One night down...

I made it thru our 1st night staying in the new house -- just one night after someone broke in. I don't know why I thought that would be such a good idea for us to move on in so soon, lol. I only got maybe 4 hours of sleep and was awake like a watchdog from 1am till almost 5am -- WIDE awake. Boy, I'm feeling it now at 5pm! I can't hang on a few hours sleep anymore. I hope tonight is better, it's bad enough not having a working toilet or water but I love my sleep!

Some things I didn't think of about moving down there --> I didn't think about how dark it'd be out there, man, it was dark! And the noises, tons of new noises that hopefully we'll get used to soon. Everytime I'd hear a noise that I thought would be someone out there sneaking around, I'd hit the lock button on my van remote... it makes the horn beep once. I bet our neighbors down the road thought I was crazy with the van that honks the horn all night long! ha ha :) And the neighbors have a dog that barked off & on all night long. But that's fine by me, I can't wait to have our own dog down at our house... so maybe they can be watch doggies together. lol

David took the day off work today to get some more work done on the house and to buy himself some must-have tools that he needs to get the electrical work all complete. He has to work tomorrow though. He was able to get our front porch light up so that will come in handy. Lastnight for awhile we resorted to putting his work light (that wasn't stolen for some reason, thankfully) out on the front porch, we left the cord inside the house in case we heard someone... then we'd plug it in quickly to scare them off. I felt like the "Home Alone" movie -- trying to rig up all these things to scare off the bad guys. :)

We went to Lowes today and bought a 50-gallon water heater. Hopefully this can get installed soon so we can have water on! woohoo! People with running an endless supply of water pouring from their faucets & working toilets are spoiled I tell ya! lol

We also decided (well I did...) that we needed to have blinds up on the windows, especially after Sunday night. I wasn't going to put any blinds on any of the windows but my mind changed on that I guess. I don't want any peepers out there lurking around looking in! Especially when it's sooo dark outside, call me a baby but it makes me nervous! We made due lastnight with sheets & kraft paper... but you can only have that "look" for so long and that definitely wasn't what I'd envisioned for our new dream house. So we bought blinds for every window today too. We went with the 2" faux wood. I can't wait to see how good they look. The manager there gave us 10% off of everything we bought today -- saving us $140.00 total. We love our local Lowes store! They've really taken good care of us with this house build.

Even better news --> while moving our mattresses yesterday I found the camera battery charger! So now I can get back to taking pictures. Now was not a good time to lose the only battery charger we had. I'll come back and edit this post with pictures once we get the blinds put in so you can check out how they look.

Well, that's about it for now. The kids start school tomorrow and I've got hair to cut; clothes to lay out; backpacks to pack; and then dinner to cook all within the next hour or so. I'll update again tomorrow.

Mad, sad, sick and more mad...

I actually was going to post pictures today of the kitchen cabinets and the "after" pictures of the granite that was set today (they turned out beautiful by the way)... but instead we're busy doing other things. Like calling the police and checking craigslist all day long.

David took the day off his regular job to get some more work done on the house. We were hoping to be ready for the inspector to come this week -- and to be able to move in by next week. But instead when he got there this morning he realized that someone had came into the house lastnight and stolen every tool he had. Every single one... not even a hammer left.

The police came out and was able to get a print off the back door, a shoe print and several pictures of tire tracks... but we doubt that will lead to anything. You can tell where "they" (AKA: the low-life scum theives) drove around to the back of the house, loaded up everything, drove on around the house and down the driveway.

I guess the "good news" is that only minimal damage was done to the house and they didn't steal my kitchen appliances or many other things that we down there (like expensive Lutron lighting switches that were sitting right there all boxed up untouched, etc). We're lucky for that, it could have been much worse I suppose. But just the thought of someone walking thru our house, stealing all of my husbands beloved tools that he took such good care of and had planned on keeping forever -- gone, just like that... it just makes me sick.

I hope tomorrow is a much better day. And I hope tonight isn't a repeat of lastnight either. It makes me want a viscious hungry attack dog roaming around the house 24/7; a burglar alarm system for inside the house; a constant feed video system surrounding the outside of the house that I can watch from here; AND a deer camera set up in a tree just in case all the other things fail. You know what I mean?

Whew, what a day...

So much to do, so MUCH to do!

These past few weeks have really been kicked into high gear now that we're trying to move within 2 weeks (yikes!). David has been working down at the house nonstop, after working full days at his regular fulltime job. Poor guy is working his tail off! I've been trying to help him, which is really fun for me now that it's not anything with sawing - me & saws probably wouldn't be a good mix! lol! I didn't realize before how many littles things there are to do... it's just never ending it seems.

