Welcome to the Jungle

Jungle aka Ed George came over this weekend to help with the house project. Ed built the log cabin for Thomas and taught him a lot during the process. Ed's goal was to get the doors hung, trimmed and closets done. He and Thomas were able to get all that done and the cork flooring in the laundry room, window seals and also the railing for the deck completed. The railing was a job that Thomas needed to get done for final inspection. He is relieved that one more of these bigger projects is done. The porch looks great and hopefully with a set of stairs, outdoor lights and the tongue and groove pine for a ceiling will finish off the back of the house.

Here is the foyer closet that Ed finished for us. They still need painted but it looks great already!

Here is the window seal and some of the trim work that also got done this weekend. Here is a photo of my dining room. The lights still need to be adjusted.

A photo of Avie's walk-in closet. We had to work around the little doors but she will love it.

Although not clean,  I wanted to show off the hardwood floors now that they are done.

I was able to clean off the counters today....here is a look at the granite, Moon Yellow.

and the kitchen....

I couldn't post without a little drama. I ordered these lights almost 2 months ago, expecting to be putting them in before this week. The listed height was four inches shorter than they actually are. And we didn't use any of the chain links provided. So they hang down too low but they were expensive and it's too late to return them. So...if you are taller than 6' 5" be careful walking into our home. You may hit your head on my ginormous lights. Even though they are a little too big, I do love them.

This week we will be visited by Brian the plumber to install the final plumbing. Hope the electrician will be done this week too. We are going to have to scramble to find someone to install the linoleum in the kids' bathrooms as Ed just ran out time to get it done. Wish us luck!

Reality Bites!

My attitude isn't great as I write this weeks blog. I am beginning to think building was a horrible mistake and by the time this house is done I am going to despise it. A little background is that we were supposed to be in this house a long time ago. Between banking and weather delays this project has taken entirely too long for me. Everyone tells you its going to take longer and cost more than planned but it doesn't have to (in my simple mind). We are under budget but this time frame is killing me. Building a house sounds good in theory like a new puppy. But after nights of no sleep and too many bite marks to count...you start to realize that maybe this wasn't the best decision I've ever made.

Rainie, our newest edition

Ok now to the progress this week. Ken Pierson of All Phases Construction, who has done most of the building of the house, is also tiling our shower. He came up on Saturday to start the shower knowing what a hurry I am to get moved in. Thanks Ken! The house is beautiful and the shower is better than I could have imagined. We had discussed putting in one inset wall shelf...but he gave me two. We discussed adding a bench not for sitting but for shaving legs....and again I got two!

The man getting paid the least but working every spare minute on this project is Tommy. This project is starting to wear on us. Frankly I think I have just said "I don't really like that" one too many times. Anyways...he is doing a great job. I am very proud of his perseverance with the house. He finished up the back deck this weekend which proved to be more work that he thought. He also installed our hood vent in the kitchen.

Our good friend Tim and his father in law John came up and helped Thomas move the fridge into place.

The sink was also set and now the counter tops can finally be installed.

We also have all the cabinets installed. Here is a little preview of my future media cabinet with shelves. I really love how this turned out. Thanks to Todd Inman he was able to turn a few different photos into exactly what we were looking for.

And the master bathroom...

Finally....I attempt to avoid any pictures of myself but my little Quinny helping me move the trim into the garage was too cute to not share. If you could have seen the strut when he walked back for the next load. Priceless.

Shout out to Larry Sather!

It's getting close...

Our good friend Larry of Sather Construction came and visited this weekend. He has been helping Thomas general contract the home and wanted to see the progress. He also installed our bathroom floor tile. I think when he saw the size of the tile he might have been thinking twice about driving 8 hours to come and "do us a favor".
I can't say enough nice things about this guy and he has been a huge help with this project. Not that I will ever build again but if I do, Sather Construction will be doing all the general contracting.

The bathroom proved to be a pain with the large 16 x 24 tiles.

Here is Larry giving Thomas a lesson on the tile saw. Unfortunately the kitchen countertop was not installed before Larry came over. He gave us a few tile lessons in hopes we could do the kitchen backsplash on our own. Hmmm....I didn't pick the easiest backsplash for the beginner.

Here is Thomas running the saw. Again these really large tiles just made things more difficult. I had originally wanted to have 9 x 16 format but we were unable to find it in the pewter travertine. And yes...I had to have pewter travertine. We had walnut travertine in our last house and loved it. It just didn't match my plans for my bathroom and marble just wasn't an option. I am so glad we went with this tile and I can't wait to see the shower, hopefully this week.

Here is the tile before it was grouted....

And the final product....I love it! Thanks Larry!

All in a days work?

The move in date is closing in and we still have a lot of work to do. But...this weekend we did get a lot done. Poor Thomas worked 14 hour days trying to get the hardwood floors installed. I had originally tried to talk Thomas into putting a border in the foyer. With all that he had to do it was one of those things that just had to be skipped.

The wood is a natural hardwood called Chinkapin. We had hickory in our last house and I "loved" them. It wasn't in our budget for this house but the chinkapin is starting to grow on me. Thomas is adding square head nails for the finish. I am not really happy about this...too rustic for my taste. He isn't backing down on putting them in so I will have to learn to live with them.

