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.