This past Saturday we had a guy come and start grading the dirt around the house. It's amazing how different the outside of the house looks since having all the dirt piles leveled out around the house and all spread out so nice & even. He has to come back one more time after we get the backyard ready for him, then he'll be done. I can almost envision grass, flowers and stepping stones. :)

Then yesterday I helped all day and I think we really got a lot done on the inside. We put on all the wall electrical plates, all the Lutron dimmer switches, put up all the ceiling fans except for 1, the Lutron fan/light conrols, all the smoke detectors except for 1, we sat 2 of the 3 toilets, put in the bathroom vanities in all bathrooms, and David was able to put all the tub/shower fixtures on the kids bathroom.

We're still waiting on the painter to catch up, which is getting a little tiresome considering he's been working in s-l-o-w motion (or not at all) and putting us on the back burner. So he may need a little "talking to". :) He's holding us up on getting other things done because we're waiting for him. The tile guy is working on our bathroom still and hopefully he'll kick it up a notch this week too because he still has quite a bit to do, but it's looking good and I'm excited to see it all get finished.

These next 2 weeks will be super busy but exciting too. We're crossing our fingers for a temporary certificate of occupancy so we can move in. Hopefully I'll find the camera battery charger soon so I can take some pictures of how it's all looking now. :)

Kitchen appliances

I haven't updated in awhile. We've been so busy with trying to finish the house and things are finally moving along at record pace. We were really excited to learn that our county will give us a temporary certificate of occupancy if there are no safety hazzards inside the house... which means we can move in (yay!)... but that means we'll still have more things to complete within a 30 to 60 day timeframe (boo!) like finishing the porch and other outside things. The inspectors will hopefully be coming out next week. I'm keeping my fingers crossed. We will have to get the HVAC & electrical inspected by one inspector first, and if that passes, then another inspector has to come out to work thru the house for the temp c.o. Stressful stuff!

But the "not so good" news is that I've misplaced our camera battery charger, which really stinks when there are so many things that I should taking pictures of! Grrrrr.... I'm working on finding the charger, it has to be around here somewhere... but until then, here is what all we've been working on.

Just on this past Saturday my kitchen appliances were delivered. They are beautiful! My husband really got a deal on the fridge (Samsung 26 cu ft french door style, stainless steel model) -- I think we saved about $1,000 due to big sales, store price matches and rebates. What's even better is that we bumped our delivery out a week because we weren't ready for them yet. So Lowes call us Saturday morning to say that they were actually out of the model we bought but they'd upgrade us to the newer model for free. Woohoo!! I actually wanted the newer model because it had a few features I really liked but I couldn't justify the $400 +/- expense of upgrading. So I was stoked to say the least! And the delivery guys arrived like 30 minutes early, which I thought never happened in the delivery world! :)

And we saved $1,000 even on the range at BestBuy-- it was a floor model and has some slight scratches on the top but it's nothing you'd notice at all. We may even be able to buff some of them out... but it doesn't really matter to me as long as it cooks, then I'm good. :) It's an Electrolux stainless steel slide-in range that has double ovens with convection cooking (which I know nothing about convection cooking!). We actually had no plans to go to BestBuy that day, so it was funny to just walk in and see the range sitting there... like it was waiting on us to buy it! ha ha! David had been doing research on different ranges and we really both liked this one -- but the price was just wayyyy out of our budget -- so we were so happy to find this for such a great deal.

BestBuy also had the Samsung dishwasher we wanted on sale too and they were even willing to mark it down another $150.00 if we'd buy from them along with the stove. David took that offer to Lowes and they matched it for us, plus took 10% off. Talk about another deal! :) It's really amazing what kind of deals you can get if you ask and are ready to buy right then. So Lowes delivered our new dishwasher with the fridge.

I'm so excited to see my kitchen all coming together. It's really so nice, the kitchen of my dreams. I will finally have some room to spread out across the island and cook all our meals, bake yummy cakes & pies, and even learn to can foods (if I can make anything grow in the garden is a whole 'nutha post, lol) -- I cannot wait!! :)

It's really June already?

The past month has been a whirl-wind... some productive days, others not. Sometimes we feel like it's two steps forward, five steps back but I keep reminding myself that it will all be worth it in the end. I guess when we're building your own house, that's how it goes sometimes. In September, it will be 2 years that we've been building this house. Whew!

Since I last blogged we've managed to get the granite in the bathroom done. It looks good but I need to take a close-up pic of it. Here's a shot of the master tub as it is now. David is going to finish it up soon and the tile guy will tile above the granite top. We've got the oil rubbed bronze faucet to put in that looks really good too (another awesome Ebay find!).

