The Dream Crusher and Foundation Walls

Well, yesterday was a productive day. I spent my day running around town(s) looking at and making material selections with my builder and his lovely wife (my other sister apparently). My head was swimming a bit from choices and the fact that some of them weren't matching up with my mental picture (recurring theme, I know). But it was productive, we found stone for the front of the house that is perfectly colored no matter what that jerk-wad over at *store to remain unnamed* tells you. If you would like to know the name of the unnamed stone place, ask me in person. Anyway, I found one that I loved. Then I found one that is pretty darn close to love, but actually in the budget, ha.

Found a possible front door and if the store hours of the place where it is located were in anyway convenient I would say that I have a front door, but I want Casey to see it first. I'm pretty sure he's going to love it, but no promises. It's a craftsman style, 8ft door with 2 sidelights and all three pieces have a matching ledge piece. Maybe you'd have to see it to understand, so I'm going to leave it at that. It's unstained so we'd get to pick whatever color we want! Plus, my builder thinks we can get it cheaper than listed which is exciting!

The only thing we didn't find that I'm 100% on is flooring, and here comes the story behind the first part of the title of this post. Apparently it will be very costly to have a concrete kitchen floor because of the reinforcement of the flooring :( This was hinted at a few days ago, but the builder definitely confirmed my loss yesterday with actual pricing. Too high, that's all I remember so please don't ask me to quote a price. My disappointment won't let me remember the details. So our shopping trip was for both our house and the builder's house which will be about 1 month or two behind ours (maybe) and his wife and I kept picking things out that he kept telling us were too expensive. His wife and I dubbed him "The Dream Crusher" (lovingly and jokingly, respectively) and told him to at least pretend not to enjoy it so much! So concrete flooring is out (among some other neat, but way unnecessary items). But now that I've told you that I have so nicknamed my builder, I feel compelled to tell you that it's not necessarily a bad nickname to have. I want him to be that way so I don't end up hating myself at the end of this for going over budget. He's really saving my future mental health!

Anyway, we went out the the Grove after that shopping stint and snapped a few pics of the foundation walls which are making this little hole in the ground start to look like a house!

So here's a shot from the back of the house...

And here's a different angle of the same location... 

 Here's our hidey-hole :) Yeah for indoor storm shelters!

The hubby makes a debut...

From the back, you can't see the road at all. It's all about site selection, baby.

The king of the (soon to be) castle...

And the king's future playroom, aka the garage...

After we went to the building site, we went and got a quote for kitchen appliances. I'm super psyched because it's in our budget and it's what I want. I'm even more psyched because I found some better deals elsewhere by piecing some stuff together. Not sure what to do about that though, should I buy now when the house looks like this? We have NOWHERE to put the appliances yet, but I don't want to lose out on a good deal! I'll bet if we wait a bit, a better deal will roll around too (at least a 20% off sale or something at Lowe's/Home Depot).

Anyway, after a day like yesterday I feel very blessed to be in the position we are. I am definitely grateful that we have a great builder whom I trust and listens to what I want (even though he does crush my dreams sometimes, such is the life of someone with expensive tastes and a tight wallet!)

The Dream Crusher says we'll be framing in about a week and half. So maybe by two weekends from now I'll have more pictures to post. We'll see!

Concrete Kitchen Floors?

I've been given the go ahead to start picking flooring. Fun stuff, except that I can't find what I want. I know what I want my kitchen to look like and when I search images of example kitchens, they all have hardwood floors. No thanks. I need something less susceptible to the hazards of my kitchen work. So I'm going to have to go with stone or tile, but I've got a particular idea in my head and the tile options I'm looking at just aren't matching that wonderful picture in my head. I've seen some that are OK, but I'm not sure I'm willing to accept just OK and even those options are out of budget and the hubby is doesn't even like them so they really aren't an option.

So it has been suggested that I consider concrete floors (heated of course). So I've scoured the internet for pricing and pictures and I think I might, just might, be able to make it fit into my budget. I need to ask my builder what his knowledge of the concept is before I move. Not that his lack of knowledge would stop me, I just need to know what he knows. So I think this week I'm going to start really looking into this option. In the meantime, here are some pictures I've found to let you know what the look I'm going for will hopefully look like. And for those skeptics, here's proof that it doesn't have to look super industrial. I think it's going to be the final product choice for the kitchen at least if not the second bathroom and laundry room as well. I'll let you know what we decide!