Oh, hello.  Welcome to our home.  Won't you come in?

That's the view from the front door.

We've been taking pictures for about a month... we've watched our parcel of land go from a rocky dirt pile to a giant hole with multiple dirt piles, to a nice looking shell of a house... and today, we got to enter the shell.

Is it weird that a house with no walls feels small?  Like it's hard to think that anything will fit once the walls are in.  Yet, we know it's huge, and it won't be a problem.  Take the morning room, for instance.  This sight greeted us as we entered through the garage.

We started upstairs... ladies first. 

We were a little disappointed to see they'd written all over our walls.

But it's nothing a little sheet rock and a few coats of paint won't cover up.

 Master bedroom looking into the "bonus" room.

From here forward, I think we'll call it the upstairs play room; it gives it a purpose.

Note that we will have a wall-mounted TV.

There were a lot of decisions that went into the layout of this house.

But I will say... there is not one more stressful than setting the location of wall-mounted TVs in stone.  I mean, we're planning our viewing for the rest of our lives by putting this tube in the wall.  There is no moving the TV.  It's there.

I think we actually agonized over this one for almost 2 minutes.

One of the longer decisions... let's go ahead and turn around and look at the windows in the corner of the master bedroom. 

Bryce, our project manager says he hasn't seen one of these installed before.

When we moved into Stonecrest, the master bath had a heater in the ceiling.

When we remodeled it, we put in a new heater in the ceiling.

How could we not put a heater in the ceiling in the new house? 

It's a different model, more energy efficient and pretty quiet, but it's there.

And the order of the switches looks like it'll be the same, so we're good.

Here's the toilet.

The upstairs play room has a nice alcove area

From here forward, I think we'll call it a nook; it gives it a purpose

Standing in the upstairs playroom, you can see all the way to Marissa's room

You can also see another decision we agonized over.

Who puts a duct in a ceiling?

Turns out, that's not the kind that pays you money if you get injured.

 AFLAC!

I do a lot of the laundry, so it's only appropriate that my picture goes there.

People think they can just walk into our house whenever they want.

We were standing somewhere in the house when this was taken.

I pretty much gave up trying to figure out where I was.

I do recall that this is the living room.

And that these are the stairs going up.

With African tribal art on the posts.

No such art work going down.

But a freshly poured concrete floor greets us. 

As as extra challenge, they set up the 4-8-10 split. 

We have an unfinished basement.

It just seemed like an unnecessary expense right now

Since we have the upstairs play room with nook.

We do have a TV wiring tube in the living room, though.

This is Bryce demonstrating where it comes through in the basement

It's a life sentence 

But that's okay, because one day it'll have a wet bar. 

We didn't have a ton of questions, but enjoyed seeing everything that's going into the house.  It was a busy day with electric and HVAC going in today, so it was loud... but progress is good.

We have a pre-settlement meeting date and it's October 22nd.  Woot.

We didn't forget you...

It's been 4 days since we posted.  So, let's get right to it.  A lot has happened in the past 4 days...

First, a sold sign went up in the window.

Also, a "no trespassing sign" 

Though, honestly, there would be an easier way to keep people out... 

Let's look at the house from all sides.

Note that on Wednesday, we'll be getting a look at it from a whole new side: the inside!  Our pre-drywall walk-through is Wednesday morning.  We'll finally get to wander through and see where walls may some day be.

But anyway, here's the right side. 

To the front... to the front...

Have I mentioned this summer has been wet?  If not, this summer has been wet.  And behind the house is a hill.  To get pictures of the back of the house, one must go around construction zones (now two since lot 26 is dug)... and getting around on soppy ground can be slippery.  Then getting to the top of the hill can be worse.

If one was not taking pictures to post on a public blog, one would probably just walk through the construction zones and not care.  But one is, and so one doesn't.

But finally, it dried out enough to catch some dry ground to make it around 26 and up to the top of the hill.  From there, a nice view of the back of the house can be found.  And the left side, since I apparently did not take a single picture of that side on this day.

One more look inside...

