All smiles. :)

My happy girl!

Lots of good changes!

A lot has happened since my last post - we finished (almost) the house, moved in, sold our old house, and by far the biggest change - we became parents to the most beautiful baby in the world (I'm not prejudiced at all!)














First things first! My J entered this world on January 6th. It was the coldest day we have seen for 20 years at a -36 windchill (although if we're being honest, I really had no idea how cold it was and I really didn't care at the time). She was 7 pounds, 15 ounces and 20 inches long. And born with a set of lungs! I don't know where she got that from - A and I are both typically quiet...I think, anyway. She has her daddy's forehead and her mommy's blue eyes. And she likes to eat! A lot! She has been consistently eating about double the typical amounts for her age according to our pediatrician.





I love her beyond everything - I didn't know such a love was possible, though I'd heard it was. And this is my last week of maternity leave. I'm so incredibly blessed to have had this time with her and I will have a hard time come Monday morning I know! Twelve weeks sounds like a long time...but it is so, so short.


As far as house stuff - the new one is finished besides a few bits of trim here and there. And I love being here! It's so nice and quiet (on the few warm days J and I have been able to get outside). It's still quite a mess inside despite the fact that we moved in over a month ago...we have gotten a large bit of STUFF (that we had decluttered from the old house for selling) out of my parents' basement so it looks like we moved in all over again. Thank goodness for rummage sales! I'm doing my best to downsize and contribute a lot to the sale we will have when the town rummage sales are going on. And I'm doing my best to get the majority of it done before I go back to work! I'm making progress but there's a bit to go.


Our old house sold at the absolute most perfect time it could. God had a plan for us all along, though I worried a bit along the way! We sold the house within weeks of being able to move into the new house, so we didn't have to bother with moving into temporary housing in between the two. Which would have added to our stress exponentially! (Just for the record, building a house and having a baby at the same time can be done...obviously. But it's definitely not something I'd recommend everyone do! It's QUITE stressful.) And the person who bought our house seemed like she really liked it, so I feel better knowing my first house will be taken care of. It was a good house for us to start our life together in and has a lot of very good memories associated with it.


Now I'd best go unpack and sort a few more boxes while J is happy in her bouncer!

Big news and probably the last update for a little while!

Big news and events going on around here! Obviously, I haven’t been very diligent about updating here, and I hate to say it but that will probably continue.

Baby is due Sunday, but really could come any day I guess. Hopefully we are ready! We have tried to make ourselves as ready as possible but we are newbies so I’m sure we will have a huge learning curve to jump on! We are EXTREMELY excited! And a bit nervous, too…

Also big news – hopefully our house has sold! It isn’t final yet so keep your fingers crossed – we are waiting for the buyer to get confirmation that the loan will be approved. Which we all know can be tricky these days with the economy and all that jazz…

I have started packing up a few boxes here and there in preparation for moving. I know for a little while after the baby arrives I won’t be able to do a whole lot in that department so I’m trying to get as prepared as possible! It makes my mind rest easier anyway, knowing I’ve gotten a start – however small and insignificant it may be.

Our new house is coming right along! Drywall has been hung, mudded and taped and painting has commenced! I love how the colors are coming out. It’s hard to tell what exactly you’ve chosen when you are just looking at a little colored square on a piece of cardboard…but so far everything has been exactly what I was picturing! I can’t wait to see all the pieces come together…especially the kitchen. I have a specific vision in my mind of what it will look like when it’s finished so hopefully it all comes together that way! So far, so good. The yellow is lovely.

(On a side note, it does create a bit of extra work for painters when you choose a different color paint for every different section of your house…but the end result is super happy and wonderful! )

After painting is completed, we will be ready to install the floors, and then cabinets and all the rest of that type of stuff. We are almost there and it is (so far) looking like everything is falling into place beautifully!

See you on the other side of Baby Day!

An Update!

Well, we are still working on electric…but it is almost done! A assures me there is just a little smidge more downstairs to do and it will be finished. Which will then be followed by insulation and drywall and…paint!!

I keep telling A that we need to go to the store and get more paint chips because I totally didn’t get enough the first time around. (Although it’s not like we’ve just been sitting around trying to find things to occupy our time!) I really would like to be prepared with what colors to buy ahead of time so we aren’t waiting on me. I think I have a general idea for about half the house – and I need paint chips to finish up the last half!

