The Wise Man Built His House Upon the Rock

I don't know why, but that song has been going through my head off and on since we started this process.  Maybe it is because I sometimes worry we made a foolish decision to build a house right now.  Of course, when we started this process, we didn't know that my daughter was going to be sick much of this spring and end up with lots of medical bills or that my husband would have his fourth eye surgery (today).  I am hoping that this song is going through my head because this is the right thing to do and we are providing a firm foundation both literally and figuratively for our girls.  And speaking of foundations...

WE HAVE ONE!

 

Notice the dark looking sky overhead?  That is not the lighting on my camera.  I am not sure of the timing, but it did rain at some point in the process.  When Joe and I went to check it out around 12:30, there were two men there finishing up and getting the water off the foundation.  (I am sure the man above would be thrilled to be in my blog)

They started the foundation around 7:00 this morning (you are welcome, new neighbors) and since Joe and I had to be at the hospital for his eye surgery at 7:30, we sent in our helpers.  Joe's parents, Laura, and Emmalee went before school (on their last day of school) and watched the beginning of the process.  They loved it and everyone was really nice to them. I think someone got a finger in the picture below :)

Laura took most of the pictures in the morning and they said a total of six cement trucks delivered the cement to our house. I had no idea it would take so many.  You can see two of them below.     

 Apparently they started moving a little fast at one point and one of the workers got cement all over his hands and made a big deal about his hands being cemented together. The girls got a good laugh at him.  I think this picture might have been right before it happened.

Joe and I left the hospital, picked up food, and headed to the house.  We are thankful his surgery went well and hope for good news tomorrow.  I was going to take a picture of his eye all bandaged up, but I think he will appreciate this one better.  You probably can't tell, but he has house shoes on in the mud :(

Everyone has been friendly when we go by the house and I think (and hope) they like that we are interested and excited about our house.  I don't know much about house building, but I am pretty sure this is the part where things start moving really fast before they slow down again so it should be a fun few weeks! 

Today Could Be THE DAY

Thursday when we went to look at the lot, it looked like this...

On Sunday when we went to look at the lot, it looked like this...

I know nothing about construction, but it looks ready for some foundation pouring to me.  It is funny how once the dirt was poured in and there was "stuff" in there (pipes for the plumbing, stakes sticking up different places, etc.) it looked bigger all of the sudden.  We know that once the foundation is poured it will look smaller again, so we are preparing ourselves.  Here's hoping for some cement trucks today!

Just Enjoying the View

Although not the best photograph, it really is nice to see this every day that we go out to the house after dinner.

 

Standing at our front door, we can see the sunset and it is glorious.  There will be one more house on our street (to the left in this picture), but we still should have a pretty unobstructed view of the sunset every night.  Just one more reason we are excited about the location of our house!

 

Slowly But Surely

I am guessing that I will want to name many posts that by the time this process is done.  I was out of town last weekend (Girl's Weekend with my mom, sisters, adult nieces and precious great nephew- only boy allowed) so I didn't see the house for a few days.  Okay, so "house" may still not be the correct term yet.  We are getting there though...slowly but surely.

We went out to the lot this evening and I wished that I had a little boy with me because this is the first thing we saw.

I know, I know, you don't have to be a boy to like machines, but my girls are pretty girly (and a little old) to enjoy having this next door to their "house."  I also took this picture because I LOVE the tree behind this whatchamacallit.

We knew that the house might be plumbed when we went out tonight and here is what we saw...

 
No plumbing :(  But it does look much larger with the dirt filled in for some reason.  I keep trying to take pictures without shadows in them, but the sun will be setting outside our front door and we are always there in the evenings so there you have it. 

Hopefully we will have plumbing tomorrow and the foundation poured on Friday.  Since Monday is a holiday, if it isn't done on Friday it won't be done until Tuesday. 

We are getting there...slowly but surely.

**By the way, anyone know of someone who needs a responsible family of house sitters (with two dogs and a hamster) from mid-July until mid-October??

A Firm Foundation

Fooled you!  I bet you thought there was going to be a foundation picture.  Nope!  Getting closer, though.

