Lights Fantastic

Like everything else, the lights are almost all installed.

The coach lights by the garage doors are almost all in. Two are still backordered. (silver circle on the left) The front porch light is in. The electricians are obviously still working since their ladder is still in the entry from putting up the light there.

Master vanity light.


















Master bedroom fan. I'm so excited about not having brass and white light fixtures. I like these dark ones much better.

Kitchen & breakfast area lights and tile installed. Still working on the under counter lights.

The tile backsplash is caulked now. Looking good.

We were there when they installed the study doors. They were FAST!

The fan kit is now installed on the back porch and the "home theatre" guy came and capped off all the surround sound pre-wiring.

The gutter guys just began their work. We watched them for a while. They are definitely masters of their trade.

The Weekend Report

And here's another exciting report on house progress as of late. And, the best part is, it's current as of today. I love completing tasks... :-)

So, today was a great workout. I may not be able to walk tomorrow due to all the squats I did. They finished grading the whole lot yesterday, so we spent several hours this afternoon working our way methodically across the freshly raked dirt digging up rocks, bricks, iron, plastic, aluminum cans, pipes, rebar, concrete, bottles & wood. Can you believe I forgot to take a picture of the pile of stuff we loaded into the wheelbarrow?

Anyway, here are highlights of the past day or so.

They have begun light fixture installation. No biggies yet, but most of the upstairs is done. Here's the gameroom: can lights, ceiling fan, light switches, sconces in the little "hallway" to Bit's room, outlet covers, smoke detectors.

Bathroom light fixtures are in. Here's Little Girl's bathroom.

The guys were busy in the kitchen. I think they really did think I was loony. They weren't as friendly as the tile guys. I liked the tile guys. The electrical guys are installing the lights and switch plates here. The cabinet guy over in the corner is working on the cabinet we were waiting on for the microwave that was backordered.

One of the electrical guys was outside working on the meter box and the AC connections.

We didn't have a fan on the other porch, so that's a cool new thing.

We found a little house guest that didn't make it through the freezing night last night. He was still pretty fresh. Looked like he got stuck to the tape and couldn't snuggle in somewhere. Cutie, but glad we found him before he started stinking up the place.

Dad got and excuse to go buy his wheelbarrow last night, so we could put it to use as we cleaned up the lot. Dad, Little Buddy & Little Girl are down there picking up while I took a few pictures. Little Girl will probably be more sore than Little Buddy tomorrow due to harder work. Little Buddy ended up running off and playing with a neighbor for a while. Such a task-driven child...

Bit and Bear missed out today (or we missed out) since they're at Disciple Now this weekend. Next year, we shall be a host home! Yippee!!

Kitchen with cabinets and lights completed. Tile guys need to come back now to do the backsplash now that the cabinets are all in.

They Say They Won't Be Done Until January 26th...

It's been a busy week. Tile. Grout. Electricity. Water. Gas. Counters. Plumbing. Toilets. Grading. But, they still say we won't be done until January 26th. Ok. Maybe they've just already pegged us for our pickiness and they know they're in for several weeks of nit-picking... :-)



Here's Little Buddy in his crazy-big shower. Crazy because it's bigger than the shower in our master bathroom. Something wrong with that...






The wall tile on a diagonal in the master bath looks so much better. I'm glad we saw it the other way so we could appreciate our choice to upgrade.







The tile guys had stopped a few rows short on the Kitchen tile. I think because one got put in that was chipped. Those suckers are seriously stuck (we know!) as soon as they hit the mud/cement-stuff, so they had to wait until it dried and chip it out. They replaced it this week and finished tiling.
Water connection is all tapped off now, so plumbing can commence!

Kitchen countertops, sink and faucet. We're still waiting on a back-ordered cabinet, so they haven't put the tile backsplash in yet. Those counter tops look green with the light and plastic on them like that, but they're really a black granite with a fleck of green. We're hoping the green isn't dominant...

Water heaters installed and working. (I was there when they were testing them. It was wild to hear water running all through the house.

The half-bath has one of those cool furniture-style vanities. Looks neat. I hope I don't go nuts trying to sweep under it...

And the plethora of toilets were installed and flushing. Yes, if we have a stomach bug invade our whole house at the very same time, we are covered.

They started grading around the house and getting the drainage all fixed.

They took the erosion control stuff down. It looks so weird to see sidewalk now instead of all the mess of black stuff mesh wiring. Surely they're going to put something back there because it's WAY too early to be thinking about sod...

Tile and Things

The tile guys went to town on the floors and tubs/showers.

