Stairs & Sheetrock

The staircase starts to take shape as the sheetrock goes up around it.

There was obviously something going on with all these vices and green plastic around some sort of wood here. After talking to the trim carpenters the next day (I like to meet all the guys at the house and take pictures of them working... :-), I found out that it was the handrail for the curve on the bridge here.

See, there are the trim carpenters working on the stair railings. :-) They were very friendly and told me to come on in - since it was my house, after all... Well, kind of...

Oh, my goodness, this looks so cool! I LOVE the wrought iron railing!

Oh, and here's a neat detail on the brick that wasn't finished in the previous pictures. Those brickers did a really good job, even though they did leave soda cans inside the walls... well, at least they were SODA! Not sure about the trim guys, though. I don't think SODA is their drink of choice...

If Walls Could Talk

I'm a bit behind in our building progress pictures, so I thought I'd better do some catching up before we actually move in! Things seem to be moving very quickly all of a sudden...

The brick is almost completed around the house - still some little things here and there that they have to come back for. These pictures were just before they finished one side of the house.

As it dries, we are convinced that it really is the brick we think we picked. Still a bit on the orang-y side, but we can chalk that up to the "die lot".

Can you see the momento one of the brickers left for us? Yes, if walls could talk, what would they tell you was left behind for no one to find...?

Dad just happened to have stuck his head out a open window upstairs and discovered this treasure. Maybe it adds stability...? (click on the picture to make it bigger if you can't see it)

"I told you it hurt!"

Once, you kind of grimace and chalk it up to not being a nursing major in college.

Twice, you start wondering if the delay in reading the x-rays is because they're calling someone to come and "talk to you"...

We had lived in a 2-story house all of 2 weeks when Bear tripped on the "little" steps in the gameroom and broke her little toe before church last Sunday. She said we had too many stairs... The swelling and blue and purple colors told us it was probably hurt pretty bad. (I don't have any pictures of her toe! Does that make me an even worse mom, or what?!)

And as we were leaving the emergency clinic she said "I told you it hurt!"

So, when Little Girl fell off a friend's scooter Friday night, we thought, "Oh, no! Not again!" With no swelling or discoloration, we decided it was probably sprained. She complained about it off and on through the evening. Mawmaw and Pawpaw were coming to watch her play soccer the next day and since it was still hurting, she found Little Buddy's left hand brace (from his sprained thumb three weeks ago) and put it on her right wrist. She said it made it feel better and I kind of thought some extra protection during the game wouldn't hurt.

She was a little maniac on the field. We thought maybe she'd better wear that brace again next week, because she scored 4 goals and was a little firecracker. Her team is really coming together and they worked so good together this weekend.

So, when it was still hurting her after the game, I thought I'd better take her to have it looked at. And yes, the thought did cross my mind that being at the emergency clinic two weekends in a row was probably not a good thing. Luckily it was a different team of doctors and nurses there the 2nd time...

I think the doctor was as surprised as I was to look at Little Girl in her soccer gear and find that her wrist was actually broken. She said Little Girl was a "tough cookie". Kind of comes with the territory of being the youngest of 4 and Little Buddy's little sister...

She was so excited about her hot pink cast that will match her soccer uniform.

She's a sweetheart, but she can hold her own on the soccer field - broken wrist and all!

She did say on our way out of the emergency clinic last Saturday "I told you it hurt!"

3 weeks and 1200 pictures later...

And what's really bad is that only a small handful of those pictures are of the kids!

Well, the last post was the day before moving commenced. And, yes, I've taken at least 1200 pictures since that day... Oh, heavens the scrapbooking! Anyone know of a good scrapbooking consultant I can talk to?


This post will be dedicated to the new house. I'll get another post ready with what's been going on with the rest of us...


This was the morning we started loading up the moving truck to head out to the rent house. You can see the sun just peaking up over the hill on the back of the new house.














They had delivered the windows a few days earlier, but this was the first chance I'd had to get a good picture of them. Looks like we're missing a few here... (and actually, there were about a half dozen that came in another order)





The walls are closing in!

Little Buddy demonstrates how much room he's going to have in his big new shower...

The roofers were obviously getting paid by the hour, because they took an entire week to roof the house. We thought they were NEVER going to get done! We still have some questions about a few places, though... Could have been their first roofing job...

They finally poured the last bit of driveway that leads from the street. Still didn't get there in time to make our mark...

The "mystery bricks"... We really hope this is the brick we think we picked. We know it has the right name on it, but it just looks so WRONG sitting out by the house. We took a few loose bricks over to another house that is "supposed" to be the brick we selected. If indeed they have "Union Station" on their house, it is the correct brick. Can't wait to see it start going up...!

The rocks for the fireplace. Should look good with the "mystery brick"!

Getting closer and closer to our pre-drywall walkthrough.

For Grandma

Ok, Grandma - here are some pictures of the 2nd floor. :-)


Our first stairs. None of us has ever lived in a house with stairs. It's so exciting! (right now, anyway...) :-)




I'm sure we'll have a different view a year from now.
Little Girl in her room - still need a window frame moved... (her closet is to the right and her bathroom is out of the picture.)

















Bear in her room (closet behind her to the right - bathroom to the left)


Yes, we were walking around UPSTAIRS and across the "bridge" with wide-open walls framed. Yes, my knees were a bit wobbly at times... The kids were actually very careful. Of course, they were threatened to do so. Little Buddy is crossing here and Little Girl is waiting at Bear's bedroom door for her turn to cross. (To the right of Little Buddy is the open family room - to the left is the staircase - there will be wrought iron railings across here.)






