Our new house!

Carpeting & Plumbing

2008-06-05T11:29:00.003-04:00

I have a lot of pics to share with everyone. I finally remembered to take photos of the plumbing and as of yesterday, we have carpeting! Yay! And the BEST news.....FINAL INSPECTION IS MONDAY!!! Woohoo!!! The AC is up and running too (just in time for our 90+ degree weekend coming up). We have some touch painting to do this weekend(AGAIN) courtesy of the carpet guys. But it certainly looks like next weekend is moving weekend!

Powder room....it's hard to take a pic of such a small room!! Joe says the "ugly" green towel has to go!:

Master Bathroom:

Guest/Main Bath:

The tile guys came back to finish the tile surround for the bath tub in the guest bath:

And now...the carpeting! I took these at sunset so they're a little dark. Great Room:

Foyer/Stairs:

Master Bedroom:

One of the guest bedrooms:

Walk-In Closet:

We have a mailbox!

2008-05-30T09:26:00.003-04:00

First, the exciting news....we should have final inspection the end of next week! Yay! So if all goes as planned, we'll be moving in next weekend! :)

Last weekend, we registered with the post office and put up a mailbox. So now we can get mail! Woohoo! I sent out change of address cards yesterday. So everyone that needs one should be getting one shortly. If I forgot you, please let me know. Here's a photo of our new mailbox...

We have all of our plumbing (sinks, toilets, etc) and I just realized I didn't take photos of any of it! So I will try to remember to do that this weekend. We also got our new washer and dryer (we went with front loading Bosch ones) and all of the appliances are in and working. The final grade is being done today. The air conditioning should be done this weekend and then carpeting is going in Monday. And....that's it! FINALLY!

More painting and appliances

2008-05-19T08:34:00.002-04:00

I thought the painting days were almost over...ha! We now have touch up painting (for the gazillion holes and scratches from people working on the house) and all of our doors need a second coat. So this past weekend I caulked the holes in the trim on the first floor and then repainted it all. I also got the fireplace mantel done....it looks much better!

And all of our appliances are now in (minus washer and dryer). Of course, some still have protective wrapping on them but they work. Yay! We need to order a stainless steel backsplash for behind the stove.

If you noticed, our pendant lights above the island aren't in yet. That's because the electrician mismeasured and they're not centered. Big oops! So....they can cut the ceiling, move them, drywall and spackle again (and we'd have to repaint) OR we can move the island over. Joe measured and the electrician is off by 2.5 inches. So we'd have to move the island 2.5 inches closer to the stove. It leaves us with a 16 inch walk way, instead of 18.5 inches. So we're going to have them do that. We really don't want to repaint the ceiling. It would mean covering everything and a huge mess. So the electrician gets off easy...this time.

Fireplace and Front Porch

2008-05-14T09:11:00.004-04:00

Trying my best to stay on top of the updates....as I said before, things are moving along quickly! The trim guys finished 90% of all the trim yesterday. It looks good! Our appliances were also delivered. They're waiting in the dining room to be installed.

So we now have a fireplace mantel (that needs to be painted!) and a front porch (also needs to be painted). Photos below.

I think the fireplace is too big. Joe likes it. It's 5'3" from the floor to the top...that's as tall as me! The photo below shows the size better.

At this point, there's no way to make it smaller. I'll just have to live with it, I suppose. The front porch really makes the house look finished.

Final plumbing and electric are up next!

Tile and Pergo

2008-05-13T08:10:00.002-04:00

Well, we had an "oops" over the weekend. It's the first one in a long time. Titan's fault, of course. The tile guys showed up Saturday and got to work right away. I had a fundraiser for therapy dogs all day. Joe got to the house around 2pm, after he fixed the AC at someone's house. The poor tile guy was putting the very last tile on the tub surround (goes from top of the tub to the ceiling)....and Joe saw that it was the wrong size tile! They put those itty bitty 6x6 tiles in and we had specified 12x12 tiles. So they had to carefully rip out all of the tile they had just put up. Titan had never given the change order to the tile guys. And it gets even better....the tile guys are on a company trip for the next 10 days! So needlesstosay, we won't have tile in our main bath for two weeks. It shouldn't put that much of a kink in things. Just annoying....more annoying to the tile guys, I'm sure! So on to the pictures....

