Slow, Yet Quick

Though we feel like things are moving slow

We had to wait for this little guy to cross the road .

there's actually been quite a bit of progress in the last week.


Our plumbing is roughed in.




Our heating and cooling guy has been busy.




Our electrician has the boxes installed. He and his crew will be out next week to wire up the house.




Our garage floor is poured



and some sheetrock has been hung.




Even our shingles are on.


Our shingles deserve a close up. I went a little crazy with the shingle color. I'm hoping it turns out ok.

So a lot has been done though Dave and I feel like it's moving slowly. We are ready to put in some actual work (remind me I wrote that in a few weeks when I'm complaining of being tired). Our builder has estimated that he will have the house turned over to us in 3 weeks, so we'll be complaining, I mean busy, in no time :)

While the builders have been busy, Dave and I have also been working hard (just not manual labor). We purchased all of the materials for the decking last week. That was quite the process as each store in town had different sales and I'm a fanatic about getting a deal. I'm guessing that building the decks will be one of our first projects to tackle. I'll make sure to let you all know when this is going to happen since I'm sure you'll all be there to help.

I also purchased countertops for the kitchen and master bath; choose tile for the kitchen, sunroom, laundry room, and bathroom; and choose wood flooring for everywhere else. We met with the guy who is building our cabinets today and we figured out the layout for those. And we spent all day today measuring for the flooring and trim and cleaning up the entire house. Phew.

Only a million more things to tackle.

A Photo Update

Yep, porta-potty on it's side. I imagine that's nice inside.

The windows on the house are nice though.

Grrrreeeaaattt room.

Rub-a-dub-dub. We have a very dirty tub.

Upstairs bathroom plumbing, check. Windows, check.

Kitchen bar, kitchen plumbing, powder room plumbing.

Ductwork in place.

Awesome house (at least we think so).

Appliances

Dave and I have had a busy weekend so far. We spent yesterday in Omaha shopping for appliances.

We've been looking at appliances for a while now and were pretty sure of what we wanted. We had brands and model numbers ready to go. We just need to purchase them. When we left Nebraska Furniture Mart last night, we had purchased none of the items we came prepared to buy. Yep, we changed our minds completely. They had some awesome deals on other items and we couldn't pass them up. So, here's our latest purchases...

Whirlpool Dishwasher

Whirlpool Refrigerator

Whirlpool Washer and Dryer (Loving the blue!)

And my favorite....Electrolux Range (Did I mention it has 2 ovens??). We were able to get this guy in the budget because we got such great deals on the others! I'm so freakin' excited!

I'm not sure what we'll do with a dryer that doesn't take 3 times to get the clothes dry; a dishwasher (other than Dave); and a stove that actually works! Think of all the time we'll save.

We'll be heading out to the house to do some clean up tomorrow. The windows are in and they look awesome - I'll get lots of photos.

Hope your Memorial Weekend turned out as great as ours did!

-Sarah

Dumpster Diving

Our builders (like all, I'm sure) throw away so many good scraps of wood. Dave and Bryce couldn't let them all go to the dump.

Plus Dave likes to relive his high school years. Doritos or Cheetos for you?

Vacation? Ha!

I'm on vacation this week. I think work would be more relaxing.

My mom and I (thanks mom!) spent the last 3 days browsing through every countertop and flooring store in town. My legs hurt, my head hurts and I still haven't made any final decisions. My living room looks like this now:

These are the frontrunners, though Dave and I will be hitting one more place tonight.

And let’s be clear for any of you building a house in the future. When faced with a living room full of decisions, I suggest you bake a cake. The associated mess is optional but I find it’s the best way.

I'll make the important decisions later. But now I'm thinking cake...

-Sarah

Progress, Progress

Progress is being made....

We have a roof
We have lots of storage space above the garage

We have the makings of a roof for our deck

We have stairs

And lots of trash

Second Floor Is Up!

The builders were certainly busy last week. They have all of the exterior and interior walls up. We're just waiting on the roof.

View of the front of the house.

View from the 2nd story bathroom looking into the foyer which is two stories tall.

View from the catwalk looking out the back windows.

The supervisor working hard (or hardly working - whatever.)

Our other supervisor (basement rafters).

View of the back of the house.

Proud and excited owners.

We Got Walls!

Our builder called on Tuesday to let us know that the floor trusses for the main floor were done and were going up (they are built in a shop and hauled to the lot). Heck, last Friday we didn’t even have a concrete floor in the basement so this was pretty exciting. We got a chance to drive out there Wednesday night and boy were we surprised.

Ok, so you know the movie Annie? (Yeah, who doesn’t?) There’s a scene where Daddy Warbucks decides to adopt Annie and all of the hired help is dancing around the mansion singing “We got Annie!”. It’s quite the scene (trust me).

Anyway, Dave and I were totally feeling that excitement. Imagine us dancing around singing “We Got Walls”! Ok, so maybe we weren’t dancing around and Dave definitely wasn’t singing that, but I was (I’ll admit such things – you all know I’m weird).

So, yeah, we got walls! The whole main floor is up; the second floor and roof trusses were sitting on the ground ready to go. It’s a fabulous sight. We haven’t been back out there yet, but we are assuming the rest of the house is up!

View looking in to the garage.

Standing in my shower. For those of you who remember, I could do this in my dorm room. One hand was on the loft bed and one was on the wall. Yep, my shower is almost as wide as my dorm room (trust me that this is something we should all strive for).

View from the great room looking up and out into the back yard.

Basement (from inside).

Basement (from outside). Note the three large windows - we'll talk about those later.

Pile of walls for 2nd floor.

More walls for 2nd floor.

A Thinker

At what point do I stop referring to our new place as the lot? Hmmmm.....

A Teaser

Look closely....

It's About Time

Time for an update, that is. Things have been pretty busy around here – in addition to making tons of house decisions, we celebrated Dave’s birthday. It included baseball, Mexican food, and lots of tequila!

But, seriously, we have been pretty busy with house decisions. The windows have been ordered, but only after I added 6 to the original plans. We ended up ordering Integrity windows from Marvin (supporting the Jedlickas!). They’ll be white on the outside (I won’t even tell you how hard of a decision that was) and wood on the inside. After much deliberation, we went with casement windows (the kind that crank out) and the prairie grille style.

(This photo shows double hung windows-we went with casement, but you can see the grille pattern.)

All of the doors on the back of the house (1 french door, 1 sliding patio door, and 2 standard doors) will be all glass with the same grille pattern.

The front door was the hardest decision of all (but the one I’m most excited about). There are literally millions of combinations you can choose from. We ended up ordering a Therma-tru door with lots of glass, 2 sidelites, and a transom. As an added bonus we can paint it any color we want – any suggestions? I’m not going to post a picture of the door – you’ll have to visit to see it!

We also chose a siding color and stone. Our siding will be a medium colored brown (the color is called wicker) and our stone has browns, yellows, reds, and some blues in it. It’s hard to describe (as you can imagine).

See? We’ve been busy. But our contractors have been busy as well! (Hint, Hint – Check back real soon).

In the meantime, you can enjoy Dave and Gnome enjoying a drink at our bar!