Sticks on stone

I'd first like to apologize for not getting any pictures up last weekend. We did get some floor samples stained but we didn't really dig the colors that came out and most importantly, Casey's grandma had a mini stroke before we could put any poly on them. So they technically aren't done. Grandma is ok though. Came out of it all with no meds, all on her own. Scary though.

We have made some real progress now that we've been blessed with one week of lovely weather! The house is starting to take shape as the framing progresses. We've got walls people :)

Here's a picture from the edge of the garage. Madeline and Annie have already laid claim to their rooms. I'm pretty sure Annie took the master...good luck fighting Uncle Casey for that one. This is a pretty good display of the view we will have.

Here's another view from the garage but more of the house. You can see the dining room window on the front of the house and just to the left of that will be the front door.

 This is a view from the back door on the main level. Where you see saw horses will  be the living room, just to the left of that will be the stairs to the basement and left of the stairs is the dining room. The Master Suite is all along the wall directly in front of me as I'm taking this picture.

This is Casey enjoying the progress.

This is a view from our kitchen nook. The normal family dinner will be eaten here.

I realize that I didn't take any pictures of the basement and I could have taken a bunch more pictures, but when you are looking at rooms that you can see through the pictures all started to look the same. The no basement pics was an oversight though. Can't believe I left without taking any of those. Too many people showed up and distracted the photo session :) I think we'll go back this weekend and see how much of the roof they have up :)

Buh Bye Snow, Hello Mud Pit

So even though we were supposed to be starting framing LAST Monday, as many of you around the area know, Mother Nature had other plans for us. Now another two weeks behind schedule after 1-2 feet of snow over the last two weeks. But I think the plan is to start the framing on Monday. Its supposed to be beautiful weather next week, but really all that will equate to is massive amounts of mud. I don't think that will slow up any progress on the building front, but I'm really not looking forward to giving Charlie a bath every time he has to go outside to pee and wants to come back in. Looks like we will be spending some time apart ol' buddy cause I'm only willing to wash your feet once a day.

Technically, I do have some newer photos to post (new to the blog at least, they are probably three weeks old). But back when I thought we were going to be framing soon, I didn't see the point in posting pictures that showed such little change. If we go out to the house tomorrow, then I hope Casey lets me bring Charlie so I can finally introduce him to the land. He's going to love it. If we make a family trip, I'll take pictures of it. Otherwise, I'm going to hold out on posting anything until the framing starts.

As far as decisions about the house go, we've made probably no progress on that. Flooring has been the topic of discussion for the past 2-3 weeks and we've wavered between engineered floors and unfinished floors. We saw some really cool unfinished floors that are pretty cheap called blue hickory. I'm not sure what makes it blue, but it's something that they pull from the sets of normal mills of hickory. It's pretty neat looking, and cheaper which is good. Don't worry, it won't be blue after the medium to dark stain we put on. It wouldn't work for a natural or light finish, but using this means we'll have a good quality wood for cheap. All it will cost us is some extra labor. I'm really looking forward to doing some of the work in this house ourselves though. It will make it feel more like "ours" if we put a little sweat equity into it I think. We picked up some sample pieces of it today and this weekend we are going to try different stains to see how it turns out and which one we like best. Maybe I'll take some pictures of that so I'll have SOMETHING visual to post :)

Regardless, things are coming along. I love snow and I'm glad we finally got some here; it's been a long time since we got some quality inches. But I'm going to be equally glad when spring and summer roll in!

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!

Waiting out the cold...

I know it's been a while since I last posted anything, but it’s only because there hasn't really been anything to post. We broke ground and then stalled as we waited for the money to come. I think we are on the precipice of some fast paced building, but we’re waiting on the cold to break so we can get going. Our lovely county has just recently increased the minimum temperature for pouring concrete, so we’ve had to wait for this cold weather to pass. I’m told our county is difficult to work with when it comes to meeting building codes and such, but I think this is one area where I’m not too bummed about their new requirements. I’d like to make sure our concrete is set perfectly too, so no whining on that front!

I will, however, whine about the stupid basement issue we’ve come across. The most tucked away room in the basement has a closet attached to it. The county says that since there is a closet, we have to have an egress window. So we either take out the window or add a window below grade that has a ridiculous 5 foot window well that no one will actually be able to use as an egress. This, of course, will cost more money. But I really can’t stand to lose that closet on the room since it’s going to be my office. Ugh. So we’ll put the window in. Thankfully, my builder is a thinker and suggested an alternative that won’t be quite as ugly or hazardous as a 5 foot hole in the ground next to the house. We’ll pull some soil away and do a retaining wall on that side of the house, which will cost about the same as the expensive window well. At least it will look better. But when you start coupling that added cost with the other added costs I’m sure we’ll have I start to stress about meeting the budget. I am determined to make it work though.

Casey tells me that the foundation footings are in place though so maybe I’ll head out to the site today and snap some pics. Maybe. I’m not too certain that it will be a very noticeable change, so I might not post pictures of it. Foundation? Sure, pictures will be posted, but footings are not overly exciting.

There are other notable events though…we closed on the construction loan and obtained an address for the new house. I won’t be posting the address online, but if you want it for future reference just shoot me an email.

Have a great Christmas everyone!

Photographic Proof

Ok, here it is. The first pictures of our future home.

I know it's not much to look at, but just close your eyes and picture something great. Or just take this for what it is...a few pictures of a hole in the ground that reveals a whole bunch of clay and rocks. Looking forward to planting a garden in that! Taking suggestions on that front by the way. What do you do with soil that looks like that? Gotta love Missouri! Thanks to Casey for sending those pics like I asked him to...such a good hubby! I sure know how to pick 'em.

Ground Breaking!

Today is the day of Ground Breaking. In that vein, I start this blog as a representative of my little family of two...for now...and a literal ground breaking in that the construction of our house started today! Yeah for us, but as we have neared this juncture I have received several requests to send pictures to let everyone see how it's going...no thank you to squeezing a bunch of pictures into email format and figuring out who wants to see them and bogging down inboxes, I get a headache just thinking about having to add that to my list of things to manage during this process.

So how do you share your life with multiple people across the globe who want to know the progress of the biggest project in your life without adding additional stress to the situation? You blog, my friend, you blog.

So today, we celebrate the beginning. The beginning of a journey that hopefully leaves us a happy little family ready to add more to the picture (when we're ready, so don't push). I expect some trying times ahead, but I think we're ready for the challenge.

I would love to say I can post a picture right now, but as I am out of town I have no access to today's events. This may be a prevalent theme and I'll try to get the man to help when he can, but try not to be disappointed throughout if there is delay in postings due to my travel status. Those are the kicks when the job that's financing this gig calls for travel. So my promise is to post what I can, when I can. So pop some Advil and bottoms up on that glass of water, we're in for some fun-filled stress!!!