Kitchen

Bill, Dustin, and my brother installed our kitchen cabinets today, they look great. Bill has a few finishing touches yet to do on them, such as hardware and finishing the island etc. It is going to be wonderful to cook in this kitchen.

Good bye Corian - Hello Granite

I ordered our countertop today. We are getting granite with an undermount stainless sink and a stainless finish faucet. I love it, I can't believe it is cheaper than corian. We are so excited, it has a 15 year sealant on it and it is beautiful. We should have it installed within 2-3 weeks.

Floor tile work complete

The tile is complete in the foyer, laundry room, pantry, kitchen, dining room, both bathrooms, and hall way. It looks great, I am very pleased with how it turned out. Our kitchen cabinets will be installed tomorrow and Sunday. I am very excited to see them go up. We got our quote for the countertops and were shocked at the price, we are checking into other options, Corian is a lot more expensive than we ever imagined, we are checking into quarts and granite since it is comparable to corian pricing.

Tile Board Laid

The tile board was laid today throughout the rest of the house, our foyer, laundry, pantry, and master bathroom. We are told that the tile should be complete by Thursday, at the latest Friday. Our cabinets were delivered today as well. I am excited to see the tile and the cabinets/countertop/island all come together to make the kitchen look awesome. We have to work on lighting, electrical outlets, and switches, as well as frame the garden tub in as soon as possible.

Our last steps will then be to finish the flooring, install cabinets/countertops, and finish trim shoe molding on the floor after the floors are installed.

Our septic passed inspection and is ready to be filled in now.

House painted and trimmed

Living room view

Living room

Living room - Side view

Dining room

Dining room

Kitchen with concrete board minus cabinets

Master bedroom

Foyer

Steps to basement

Hannah's wild pink room - she loves it!!!!!

Elijah's awesome blue room - neat color

Bathroom minus sink/cabinet/toilet

Master bedroom - look at that ice outside.

Master bathroom

It has been a little while since my last update, the house is completely trimmed out and painted, it looks great. We decided to go with Dave Orris for our painter, he comes highly recommended by my Dad and was quick and did a great job. Our garage door is installed, as well as, our gutters and spouting. The insulation in the ceiling is not yet in, and the heating guy still has not made good on his word to get it installed for us when was asked him too, this is the 5th time now that we had to ask him and he did not do it when he said he would. Very frustrating.

The laminate and tile board were delivered on Sat, the tile board was installed in the kitchen, dining room, hall and kids bathroom. The tile will start going in this week.

Our cabinets will be delivered today, so we should get them in by this weekend. Our stained ceiling planks arrived as well, we need to get them installed soon as well. The house is looking great, we are getting more excited by the day to get in the new house. Especially on days like today, the ice was so thick on my windshield, all I could think is.....it will be so nice to have a garage soon.

View from Living room - December 16, 2007

The view from our house today was spectacular. The ice covered trees and the sun shining through them was a beautiful site to see. Hannah even said, "Momma it is beautiful out today." The neat thing was as the ice melted from the trees it ran off the trees like a downward stream, it was really cool.

House Deadline - Help requested

Bill and I discovered on Friday night that our drop dead date to have the house finished is 12/29/07. Of course we are stressed out learning of this date. We both had thought we had until early Jan, this changes everything. We are going to have to put things in high gear, work lots of long long hours and sub out some work. We are going to sub the painting and tile work, the rest is pretty much up to us to do.

The weekend was pretty successful, we finished all of the siding, facia, and soffet. The house looks great. We called to order the gutters and spoutings to be installed as well as the blown insulation to be put in above the ceilings. We installed almost all of the interior doors and have about half of them trimmed out. We still have to finish trimming them out, install baseboard trim, and install laminate flooring this week into the weekend. Then on Thursday the garage door will be installed, and the heating will be hooked up. Hopefully if all goes well late next week or early the following week 12/17 range we can get the house painted. After the house is painted the week of Christmas we will be installing the kitchen and finishing everything else up.

It is a busy busy schedule and we will need as much help from our friends as we can get. I know we feel bad for asking but we just need the help due to the time line we are on.

