Crunchtime

It has been a while since I have had 5 seconds to sit down and write this post. The house has consumed every second of my life and I suppose that is typical when one has a deadline to meet. Taylor and I are on deadline to be out of our old house by the end of the month, so it is crunchtime. Not like we haven't been working around the clock on the house anyway, but now it is more stressful than ever.
I took the last two weeks of 2008 off from work to focus on the house. What tends to happen is that a million things come up when you are on vacation and still in town. Christmas parties for work and family, hair appointments, etc. so not as much work got done as planned. Anyway, while I was on vacation, I worked with Ethan to get all of our tile down. We had a deadline of New Years to have flooring down and plumbing installed. We met our deadline and kick started the year off with a party in the new house! It was a lot of fun, but very stressful. The water wasn't quite ready for drinking and the hot water wasn't really working, but when people are throwing back the tequila, no one seems to really care!
After New Years, I went back to work and Taylor and I have been working evenings at the new place. He is just about done with all the sheetrock and seaming that needs to be done. I have started painting with the help of a few close friends and relatives...(thanks to all!) and have finished the guest bedroom and bathroom and am part way through the walk-in closet; or so I thought. I have never used blue painters tape, and don't think I ever will again. I painted the ceilings and then put tape up to protect the edges from the paint going on the walls. I pulled the tape off and half of the paint came with it! I am now swearing off blue tape and am going to freehand it from now on. I felt so accomplished until I pulled that damn blue tape off. Now I feel as if I've taken two steps back.
I stayed at the new place quite late last night to clean up the kitchen. Since we didn't have good water, the dishes have not been done since New Years Eve! On top of that, there was a film of sheetrock dust on everything. It felt really great to unload the first round of dishes out of my new dishwasher. Man is that thing quiet. I didn't even know that it had started! I continued to put the first of our dishes away in their new living quarters and it is definitely harder than it seems; trying to figure out the most obvious places to store things so that they don't have to be moved again...took me forever!
I'm missing what my floors look like as everything is a mess and I'm definitely looking forward to cleaning it all tomorrow. I swear, that is the last time you will hear me say that I am looking forward to cleaning! As a whole, the house is coming together very well. Our basement doors and windows came in this week and were installed, so we finally were able to get rid of our "ghetto door" made out of plywood and wire...trust me, it was interesting. The new french doors are beautiful and will hopefully seem more obvious as our front doors than the ghetto door.
Anyway, Taylor and I are trying to get the guest bedroom and bathroom completely done so that we can set up shop there by Monday. The rest of this week is devoted to painting the main living areas of the house. I can't wait to see the bold colors go on the walls. I'm so excited.
Pictures of progress will go up later when I have a few more moments.

Closed...finally

Well...Taylor and I are officially homeowners. We finally closed on our house on Friday. It is such a relief to have all that paperwork out of the way, so we know exactly how much money we have to play with. So congratulations to us...we are officially broke!!
In other news, we got our electric hooked up this past week and we turned it on Thursday night...finally heat and lights! It has been cold the past few days, so having the heat blasting out to get the sheetrock warm was great. Taylor and I knocked out the support beams put in place for the transportation of the house, and finished seaming everything this weekend. The housing company put laminate flooring down in the two bathrooms, so my little bro Antonio and I pulled up all the trim, laminate, and luon. It was a riot to see my 8-year old brother with a mini crow-bar and hammer pulling up the luon. We had a blast!
Our friend, Ethan came over yesterday and started all the prep work to lay the tile in the kitchen and entryway. He came up with a really cool idea for the entry way, but I'm going to keep it a secret...you'll have to stop by or stay posted to see what he does!
Things are looking great and moving along fairly quickly. On deck for this week are laying tile, installing the wood floors, building stairs to the basement, mudding the sheetrock seams, and getting the plumbing all connected. Also, our kitchen appliances are scheduled to arrive on Friday...can't wait to see them all in our kitchen! I'm so excited.
Stay tuned for more!

First Look at Interiors

Arrival Day - In Pictures

Arrival Day!!!