Tile around the fireplace....still missing the mantle (ignore the disgruntled Sheltie pup in the x-pen):

Tile in the foyer and hallway:

Tile in the bathrooms (hard to get a good photo since they're not big, open rooms):

And finally, the Pergo floor in the dining room:

Cooper "tested" all of the new flooring. We caught him napping on the tile, the Pergo and the kitchen floor. Goofy puppy! He seems to like the tile best. Here he is napping on the kitchen floor:

Appliances are being delivered today. Then we just need the plumbing, electric and trim to be finished. Followed by the carpeting. And that's it!

Kitchen Flooring and Stair Railing

2008-05-08T08:14:00.003-04:00

Things are moving along very quickly now. I'm going to try to keep up with the updates. We *should* be moving in around the end of May. Yesterday, they installed our kitchen floor. We had originally wanted tile in the kitchen, but the upgrade charge was ridiculous (somewhere around $10k, I think). So instead we went with the best linoleum you can get. Supposedly nothing sticks to it and it has a lifetime warranty. We plan on putting tile and granite in the kitchen in a few years. Until then, this will do! The island was moved temporarily until the flooring is finished.

Kitchen floor (photo is a little dark, it was sunset when I took it):

You can click on the photo to make it larger.

They also installed our stair railing. We were originally going to paint it all white. But now, we're kind of glad we stained it. Well, Joe stained it. We did miss the little screw covers, so those will be stained this weekend. The stairs will be carpeted. We picked a dark brown color.

Monday, the tile guy starts. The foyer, hallway and bathrooms all get tile. Then the electrician and plumbers will be back to finish their stuff. Oh, and our appliances are being delivered Tuesday. I'll try to update after the weekend!

Painting is DONE!

2008-04-29T08:16:00.003-04:00

Well, three weekends later and all the painting is done. Thank goodness! I mean, they'll still be touch ups later....but all of the yucky, all day painting is done. We went with color everywhere. I'm not a fan of white walls, nor was I going to paint the whole house one color. Right now, we're pleased with how everything turned out. I think it'll look even nicer once the trim is up. Trim starts tomorrow. Followed by the tile guy, final electric, final plumbing and the rest of the flooring. The end is in sight! Woohoo!

It was a gloomy, rainy day so the kitchen looks darker than it is...there are two pantries to the right that you can't see in this photo:

So you can get an idea of the flow of the floorplan...this is standing in the laundry room, looking through the kitchen to the great room....we love open floorplans!

The next two are the Great Room...same paint color as the kitchen (it looks different in every photo):

Dining Room (two windows to the right)....I had to take this at an odd angle to show the paint color correctly...it was showing up too dark:

One of the guest rooms....it's not that dark of a purple, bad lighting again:

Other guest room, also not this dark:

Master Bedroom:

Master Bath...color is "Squirrel" :)..

And finally the master walk-in closet....

The only thing missing is the laundry room. It's the same color as the walk-in closet above. There was just too many things in there to take a nice photo. So the next set of photos will have the laundry room.

And last but not least....our little painting helper, Cooper:

Who was sleeping when he wasn't getting into the paint:

Painting begins...

2008-04-14T09:06:00.002-04:00

Ah, the joys of painting an entire house. It seems a lot bigger when you have to paint every square inch....THREE times! I think Joe said there was 6500 sq ft of walls and ceilings (the whole house is only 2200 sq ft of living space). We sprayed and then back rolled the primer. That took about 7 or 8 hours. Then we started the ceilings that night with the first coat of paint. The next day, we finished the first coat on the ceilings and went back for the second coat. And finally, by Sunday afternoon....we started the color on the walls. That's the fun part....well, ok, maybe not "fun"...but interesting! We got a first coat on the laundry room and the walk-in closet. They're two of the smaller rooms (walk-in - 9x10 ft; laundry- 8x10 ft) so it was a good place to start. Now onto the photos.... :)

Part of the Great Room:

Kitchen:

Master Bedroom (ask Joe how much fun it is to paint vaulted ceilings!):

Master Walk-In Closet:

Sorry for the darkness of the photos. It was pretty late before I had a chance to grab the camera and take some photos. The color in the walk-in closet is actually a grayish blue-green, if that makes sense. The paint was still wet when I took the photo (and that's only one coat).