Flooring Decision

We went to Clearview flooring last night and ordered our flooring for the house. We decided to do maple laminate in all of the bedrooms, bamboo hardwood in the living room, and tile throughout kitchen, dining, foyer, laundry, pantry, and both bathrooms. We also decided to do some tile around the jacuzzi tub and on the backsplash in the kitchen. I am so excited to see the flooring and everything come together. Our flooring will be in within 4-5 days. We will need to pick it up, since they do not deliver. After much discussion we have decided to let Terri lay the tile for us, we are also going to let John do the painting. Since we would really like to get in the house by the end of December, this will greatly help us along the way. We still will be very busy laying laminate, hardwood, installing trim/interior doors/cabinets/countertops etc. We also have to finish the electrical outlets and install lighting.

Painting decision

Well it has been two days since we decided to paint the house ourselves and after consulting a few people we are starting to rethink this decision. We have decided that we are going to hire someone to paint the house for us, we are going to paint it all one color to start and we can change paint colors over the years after we move in and are not so pushed for time. We are going to go with an off-white or light kaiki color for the walls. We are not crazy on the bright linen white walls, we want something a bit warmer and more inviting.

Today we have an appointment to pick out and order our flooring. We are going to go with laminiate in the bedrooms, tile in the kitchen, dining room, bathroom, foyer, laundry, and pantry. Hardwood in the living room. We have a pretty good idea of what we want so it should not take us too much time to pick it out and order it today. With any luck we can maybe get some of our laminate today and start working on that until they deliver the tile.

We called Armstrong and asked them to push our cabinet delivery back another week or so, we just are not ready for them yet and we will just have to move them in the house and they will be in the way for doing the trim, flooring, and paint. Since our garage door is not on yet, we would not want to store them in the garage.

I have been busy vacumming by hand the floors, there is still so much fine drywall dust on the floors that will not come up with a broom so I am using the small attachment and vaccumming every inch of the flooring. So far I finished Hannah's room, Elijah's room, the kids bathroom, our bedroom, and our closet, I still have our bathroom, the foyer, laundry room, pantry, coat closet, living room, kitchen and dining room to finish yet.

Bill has been busy working on hooking the hot and cold plumbing lines into the manafold. We are getting there, slowly but surely.

House update

It has been a little while since my last update, we have just about finished the siding at this point, we just have some facia and soffet to install yet and it is completed. We received our fourth draw and now are busy working on decks before it gets too cold. We have all of the windows trimmed out, and the front deck framed and platform up, we just have to do the railing, spindals, and steps yet for this deck. Elijah was extremely helpful with getting the screws into the deck boards. We were so proud of all of his hard work.

The back deck holes are dug, deck board is up, we still have to frame it. This deck should not take as long since it is smaller and not as high off the ground. Our geothermal will be installed on tomorrow or Thursday of this week. It will be nice to have steady heat to work with since it is getting really cold quickly.

Our interior doors have arrived and we will be installing them shortly as well. We made an unanamious decision that we are not going to push it to try to get in by Christmas. We want our kids to be able to enjoy Christmas and have a tree. If we could get in by Christmas we would be moving right around Christmas and we want to enjoy Christmas with the kids. As for our old house, we have decided to wait to put it on the market until after our new house is finished, there is too much stress trying to finish things in the old house, and moving stuff to declutter and we just feel it will be better to wait. Financially it will be tight but we are trusting that God is going to work it all out for us and for the good.

We ordered the rest of our trim, crown molding, chair rail, wainescoating, and wood ceiling for the living room today from Heister House. Not sure when it will be in, hopefully rather quickly. Our garage door was ordered last week so we should expect to get that within two weeks. Our cabinets will arrive on Friday. We bought the garage door opener on black friday, we got a really good deal on a nice one. It has keypad entry, two garage door openers, and one remote garage door opener. We also got our kitchen island lights, they are so cool, we really like them alot.

We had the painter come out for his estimate to paint the house, he wanted $5,300 to paint just the upstairs. We decided we can do this on our own, we are going to do the painting. Another reason why we are not rushing to get in by Christmas, if we have a little patience we can save a lot more money by doing a lot of the work ourselves.

We have decided on flooring types, we are going with hardwood in the living room and masterbedroom, laminate wood in the kids rooms, tile in the kitchen, dining room, foyer, laundry, pantry, and both bathrooms.