Bit in her room - an awkward shot because her room is down a hall and I wasn't going near the edge to get a clear shot into her room. Wobbly knees. Her bathroom and closet are all on the right of the picture.










Second floor is taking shape.


Rafters going up. The house is looking rather tall because it's sitting up on a hill.


It's difficult to see, but they delivered the windows yesterday and they're all up on the front porch between the garages.

Hard at work early this morning. Still haven't moved one of Little Girl's bedroom windows, but while I was out walking the construction super stopped his truck to say hi and told me they were working with the framers to get that resolved. The framers need to have something on paper to look at and they're having trouble finding the blueprint info they need to set it straight. Fortunately, they aren't building this house again in our neighborhood, so we can tweak some things and no one will say, "but that house has... and we want that too..."

Spider Lilies

This post is for the fabulous young lady who now owns these beautiful spider lilies in the front yard... *wink*

We have big beautiful blooms out front today.

Notice that one of these blooms has red tips on the "spider legs" and one has yellow tips. I'm sure that means something to their genetic make up...

Now, there are times when I'm surprised about things that pop up out of the ground in some of our beds. I had forgotten that we had planted those spider lilies out front because they had been dormant for two years. However, I can NOT think of what this thing is. Any ideas what we planted that would be coming up NOW and looking like this...??? I'm anxious for it to open so I can see what it might be. Tulips bloom in the spring, don't they??

A Bloom Just in Time

We were hoping to harvest a few bulbs that are dormant right now before we head out of our home of 10 years for good this weekend. There are the snowdrops from Mawmaw. There are the numerous day lillies - from Mawmaw. There are a few things I don't even know about until they come up - most of them from Mawmaw.

Then, there are the spider lillies we dug up at Little Mawmaw's house in Louisiana two years ago after she died. We brought those home and planted them in a few places in the front yard and the back yard. We haven't heard from them since. That is, until yesterday.




We have three that shot up in no time out front. Guess we won't be taking these with us. If it completely opens up before we get everything moved, I'll take another picture.



It's so fun to see these things grow. I can't wait to get overwhelmed with all the backyard (and front yard!) potential in the new house next spring! Got some 4 o'clock seeds just waiting in a baggie. Never tried those here... :-)

Walls and Woes

As we watched and waited all week for framing to begin, I was so glad to at least know why it wasn't going. They began delivering the framing materials on Monday. However, we knew nothing would start going up until they fixed the electrical box by the utility pole.

They had originally installed the pole on the southern corner of the lot. However, the hook up was actually on the northern corner of the lot. Don't know, didn't ask... So, I think that because there was no utility pole there, the unknown and covered up electrical box just got clobbered by all the equipment out there. THEN, they had to replace the box to get the utility pole hooked up so the framers could start working with their compressors. I'm so glad we knew about the electrical hold-up or I might have gone nuts looking for progress on the framing all week long. As it was, the box finally got repaired late Wednesday. Utility pole hooked up on Thursday and - woo-hoo - walls on Friday.

Then on Saturday, we found our first "stuck in stone" woe... Our 2nd bathroom (Little Buddy's) has a drain set for a shower instead of a tub. It's on the 1st floor, so it's LITERALLY stuck in stone... Of course, all the plans show a tub. There are good things, of course, and we'll probably get a nicer tile out of the deal. BUT, who thinks Little Buddy is going to be squeegeeing his glass shower every day...?? Yeah, exactly! Ugh. I really liked the idea of just buying him a new shower liner every few months for his tub. Every time he uses our glass shower in our bathroom, it's like shower, conditioner and soap explosions all over the place... Ugh. BUT, I did pray many times over the past 24 hours for God to help me come to a peace about his bathroom situation (oh, my goodness, how bad is my OCD! What a drop in the bucket of other things worth worrying about!) and I do feel much better about the discovery now. It's certainly not like we're going to have them infringe upon the integrity of the foundation by moving the drain now...

The 2nd floor is decked and they should be starting the 2nd floor framing bright and early Monday morning. No rain predicted for the week, so it should be a very productive house-building week.

In the mean time, it's utter chaos in our current residence as we prepare to move out of our home of 10 years next weekend... Even the kids are feeling the bittersweet emotions of the move from the only house they've really ever known. Bit got "stuck" yesterday in her packing and just couldn't do anymore. She was overwhelmed. I found her sitting on the floor in her room just staring at everything. It's nice to know they feel an attachment and appreciation for what we have here. Four more school nights of shower sergeant duty as the kids share one bathroom... I REALLY have great visions of how much easier it's going to be in the rent house with a couple more bathrooms for the kids. High hopes.

We Beat Ike!

We've woken up every morning this week to drizzly rain and wondered if the trucks would come despite the on-again-off-again rain. We desperately hoped the foundation would be poured and set before all the major hurricane storms hit this weekend. I checked by the lot Thursday morning before I headed out of town all day for a meeting and when I got back I was both thrilled and hugely disappointed.

They had poured the foundation that day!

I had missed getting pictures of the big concrete pumping truck!

I was so looking forward to getting that picture for the books. Plus I knew Little Buddy would think that was just way cool. By the time I got to the lot that afternoon, the regular cement truck was pouring the last of the double garage to finish up the foundation.








We had a meeting with the construction super today and then went out to watch them begin to pour the aggregate driveway.









The driveway and most of the sidewalk is now poured. I don't know when they'll come back and do the rest of the drive down to the street. They're waiting until after Ike dissipates to deliver the framing package. We should actually see a house on the lot by this time next week. Oh, so exciting!

VERY surprising - Dad let Little Buddy climb up into the Cat that they left sitting on our the lot this afternoon after doing a bit of rough grading after all the foundation work. Cool photo op.