The Weekend

The weekends are getting more and more busy… and tiring! We did finally finish the stonework on the end of the house this weekend. It’s beautiful, we are very pleased and think we did a pretty good job for a couple of old, tired people :-).

When we finished that, we began putting the mortar on the front.  We got about 2/3 of the way through, so that is a project for next weekend.  We’ll also get as much of the back of the house as possible.

We did have some help.  The good boy got to go with us.

Good Boy

 

The bad boy got to stay home.  Sad but true.  He is bad, bad, bad.  On the occasions we’ve taken him, I’ve been worn out by the time we got to the house just from the ride in the truck with him.  One of the problems is that our property isn’t fenced yet.  So while the good boy follows us around and on the rare occasion he wanders to the border, comes right to us when we call…the bad boy makes an immediate run for the border the minute he gets there.  You’d think that with over 5 1/2 acres we could contain him to the middle.  Nope.  He just loses his mind.

Bad Boy

Working on the house is starting to be exhausting, but we’ll get there.  Our framing inspection failed last week, so everything was halted.  We have to put a fire break between the basement and first floor, so Daniel-the-Builder is working on the solution.  Hopefully that will get done this week.  There were two or three little things to be done that we finished this weekend.  Other than that, some extra support for the ceiling beams, and we’ll be able to move forward with insulation and walls.

 Did I mention it’s exhausting?

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What a Week!

My boss has been out of town on business for a few days, so I’ve been being busy being him. How do they all know when he’ll be gone???? It’s been busy, busy, busy at work, time for performance reviews, budgets for FY09, new projects being implemented, too many projects, not enough people…I could go on, but let’s just leave it at BUSY.

Then there’s the house building. There is just so much happening at once. We went out today after work, and were very surprised to see stone going up on the end of the house (we are having the ‘stone guy’ do the garage end of the house, we’ll do the rest). The front porch and landing are almost done. It looked incredible, I couldn’t believe it. Did I have my digital camera? No. Because I knew there was no need, there was no way there would be much, if any progress made this week, since we knew the crews weren’t out there Monday. I was so wrong. I did take some pictures with my camera phone (phone/camera…whatever). Problem is, I don’t know how to download the pictures from my phone, so I have to take the digital camera out this weekend to get pictures. Yes, I know…I’m the technical lead of an IT software development team. And no, I can’t download pictures from my phone. What can I say? :-/. I’ll take time to figure it out someday.

We are so pleased with the house so far. We designed the house ourselves, and even though we always believed we’d love it, seeing it come together just like we dreamed it is absolutely incredible. Courtney says it’s like it’s being ‘born’ over time. Each time we go out and see progress, we feel like proud parents :-).

We picked out tile for the master bath shower and floor, and secondary bath and laundry floor today. Our next big task is deciding on the kitchen cabinets. The biggest decision there is to decide if Mike will build the island, or if we’ll have it built. Still thinking on that one.

We did miss a big event this past weekend. It’s the first year in several that we’ve not ridden the Spring City Cycling Club Century ride. We really missed it, but are so proud of Paul for completing his first 100 miler, Ellen for riding a great 52 miles, and Chris finishing the Metric Century on…yes…once again, his MOUNTAIN BIKE! No kidding. Amazing that he can do that on the hills on that ride. Crazy! Hopefully we’ll be rejoining them next year, when we’re all settled in our new home.

Chris and Ellen

Paul

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OK, We’re Good

If you read the post below, you know that we’ve had a bit of a house building issue.  Well, all is good in Alabama.  We met with Daniel-the-Builder and the lead framer this afternoon at the property.  The framers have to undo a lot of the work they’ve done on the ceiling to add a horizontal beam, so when they re-do, they’ll do it the way we want, which is, CATHEDRAL.  That’s sloped. We know that now. 

We made a few other changes…we will have 11 foot walls in the living area, and we aren’t going to have the ceiling done in ‘tongue and groove’ cedar.  Instead, we’ll have it sheet-rocked, and maybe add some rustic beams.  We’re installing hardwood flooring that is very varied in color, and started thinking that the ceiling and floor could compete, so we’re simplifying.

So we had a good afternoon, found a few other little changes to make.  Then a very nice end to the day, Courtney came over and we cooked!  Well, sort of.  We made chicken salad and pasta salad for her to take to work for lunches this week, and we made artichoke dip to snack on while we cooked.  We had a lot of fun catching up…even though she lives just across town, we don’t see one another very often, so it was really nice.  And nice to take a break from the house building for a bit, it seems like it’s all we think and talk about.

But, break is over, we have to review fixture estimates before tomorrow, have to visit the stone store tomorrow, and visit the fireplace store.  Oh, and order the garage doors we picked out today.

It’s fun.  It’s stressful :-/.  It’s fun.

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Framing Has Begun

We spent a very nice day at the building site today, bush-hogging and doing 6 hours worth of lots of other things…Mike managed to spend all that time picking up litter from the builders (there really wasn’t that much), getting all the concrete spills on the ground into a pile, stacking stuff, sweeping stuff, cleaning stuff…Mike stuff.  Sometimes that OCD works in my favor.

The weather was beautiful, breezy and not hot most of the time.  Much different than 2 weeks ago when I had heat rash for the first time ever, and we both got totally dehydrated.

Here’s the house from the road.

Front of house from the road

Here’s a close-up.  With Mike looking for something to do.  This is the garage, the sub-floor goes on top.

Up close of garage end

We should have sub-flooring Monday, and whatever else they can get to.

Meanwhile, we’re having a French door crisis.  We need 2 sets, exterior.  Everything we find is waaaay more expensive than the amount in our budget, even though we had decided to at least double that amount.  Meanwhile, D-t-B is saying to get doors and windows, they’ll need them soon.

If anyone has any French Door advice, please share?!

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