Oops, put on the brakes!

Well, scratch what I said earlier about getting our electrical inspection done today. :( It turns out that the guy that we thought we needed out here (whose name was on our paperwork), isn't our guy afterall. And what stinks even worse if that we didn't realize that until after he came out to inspect the house --> Oops!

And that double stinks because the inspector that we do need is only available for 2 days a week -- and for only ONE hour each during those two days. Yep, you can only call him on Mondays & Thursdays, from 7:30 till 8:30am. If you can't reach him, then you try on the next day... and if you can't reach him then, well, you just keep trying. His phone is busy a lot too, so the busy signal is assured while trying to frantically call during that ONE hour. And we've learned that it does no good to leave voicemail either.

And we also learned that we have to pay an additional $32 "fee" ON TOP OF the already $275 "fee" that I've paid for the electrical permit a few weeks ago. So I have another trip down to the codes department tomorrow, with 2 kids in tow. Oh the joys! :)

This is part of the DIY homebuilding process where it'd be sooo much easier to just tell someone else (the builder!) to deal with it. But we get no breaks here since we are that "someone else", we have to figure it out. And the county workers sure aren't all that helpful either with answering questions -- not too DIY friendly is the impression I'm getting.

Let's hope we get this all straightened out soon. It's a bunch of hurry up and wait I'm afraid and our deadline of April 30th (one month away!!!) on moving in is looking to be extended (again!).

And to make it worse, we're all ready for an inspection already! David has really busted it hard to get us to this point and my impatience with "the county system" isn't helping. I'll post again once we figure it all out... which (crossing our fingers again) will be bright & early Thursday morning.

Electrical inspection is... today!

Today we are having our electrical inspected so we can finally get electricity going inside the house! We've waited for a l-o-n-g time to get to this point. And David has worked so hard on all the electrical stuff, I know he's ready to move (way) past this point.

I am soooo nervous -- I hope we pass! The inspections are so stressful... you just never know what the inspector will say... or what more you have to do in order to pass... and how much more money you'll have to pay to have it reinspected (after you've already paid an arm & a leg!). I'm keeping my fingers (& toes!) crossed that we pass.

I'll go back down to the house in a few hours to see if we've passed or failed. I'll post again once I find out. Wish us luck! ;)

Where we're at now...

is about the same place that we were last week. :) Not much has been happening at the house this week... the painter won't be back until next week -- the guy who was touching up the drywall came for a few hours and then went MIA... we're still not sure about that -- and the hardwood floor guy will be coming next weekend to lay the floors. We've got the central heat & air units ready to be installed so David is working on that, along with getting the electric ready for inspection.


But honestly it's worked out okay because that means that David got some good family time in with us (yay!). Rest & relaxation is never a bad thing, especially when you work non-stop like he does. We've enjoyed birthday parties; fishing trips with the kids; extra browsing time at Bass Pro Shop {a guys dream store!} and we may even get in a quick camping trip while the kids are on Spring Break too.


So... in the meantime, I leave you with a beautiful sunset picture that David took last March at the house. The colors are so bright. I cannot wait to be able to look out the window and see this --> or better yet, sit on the porch in a rocking chair with a big glass of sweet tea & a good magazine... ahhhh!



Have a great week everyone! :)

Set-backs are a given...

Just when we felt like we were cruising along at a good speed to possibly meet our self-imposed deadline (April 30th), the painter calls today and tells us that he has to pull off our job for an entire week to do another job for the primary builder that he works with most. :( I was just thinking this morning that we've got 6 more full weekends to pull it off but I'm not sure how this one week+ delay will play into it all.

Which means we have to push back the drywall guys... who were coming to touch up/fix some cracks, rough spots and dents in the walls. Atleast hopefully they'll only be pushed back a day or two.

But in the meantime of waiting... we hope to continue with getting the hardwood flooring laid and possibly the tile going. Those will be easier to do without having to work around the painter.

I went last week and our next electrical permit so David is continuing to get our electric cut on to the house versus having it ran across the field to the temporary (yay! lights in the house that won't be hooked up to an electrical cord!). Then we'll need to call the inspector to come out --> that is such a stressful thing, always wondering if we're going to pass or not. And hopefully we'll be able to get the HVAC units delivered and set soon.

The weather should be looking better for the next week... so if nothing else, that's definitely the silver lining. It looks like it may get up to around 70 degrees with no rain! :)

Can cabinet shelving be cute?

Because if so, then I definitely think this one is! :) David decided to design & build this cute little cabinet in the coat closet (under the stairs). The main reason he built it was to help hide the return-air build out {the other side has the grill on it... post on that below}. So, instead of having a big awkward drywalled box right inside the coat closet door... he tied it in and built it all into a cute cabinet!