On the baby front, we have hit the 30 week mark (!), which seems unbelievable to me. 10 weeks left sounds like so little! We still don’t really have anything ready…we have half a crib that A’s cousin very nicely gave to us since she was finished with it – unfortunately the front panel was in storage at the time we picked it up and they were in the middle of moving so…we don’t have that part yet. But half a crib is better than nothing, right? We also need to hit a fabric store to pick out fabric to have the rocking chair I got from A’s grandparents’ sale reupholstered. And we have a dresser. That’s pretty much it! The showers are scheduled though and I am completely resisting the temptation to check what is missing from the registries! We are getting more and more excited with each passing week. Oh, and we do have a few clothes that a friend gave me and that Mom found at some garage sales. Mom washed them up for us and it is so lovely to smell that wonderful baby laundry smell…

Hopefully we will be able to start moving forward on the house more quickly once the electric is finished – it seems like it has taken a long time, but doing it ourselves has saved us a LOT of money. Which is always a good thing. I’m getting ready to see it look more like a finished product!

One Big Update!

Well it has been awhile, I know! There has been a ton going on, so I’ll try to bring you up to date without overlapping information.

*The rock is going up on the outside of the house – this is the last outside finishing. It looks really good! I was a teensy bit worried it wouldn’t match the siding well, since we had to choose it by holding the rock book up to the siding instead of checking out some samples in person. There just wasn’t time. Thankfully, it turned out wonderfully.

*Indoors, I don’t know if I mentioned it, but all the doorknobs are on my exterior doors. This thrills me tremendously, and probably a bit more than it should…but it is just cool to be able to walk into our new house through normal functioning doors!

*The garage door is installed and the opener works when it is hooked up. I love the door. Through some issues at the company with backordering the door we initially chose (which was pretty much a cheapie as much as possible), we ended up getting a carriage style door for the same cost as the door we had ordered initially because of the time constraints we were under at the time to get the house closed up. So we basically got 15 to 20% of our door free! It is beautiful, and more what I would have chosen if cost was no issue, so I’m happy with it!

*We ordered the kitchen cabinets and counters – they should be in later this month. We aren’t ready for installation yet but we couldn’t pass up the kitchen and bath sale at Menard’s! It saved us about $2,000! Not too shabby! I’m very anxious to see these!

*We ordered the bath vanities at the Menard’s sale as well, and they are ready to be picked up. I hope they turned out well! Although to be honest, we went for the cheapest we could get in most cases. These things can be upgraded later and just aren’t that crucial right now, as long as we have something!

*This past weekend we got a fabulous start on running the wire – we opted to do the electric ourselves because it would cost a BUNDLE to have it done for us. Luckily, we have a lot of family and friends that have plenty of knowledge and experience to help us out and get it done safely. We are saving an immense amount and certainly wouldn’t be able to do it ourselves! Most of the wire for the house circuits has been run – now it’s all about getting everything connected and plugs and all that good stuff. After that comes insulation and drywall – it will be looking fabulous!

On the baby front, we have only about 3 more months to go! It is unbelievable. We are so excited for this. And we are just getting into a lot of the decisions that come along with baby – which is a little overwhelming (though fun!) at times since neither of us has much – ok, any – prior baby experience. We are enjoying the learning process a lot though! (And incidentally, I think there are TOO many pacifier options in the world – just saying.)

Update!

Ok, so here’s what’s going on!

Siding is done. Woohoo! I’m very happy with it and how it goes with the shingles.

All the concrete is poured except for the the little things like the garage apron and all that. The porches and patio still have to be power washed and sealed, but for obvious reasons, that won’t be happening until later!

We got the base materials on for the rock portion of the outside and are just waiting on the rocks themselves to get here.

The ductwork has been done. Mostly. I think. And the wells have been dug in the yard for the furnace. All that important stuff!

Now we are just waiting on the garage door to complete the exterior entrance portion of our program. And then we will be able to start on the electric. If we can ever make it to the store to buy the wire!

Menards is having a big Labor Dale Sale currently…I think we will be doing more shopping in the near future…

A little water can't keep us down!