We've sold all the extra wood flooring (with the exception of a small bit we're keeping for another project later on), and we even made a little extra money on it. In fact, we made back the money that we paid for the flooring in our house. David had to lift that wood and move those big piles too many times to count... so I know he was happy for it to GO finally! No more splinters. ;)

We got the HVAC units up and running! I feel like shouting this from the rooftops because I was starting to wonder if we'd EVER get it done. Whew, this was the biggest time killer for us... like 3 months time killer! David knows enough about HVAC stuff to do a majority of the work himself so he got quite a bit done, but he needed his friend to come get it all actually going and checked out. And the timing was never right for him to come help so it held us up on that... which help us up on the floors being to acclimate for 10 days before being sanded/stained/finished... which holds us up on setting the kitchen floor cabinets... which holds us up on ordering the granite countertops! Whew, did you follow that?? :) We went with Lennox units and they're so quiet, which is a good thing considering both units aren't too far from our bedrooms windows. Here are some pics of David getting ready to pour the slab for the units to sit on... and then the final product. :)

In the meantime of waiting for the HVAC friend, he was able to go ahead and start putting up the kitchen top cabinets. I love them! They look so nice and I can't wait to see how my kitchen will look when it's all put together. The kitchen is really such a focal point when you walk in the house. Here's a close-up showing the color/glaze and another of how it looks so far.

David was also able to put my 9 foot pantry in the mudroom. It's very BIG & tallbut I'm sure I'll figure out a way to use all that space. I love how the bottom shelves roll out so I can actually see the cans in the back now (unlike in this rental house, I'm always shuffling cans around to reach the back of the pantry). I can't wait to get all my cake pans out and put in the top of the pantry, all nice & neat finally. I miss my cake pans.

The tile guy has completed all the floors and now he's working on our shower. It all looks good and I can't wait to see how well it all looks once he's done. We're really happy with the tile & grout we chose. I'll have to take picture of this again -- I can't find them on the computer!

The guys are coming back to finish the wood floors next weekend. I picked out a stain called "Antique Oak" but I'm kinda worried that it won't be as dark as I'd like. I've read where some people mix "Ebony" stain in with another color to make it darker... I may try this week before they come to see what I think. I'm just not into the light brown oak color and I have this darker walnut color in my head that I want to match.

In the meantime, I've been thinking of decorating ideas for the kids bedrooms. I'm wanting a Pottery Barn look for not so much the Pottery barn price. :) So I've been busy looking around at different fabrics and accessories. I'm thinking shabby chic for Katelyn's bedroom and sports themed for Cole's. I've been getting the kids ideas too, I want them to love their new rooms... but I know they will.

Until next time! ;)

This week...

the painter is still working on getting the final coats of paint on the walls (the kitchen golden mustard color looks amazing!), along with the ceilings painted an ivory color... and all the trim painted bright white. It's taking him a while but he hopes to be done by next week.

The tile guy starts today. I can't wait to see how it turns out! We're still working on getting a grout color picked out... it shouldn't be too hard to pick but we just haven't had time to check out the choices.

David's friend is coming back this weekend to help get the HVAC unit up and running. We had to order more parts for it so they couldn't finish it last weekend. I don't think I've blogged about the unit we chose yet. David researched a LOT of different HVAC units and we decided to put extra money into a nice Lennox unit. I'll have to ask him more questions about it later. It "zaps" stuff in the air, cool huh? That's about all I know about it, lol.

In the meantime, we went to Hobby Lobby lastnight and bought me several neat signs for the house and we checked out some nice artwork too. I can't wait to get all moved in and actually decorate each room! :)

Tile will be starting soon

Sometime within the next week the sub will begin on doing the tile installation. The sub is actually a good friend of David's though, so I'm sure we're getting a good deal and good quality too. We'll have tile in the master bath/kids bath/half bath; the mudroom; and the laundry room. Oh, and the kitchen back splash will be tiled also.

Lowe's delivered our tile package (over $2,000... ouch... for supplies alone... double ouch) yesterday so we'll all ready - just waiting on him to start. We decided to use the "Realto Beige" for most of the tile, we used this in our last renovated house and it held up good.

The bathroom/mudroom/laundry room floors will be done in 12x12 tiles. The 6x6 will be used in the master shower on the wall, along with 4x4 tiles and a mosiac tile to break up the design on the wall. The shower floor will be mosiac tiles too, but a different pattern. David is in charge of designing the "look" we want, because I'm way too visual to put it all together.

Here are a few pics, they're not the best in the world... but it'll give you an idea of the look/color we're going with.

I'm excited to see how it all looks! :)