We'll finish painting this weekend. So LOTS of photos after this weekend!

We have siding!

2008-03-19T10:39:00.002-04:00

The siding and shutters are finally complete. All we need yet on the exterior are the gutters and porch railing. Still waiting on the HVAC to be finished and then we can paint!

The latest photos:

View from the fields...we love how the color blends with the scenery.

Garage door and the start of siding...finally!

2008-03-04T11:23:00.002-05:00

We now have a garage door and they started siding yesterday. The siding guys hope to be finished by the end of this week. They should be digging trenches for the underground utilities shortly. Painting and the rest of the HVAC are up next!

Garage Door:

The walk-out basement is sided:

Best of all, almost a perfect match between the Pella windows and the siding....yay! We were worried there would be a noticable difference...we're trying to avoid that white window/tan siding look (it's fine for replacement windows, but not on a new house):

More updates when the siding is finished!

Drywall/sheet rock is up

2008-02-27T07:04:00.003-05:00

We seem to be moving along pretty quickly now. We now have drywall/sheet rock. They're siding the house this week or next. The garage door should be here shortly. And they're digging for underground utilities end of this week or early next. Here are the latest pics...

Kitchen (little guy in the middle is our new Sheltie pup, Cooper):

Great Room (fireplace side):

Great Room (other side):

Hallway & part of Foyer:

Dining Room:

From Kitchen looking into Great Room:

Master Bedroom:

Guest Bedroom:

Guest Bedroom #2:

Upstairs Hallway:

I'm sure they'll be more updates after the weekend. :)

Concrete floors

2008-02-18T13:00:00.002-05:00

The concrete guys poured our floors on Thursday and Friday. It looks great! The house is finally starting to feel like a house. Almost all of the insulation is done, so it's very easy to visualize the rooms now. And more importantly, it now holds heat much better! So these photos aren't pretty (it's concrete, for goodness sakes) but they do show progress. :)

Basement:

Other side of the basement:

Garage:

I didn't take a photo of the porch. It's not that exciting. Maybe we can put a rocking chair or something on it now though. Next up is siding, sheet rock/drywall and the trenches for our utilities. All pending weather, of course!

We have a fireplace....

2008-02-14T08:12:00.005-05:00

Last night, we went to see the progress on the house. We check in a few times a week and every weekend. They're almost done with insulation and they set the fireplace. Yay! So here are some new downstairs photos....I also have some of the upstairs but that would be picture overload!

One side of the great room (fireplace side...kitchen to the right):

Other side of the great room (pardon the mess!):

Kitchen:

Dining room:

And here are two photos of our "winter wonderland"...the first is Joe shoveling drains into the driveway:

And then some of the view:

Sorry for the not-so-great photos. I had my little pocket camera and not the dSLR. They are some interior walls that we need to insulate yet. The builder only does the exterior walls (per code). Even though it's not necessary, we want insulate interior walls for sound purposes.

And that's it for now! The concrete guys did their prep work but didn't pour yesterday due to the weather. Hopefully they'll pour the basement, garage and porch floors today.

The final window

2008-02-09T21:06:00.000-05:00

I haven't updated this blog in awhile because everything that's going on has been rather boring! But this weekend, they put in the last window. It's about time!

And the last window from inside the master bedroom:

Besides the new window...we've had all the electric, plumbing, and HVAC roughed in. We passed that inspection. They're starting to insulate on Monday. They'll be pouring the garage, porch and basement concrete floors on Wednesday. Then we have to wait for the weather to be decent so the trenches for the underground electric and gas line can be dug. We're also waiting for the security alarm guy to do his wiring. He's supposed to be doing that tomorrow.

