We're Almost There

We haven't done many blog entries lately, partly because things are going a bit slower than we'd like, and partly because we've just been crazy busy. We are not very familiar with a good night's sleep these days and will be glad when it's all over with and we can sit down and do a crossword puzzle again, instead of having to discuss shower doors or tiles or where all of our money is going (eek!) until the wee hours each night.

The good news is that we have settled on December 15 as our move-in date. You may know that we had asked Mark (builder) to get us in by the end of November. He always just grinned at us when we would ask how we were doing to hit that date. Finally he admitted November was a bust, and said, "We'll get you in before Christmas." Great. Well, we moved into our Sellersburg house the week before Christmas, so why not do it again? Mark is pushing the crews to get everything wrapped up, but apparently all the subs are really busy right now, so there will be a few things that will be finished up after we move in (like maybe even our master shower doors!).

Since our last entry, the trim carpenters finished installing the window trim, baseboards, door trim and the stairway treads and railing. They are still waiting to build our fireplace mantle until we get the tile laid (that's another story). The painters took over as of last weekend. So far they had prepped and painted all the trim and doors (bright white to match the cabinets) and have put the first coat of paint on the main rooms (Benjamin Moore's Ashley Grey). The laundry room also has the first coat (Benjamin Moore's Nantucket Fog). By next Wednesday, they should be finished on the inside so that the hardwood floor guys can come back to sand and stain.

On the outside of the house, our porch columns were finally completed, the dirt was leveled and graded and the driveway was poured. It's nice not to have to put on old shoes just to walk into the house any more. I don't miss the gravel and mud mix! Unfortunately we missed the window for planting grass seed, so the yard will be dirt until the spring, but at least we don't have to walk in it.

We've been putting in a little sweat equity ourselves (I stress "little"). Keep in mind that Jason and I are not the most handy people. We decided to install all the closet shelving on our own, so we've measured and re-measured, and installed the first one in our laundry room closet, which is the simplest, just to make sure we knew what we were doing. It went well until we were trying to drill the side wall bracket on and we hit what turned out to be a heating duct. So we will be reviewing our pre-drywall photos before we do any more installation! We are actually eager to tackle the rest of the closets, but we've been waiting on the painters to get finished so we don't put the shelving right in the way of their painting.

We also installed all of our hardware on our cabinets in the kitchen and bathrooms. The polished nickel hardware in the kitchen really looks great with the white cabinets and the gray and white Carrara marble countertops. Jason and Mike still have to come back to finish installing the trim and to putty/caulk, so the cabinets still are not complete! We've asked our tile guy to come back and do the subway tile backsplash (same as the master shower) for us in the kitchen. We had planned on doing it ourselves, but since it's right in the most prominent room of the house, we're afraid to use that as our first-ever tiling project.

I have been doing lots of shopping for curtains, decor, sofas and occasional chairs. In turn, Jason (ever the pessimist) has been doing lots of freaking out over our dwindling bank account. Christmas shopping has certainly not been helping things! The good thing about changing to an entirely different color scheme from what we used to have is that I have an excuse to do two of my favorite things -- shop and decorate! The bad thing is that it costs money to shop and decorate. What a drag! Whose idea was that, anyway? Mr. Money-Watcher has put a temporary hold on my spending until we get the mortgage finalized and know that we can actually afford to live in this house we've been putting all this work into! Okay, I guess everything doesn't have to be perfectly set up just after we move in. Maybe a couple weeks after we move in will be fine (ha ha).

Live from Cincinnati...

Hollie and I are in Cincinnati this weekend for the Xavier University National Alumni Annual Meeting (she's the Louisville chapter president -- I'm just along for the free mini-vacation). Tomorrow is Xavier's Men's Basketball season opener...but I digress.

Lots to report in the past couple of weeks. First up is the cabinets, which my brother, stepfather, and I installed two weekends ago. The countertop was on by the following Wednesday (for some reason we don't have a pic including the countertop). I admit that I have yet to attach the hardware as well, so I promise to post an update when the kitchen is more complete.

Last weekend Hollie, Zachary, and I got some assistance with the medicine cabinets that will hang in the master bathroom. We bought them unassembled, so we had to build them and then stain them to match the cabinetry that will be in the master bath. Here you can see Zachary really getting into it. :)

We were pleasantly surprised to see our new mailbox completed on Thursday afternoon. We had it built to the same specifications as the 4 piers supporting the roof on the front porch of the house. It will be capped with limestone as a finishing touch.

And finally, this past week, the big transformation has been with the interior trim. The crew hung all the interior doors (in just 2 days) and has just completed the trim around the doors and windows.Next week, the baseboard will be installed and the stair treads, balusters, and newel post will be started.

Gotta rest up for the game, so I'm off to bed....

