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.

The sweet smell of drywall?

After an unexpected trip back to Idaho, we are back and ready to start painting. Wish we could have went back under better circumstances but it was so great to see our family. I have been so busy with everything I guess I forgot how homesick I was.

The front door was delivered last week. I get home from work late and usually I'm running to soccer, T-ball or home to feed the family dinner. The night it got installed I went straight up to the house. I just couldn't wait to see it. Well...it's huge but I love it! All vertical 9 feet of it.

The bottom floor is dry walled and they have started the upstairs. Here is the foyer...with another shot of the front door.

Here is a photo of the living room and fireplace.

Here is a photo of the mechanical room which will also be home to much of my pantry

Here is a photo of the jack and jill bathroom.

Here is a photo of the my little pantry. The hot water heater was moved into my mud room and that meant giving up my locker style bench that I was so excited about. The bonus was that I did get some extra pantry space in the mechanical room

Taryn's bedroom which will double as the guest room. So to all our family and friends this will be your view if you come to visit.

Here is the barrel ceiling. This was an expensive feature but I think it's going to look great!

The last photo is a picture looking from the living room to the kitchen and dining room.

So by next week we should be pretty close to having the place taped and textured. Which means 5000 square feet of painting for me. When I agreed to painting Thomas didn't say anything about drywall primer and the fact that I was painting the whole house twice.

Ready for inspection

Another week down.....I have no idea how many more to go.

Thomas got the house wired for sound, TV and internet this week. Here is a picture of where one of the speakers will go.

The T.V. will be placed above the fireplace and here is a shot of the hidden wires.

Another photo of the fireplace as it goes through the second floor. Wish we had enough money to put in a second story fireplace but we are over budget on the first one.

We have inspection on Monday and the shower pan had to be completed before inspection. Here is our future shower holding water and ready for inspection.

Here is a picture of our barrel ceiling. Our drywall contractor needed some additional support so our framer was given another job to do this week. I have a feeling he will think twice about framing a house with a barrel ceiling again.

Even with the added job of the ceiling they did get the entire house sheeted and....

all the pocket doors framed in and....

made some progress on the girls' decks

I guess this is the other deck. I am not sure what Quinn is mad about but he sure doesn't look happy.

So next week we hope to pass inspection and move on to insulation and sheet rocking!

Forward progress

Wow....this house is really moving along. Our framers have been working their tails off with the better weather this week.

The plumber finished his rough in last week. I was spoiled with an outdoor faucet that has hot and cold water. I had never heard of such a thing...who needs hot water outside? I guess that new puppy of ours is going to be happy about her warm hose downs.

 Oh that Avie, she is quite the character. Here she is trying out the new shower.

The framing is getting finished up for the most part. Here are the girls' secret closets. I didn't realize what these were going to look like, but they turned out pretty cute.

More framing pictures. This is Avie's future room...for the most part all of the house is done being framed except for a few little things. It looks great!

Heating and cooling was also put in this week and is ready for inspection.

While digging the foundation Thomas ran into quite a big tree stump. But it was far enough away from the house that he left it. Big mistake! That stump was in the way of where we are going to set the two heat pumps. Poor Thomas was left to his ax to get rid of that stump, since he can't get the backhoe on that side of the house. He finally got it out and we are ready for some concrete.

Electrical is being roughed in as well. These guys are great! I had no idea how many decisions revolved around where to put lights and how many we need. I am really glad I have an experienced electrician to walk me through this.

The easiest decision with this house has been the roof. I picked Harvard Slate. I figured that was the closest I was ever going to Harvard.

Finally...this is the house. The changes are really started to be noticed and I am getting more and more excited. I have even started doing a bit of shopping for the house.
Next week should be done with our inspections and ready for dry wall!

Thatched

Yep....record rain has put us behind but we finally have a roof!!!

Our plumbing rough in was also completed. Due to layoffs at the county that they will only do one inspection for plumbing, electrical, HVAC and framing. Unfortunately that means our plumber who lives 3 hours away and is going to have to come down for an extra trip.

Our future jetted tub is now framed in.

The next exciting part is that our fireplace is making some definite progress. Here's Jim and he is meticulous in his work. We came up one day and he had taken half of it down. I guess there was something he didn't like. Anyways....it looks great! I can't wait to make our first fire this fall!

Here is another shot of the fireplace.

So even though we've had our setbacks....things are coming along!! Electrical and HVAC would be installed next week.

I can see clearly now, the rain has gone....

We had record rain for the month of March. The framers have been working at a snail pace in the cold and rain. Not to mention unable to work on the roof because of safety issues.
With a few days of good weather and long hours they have definitely made some progress. 

Grandma Donna came to visit this weekend and to see how the house is coming along.

The roof is on and will hopefully be felted early next week.

We met with the electrician this week for our walk through. It's pretty exciting and a little stressful to be starting on these new tasks.

Our plumber, Brian, was here this week and roughed in most of the plumbing.

We also saw some progress on the fireplace. This thing is huge but I think it will look really great when it's done.

Finally....I just have say how thankful we are for the wonderful contractors that we have working with us. From the moment we started this project we have been blessed with the best people to work with, starting with our loan officer to our building suppliers and contractors. It has made this difficult process much easier knowing that we have great people guiding us.

Disappointed

Well it's been three weeks since my last post. Not much has changed,  except our expected move in date.

 The front porch did get covered...

and the upper deck on the rear of the house is getting framed.

Another picture of the upper deck....this is Avie's future balcony.

The tubs were delivered this week. The delivery men left them at the bottom of the driveway. Thomas had to get them into his truck by himself and then into the house. Too bad we don't have a picture of that. Where's Dustin when we need him?


Hopefully by the next post we will have a roof!?!