Back Fill, Plumbing, Basement

This was a busy week at our new house, but the progress is not hugely noticeable if you're not real familiar with the house. (I will post new pictures soon). The "gravel crew" (for lack of a more specific title) came in on Monday to spread gravel around the outside of the foundation, in the basement and in the garage. The foundation walls were sealed on Tuesday. The yard was leveled and the permiter of the house was backfilled Wednesday. At some point during the week the plumbers were in the house to get our plumbing all lined up, but I can't remember what day that was. D, N and I visited the house this afternoon (Saturday) and the basement had been poured.

In my opinion, the most obvious progress came with the leveling and backfilling of the yard. We have a true idea for the size of our lot and how our house sits on the property. We are very pleased with the size of the backyard and the distance we will have from our neighbors in the back. I mean that in the best way possible. :) We are spoiled because the neighbors behind us right now are a good football field away from our back door. We have become accustomed to that space and privacy, so we are looking forward to a similar situation in our new home.

Unfortunately all three of us are under the weather this weekend. Driving by the new house and going out for a quick meal at our favorite Mexican restaurant was the extend of our excitement today. We are all feeling very "punie" as my dad would say. We hope to get better soon so we can celebrate a fun Halloween with N. He is going to be a lion this year. :) I have to dress him up in those cute little costumes while I can.

Happy Halloween.
C, D, N

Oopsie #1

The pictures below show that, should we host an evening barbeque where people walk between the backyard and the garage, someone might mysteriously go missing... in our egress window well. Oops! We put the back door from the garage too close to the window well that extends out from the basement office.... At the moment, it is situated in a way that if you are not paying attention you could potentially walk out of our garage and fall into the window well. Not good! We met with our builder last Saturday to discuss this mishap and he is going to fix it. No problem. That is one reason it is so nice that we have the luxury to drive three miles across town to check on our house every day. This the first little fix that we've come across in our house. I'm sure it won't be the last, but we are pleased with the way our builder handled our request. Now we just have to stay on top of it to make sure it gets done.

You will also notice a picture of what looks like a miniature overgrown jungle running through our back yard. That is the dry creek that collects rain water from the fields and roads nearby.
It will remain dry most of the time. Only in the case of an extended period of heavy rains should it accumulate enough water to write home about. And, yes, our house sits higher than the creek. The developer of our subdivision will cut down the foliage and pour pea gravel over top of it in the future. I'm not sure exactly when that will happen. For now, we have our own little nature preserve to visit whenever we want.

Forms... Keeps & Castaways

The masonry crew poured the foundation of our house late Wednesday. They where scheduled to remove the forms today, but the (much needed) rain we got will push that out by a day. The concrete needs more time to dry.

In the meantime, I am getting closets, drawers, and cabinets sorted through. So far I have completed the process of going through my closet and dresser. I have one basket for "keeps" and one for "castaways." I plan on taking the things that I don't want to a consignment store in town called Castaways for resale. I usually truck my castaways straight to Goodwill since it's less than a mile from our house, but I figure trying to sell a few things at the consigment store is worth a try.

The plan for next week is to start framing the house as long as the weather cooperates. I will be really excited for the day that we can step into our house and get a true feeling for the size, shape and location. I have a friend who just built a house. She said the first month seems like the longest part of the process because you can't quite get a feeling for what the house will truely be like by looking at footings, forms, and foundation. I'm sure, once this is all over, we will look back at the experience and realize that it actually went by really quickly. I'm doing my best to be patient and savor the moment. After all, these are the last few months we will live in our current home. I will be really sad to leave this house. It is the first home we bought and it is the place where we had our first baby. We put so much time and effort into building the deck, finishing the basement and painting all the rooms. Our friends and family put alot of effort into this house, for that matter. :) Anyway... like D says. We will have plenty of opportunity to do all of those things in our new place. I'm sure we will be able to make a home in whatever house we live in.

Footings

When D and I started designing our house we took the basic shell/outline of a plan a local builder gave us and drew it on the computer. We decided to stick with this perimeter because, for one thing, it helped us narrow down our floor plan options, and secondly, it is considered the most cost effective footprint for a two story house right now. We liked the basic layout the builder gave us, but tweeked it here and there to make it different from area homes. Once we got the exterior shell drawn we were able to design the placement of the interior walls to fit our needs. At this point in the construction we cannot see where the interior walls will be located, but we can see the outline of the exterior walls because of the the footings that were poured on Saturday. Take a look at the pictures below and you will get an idea of what the shape of the house will be.

Dig Day!!

We signed the papers to buy our house last night and this morning I got a call from our builder that he was on the lot with the excavating crew deciding which way to orient the house! Yeah! We didn't know we would dig so soon after signing the papers. He has to get the hole dug and the house closed in b/f the weather gets too cold, etc.

N and I visited the site twice today. We stopped by at lunch to say hi to the crew and to see how things were going. The guys are real nice. We went back this afternoon to watch them working. N loved watching the machinery. ... he took a great nap afterwards. I think we'll be watching the machinery on a daily basis if it causes N to have sweet dreams and longer naps. :)

We went back to the site when D got home from work. We took several pictures (attached).
It's so hard to believe this is happening. It's so exiting! The first picture is of D standing at the front of the house, near the entry way. The second is of me standing in my new "dirty" kitchen, and the final picture is of the guys checking out the excavator. I'm so glad it's a CAT. That's the first thing D asked when I talked to him this afternoon. "What kind of machine are they usin?"
I should have known.

Decisions, decisions

Several months ago D and I realized we are growing out of our house - as many couples realize after having children who require lots of toys and gear. So, we started house hunting. We started our hunt in March, but after looking at probably 200 houses we realized we were not going to find one house with all the features we needed under one roof unless we were going to build..... So, we decided to build a house. Decision #1.

Decision #2.... Who will build this house of ours??
After researching area builders (there are sooooo many!), we narrowed our selection down to three. We interviewed all three, got quotes from them and decided to go with "M." Of course writing this down all seems so simple and speedy from an onlooker, but the process of choosing a builder was a big decision in itself!

Decision #3 Where-o-where are we going to live?
We knew without a doubt that we want to stay in the same town. We needed to choose a specific lot in a specific neighborhood. After many agonizing nights debating between two lots, D and I finally decided to choose the larger of the two lots located on a cul de sac closer to the conveniences of town rather than choosing the smaller (less expensive) of the two lots. In the back of our minds we knew we loved the larger lot from the start (Love at first sight, maybe?) but had to rationalize spending more money for it.... We rationalized it...and now it's ours!! Yeah!!! See the picture attached.

So, after making three major choices we have "opened a can of worms" and will be making many, many more decisions over the next five months as we build our new house... can we say kitchen cabinets, door knobs, appliances, tile, carpet, wood, lights, windows........ I can't wait! We'll keep you posted on the progress. (And I am sure I will get better as being a blogger as I go, so bear with me.)