House Update

Wow!  It's been a busy couple of months.  People have been asking for more house picture updates, so here you go!  We are getting close.  Still on track to be finished by September 1st.  This week our tile was finished, our cabinets/countertops installed, window trim in, light fixtures installed, fireplace started, and doors are starting to go in.  Next week they will continue with the master shower (tile), fireplace brick, finishing touches on cabinets and grouting backsplash, along with final electrical and plumbing.  The week after will be final details and carpet and then we are done!!!  Enjoy the pictures.

Siding going on.

I LOVE my porch.  It's almost complete - just missing some of the railing on the right.  Jed LOVES his garage!!!  We now have the cement poured in front of the garage too and the kids LOVE that for riding bike!!!

For the past two weeks Jed and I have been busy staining and varnishing 14 doors and their frames.  We will finish this project tonight!!!  I never want to stain or varnish another piece of wood in my life!

Our cabinets and countertops are in.  I love them!  We got our appliances this week too - sorry, no pics yet.

Thankfully almost my whole family was able to help out one weekend to paint.  We painted all day Saturday and all day Sunday.  Made three trips for more paint and ended up putting on 74 gallons of primer and paint.  Yikes!  Thanks for all the help family.  :-)

Fireplace mantle.  We now have a hearth too and the brick is starting to go up.

Another kitchen view.

All of our cubbies - I call them decorative areas, Jed calls them sh*t collectors.

Main bath vanity.

Master bath vanity.

Master bath shower - we now have a tiled floor and he is in the process of working on the tile walls.  Can't wait to see this completed!

Master bedroom.

Girls' bedroom.  My Mom and Jed think I am crazy to do these two colors, but trust me...it will get better!  Once the furniture is in, the boarder up and the curtains up it will be adorable and the girls are so excited.  They tell anyone who will listen to them that they are getting a new bedroom and it is hot pink and hot orange colored.  :-)

Gavin's blue room.  He wants to decorate with Minnesota Twins.  This room may not make quite the statement that the girls' room does, but it's going to be neat for him and he cannot wait to have his own room that we do not all walk through and leave our coats and shoes in.

Stairs to basement.

More kitchen.

Reagan having fun in the sink hole.

Main area tile.

House Update

The builders and subcontractors have had a busy couple of weeks.  We have all of the rough-in for plumbing, electrical and heating/air done.  We have some more siding on, we have all the insulation done and we have all of the sheet rock up in the house.  They will finish sheet rocking the garage next week along with doing all of the mudding/taping of the house and garage.  The plan is for us to gather our oh so willing family members next weekend for a painting party - that's right we are at the painting part already!  We will have to see how well the tape dries as it is supposed to be in the 90's-100's all this week so there may be an issue with it drying properly.  Time will tell.

And, we knew the time was coming...this whole house project has been going way to smoothly, we knew it was only a matter of time before we hit a bump in the road.  Last night when I saw my Dad back up to the new garage I knew something was up.  He stops in every couple of days to check on things but he doesn't ever back in.  So, Jed and I went out to see what was up.  We went down to the basement and were met with my Dad and our builder standing in 3 inches of water across the entire basement.  Yup, our basement flooded before we are even done with construction.  We had had about 3-4 inches of water in the last 24 hours and when it rained in the 24 hours it rained hard all at one time and then would stop, then rain hard and then stop.  So, of course our excavating is not done so everything slopes to the house and we do not have gutters up yet so everything runs off to the house, out window wells are not done yet so everything runs tot he house and there is a chance that we have a blockage in the drain tile going away from the house. 

The builder, one of his guys and Jed and I spent our Friday night muddy and wet cleaning up and drying out the basement.  Luckily there was plastic over the insulation which protected most of it.  There were just a few wet spots that we had to lift the plastic and let things dry out.  We got the floor cleaned up and all of the debris (pieces of wood etc.) picked up and hauled out.  So, by midnight last night it didn't look too bad anymore.  Today it is a bit wet again, just due to the humidity, so it will probably stay that way for the week with the warm/humid weather.  I am going to see if I can sweet talk our heating/air guy to putting a rush on our air condition to help with drying the basement out and with the mudding/taping and painting process.

So, a little glitch on the radar, but we are glad that it happened now instead of when we have a ton of stuff in the basement.  Hopefully we can figure out the problem soon and get it remedied and this won't cause too much of a delay.

For us, we will be very busy this next two weeks priming, painting and staining/lacquering the trim work.  Big job but with us doing it we save lots of money, so we will grin and bear it and dream of what the end result is going to be in about a month-6 weeks.

 

 Dining Room

 Living Room (the windows are bigger they are just covered with sheet rock laying up against the wall).

 Fireplace.

 Kitchen & Pantry

 Main Bath

 Master Bedroom

 Master Bath

 The mess.  :-(

Dodge County Fair

We went to the Dodge County Fair on Thursday and of course Grandma and Grandpa had to spoil the kids with a pony ride.  They all loved it!

House Update

We have all our studded walls, we have insulation and we have some siding!

Random...

Reagan was pushing her baby around in the stroller but then decided she needed her own stroller - went and got another baby doll stroller and rolled herself around in that while she pushed her baby ahead of her.

...And then the real baby came and she wore me out.  Declan was super good and was only there for a few hours.  But by the time Jed got home I was wiped out - he had to take Reagan to another part of the house so that she would quit climbing into the carseat with Declan while he tried to nap.  Isn't he so cute?!

 Kyra was very proud of her long dandelion stem that she found.  Not sure what the pose is all about?!

 We are dog sitting for some friends of ours.  This dog is the best dog on the face of the earth - I swear.  We don't even know she is here.  She goes out when we go out, she doesn't wine or beg, she only barks when someone knocks at the door, she doesn't mind the kids all over her, she sleeps at the opening of their bedroom door guarding them.  She is the perfect dog.  One morning (after it had been a stormy night and 3 out of the 4 kids ended up on the floor in our room) Jed woke up to find this scene.  Gavin, Emily the dog and Kyra all lined up in a row sleeping.  I even think Kyra and Emily are sharing a pillow.