So now we have more storage for small things (keys, etc...) and the not very appealing drywalled build out is covered too! :) It has 2 shelves in it that were taken out to be primed... so just imagine that they're there. :)

Below is a picture after being drywalled -- you can see in the coat closet... the big box almost sticks out to the doorframe!



And below is the "after"... looks much better, huh?

Prime Time! {part 3}

Here are some of the pictures from this past week of the trim being primed. If you enlarge the picture, you can see the ceiling color -- it's kind of a creamy ivory color. We're hoping it'll help the white crown molding pop more. The painter went ahead and sprayed the crown ivory too... but he'll go back this week and spray it all white with a final coat. :)

Below is the "David creation" from a few months ago that I blogged about, now primed all white. It's between the living room {which I'm standing in to take this pic} and the kitchen/dining area {which is the mustard color room straight ahead}.


Below is a corner in the master bedroom -- I always seem to take pics of this corner because it has the door trim; window trim; baseboards; and crown molding all together in one shot. You can really see the ivory color in this picture.

This is the upstairs hallway. To the left there is the man-cave {lol}. The dust made little spots in the picture but you get the overall idea... ;)

and here is the dining area. I really, really like this mustard color... I can't wait to see it all come together with the kitchen cabinets; the counters; and the appliances.

So, now that everything has been primed... the next step is to sand down the trim and spray on the final coat. Then, it'll be rolling/brushing in the color on the walls. Yay! :)

Prime Time! {part 2}

Here are the stair panels that David designed after they were primed. I think they look wondeful. :) The stair treads are covered with wood & tape to keep from getting sprayed too.

Prime Time! {part 1}

Our painter guy has been busy, busy down at the house getting it all caulked & primed. It's amazing just what having some color in there does for the place. After years of planning for this house to be built, the paint makes it more "real" if that makes any sense. We love seeing it all come together. :)

I'm separating some of these pics to make it easier...
Here are the interior doors set up in the bedrooms, after getting sprayed with primer. They are so nice & white now! :)

Check out our grill... ;)

I meant to post this a few weeks ago but then forgot. I wanted to show you the return air grills that we're going with.

Instead of the regular metal ones, we decided to go with a wood grill. We ordered them online and they shipped them out really quickly. They remind me of Florida for some reason, like the beach themed stuff you find in all the condos down there (I don't know why!) but I think they're nice looking & they'll be easier to clean regularly versus the metal ones with the tight little openings that hold so much dust.

above is the downstairs wood return air grill... and below is a pic of the regular metal ones just for comparison...

~Ashley

Sorry that I've been MIA...

Sorry everyone that I haven't updated here in 2 weeks -- oops! :) It's been crazy busy here and I've been sick with the crud. I'm feeling much better today... hopefully it'll stay that way.


Anyway... here are some new pictures of the stairs after the panels were built last week. I honestly wasn't too sure about them at first. This was another David design that he worked very hard on getting them just right. They're very nice but I wasn't sure how it'd fit in with the character of the house. But now I love them and think they are absolutely beautiful! Go figure. ;) Enjoy!

and just think... only a few weeks ago, they looked like this pic below :)

~Ashley

Sunday morning we woke up to this!

What a treat! We rarely get snow -- if anything, we get ice! So we were so surprised to wake up Sunday morning to this beautiful treat! We drove down to the "new house" to see how it looked all covered in snow. The funny thing is that the kids had begged me to let them stay at my moms house (15 minutes away) and they woke up with only a dusting of snow -- they were in snow heaven once they got back home to see all this! :)

Below is the creek that runs beside the house... isn't it just beautiful?

And here is the opposite side of the creek across the street...
We found fresh deer tracks going across our big field...

Here's looking out across the big field... it was so bright & white!

And here's a shot from the road; my favorite little field is straight back

Below is a close-up of my fav field with the mice shed to the right... ;)

The kids had fun in it; it was beautiful to look at; now I'm officially ready for Spring! :)

New stair pictures

Well, the stairs are almost finished... here are some pictures taken just a few days ago. Actually, I will be posting even newer (all done!) pictures once David gets home with the camera. ;) But these are good shots of the actual treads & ballisters, etc. We went with a very thick, straight ballister and I love how strong they are. They're plain with a bit of farmhouse character.

Here is looking from the living room...


And now we're standing on the landing looking up to the left...
took a few steps on the landing, now looking to the right...
and we're now upstairs looking down from the hall...

We're very excited on how well they turned out. And they're very sturdy too... I don't even mind standing at the top anymore {not that I've overcome my fear of heights though!}. ha ha :) What do you think?

Oh deer!

Early Saturday morning we had 2 hungry visitors come down to eat by the driveway. :)