Well, despite the flooding in the area, A was finally able to pick up our last bit of siding material and the last doors from Menard’s this morning.

The doors apparently have been sitting there since the last time we went to pick up doors…they just couldn’t find them. Which isn’t too impressive, but at least we have them now. And since we have all the doors, they can be installed, followed by the siding! Which has been sitting there waiting for doors for weeks because it can’t be installed until the doors are in. So we should be making a lot more progress very soon! I’m thrilled!

The last windows were installed a couple of days ago. I think they are wonderful, and exactly what I wanted them to be. A little old-fashioned looking, with all the modern conveniences of new windows with double hung cleaning capabilities! It’s really neat to see all the windows in, and I’m sure adding the doors will make a huge difference again. (It does make it a bit stuffy – ok, a lot stuffy – inside now that everything can be closed up, but it is taken care of pretty well by opening everything. Hopefully we can get doorknobs and a garage door soon and then we will be able to lock the place up tight! An exciting prospect.

My porches have also been poured and stamped, and I love them. They look just like a wooden porch, with “nail holes” and everything, but with the durability of concrete! Delightful! My patio should be coming soon…if it will stop raining and let the floodwaters go down so everyone can go back to work… and then we will be done with concrete for a while – at least until we get to the finish work like the garage apron and stuff like that.

Duct work is also being installed for the furnace/AC, and we have to get the excavator in there soon to smooth out the yard a bit so they can drill the well holes needed for the geothermal system we are installing. After the furnace and everything is in we will be able to start on the electrical stuff. We are getting into the nitty gritty here!

It should be fun to see it all start to come together a bit more, especially over the next week or so as the things we were waiting for are finally here!

Windows, doors and siding! Oh my!

Well, this weekend was certainly eventful!

Friday was super exciting – the shingles were finished, the windows came and (as many as currently can be anyway) were installed, and we have stairs to the basement now (as opposed to a ladder in a hole, which this girl is NOT attempting). It was awesome! I love when so much comes together so quickly.

We had also been told by our carpenter that we needed to get our tubs and showers and the like so they could be framed in and plumbed. We did that Saturday, and I’m very happy with what we ended up with. Everything has plenty of shelves and everything is a one-piece unit – so I don’t have to worry about scrubbing seams. We were able to get all 4 pieces (2 showers, a tub/shower combo, and a soaker tub) at Menard’s and everything was in stock so we were able to take it all home that night!

Sunday we went BACK to Menard’s, because the siding was in and the exterior doors, partially so. The siding looks like it will go really well with the shingles (it’s so hard to be sure until you are actually seeing the product in person – books can be misleading!) so I’m happy with that.

We had ordered 6 exterior doors, and 4 had come in. We were only able to take home 3, as one of them had a split frame. So it is being reordered – good thing we went to pick them up when we did so the problem was discovered in time to prevent too much of a delay reordering it. My front door is absolutely gorgeous – exactly what I had envisioned. And it goes with my window grille design well, too, I think.

Now we are in the process of meeting with the heating guy at some point to work on getting that started and meeting with one of the guys helping us do the electric work to get an idea of the materials we will need.

It’s all coming together! I love it.

It really is a house!

Our house is looking so housey now! The trusses are on (which made a big difference just with that) and part of the sheeting was done by the end of Friday. You can actually kind of see where it’s going now, and know that it is going to be a house when it’s done – not just a compilation of random walls and windows. Not that there was any doubt…it’s just very much a thrill.

It is so cool to see what we have envisioned  for so long in our heads finally taking shape in the real world. Paper transformed into wood, nails and concrete. It’s an amazing process. I’m sure it’s humdrum to those who see this everyday (A for sure was not as excited as I was for the concrete – it’s just another day of work to him) but for me it is just unbelievable. And exciting and fun!

We are going to be ordering shingles soon…we have picked the color we want anyway. I’m not sure when the actual ordering will take place. This weekend I sat down with the blueprints and mapped out roughly how many electrical outlets I want and where I want them – a task much more involved than you might think. You have to consider placement very carefully; you don’t want all your plugs stuck behind large immovable objects and you have to make sure that you will have plenty (but not too many) because they would be a complete pain to add later. I think soon after the roof is completely on, electrical and heating work may begin. (And we will be back in territory where I really can’t make decisions…because I don’t have a clue what all the terms and questions mean.)