Locking Up

We are now at the point where we're locking up the house. Last week the wood floors were put in -- in one day! They are not the pre-finished type, so they will be sanded and stained on-site just before the house is ready to move in to. Little white hexagon tiles (3/4") are being laid in the bathrooms and laundry room, and I'm really excited about those. They are very "period." Our master shower is also being crafted with 3x6-inch white subway tiles (see photo), and eventually our kitchen backsplash will have those too.

On the outside of the house, trenches are being dug and utility lines are being laid. Unfortunately this past week has been a bit of a wash on that, though, because it's been raining almost the whole week. The good news on the rain is that our creek now has a bit of water in it again!

The most noticeable addition to the exterior, besides the siding being finished, is the garage doors. The style of the garage door panels and windows coordinates with our front door (would you expect anything less?). The three-lite pattern of the window panes also coordinates with the windows on the house. The white parts of the garage doors will be painted green to match the siding. I believe the painter is supposed to be back soon to paint the rest of the exterior.

Another addition to the outside of the house is the back deck. We were planning to add that on down the road, but because the back yard is such a slope, and because we'd have to build some sort of steps off the back door anyway, we decided to go ahead and do it. In the photo, you can see that surrounding the deck is trees that have just started turning colors for fall.

Last night we hosted the monthly Young family (my mom's side) poker game for the last time at the rental house. Several people met me beforehand at the new house for a pre-game tour. The first comment from my grandpa, ever the cynic, was, "How many people are going to live in this house? Forty-seven?" Gotta love him. :)

Jason, Mike (Jason's brother/cabinet guy) and Allen (Jason's step-dad) are busily installing the cabinets in the kitchen, master bathroom and upstairs bathroom this weekend. We'll try to get a blog entry up showing the cabinets by early next week.

Siding is going up

The same Amish crew that did our framing is now installing the siding and exterior wall trim. In the photo, you can see the green siding on the house and the cedar shingles in the gables.

On the inside, drywall was installed, mudded and sanded. It's amazing how much bigger the rooms look now that they are defined by walls. The painters took a first pass at the inside, priming the walls and ceilings. The primer was tinted to match the colors we chose for the walls, which is nice because we have a preview of the painted walls before we are committed. There is just one color we might tweak, which is the one that will be in all the main rooms on the first and second floors. (Does anyone besides me know the difference between brownish-gray and grayish-brown?)

The front door was installed late this week. It is very much Craftsman-style, with the divided lights at the top, the dentil "drip mold" ledge, and the vertical panels at the bottom. It will eventually be stained a medium brown color.

Because our lot is so sloped, we had to bring in loads of dirt to fill in around the house and to help direct the flow of water from the field uphill from our lot, so that it doesn't run right toward the house.

Lastly, kudos to Jason and his dad for sweating it out yesterday (literally -- it was 92 degrees on Oct.6!) to saw down a 40"-45" wide tree that had been hit by lightning and had become an eyesore. They also cleared out some brush out by the street to make room for our mailbox.

Coming attractions: Installing the unfinished hardwood floors and the tile in the bathrooms and laundry room.

Brickers, Insulators, Drywallers, and Septic

I've been reluctant to post any new pictures of the front facade of the house, mostly because the "front yard" is a junk pile. However, I'm so thrilled with our Craftsman-style brick piers (i.e. columns) that I had to snap a photo. The Amish masons did a fantastic job, and they are fast!! They bricked the entire skirt, the chimney (wow, what a ton of bricks!), and the piers in just a little over a week.

The initial insulation has also been completed this week. Hollie and I chose to go with foam insulation that gets blown in over traditional fiberglass insulation. The upfront costs are a little higher, but everyone (and I mean everyone -- even the plumber!) says this will be the best long-term investment we could have made over the life of the house. The insulator estimated our monthly utility bill at $60 or less.

The insulation installation process (say that 5 times fast) is pretty interesting. After initial sealing of the windows and other small cracks, the foam is blown in with a long tube from the truck. It then expands and fills in all possible voids within the walls and/or rafters. After the drying process, the guys come back with a large tool that scrapes the walls smooth so that the drywall attaches over the studs.

We should have drywall hung by early next week, at the latest. I expect that to have a huge impact, as rooms will be defined three-dimensionally for the first time. That is huge for me, as I think I was born without a right brain (that's right as in direction not as in sanity :) ).

And the dirtiest job of the week goes to Jerry, the guy who dug into bedrock to gingerly place two concrete tanks underground for the septic system. He also installed the lateral field in a...well, field...that sits just above the house. I can't see any of it of course, because he worked so fast it was all buried before I got there. I guess I'll have to take his word that it's all done. If it's not, I think we'll know pretty quickly. :)

All Stacked Up

The Amish masons are the newest crew at the house. So far they've completed the retaining wall, the basement walkout, and they're two-thirds of the way up the chimney. If you've seen our house on the lot, you know how high off the ground the top of the chimney is. If you haven't, it's over three stories up because it's on the walkout side of the house, and it extends up even with the peak of our highest roofline. Let's just say we're glad they're not afraid to climb the scaffolding and balance up there for hours on end while placing bricks and mortar!

