Taking shape

We stopped by yesterday and were excited to see the beams where the ceiling will be. They have started to put subfloors where my daughters room will be upstairs. They also had most of the exterior walls up on the first floor and the framing for the front covered porch and the back covered porch. We will have a covered porch running the width of the back of the house. Part of it will be screened and we will eventually have an outdoor fireplace. I can't wait to enjoy it!!

My son is so funny! He found a plastic grocery bag lying around and started to collect "trash" he found - mostly plastic soda bottles - and climbed up the huge dumpster to throw it away! I wonder where he gets that from?! I'm NOT complaining though!!

More framing

Luckily our new house is not too far from where we are currently living. It makes it almost too easy to go check on it every day. This picture is from this past Sunday - I just haven't gotten around to posting.

We are being framed!

I took this picture this afternoon. It started raining around lunch time and hasn't really let up much. They have put in our sub-floors and began framing the right side of our house. This is the side where our master suite and study/guest room will be. It is supposed to rain tomorrow as well, but next week looks promising!

Pest Control

Not much happened at the site yesterday. The electric meter was supposed to be set and framing to begin but all we saw were some framing materials and the pest control guy treating the foundation and gravel where the garage, front porch and back porch will be. It did rain a little off and on - hoping for good weather the rest of the week!!

We did approve the window order and selected the exterior window/door color. We also selected our exterior door and type of glass insert.

Ready for Framing

Stopped by the property on Saturday and this is what we saw. You can see the gravel space is our three car garage. They should be ready to begin framing on Monday. Sunday we had lots of rain and could possibly have some on Monday as well. Could see some delays, but the rest of the week should be great!!

We went and looked at appliances for the kitchen and "think" we know what we want. We are currently looking at a KitchenAid gas slide in range and a Sharp Insight microwave drawer oven which is very cool and a KitchenAid diswasher in stainless. Nothing has been picked out but we thought we would get some ideas.

Our builder wanted us to go look at front doors but the showroom was closed on Saturday. We have a brochure and have one in mind but would like to see it in person. The one we like is a double entry wood with arch top. We also need to determine the style of windows so that he can place our order.

Footers have been poured

Footers have been poured

Yesterday evening we drove by the site and saw that the footers had been poured. Its really looking like a construction site now! We had fun "walking" through our house and figuring out what was what. Our builder just e-mailed us that the framing can begin on Monday!

I also visited another lighting fixture store yesterday and got MORE lighting catalogs. I am really liking the Wilmette Lighting Company and Minka-Lavery. Wilmette has a more vintage/classic look which I love and Minka has a more traditional look which I like as well. Its a little overwhelming with so many choices but I think this is the fun part! I can definitely see this could take a while, so I think its smart to get an early start so as not to feel rushed.

There's a house in another neighborhood that I want to take a picture of today. It has the brick that we both agree we like. Whew!! I was beginning to wonder if such brick existed!!:-) I hope the people that live there aren't home - I don't want them to think I'm stalking them by taking pictures!!

First dig!

Something is Happening!

It's hard to believe just two months ago we made our initial contact with our builder to discuss building our home. We had already researched plans and had narrowed it down to a few we really liked. We had also looked at some lots that were available in the subdivision we wanted.

Within the past two months, we have purchased our land with some guidance from our builder. You definitely want to consult with him to make sure your home will fit!! We have also met with our real estate agent and decided to go ahead and put our house on the market the first part of April. He told us the average days on the market right now is approximately 150 days, so we thought it wise to go ahead and list it. Although we are getting regular traffic, positive feedback and a couple of "nibbles", we have not had any offers yet. I'm not really worried yet, we didn't really want to move twice but I think the stress of having my home on the market is something I'm going to have to get used to.

We have met with our builder several times to go over the plans and make "tweaks" here and there to hopefully get it just right. We've met with banks to obtain a construction loan and insurance companies to obtain a "builder's risk policy". Everything is falling into place. He told us last week he would get the building permit and hopefully break ground the following week. I guess with all the horror stories we've heard about building, I just have low expectations about things happening when they are supposed to. SO imagine my surprise when I drive out to our property today and actually see construction vehicles parked there! It was early so nothing was going on yet, but I did take some pictures. I'm getting excited!!