Get ready, Liverpool...  we're coming to your town!

But first, we have to deal with the mail...

And the honor of getting the mail for the last time at Stonecrest...

First time getting it too...

Next post after the pre-drywall Wednesday!

finally equipped to handle 2 torrential downpours

The saga continues... trying to build a house in a summer when building an ark might be more appropriate.  I was actually getting a bit concerned one day when I got to the site and the contractors were walking into the house two by two.

But we were assured that the materials can withstand some weather, and that the only time weather would be a factor, in terms of causing delays, was while the roof was open.

Well... you've seen that we have a roof.  And, because even though when it rained today, it really rained, there was a large chunk of time open to do this:

This also answers the question people have asked:

"What color is your house going to be?"

Close-up of the garage doors

And ... umm, bullet holes, maybe? 

In the midst of the bullet holes is the wiring for the outdoor lights

There will be some by the front door, too: 

One more look at our house...

To the left, lot 26 has flags: 

And across the road, the house that started about a day after us...

We should be within 60 days to move-in

We're 14 from moving from Stonecrest

We've been here just under 7 years and the road's been paved 3 times and rebuilt once...

...and they still can't fix the damn hump from the crushed drain pipe in front of the house

We have gotten used to the hump, though - and we know exactly how to take the turn for a smooth ride or a really bumpy "passengers hit the roof" experience.

That's all for now!

Raise the rooooooof

 That looks like a roof

Kokopelli!

Zucchini!

Thanks Amy!

Now, back to the house...

Elapsed Time: 20 Hours

Day off for packing = daytime visit

Clean shot through the garage door

Checking out the back door...

...which goes nowhere.

Parkway Electric is here doing their thing

This truck beat the other one because the other one got lost

Or had some other reason for turning around down the street

Just saying... 

Front door is open.

Come on in! 

The bars are going up.

Soon they'll let in the inmates

Hopefully it's a life sentence. 

That's all for now!

Wrapped up without a bow

We're getting to a point where there won't be too much more happening on a daily basis, so since I promised Marissa she could drive to one of our daily visits, we decided tonight would be the night.  She didn't do a bad job, though I had to help a little since she can't quite reach the pedals.

We hope it wasn't supposed to be a surprise, but we found our house gift-wrapped

Again, note the ominous sky full of lake-effect clouds.

Huge low pressure and unstable atmosphere are making this week kinda crappy

A peek through the garage into the living room.

Looks like someone's watching TV. 

Lot 26 has definitely broken ground.

Our new neighbor is a total hoe. 

Spent the whole day going down.

Definitely makes it hard to get to the back of the house now.

So, no more back pictures for awhile.

Probably looks like it did before, but with whatever changes are on the front, too

A quick look across the road to see the progress

And back to the point of this blog: our house.

 

As with anything that's getting built, there are extra pieces.

It'll be a short jump from the last stair to the basement...

but that's half the fun.

After all, we did ask for the basement to be unfinished

Leaving the stairs unfinished was an upgrade.

Only $175, but well worth it.

Hey, speaking of stairs, I took a handful of pictures looking through the garage

Caught the light just right on this one...

caught the stairs to the second floor

 

The camera seems to have developed a little problem.

The more zoomed we are, the bigger the black spot on the left.

I think this is maximum zoom.

We shouldn't've made that public.  We could've switched out the cameras and kept the one that isn't broken.  We still could, I guess... nobody who reads this knows Sara, right?

We like to check in with our project manager from time to time.  As expected, we seem to be a bit behind schedule - but from rough estimates, which are worthless for planning purposes.  It's looking like early next week (August 25th), we'll be doing our pre-drywall walk-through, when we get to go in and nit-pick about every little thing.  On the back-end, however, we seem to have made up a week, as he had originally told us the week of October 13th or the week after, and now tells us it's looking like the week of October 13th or the week before.

That's just evidence that Ryan wants to get rid of us before we can make more changes.

Either way, the earlier in October, the more leisurely we can settle in since we'll have an apartment through the month of October.  Oh, did we mention that?  Liverpool, here we come!