So, we can finally take a small sigh of relief! December 3rd has whipped by and left a trail of mud and muck up our driveway to our new home. What a day Wednesday was! I took the day off and made my way over to "The Property" to watch the action unfold. The day started out busy, trying to get food set up for the crew and run my millions of errands before missing any of the big event. As the day started to unfold, the time seemed to be standing still. The night before, one half of the house had arrived. Due to permits and no driving at night, the second half and the crane were going to come up in the morning. The crane arrived in the a.m. and the crew started deciding where things should go. Our driveway had become muddy and icy at the same time with the crazy weather we've been having. Trudeau arrived to run the tractor and lay some dirt and gravel down for traction. The crane finally made it up the driveway and got into position. Finally...the action was starting to unfold as the first half of the house arrived. Then it came to a sudden halt. The trailer the house was on couldn't make it around the existing buildings and we had a really tough time getting it up the driveway. The first piece didn't get into position to be set on the foundation until 3:00.
Things felt hopeless and the day just dragged on. I tried to keep my spirits up with joking and keeping busy. I knew that regardless, we would have a house sooner or later; we just had to be patient. Needless to say, the first half finally made its way up onto the foundation. It was an amazing sight to see. Then...the second half had arrived. We figured that since things had finally been figured out with the first half, the second half would be a relative breeze. Not quite so! The second half was actually on a smaller trailer with smaller wheels, etc...so it was pretty much back to square one. This half didn't take nearly as long, but we ran out of light before the piece could be set.
Day 1...done.
House...not finished.
Day 2 started early in the morning. The plan was to get the second piece prepped to set first thing in the morning. I got there around 8:00 and stayed for an hour hoping to see the final piece set. Unfortunately, I had to work and missed the whole thing. The front half was set at about 10:00am on Wednesday. The crew stayed all day to raise the roof and get it sealed up.
Day 2...done.
House...still not finished.
So...most of the house is sealed in. The roof is still not completely finished and the crew will be back when they are available to finish the shingles and such. In the meantime, we are getting the electric all set with the hopes of turning it on this coming Monday. Taylor and I are putting together our plan of attack so that we can achieve our goal of moving in by January 31st.
I ordered our flooring yesterday and actually won a $400 gift certificate towards flooring at Young Lyon last night at Joy to the Children. That will definitely come in handy! Our heat should be on in the next few days and then we will start prepping the walls for stain and paint. Any help is greatly appreciated if anyone is interested.
Thanks for everyone's support thus far. We look forward to having everyone over once the house is in "working" condition!!

Final work before House Arrival

December 3rd is the Date!!

So..things have been happening pretty quickly now. We had some down time the end of October into November, as we got 10 inches of snow right before Halloween. It was a little strange to think that we had almost a foot of snow in our new, unused basement already! The weather set the well-digging back a week or two. After a week or so of cold and blistery winter weather, fall came back with avengence and we have been experiencing warmer than normal weather since...well, until today! So, the well diggers came about 10 days ago and started digging. Taylor decided to start a pool and all his employees guessed how far down we would have to dig. The winner would ge dinner for two at Lisa G's. We were quoted 400 feet, but I had a good feeling...or maybe I'm just optomistic; so I guessed 263 feet. They stopped at 76 feet and said they had to wait a day to test the water. I was praying 76 feet was going to be it, but it wasn't. The water wasn't clean enough, so they continued to dig. They went past 263 and ended up stopping at 280 feet. Seth won the bet...I believe right on the nose. Regardless, 280 is a lot better than 400 seeing as we were paying by the foot, we definitely made out! We are receiving 15 gal/min which they tell me is pretty good.

The contractor has been working on the front of the basement, trying to get it all set. We had the in-floor heating put down, and the concrete was poured about 6 weeks ago. Jay (our contractor) then proceeded to the front of the basement. He has built all of the front. The only thing left for the basement are the windows and doors, which will be placed in after the house arrives. Speaking of the house, we have been waiting and waiting for an arrival date all month to no avail..that is until this past week. We have finally received notice that our house will be arriving on December 2nd and will be set on December 3rd!!! Taylor and I are so excited, but very anxious and nervous at the same time. There are so many things that we need to get together before the house comes. Also, with it being December, we are hoping that the snow holds off and that the weather isn't too cold. We just ordered our siding last week and are just trying to find a day to go pick it up. We are using Crane siding in Cabin brown with red trim. The siding will be a combination of 6" wide horizontal boards and cedar-esque shakes. Along with the siding, Taylor and I are going to check out flooring, lighting and paint colors next week so that we can be ready. 2 1/2 weeks is not very long!
I'll post more info about the delivery and such when it gets a little closer. I am also planning on being at the site when they set it so that we can document the whole thing. Check out the pictures to see how the site has come along so far!
Cheers to everyone and we hope you will all be able to visit our new place very soon!!