Here is a picture of the wood spread out everywhere.

Saturday morning Thomas was up to the house by 7 am. It took us awhile to get a it figured it out.

By day one we had the kitchen and dining room done.

And by Sunday night we almost all of it done.

The kids are getting pretty tired of amusing themselves up at the new house. They did enjoy playing with the broken air compressor tubing.

All that is left is the area around the fireplace. We think we can finish it up after work tomorrow. The cabinets are coming in this week and we need to get flooring done in order for the media cabinet to get installed. 

This week was also marked by having our heat pumps installed. I know I am getting excited about little things but it's one more step to getting the house done.

I also had to post Taryn's room. It's purple and I think she is really going to like it.

This next week should be exciting with cabinets getting installed. Our good friend, Larry, will be here from back home to help install our tile floor. I picked most of the tile on Friday and it's exactly what I wanted. I can't wait to see it installed.

Another busy weekend....our goal this weekend was to get both decks completed. This was no small task and we would have accomplished it if we hadn't ran out of wood. We came pretty close and only have about 1/4 of the back deck to complete.
Here is a photo of Thomas finishing up the front deck.

So I can't take much credit...but I did find out I like using the miter saw.

With the front deck I really wasn't much help between 3 soccer games and a T-ball game. I did manage to stain it but that was about all. I figured I needed to step up and help Thomas out a bit more with the back deck. This deck is about 8 feet off the ground so there he was trying to lay decking while walking on the deck joists. Not easy. So he set up the boards and I drilled in the screws. I am sure that I stripped more screws than he has in a lifetime but we almost got it done and so far it looks great! Our friend Tim also came over with his boys and helped. The boys played with wooden swords that Thomas made out of scrap wood while Tim helped Thomas move 20 foot boards. After all that help they even fed us dinner. We owe them big time!

Here is the front deck...love how cedar looks after being stained.

A different picture of the deck showing the newly framed columns.

The paint is finally done. I have to apologize for the pictures. We haven't seen much of the sun lately and we still don't have lights in the house....so the pictures aren't great. I needed to post proof that I actually have more than one color in my house, this is new for me.
Here is the master bathroom, Sherwin-Williams Lemon Chiffon. The bottom will be white beadboard with pewter travertine for tile floors and shower

 

Here is the master bedroom, Sherwin-Williams Dorian Grey.

Avie's room looks really good, with Sherwin-Williams Macadamia and her accent wall color Mariner. Taryn's is a lovely purple but the lighting was so poor that the picture did not turn out well.

 

Finally Quinn's room and his chalkboard wall, it will be trimmed out with a cork board border.

Plans for next week include installing the hardwood floors and finishing it with 3 applications of tung oil. Oh yeah....and finishing the back deck. Sure wish we didn't have to work!

Paint the town...or at least Hoodlum house!

We continue to make progress now that the house has been sheet rocked and textured. The weather has not been cooperating and has remained in the low 60's with rain almost daily. Our goal is to get the humidity out of the house so we can start laying the hardwood floors. Keep dreaming Katie...the forecast calls for rain all week. Oh well....we did get a few things off our list this weekend:

Shingles stained....check

Avie was a big helper on this project. We had a good time talking and listen to music.

Build a miter saw stand...check

Done entirely by Thomas...I was personally really impressed. I have since given him a few new projects since he did such a good job on this one. Grandpa Wildman would be proud of his little prodigy.

Start refinishing Avie's future headboard. This was rescued by my brother, Ry, many years ago. We have moved it a few times and are finally in the process of getting it done for Avie. Still haven't decided on a final color for it. Considering the same pink color but Avie is a bit resistant.

Get house numbers done...check
This is at the entrance of our driveway. Quinn had good time hunting lizards while I was doing this project.

Pick out paint colors. This required an emergency call to my sister in law and many hours of stressing. The paint guy laughed at me the other day because I had used over 15 samples of wall paint. Here is a sample before the insanity started. Needless to say, only of few of these made the cut.

The blue is Avie's accent wall, the purple is Taryn's and the grey is the master bedroom color. The rest of them didn't work.  We've spent over $3,000 on paint, the extra hundred dollars I spent on samples was well worth it!

Oh yeah, paint the interior...almost check. The ceiling will get done on Tuesday after the wall paint has had a chance to dry. Here is the future dining room and kitchen. Please excuse Thomas and Avie for getting in the way.

Here is our foyer. The main wall color is Sherwin-Williams Macadamia.

Foyer

 Quinn's room

Jack and Jill Bathroom

Future Kitchen

 Finally...in attempt to get some of the humidity out the house we built our first fire. Quinn spent this time using chunks of sheet rock as chalk and writing various, not always nice, words on pieces of wood. I keep telling him he needs to use his intelligence for good not evil. Seriously he was writing 'Avie poo poo'...stinker!

There is so many things that have been completed in the last few weeks I cannot list them all. Next week we will get some decks completed, garage doors will be installed, we'll pick up our hardwood floors and put on our exterior door hardware. Wish us luck...our goal is to be in the house before my brother comes to visit on July 9th.