So that's the latest on the house! Sorry for the long delay in updates. Hopefully, things will get more interesting shortly!

All doors and windows...except one!

2008-01-15T21:35:00.000-05:00

It really, really looks like a house now. Thank goodness! They got the rest of the windows in today and all the doors. We are missing one double window for the master bedroom (either it was broken in shipment or someone didn't count correctly). So for now, we have an ugly piece of plywood in our master bedroom as a window. *sigh*

They also started to frame out the fireplace in the corner:

Front door w/sidelights:

Four windows and a roof

2008-01-13T20:13:00.000-05:00

We finally have a roof! The roofers shingled it on Saturday, which was so nice of them since they're calling for snowstorms this week. :) We also now have 4 windows...so only 16 more to go (counting doubles as one) and 5 doors. We're hoping they get all those put in this week.

From the driveway:

Close up:

Windows (click for larger image to see roof...it's Elk Prestige "Weathered Wood", aka tan/brown):

Back of the house:

And some interior photos after the bracing was taken down...

Kitchen:

Great Room:

Dining Room:

Master Bedroom:

Master Bath:

Master Walk-In Closet:

I forgot to take a picture of it! But you can see an itty bitty piece of it in the above photo. It connects to the Master Bath and has a window in it.

Guest Bedroom #1:

Guest Bedroom #2:

Guest Bath:

Mud wrestling anyone??

2008-01-08T21:27:00.000-05:00

If it's not snow....it's mud!! Yuck! I'm not complaining about the warm weather, but we could really do without the mud. :(

Here are the latest photos:

The muddy driveway:

Happy New Year!!

2008-01-01T15:09:00.000-05:00

The latest is a garage roof. Yay! We should have a house roof, windows, and doors by the end of next week. :)

Lots of Photos

2007-12-30T20:32:00.000-05:00

Since I've had so much free time lately and it was 50 degrees yesterday....I took a ton of photos. So here's the latest (once again...all photos are "clickable" for larger versions):

The ugly side of the house...the Tyvek has blown off and all the windows aren't cut out yet:

Guest bedroom:

Guest bedroom #2:

Master Bedroom Walk-In Closet (yes, it has a window):

Master Bath:

Master bedroom:

Guest bath:

Merry Christmas!

2007-12-25T17:32:00.000-05:00

The house is really starting to look like a house now! It sort of reminds me of a really big jungle gym. The latest photos are below. Notice our very first Christmas decoration?? :)

Our missing 4th wall upstairs....they should have that up tomorrow:

Shoveling out the house AGAIN

2007-12-16T19:41:00.000-05:00

I just love snow. *sigh* Mother Nature blessed us with 2-3 inches of the white stuff and then threw in some nice sleet on top of it. Lovely! So this is the second time in 4 days that we've had to shovel out the house. And it started snowing when we got there! It stopped a short time later, thank goodness.

The view out our front door (the sun appeared long enough to set...figures!):

And finally our snow shoveling assistant:

Our beam problem

2007-12-15T15:59:00.001-05:00

We've been trying to keep track of things happening at the house, but we do live 40 mins away so getting there every single day isn't always possible. Well...Joe decided to stop by on Wednesday after work. The framers had started framing out the second floor and had finished putting the plywood on the garage walls. Excellent! There was just one problem....a drop beam that wasn't supposed to be dropped! We specifically requested that the great room be one large open room (we removed a wall to accomplish this). Through the whole planning process, no one mentioned that if we removed the wall, we'd still have a 3 inch drop from the engineered beam in the great room! Ugh! So we stopped construction on the house for the first time (and hopefully the last!).

Here's a photo of our lovely beam:

So a few phone calls later, Titan decided they'll change out the beam with two smaller ones at no charge to us. We even got a call first thing in the morning from our sales guy on his day off! Now we know how to get answers quickly...just stop construction. ;)

And I'd like to add that shoveling 4 inches of wet, heavy snow out by moonlight (and headlights) is NOT fun. They can't get that roof on soon enough!

They'll be more photos early next week, I'm sure.