Now if I could just fit time in there to work on nursery décor ideas and name lists…hopefully this decisionless time (for me anyway) will help me with that!

News, news, news!

This weekend was, I believe, one of the most hectic holiday weekends I have ever had. Not necessarily because of the number of things to do, but because of the mental exhaustion caused by the few things we did do!

First of all, let me begin by letting you in on a secret. A and I are embarking on the huge undertaking of building a house…and the even bigger undertaking of becoming parents. We are beyond thrilled – but I think some may question our sanity a little for doing this all at once! We are happy, though.

Now, on to the house itself. This weekend was chock-full of progress! Though not of the visible kind. We found out the trusses are scheduled to arrive tomorrow – which means we should be getting a roof soon! Thank goodness. Looks like we need to get a move on in the shingle choosing department.

We did choose our siding finally. Really, it wasn’t much of a choice. We had been waffling over one color for a couple weeks and we just got over our commitment issues and picked it already. It’s a lovely darker brown called Hearthstone. On sale at Menards! It will look something like this:

We also ordered our exterior doors from Menards – and saved around $1100 by buying them there instead of at the local place. Unfortunately, I cannot afford to be strictly loyal to our local businesses… The doors are going to be pretty though! I’m very excited for supplies to start rolling in!

It is amazing how quickly everything is coming together once we have started moving forward. It is a little stressful, but mostly fun and exciting! The stress is mainly from trying to get everything done by our self-imposed deadline of late-December/early January so it’s done before the baby comes. I don’t think we’re doing too badly, though….now if only our current house would sell we would be golden!

No one said this would provide unlimited leisure time!

It’s funny how this is working out…the more progress that is being made on the house the less I have been reporting! Let me just say, that even though it was anticipated with great relish, the actual beginning of decisions that involve me makes me busy.

So let me bring you up to date. The basement concrete work is done. Done done. Concrete left to do includes the garage floor and whatever wall stuff has to go on there (I don’t know that part!), porches, and back patio. All of which will be delightful. I actually believe the garage floor should happen soon if we can get the backfill completed enough. (A LOT of gravel has to go into a BIG hole. This takes some time to do if you don’t have heavy duty equipment to do it with. Which we don’t.)

Carpentry-wise, things are moving fast – we’re talking probably twice as fast as I thought it would. (Not that I have a super informed opinion on this time of thing.) The walkout wall in the basement is framed (window holes! And a door! It’s fabulous.) and the floor joists were completed in a day. Yesterday, the subfloor was put down.

Which means – I have a floor! I got to walk on it. It was great.

We also have a hole for the stairs, which thrills me. We went out last night because all the lines were chalked out for wall-building and we had to confirm the correctness. Would I know if it was wrong? Probably not. But it’s nice to feel needed. It is starting to REALLY look like a house now. I know I’ve said that before, but now it REALLY does. Awesomeness.

Also, windows have been lined out, confirmed by the carpenter and were supposed to be ordered today. I think I will absolutely flip out when they get here. I’m so excited to see them!

On the horizon – in the next 2 to 3 weeks or so, we need to finalize our siding and shingles choices. And probably the rock we will be adding to the front jutted-out section. It’s harder than it sounds to coordinate all of this. We also need to get a more final idea of the doors – I’m sure they won’t follow too far behind the windows. It’s so fun! I love it.

Tons going on!

I've been super busy so I haven't been able to make it on here lately...and although I intended this post to include pictures, it doesn't. Sorry. Maybe next time!

We now have basement walls and floors (which just got done yesterday)! It echoes crazily now. It's quite fun. And apparently the carpenter began working today, so I will see how far he got tonight. It's starting to take shape!

We have been told to line out exactly what we'd like our windows to be, since they can take a few weeks to be ready. Which is not as easy as it sounds. Yes, you pick a color and a grille design and all that good stuff, but you have to also decide what level of efficiency you need (higher efficiency costs more, so you don't want to buy more than you need) and make all sorts of decisions about jambs and the like. It's quite complicated. So we are hip deep in the window book and will probably have to meet with the window company at some point to get more information and make sure we understand what everything is so we order correctly.

