Things are coming along....

We have had a great week of weather here in Southern Oregon. During this weather break we have been blessed to get a lot done on the house.

The plumbing and HVAC is in. Before the flooring comes in on Monday there's a bit of water that will need clean up. Hmmm...and I know just the teenager for the job!

  Speaking of kids....Quinn is loving the outdoors. Here he is asking Avie "wanna fight"? A little while later he was playing in the dirt and managed to fling dirt onto the wet cement floor.

We were able to pick out the rocks and such but then he did it again. The picture below is Quinn after the stick was taken away.

Quinn pouting

 

 

This is a picture of the boys pouring concrete. It was 38 degrees and one of them was even sleeveless. They were working hard and on a Saturday too. Hopefully the completed garage floor will make the framers job a little easier.

Here is Avie standing in the hole for our deck footings.

Here are the footings after being poured today.

We have been really fortunate to have found Jim Brown our contractor that did our foundation and garage slab. He will also be doing our masonry fireplace. Anyways...he called Thomas and told him the time to come up so the kids could put their names in the concrete. Here is Thomas and Taryn making a plan.

Here is the finished product and quite possibly my favorite part of this house. The kids were wishing Auzzie was here so he could have been included too.


Any of you who know me are well aware of my indecisiveness. I am running out of time to pick out windows and I need to get plumbing fixtures ordered.
To continue with the craftsman theme, I think I have decided on these windows.


Thankfully...I still have a few days to think about plumbing fixtures!

And so it begins.....

So I must start this week with out little Quinn. He really enjoys preschool and is learning a lot. He especially likes circle time, each day they learn one or two new signs. He flashes me an "I love you" all the time now. My sweet little man.

So we arrived at the house today to see the floor joists completed. Here is a picture of Avie checking out the view. I really can't believe how excited she is about this house!

Our little Quinn is always in motion, probably why so many of my pictures of him  turn out fuzzy. Anyways, Quinn and Thomas are standing in our future full masonry fireplace. This was one of many fights that Thomas has won. I grew up in Burns Oregon with a house heated with wood only. Frankly, I hated trying to start a fire and especially hated cleaning up the messy floors. But...he had his heart set on it. I think it will be beautiful and I also think Thomas might be getting a new vacuum for his birthday present.

Here is another picture of Thomas checking out the progress. I can't help but think about the view that we are going to enjoy once we are living here.

This is our outside garage wall. Thomas and Taryn spent some time last weekend cleaning this up, only to get another few inches of rain. I think I know what Taryn is doing this weekend. No wonder she doesn't like us much.

Well...here is Avie being goofy again. Next week the plumbing and HVAC will be roughed in the crawlspace. It's really exciting to see all these changes every week!

The foundation has begun

It's been awhile since I have had anything new to post. We had over 10 inches of rain in December, hence, no work was being done.

 There is still a lot of water

 

The lower part of the foundation. When finished it will be about about 5 feet high.

Silly kids. Quinn is excited for the new house so he can get his toys out of storage. Avie is just excited because she will finally have her own room.

 

 Avie was so excited about the sunset tonight. This will be the view from her bedroom balcony.

If the weather holds....the builder should start in about 5 days. This is the exciting part!

Concrete.....whoo hoo!

Ok...I kinda hate the term whoo hoo but I really can't think of a better way to describe our excitement to finally pour concrete. We had a break in weather this week and were able to start the footings process. As you can see we have lots of mud.
This is the approach at the top of our driveway. Even though we have put in gravel it's just too wet for it to be effective.

Quinn fell in the mud about two steps out of the car. It went something like this: Quinn- "it's too muddy" (lots of crying). Thomas- "are you a boy or a little girl?' (more crying). Let's face it the boy does not like to be dirty, and this muddy mess kinda ruined his day.

Garage Footings

Future Mud Room/Kitchen/Dining Room

Future Main floor (a bit fuzzy)

Well we are very excited about starting the process of our house. Hopefully the weather will hold until the foundation is completed. Have a Merry Christmas!!

Rain, Rain, go away...come back when we have roof!

I was hoping this weeks posting would have some photos of a foundation. Unfortunately all this rain is really holding us up. We are waiting for a few dry days to get the footings started.

 

 Here lies the problem...water is everywhere

The next problem has been the water system. When the community wells were not producing enough the neighborhood made a deal with the city to provide an additional water supply. In all their wisdom they put the water line right through a future home site. Hmmm....its a good thing Thomas is handy. He moved and fixed water pipes all weekend. We owe a few of our new neighbors a huge thank you for being so patient with their water being turned off most of the weekend.
So far Thomas has finished the road, dug our foundation and put in all the utilities. Poor guy has been working every weekend and almost every night after work in the cold and rain

 

I don't think Thomas can deal with my impatience much longer. Thanks to a certain bank, I won't mention names, we are three months behind. The weather is not cooperating so we remain at a standstill on starting the actual building process. BUT...this is our future view. It is beautiful. As I took this picture the birds were singing and it reminded me that this will be worth it in the end.

Hopefully next weeks posting will include some concrete....hopefully!

Our little hole in the ground

Thomas reviewing the plans for the foundation

  

Setting up the laser level. Thomas is standing in our future mud room.

Proof of my contribution; running the laser level. At one point Thomas made a loud boom with the backhoe. I jumped about 3 feet in the air. Thomas leans out the window and says 'I've never hit anybody on accident". You can imagine my reaction.

Working late

House Plans

This isn't the best picture...but the top picture is what the back or the view side of the new house will look like. The second story will have two balconies, which are connected to our "princesses" bedrooms.

This is the front of a house that is similar to what we are building. Thomas found this craftsman style house over 2 years ago and has wanted to build ever since. I figured since he was going to be doing most of the "sweat equity" part, he should get what he wants. It really is beautiful!