We chose the brick several months ago after reviewing samples the size of a placemat. Luckily we picked out a winner! Our brick is the Catawba Vista design by Hanson Brick, which has a mix of several muted colors. It's made to look old, because the edges are rough and the surface has bumps, rather than a smooth, even finish. We also chose buff mortar instead of the standard gray, because buff is more "period." I don't think anyone could say that Jason or I pick anything on a whim -- everything is chosen for a specific reason!


Other happenings around the house: shingles on the roof, a newly-poured concrete garage floor and the first steps toward insulation.

Coming up: expert masonry skills will be used to create our tapered porch columns. We can't wait -- those columns will really define the look of the front of the house.

Electricians and plumbers and painters! Oh, my!

There has been a lot of action going on at the house the past couple of weeks. Now we have electricians, plumbers, heating & air guys, painters, fireplace installers, and our trusty cabinet guy (Jason's brother Mike, my biggest fan) working around each other and the Amish framing crew.

The electricians are putting in all the boxes and wiring for lights, ceiling fans, power outlets, cable outlets, wall switches, etc. The plumbers have rouged in the baths, run PVC pipes through the house, laid the shower liner in our master shower, and installed Zachary's tub/shower. The heating & air guys have cut lots of holes in the floors and the wall joists to run their ducts, air vents and return vents. The painters have painted all the exterior trim, which includes the the trim pieces around the windows, the beadboard and molding under the eaves, the exposed rafter tails, and the decorative brackets that attach to the eaves. (In the photo, you can see our upstairs front gable with the painted trim and brackets.) The fireplace installers just came today to put in our direct vent gas unit. And last, but certainly not least, Mike drew in where the cabinets will sit in the kitchen and bathrooms so the other guys would know where to, or not to, put pipes and wires.

It's been a circus, but it's great to see things moving along and to see more people working on the house than the framers, who have been there for months (no offense, guys!). I think our electrician and heating & air guy almost came to blows today fighting over space in the wall by the front door, but the heat (highs of 90 to over 100 degrees for most, if not all, of August) probably slowed them down. It's been brutally hot, and I'm surprised anyone can stand to work on our house in this heat. It makes Jason and me very grateful for our cushy air-conditioned work places.

Stairway to ... well, you know

It was the bane of our existence a couple weeks back, but it's been settled now and we're moving on ... but we have not forgotten. What am I babbling on about, you say? Well, we had to compromise our original stairway layout, and we're not very happy about it.

Somehow the way the drafter drew it in the plans did not fit in the allotted space in real life. (Apparently this is not an uncommon occurrence in home construction -- right, Mike and Michelle?) Basically, we needed room for two more stairs up to the second floor, to get the angle we needed to fit within code and to provide enough headroom for the basement door and basement steps.

There was supposed to be a landing on the main floor, with the stairway to one side, a wall across, and open on the other facing sides (see photo). The landing was supposed to serve as a walkway to get from the hallway outside our master bedroom to hallway servicing the dining area, laundry area and garage. Unfortunately, by the time the framers figured out it couldn't be built as it was drawn by our drafter, the wall facing the stairway could not be moved out to accommodate the extra needed space, because it is a load-bearing wall, holding up the main support beam down the middle of the house.

So we had to change our plans and move the landing up higher, add a step to one side, and we'll have to add a railing to the other side. We'll no longer be able to use it as a walkway, which is a bummer, because that was a neat, and unique, feature of the house. Believe me when I say we tried everything to avoid making the change! Now, nobody else would ever know that there's anything "wrong," but we will always know ....

We have windows!

That's what I squealed in Jason's ear yesterday afternoon when he answered his cell phone. What a difference the addition of color makes to the exterior of the house! I can't wait to see how the burgundy windows will pop against the green (Dried Thyme from Sherwin-Williams) siding. In case you are interested, the windows are from Semco, double-hung clad with simulated divided lights -- three over one -- in Vintage Burgundy. We just chose our exterior trim color today, which is Rockport Gray, one of the Pottery Barn colors from Benjamin Moore (Spring 2007) . Mark asked me for the trim color earlier in the week, which caught me off guard since we don't even have any trim up yet. He said we can go ahead and paint the rafter tails and the beadboard on the underside of the rafters. The siding is on order, and the brick for the skirt and chimney is supposed to be coming soon.