So, in my opinion, NOW we are getting to the fun part!

We are getting to be pros at the waiting game.

Well, a lot has been happening…but not a lot visibly I guess.

The basement walls are done, and they are fabulous! It’s so cool to see it actually start to take shape. Now we are waiting on the carpenter to come plumb the basement with drains and all that good stuff so they can pour the basement floors over it. And then we will be ready for the HOUSE! Wahoo!

We also have an electric pole now which is pretty exciting. It’s starting to look more and more liveable every time something like this happens.

I do have some pictures to post of all this good stuff, but I keep having all kinds of projects that come up instead of me pulling up the ole blog in the evenings. So I will get them up here eventually…I hope.

Let me just say I’m starting to get pretty anxious for the parts where we get to pick stuff out…I want to be able to be more involved! Right now everything that’s happening is kind of out of my realm, so A is getting stuck with a lot of the decisions just because he knows what everyone is talking about when they ask all these important questions. He knows what needs to happen so I’m definitely not worried about not being included in this part…I’m just anxious to dive in to my stuff! So hopefully that will happen fairly soon since it (finally!) seems to have stopped raining temporarily.

Yay!

We are getting basement walls poured today!!

Really, does anything more need to be said?

Lots of stuff going on!

Well, it’s been awhile since I updated so I do have some news to report!

Most of the footings are done! Last Friday, they were able to complete the footings for three sides of the house, leaving just the last short side and the retaining walls. And the basement walls and the porches, but that will all come. We went out to see everything that night, and Yoshi branded the footings while the concrete was still wet – so now we have footings that look like Hollywood Blvd with the footprints! It was pretty funny.

We also had some more gravel hauled in, and I believe more concrete is being worked on today! Yay!

We ALSO are very very close to getting the electric poles set and hooked up. I believe that will happen in the next few days after all the paperwork is processed correctly. Let me tell you, it’s a little more involved to decide where you want to place the last big pole…you have to think of things like where the stabilizing wire will end up and still at the same time get it as close to the house as possible to avoid spending more on the wire to actually hook it up to the house. It was a process, that’s for sure. Hopefully we will be happy with the results of our choice – it’s a little late now to change our minds!

Last weekend, we planted 60 flowers! (They were little.) I wanted my flowerbed to be beautiful and full so it will look nice if someone wants to look at our house. Unfortunately, we haven’t had too much interest lately, but I’m due to relist on a couple websites, so once I get that done, hopefully things will pick up. This weekend we are going to a fish fry at A’s parents to thank everyone who helped with his grandparents’ sale. There are quite a few people invited so it should be a pretty happening place! 

Da-da-da-dah! Concrete!

Work has begun! The concrete men have come and started doing…stuff. I am thrilled. They will have to place pipes for my drains and make some walls, and who knows what all else. That means my house will finally be taking shape!

Now, I really have no idea how much they can realistically get done in one day. It depends on the cooperation of the site itself, partly, and just in general the type and amount of work that has to be done I guess. (I have some general knowledge of concrete stuff, but not really the fount you may assume I have from being with A 10 years and him pouring concrete for about 8 of those years. You know what they say about assumptions, people.) I’m rather excited just to see everything. I’ve never seen the forms they use for big walls and all of that stuff, so it will be an education for me. I have no idea if there will be concrete in those forms when I go check them out or not…because again, I really have no idea how long this all takes. But I will be happy with anything!

I will soon have a basement! Have a great holiday, everybody!

A Teensy Update

No, we still don’t have concrete. Although it is VERY tentatively in the schedule for the tomorrow… (I’m not getting my hopes up, just in case.)

We did get our first bill yesterday however. Which is exciting in a weird way – again, it’s something tangible. But it does mean that we will have to start shelling out some moolah for the first time! The bill is for the excavation, and it actually turned out to be almost $2000 below our estimate! Yay! We really had no idea what to expect because you just never know if you will hit rock in the first 5 minutes, or if you will get relatively lucky, as we did. So our estimate was pretty high. But that is already savings on total cost that we can count!

I can’t wait to get it all in my spreadsheet.

