfully Mike's Mom came over the weekend and got the staining done (she's really good at that kind of thing). Tomorrow is cleaning day...I actually don't know what that entails entirely; but the painters (the guys who will be painting the doors and woodwork) are coming Weds. and there can't be dust or dirt anywhere. Thankfully we have some helping hands (Mike's Mom, sister Jill, and me) to get it done. This will be the second painter to come into the house for the job. The first one came last week, and Mike's Dad went to the house and I don't know exactly how it went down, but the painter was asked to leave, because he was doing such an awful job. Our plumber ordered some items incorrectly, so now we are waiting to get the right items for him to finish installing (nothing much appears to have been done; no sinks or toilets are installed, no faucets are in. I don't think I mentioned the plumber failed to plan for outside water--that's right, no plan for hoses. Luckily there are spots that it was figured out we could connect to the outside from inside, so as of now, hallelujah, we have 3 spots for hoses. The electrician, well lets just say our lights in the great room are permanently on as of right now. Yep, no switch turns them off. Two of our kitchen lights and the light over the dinette doesn't go on at all. What a freaking headache. Good news, though...we have a completed porch floor and white posts on the porch!! No railing or ballusters yet, those will need to be painted. It'd be nice to paint them before they are put on, but it doesn't look like we have the time to paint before hand if we want to get in ASAP. What's left?? Well, besides the electric and plumbing fiascos, the carpet is being installed next Monday. The runner down the stairs is set to be installed next Thursday. As for appliances, I haven't heard. Electric needs to be done first. Oh, and we are missing doors to our cabinets, though we don't need those to get our occupancy permit, but it would sure be nice to have a house that looks finished. Hopefully the house will actually be ready for carpet come Monday. Our yard has been completely graded, so it is nice and flat. We have to get someone to come out and power rake it to get rid of large sticks and lots of rocks and stones that are out there but the yard looks really nice, and big without the big piles of dirt and rocks all over.

Hard to believe school starts up in 4 weeks. We still haven't decided whether or not we'll put Maddie in the 3 year old program at the Lutheran school down the road from the school the kids go to. It's only 5 hours a week, it would be lots of fun I'm sure; but 3 is so little...baseball is over for the summer. The kids were very excited to get trophies. Fall means soccer for Kaycey and Football for Cal. I am contemplating whether I should sign Maddie up for gymnastics, dance, or both. I figure both, if she doesn't do the 3 year old school program. We'll see....

Not too much else to report. I'll be back with more pictures after I upload them.

in the homestretch??

well, Mike says we are anyways. 3/4 of the lights are in, several of them even turn on!! Supposedly the fireplace will be done by this coming Saturday, which means the carpeting can be put in after that. Porch is supposed to be started this weekend, waiting for materials. Then the final grading can be done around the house (which the guy came and did start, so in front of the house is relatively flat instead of mounds of dirt and the big hill dipping to one side). Countertops were put in last Thursday, and the plumber is supposed to be around this coming Thursday to do sinks/faucets/toilets. I am really disappointed in my counter choice in the laundry room. I chose not to do white thinking it would be too white in there with the white cabinets, and went with a grey instead. Should've gone with white. We got laminate throughout the house, so it wouldn't cost much to replace it. I kind of would like to the tile the countertop or do something fun to it in there someday.

The kitchen countertops are really nice looking; I chose something that looks like granite, without the price of granite (you can get laminate for $10-20/ft, I've seen some granite/corian for $100/ft!). It has beveled edges to look even more like granite. It's hard to tell in the pictures, but the counter is speckled and has a shinier finish.

The master bath counter is kind of plain, but it has beveled edges, too, and somehow seems to match almost perfectly with the paint color. Laminate is so much cheaper; it's something if you are redoing a room or building a house and you want to save money somewhere, that would be a place to start. And it's something that is relatively easy to replace down the road if we ever want to do granite instead.


Yea! The balcony is done, I just need to get the stain so I can stain the bare wood to match the hard wood floors.

I am a little disappointed; not in the house, but my choices for the house. While the first coat of yellow in the kid's bath seemed okay, it now seems to be Packers yellow (not exactly what I had in mind). As you can see in the pic.... I don't know what color to do this room!!!!

I am also beginning to think I should've gone with black finish on the lighting in the kitchen to go with the black fridge. I don't care for the red in the entryway, but it's so dark it would take forever and many coats to cover it up. I don't feel like everything ties together like I envisioned it would, and it's all on me, since I'm the one who picked out most of the stuff.

Excited...

and it has nothing to do with the house!! I am leaving for CHA (a huge craft/hobby convention in Chicago) Friday . I will get to drool over the latest and greatest paper, bling, chipboard, and ribbon, maybe make some projects, get some free stuff, and have some quality gal time with adults who also will be drooling over fantastic scrapbooking stuff.

Saw Cracker at Summerfest on the 2nd of July and it was awesome. Front row. So cool. Can't wait till they are back in or near Milwaukee. They have this huge campout in California with other bands in September, man I wish I could go to that!!!

I had so much fun bartending the night before the 4th. Here is my friend Nikki and I. I am standing up in her wedding next May.

The fourth was fun--we went to a parade in Hales Corners with my Mom, a really nice parade. Then fireworks with my sister, Dad, and Stepmom in Greendale at night.

Unfortunately, no house news... : ( No one has been there, and no countertops in sight. Might have our permanent stairs and balcony railing in by the wknd.

More pics....

The more I look at the kitchen the more I love it. I am so glad I went with an island, and I am so glad we did the layout the way we did. If only I planned fewer drawers...oh, well, we'll find a way around that. The pics are deceiving, because it looks like there isn't much room between island and cabinets. In reality, there is 4ft of walkway on either side of the island--plenty of room..

This side of the island with all the drawers faces the cooktop. On the end closest in the pic will be a small sink.

Other side of the island where there will be an overhang and there will be stools or chairs. The empty space on the right is going to have shelves and be a bookshelf.

The cooktop area...the cooktop goes right in the middle on the counter. One each of the upper side cabinets will be glass in the door of the cabinet. The cooktop area itself is bumped out a little bit and has "legs" (that actually match the island's legs). Uh, those are my pots and pans cabinets on the lower left and lower right (out of sight in the picture)...I really was not thinking!! But I love the way it looks anyways.

The built in "L" shaped bench. The back doesn't make sense to us, so we are going to do without it for now. I'll put pillows against the back eventually...now I have to buy a table & chairs!!

I love the laundry room, too. I wish my whole house could be white beadboard!!!! It looks so clean.

One half of the laundry room--

Other side of laundry room.
washer and dryer go in the open space on the floor---

I have pics from the 4th (my favorite holiday!!!), too, but I'll have to post them another time...for some reason it takes for ever to post a picture on here!!!