I am sure the two men in this picture were thrilled when we came by at lunch time and took pictures of the work they were doing.  They probably would have liked to work in peace, but they were polite and nicely waved. Now they are famous with my millions thousands hundreds family and a few close friends who read my blog.


*As an aside, I have been waiting to use the "strike through" feature.  Everyone uses it in case you hadn't noticed.  Just trying to be like my cool blogger friends :)


Here is a picture from tonight with the foundation frame (whatever you call it) all in place.  It is so true that the house looks tiny when you look at the foundation (or the foundation frame).  The backyard looked bigger than I thought, though, so that was a good surprise.  I am guessing they won't pour the foundation until next week, but we will see.

In the Interest of Full Disclosure

I know that I haven't written in awhile (how many times have I seen that on a blog post?), but life has been super busy and house building has not.  Things are moving slowly right now, but I know that they will start going much faster soon before they slow down again.  There are a few exciting developments and here is one:

No, everyone who is building a house doesn't get a hard hat.  Just people who work there :)

No, I did not take on a second job (I can barely keep up with my first one!)

My husband starting working for Stylecraft Builders about two weeks ago.  He is working in the home warranty area and learning so much about how the building process works.  The great thing for us is that he is much better informed and works right next door to the superintendent on our house.  It doesn't speed things along, but it does keep us in the loop.  So far he loves what he is doing and the people are awesome.  We will certainly learn what to do and what not to do to take care of our house once we get the keys!

Closing date!

Our closing date is set for October 5, 2012!!!  

Now if we can just find a place to live from 8/1/2012-10/5/2012.  No stress!

Delay

I am sure all three of you who read my blog are anxiously awaiting my next exciting post about our home.  Hopefully you have figured out from the title one of the reasons I haven't posted in a few days.  Delay!  Already.  We haven't even started yet :(


Actually, this time, the delay is a good thing for us.  We are moving into a neighborhood with a Home Owner's Association.  Before we could start building, our plans had to be approved by the HOA.  Stylecraft has built many homes in the neighborhood and although I don't think any of them are the same plans as ours, they have the same specifications.  The difference is that because of the way our home is situated, you can see the back of the home from the main drive into the neighborhood.  Most of the homes in the neighborhood have three sides with brick and stone (and a little Hardiplank) with Hardiplank on the back of the home like so: 

This house has Hardiplank covering the back

 
Because of the way our home is situated, the HOA requested brick and stone on all four sides.  So, at no extra cost to us, we will have brick and stone on all four sides!

Although not our floorplan or brick or stone, the idea is similar to what we will have on all four sides of our house

We are excited because our home will be started soon and we can't wait to see the progression.

*And a disclaimer... I would have been fine with the home the way it originally was going to be.  The back of our home will have a fence around it and it really doesn't matter what it looks like.  No putting down Hardiplank here, just excited for our home in whatever shape it ends up being.  

Our Splurges

Our builder (Stylecraft homes) has many features that come standard with each home. The standard features vary depending on the floorplan and neighborhood that you are building in.When we started this venture, we thought that we would stick with all the standard features of our home.  As you can guess (and I alluded to in another post), that was not the case.  So what did we splurge on?

 Mandatory (at least in our minds) splurges:

Ceiling fans are standard in the master bedroom, game room, and living room.  Since we have 3 upstairs bedrooms with girls who will be sleeping in them who use a ceiling fan pretty much 365 days a year, this was a no-brainer. 

Not very expensive, but super helpful splurge:

 Back door with the blinds in the glass.  Too many children and dogs going in and out to have blinds hanging on the door.  This is the back door in our house now and we love this feature!

Big Time Splurge:

Isn't it beautiful?  Six burner gas stove with double ovens.  Sigh!  We love to cook and try to eat at home almost every day.  We have dinner as a family every night and this was the one splurge that made the most sense to us.  We hope to entertain more at our new house and being able to cook many things at one time will be awesome.  It ended up costing more than we thought it would, but I don't think we will ever be sorry!

Splurge we decided to do without :(

See the fact that the little porch is covered?  We won't be having that.  The cost is several thousand dollars and we decided that we can do something else later for a porch covering if we want to.  And just in case you are wondering, the floorplan of the house above is the same as ours!  More to come in a future post.  Stay tuned to see more pictures of this house that looks very similar to ours...