I wasn't sure, but after checking back on our paper work sure enough the tile in the master bath was supposed to be on a diagonal on the walls. Ugh! To the tile guys' credit, their paperwork was wrong. So, they had to come back and rip off all the tile on the walls around the tub and shower. And, having seen it like this first, we were glad we went for that upgrade.

Little Buddy's bathroom is like solid tile now.



















The girls' tubs look like Little Girl's here.











Bear's bathroom vanity and floor tile - just like the other two girls' bathrooms.



Gas line connected to the house.

Electric line connected to the house.






Study doors delivered.











Hey, look! Little Buddy's window is already broken. That was fast!

Here's our little thing that's a work in progress right now. Itty-bitty shallow front steps. Totally out of proportion to the rest of the front porch. I can't even put a planter on a step. We're in "discussion" about it. They've run out of bricks, though...

Family Weekend

Quite the "family weekend"... We had a "family game night" where the kids planned this MAJOR rotation deal only to have the parents say "let's just pick one game." I don't know where they get their planning and organizing tendencies... Anyway, we ended up playing LIFE for 2 1/2 hours. TWO AND A HALF HOURS! ONE activity for us for THAT long. Amazing! And it took TWO AND A HALF HOURS because we had to read the instructions every time someone had a turn. Have you played a new game of LIFE lately? Oh, my goodness it is SO much more complicated now that when I played as a kid. Kind of reflects life now, I guess. It was really a lot of fun and everyone did a great job playing. Dad got a little impatient, but we were all ready for bed by the time we got everything counted up. Sorry, no pictures. (Mom was too busy reading the instructions and tending the "bank"...)

So, the next day we went on a family hike.

We went way out in the *country*.

We hiked for *miles*.

Across the creek (tree line) is our dentist's house. He has longhorns (boo!) and a really cool barn.

Oh, and look at that! There's our new house over there! (far right).

Ok, so we really just walked down the street into all the undeveloped area north of our new house.

It really was a hike, though! They're dumping dirt and rocks down there. Hmmm, I think I know where we might get some landscaping materials. Shhh....

Multi-tasking Overload

Building a house is like multi-tasking on Starbuck's strongest drink. Before one thing gets done, another gets started and before long you have 15 jobs going at the same time. I keep thinking that we're going to reach another "task" and I'll be able to report on the previous one. The problem is that the previous one is still going and I can't report on its completion. REALLY messes with my task-driven mind...

So, here's a very disjointed (to me anyway) report on how the house is progressing. Hang on because this is a long picture-filled post...


The painters were finally able to get back outside yesterday to finish painting all the trim on the outside. Still didn't get the little wooden thing on the front, though. Did they miss it?


The beadboard is installed and stained on the back porch. They still have to come back and touch up the trim around the stained part.

All the interior doors and most of the mouldings are trimmed out. The painters have been working for a week now, but the rain slowed them down outside. Can't wait to "repaint" some of the rooms with our own colors. It's ridiculous how much they want to charge for "custom colors". I miss my "Gobi Desert" from the old house...

Well, they've installed almost all the interior doors. The french doors into the study are still missing.

Yeah! My "medicine cabinet". Long story...

Closet rods and shelves are in place. I think I've figured out how to arrange my VERY OWN personal closet. It's not big, but it's MINE. :-)

The kitchen cabinets are another long story, but we're excited about the dark color. I think they had to re-order some of the cabinets because they forgot about moving the microwave to make room for the double oven. Yeah, double oven! Bread and meat - two different temps - done at the same time! :-)

We didn't "upgrade" much, but we definitely wanted the stone on the fireplace. I keep thinking they're going to finish it so I can take a "complete" picture, but it hasn't happened yet.

They delivered dirt yesterday. I don't know why, but I took a picture. I mean, I don't know what the dirt is for. I took a picture because it was new. I know why I took the picture.

Here's a picture of the dent in the garage door. And they still have to switch out the windows in the single garage. They're backordered.

And today, the tile guys brought all their goodies! They said (yes, I talked to them, too...) they would be done in 2 or 3 days. That's so funny since it took Dad and I WEEKS (weeks!) to tile our kitchen, laundry room and 2 bathrooms last summer. These guys have 6 bathrooms, a kitchen/breakfast room, laundry room, mud room and lots of hallways to tile. Oh, plus all the showers/tubs and the kitchen backsplash. They're so good...

I was so excited to see the tile we picked out. It's been 5 months since we saw it last, so I couldn't remember what it looked like. I guess this is it. Looks like it, I guess. This one is the main tile for most of the areas downstairs. (except Little Buddy's bathroom) Already looks dirty. I consider that a good thing.


This one is the tile for all the secondary bathrooms. I'm not sure I'm real crazy about it, but too late now! No, I'm sure it will be fine. It kind of looks dirty, too. I'll consider that its redeeming quality.