In other news, until yesterday evening it apparently looked as if we were building a pond instead of a house, a little. I didn’t go see it but we had a good amount of standing water in the basement hole, both from the storms the past few days, and apparently a little from ground water seeping in. A went out yesterday evening and pumped out the water though – so all is good. There was almost a foot of water in one corner so it’s a good thing that is out! I think it is still a muddy mess, but it would have been much worse if a whole foot of water was allowed to sit there indefinitely.

And that’s all there is to report on that…

We did get Yoshi his summer haircut. He looks a TON smaller since all of his double layer coat is gone, and he feels much better. He’s is full of orneriness every day now instead of just being hot. He is a little embarrassed though – he keeps looking at himself as if to say ‘what the heck happened here?!’

He doesn’t spend too much time worrying over it though – too much havoc to wreak and not enough time…

Gravel doesn't fix a phone line, but that's ok.

We have gravel on our driveway now – and though it’s apparently not the type of gravel A was expecting or wanting – it actually kind of looks like a real driveway now. Which is cooler than it probably sounds! (Honestly, I really have no idea what gravel A was wanting – it looks like we got ourselves some pretty basic gravel…how many kinds could there be? That’s why I’m not in charge of that kind of stuff.)

The phone repair guy also came and apparently looked at where we need the phone line moved…and he couldn’t do anything. He had to pass the information to the ‘engineers’ to determine if it could be moved. (It totally can – just might take a little time, money, and effort, which we all know a lot of companies do not like to dispense freely.) We have no idea how long the engineer review, or whatever it is, might take. So we are just going to proceed business as usual and see what happens.

*Remember, we need the phone line laying across the driveway moved because it is so shallowly buried that when the huge trucks carrying concrete and supplies and all that good stuff cross over it, it is likely to be crushed or broken even worse. Plus we do need the driveway entrance to be a bit lower so my car, which is not now or ever likely to be an off-roader, can get to the house.

We are still waiting on concrete and the basement to be poured right now. From what I understand, the forms needed for our basement are currently being used on another job that I think they are almost finished with…so hopefully when those forms can come off they can visit my house!

I love progress!

The basement is finished!

Well, I should clarify, the hole for the basement is finished. The excavator finished it up Saturday evening. So  now we are on to trying to get the concrete scheduled - we'll see how that goes!

We took Yoshi with us Saturday to look at the hole, and he was afraid of the machines. He wouldn't get out of the truck and barked at the track-hoe-excavator-thing. Let me just say there was no one in the machine, it was not running and was not coming to attack him or anything. But he was AFRAID. Grandma and I were laughing at him pretty much the whole time we were up there.

The basement looks really good though (not that I'm a super experienced judge of that sort of thing), and it really makes the space look a lot bigger than when there were just stakes stuck in the grass. It's funny how your eyes play tricks on you like that.

We also called the phone company to get them to move the phone cable from the very inconvenient and shallow location across our driveway. Surprisingly, it took us longer to get to an actual person than it did to get them to schedule time to move it! So we will see if they do it right - I am skeptical - I totally didn't expect it to be that easy.

Oh and did I mention we have a driveway now? Because we do. It's cool. Except it still can't get a car in there...baby steps, people. Baby steps.

Hopefully I will have a concrete update soon!

And we have begun!

Well it has finally begun!!

We have a basement! Well mostly anyway as of yesterday. The excavator hit rock with still about 2 to 3 feet left to go, so we will have to wait a little for him to get a chipper to remove the rock so he can continue. Although judging by the fact that it only took him about a day and half to two days to get this far, we shouldn’t have to wait too long!

For your viewing pleasure:

We’ve only hit another small snag (well, hopefully small) besides the rock in the basement. Apparently when Dig Rite marked the site for the driveway entrance for us, somehow a phone line got missed…so in about the first 5 minutes of digging and the first 6 inches of dirt, a phone line was hit. So we do that have that to get straightened out. Hopefully it won’t take too much.

After the basement is dug, and the driveway complete (I’m not 100% sure the driveway has to be done but we’ll just say it does), we will be ready for concrete!

I am very excited. Now if only our current home would sell…

And I leave you with a picture of our adventure the other night as we started to load Yoshi to go check out the site:

Yes, he got up there himself. A was not too happy.