By the way, this is my first blog entry ever. Jason has been nagging me for a while to do one, but I told him I like his witty comments just fine. Finally the windows inspired me enough to do it. Be sure to leave me some comments so I'll be motivated to post again!

Ready for Prime-Time

With the vapor barrier on (mostly) and the steps going in, the next week or two should bring windows and brick to the construction site. The brick will only be used as a skirt to the house -- from the first level's floor down to the ground. From there up, we'll have fiber-cement siding (no maintenance! -- Hollie and Jason's best friend :) ). We're really excited about the color we have chosen for the outside.

It's weeks like last week and especially this coming week that remind me how fortunate I am to have a job indoors. The highs all week are slated to be 96-98 degrees. I really feel for the Amish crew, but they sure do a good job!

So...

...it actually looks a little bit like a house now. With rafter construction underway, the overall shape of the house is starting to become a little clearer.

Hollie and I have really been in a whirlwind of decision-making. The faucets are already in (thanks, Uncle Todd!) so that is one thing out of the way. Lately, we have been focusing a lot on the cabinets & countertops, both in the kitchen and the bathrooms. I'm afraid my brother may be sorry that Hollie and I are the first clients for his new business (Trinity Kitchen And Bath - coming soon!). I can't imagine how frustrating it will be to try to decide where to put all the electrical outlets - that is coming soon.

We did decide to add a (roughly) 12' x 25' deck to the back of the house. We will have to compromise on some of the finer finishing touches we were hoping for to get some of the practicality, but it will all be worth it come November (better be November, right Mark? :) ).

Mark told me they won't build the steps to the second floor until the roof is on. Personally, I think it's just his way of keeping me off the second floor and finding something to complain about. :)

Tragedy

Sorry for the lack of updates, but there is a good reason. We got a call from Mark (builder) on Monday morning to tell us that one of the young Amish workers who are so skillfully framing our house was killed over the weekend on his farm. He was only 14 years old.

Apparently, the family had recently obtained a new horse, and this young man was breaking him in. The horse threw him and dragged him; once he was able to free himself from the reins, the horse stepped on his chest. He was taken to (and actually released from) the hospital, but they did not realize the extent of his internal injuries, and he passed away the next morning.

Rest in peace!

Wood

Ah, it sure is nice to have some material on site that is not concrete or rock. With framing well under way, the structure should really start to take shape over the next week or so. What a convenient time for our local drought to end!

The picture is from the front porch looking down at the basement. The walkout is near the center of the picture in the back part of the basement.

Foundation

Well, it all feels really real now. In the past week, we have dumped I don't know how many tons of concrete in and around (and rising above) the hole in the ground. I was mesmerized by the machine that is used to pump the concrete into the foundation -- it's part truck, part spider -- like something out of "Blade Runner," only Harrison Ford was nowhere to be seen. As you can see, we now have a foundation (sans floor). Next up is the waterproofing and backfilling (I can almost see the anticipation on your face!).

Anybody got a few dozen tons of dirt they want to get rid of?!?!

Slow Going

Progress has not been going as quickly as I had hoped, especially with all the dry, warm weather we've been having lately. At this point, all we have is a hole in the ground (and an expensive one at that :) ). We are supposed to have the foundation poured this week. Of course, we were also supposed to have it poured last week. I am learning that I should not expect things to move along at a pace I would like :(

It doesn't take much...

...to make me happy. After nearly a year on the new-home roller coaster, any visible progress is exhilarating. So, even though it's only a few tons of rock dumped on a muddy plat of land, Hollie and I couldn't be happier. We're supposed to have a hole in the ground by the middle of next week -- who knows how I'll react after that?!?

Aching Hands

So we signed papers for about an hour on Friday, all for the right to be thousands of dollars in debt. The good news, of course, is that we are free to make improvements on the land now. The driveway was going in today, but I have not had the camera out to take pictures. I hope to have some updates in the next day or so.

374 Days

That's how many days it will be from the day we put our house up for sale (April 18, 2006) to the day we close on our loan to begin construction (April 27, 2007). I'd say we certainly erred on the side of conservatism. The good news is that since the house was sold (September 29, 2006) we have been able to save money to help with the new house. The initial goal was to avoid having two mortgage payments (does rent + a mortgage payment count as two mortgage payments?? :) ), so for the past 7 months that has been a success.

We're supposed to knock down some trees this week or next. Stay tuned!

And now to the bank...

Got the quote finalized over the last couple of days. Now our loan is in the hands of the lender. It will take an excruciating 3 weeks for finalization of the loan, but hopefully that means that we can break ground before the month is over.

I'm not holding my breath. :)

Plans are with the Builder

Hollie and I are anxiously awaiting news from the builder on the cost of construction for the new house. This is the third set of plans we have given him (some would say Hollie's tastes are a bit extravagant :) ).