We have decided on bamboo for our bedroom, and red oak for the living room. Elijah wants a cherry laminate for his bedroom. Not sure if we will do this in the room upstairs or just wait until we have his room in the basement. I like the look of cherry but am afraid that it will show the dirt much quicker since it is a darker wood.

Our septic is in, not sure if I already told you that yet or not. I will be glad when the toilets are installed. LOL :)

We decided to do wainescoating in the kids bathroom, I think this will prove to be a wise choice since kids tend to be hard on the walls and with the bathroom being such small headquarters I think it is a wise choice.

We are going to do chair rail in the living room with two tone paint, we are going to do shadow boxing in the dining room with crown in the dining room and kitchen, foyer, our bedroom and our bathroom. I just love the look of crown and if I had my choice I would do it in every room.

Our next step is making final decisions on paint color and flooring. This is where I have been struggling the most, it is a tough decision to pick all of the colors and since we went with beige windows, we feel we need to go with beige trim around the windows and rooms, so the paint color choices will have to go nice with beige. It is just a tough choice, especially when your daughter wants a pink room and your son wants a blue room. LOL :)

Windows trimmed

This weekend it rained a lot, our plan was to get at least one deck built, but we ended up just getting the holes dug for one deck and the deck board bolted on. We also were able to cut some boards to get ready to put it up. On Saturday, Rick, Bill, Xavier, and Bill were the workers.

On Sunday my dad and Dave came out to help. Unfortunately it was rainy and cold so we opted for inside work. We were able to install the trim around the sliding glass doors, foyer doors, and all of the windows. Our interior doors should be delivered today or tomorrow, we will then install them, trim around them, and install baseboard.

After that we should be ready for primer and paint, as well as, flooring.

We have Water!!!!!

The well driller was back out to install our water system yesterday. We have great water pressure, a little sulfer but we are hoping that will clear out as we run the water a little. Kirk said that happens a lot of times, that you have a hint of sulfer smell initially until the lines run through good, this is from going through some sulfer to get to the right resting place. I am hoping it clears, I do not want to have to deal with sulfer smelling water.

The siding is almost finished, we worked so hard all weekend through Tuesday. We had Monday off and took vacation days on Tuesday so we could finish things up. The front and sides of the house are completed with siding, there are some areas that facia needs to go up yet, but it looks great so far. We still have the garage to finish and then the siding will be complete. We are hoping to finish that up tonight.

Next on list is decks and trim work. We still have so much to do before we can move in, we are still hoping and praying for a move in before Christmas, but realistically it may not happen. We still have flooring, painting, trim, decks, cabinets, countertops, final touches on plumbing and electrical, heating etc.

Septic Tanks In Ground

Our septic went in today. It will be so nice to have a toilet. Pregnant women definately appreciate having modern sewage. LOL :)

Our water and geothermal wells have been drilled. We ordered our interior doors today, we are in the process of ordering our garage door also. Our kitchen cabinets should be in within a week or so as well. We are so ready to move in to this house, we are still shooting for a move in date before Christmas.

Siding progress

We spent the weekend and our day off on Tuesday working on more siding. We are almost finished with the front of the house, we still have the left side to finish, but the right side is finished and the garage is almost finished. We still have the back to finish as well. It is a lot of work but it starting to really look nice. I am quite pleased with our siding choices, we went with country beige siding and clay corners, soffet, aluminum, and gutters. The beige siding looks great with our beige windows. I can't wait to live here.

View from Living room - End of Oct 2007

Siding

We spent the majority of the weekend working on the siding. On Friday night, Larry, Bill and Spencer installed the corn stove in our new house. It could not have come at a better time as this weekened has been one of the coldest so far this fall. On Saturday, Bill, Elijah, and I got a good bit of siding done. We got the front left wing finished, it was a lot of work, then on Sunday my brother and Todd came to help. They could only help a few hours in the morning, so we did not get as much as I hoped finished on Sunday.

Drywall - Day 7 & Electricity is now installed

Today all of the drywall got taped and coated. It looks so nice, I can't wait until we paint, it will be awesome. We also finally now have electricity, it is so exciting, no more generators. Yippee!
Bill and Larry brought the corn stove to the new house, Bill is hoping to get it hooked up tomorrow night so the drywallers have heat for the drywall coats to dry more easily.