Framing - First Floor

2007-12-11T18:37:00.000-05:00

This might be picture overload....but this is the most exciting thing we've had happen in awhile! :) Our first floor is framed! Yay! Photos below are "clickable", if you want to see a larger version. And yes, it was raining! Ready to use your imagination??

Front of the house, garage to the right:

Side view of the garage:

Walk-out basement side (there's more windows that haven't been cut out yet):

Back of the house:

Standing in the kitchen, looking at the fireplace and great room:

Standing in the kitchen, but looking at the laundry room:

Still in the kitchen, but turned 90 degrees to look at the dining room (pantry on either side):

Great room:

Kitchen:

And that's it for now...

Framing begins! :)

2007-12-06T21:53:00.000-05:00

It's not pretty yet....but they finally started! Yay!

Uh oh....snow!

2007-11-18T21:12:00.000-05:00

Well, I guess it's a good thing that they didn't start framing yet. We woke up to snow today! There's probably about 4-5 inches on the ground now. :(

We have a basement!

2007-11-12T08:37:00.000-05:00

I've been admittedly slacking on the updates. It's been fairly quiet, though. Once they start framing, I'll be updating frequently, I'm sure. Anyway...the latest update, we have a basement! Photos are below.

Front:

Back:

Inside:

The whole thing from above:

Basement forms are set

2007-11-04T21:51:00.000-05:00

The forms for the basement walls are in. They're pouring the basement walls on Monday.

We have footers!

2007-10-30T08:47:00.000-04:00

They poured the footers yesterday and are pouring the frost footers today. Thursday, they're pouring the basement walls. Moving right along! Here's the latest pics:

First day of construction!!!

2007-10-25T20:25:00.000-04:00

FINALLY!!! *happy dance* :) Oct 25th is our official first day of construction.

Some of the Fall scenery:

I'm sure I'll be posting updates a lot more often from now on. ;)

So it's been awhile...

2007-10-12T11:35:00.000-04:00

I know I haven't updated this in a month.....but I've been SO busy! A lot has happened so I will fill everyone in as quickly as possible. We closed on the construction loan/mortgage last Friday. We ended up with a rate of 6.25% so not horrible, but not awesome either. If we would have done this a year or two ago, I bet we would have been at 5 something. Bummer! We got our permits back and they were partially denied. So they were fixed by the builder and should have been resubmitted yesterday. We SHOULD have those back in 2-3 days. So we're on the builder's schedule to break ground end of next week. Yay! My next update should have pics. *fingers crossed*

Building Permits

2007-09-12T11:37:00.000-04:00

Well, Titan will finally be submitting the building permits on Friday. Yay! Now everyone cross your fingers for us for a speedy permit approval! :)

Final numbers were submitted to the mortgage company too....so now we just have to wait for underwriting to finish and then the title people. That should be about 2 weeks. We ended up being only $600 over what we wanted to be, so not bad at all.

Hopefully, my next post will be photos of actual construction. Can't wait!! :)

Photos of our cornfield

2007-09-05T18:46:00.000-04:00

Ok, you're going to have to use your imagination....a lot. We had to meet an excavator for an estimate Tuesday night and while I was there, I snapped a few pics of the property. Of course we met him at like 7pm so the sun was setting. I apologize for the darkness of some of these.

All photos should be "clickable" if you want to see a larger version.

The house will be right in the "grass" in the front of this photo, facing the left. So right now you'd be looking at the garage door and side of the house.

The view out our front door will be this:

Our back yard:

Sunset photo....we get an awesome view of the sunset every night....can't wait!:

And finally a photo of the creek at the end of the family property:

Final Blueprints

2007-08-19T18:58:00.000-04:00

We picked up our final blueprints today! Yay! We also went to the flooring/carpet place on Saturday. Picking out carpet is WAY harder than it looks! We were there for almost 2 hours and only decided on the first floor stuff. The carpet that is "standard" is awful, so we upgraded everything. The guy said he'd send us samples in a couple of weeks. We're trying to narrow down the color of the carpet we want. We know the type, but color is hard to decide.

Click on any of the photos below to see the larger version: