Arrival and Setting...

We've seen a few of these lately:


On Wednesday they brought the two halves of the house. They wanted them here a day before setting so they would be ready first thing. Here are the halves on the flatbed trailers





Then bright and early on Thursday morning, they started getting it ready to set. I didn't see the beginning of that. I woke up at 8 and they were already hard at work. I went out with 2 of the kids and we watched them getting it ready for a good hour before one of them got bored and went inside. Jake stayed with me though. Around 9 am the crane arrived and by 9:30 or so, they were getting it started. The weather couldn't be more perfect. Here's video of the setting. The first one is 8 minutes and the second is about 10. It might be boring. The voice is my son's-I didn't talk because I have a cold and if I talk, I cough.


click here to watch at youtube (better quality)


click here to watch at youtube

After all that, here's how it looked-in the first two pictures you can see the crane they used right next to it. It was huge and they had to pull out the legs to stabilize it and had to put counterweights on it. It was quite an ordeal.







Here's the opposite end:


then they had to finish the roof



Now there is a lot of finish work to do. They don't seem to work on it every day so it'll take a few weeks.

Backfilled - and some paint colors

Here are the pictures of the foundation after the backfilling. Not all that exciting, really. But the garage is filled up now and looks more like a floor.







Here are the paint colors we've bought so far. I'm pretty sure by the time we get done painting these rooms, I'll be ready to leave the other rooms off white for now. Not to mention-paint is expensive-even at 40% off! These are all Sherwin Williams colors.

the kitchen, kids' bathroom (maybe master bath too) and my craft/sewing room


and the girls' rooms




...

The 2nd (and last) visit

We were able to walk around in the house a bit last week. I had a cold so I didn't really take as many pictures as I originally planned. It was very dusty (you can see the orbs in some of the pictures caused by the flash on the dust) and I wanted to get out of there. I took a few though:

Kid's bedroom (there are two that look the same-only opposite)


Another kid's bedroom (only one window instead of two in this one-same as the others though, other than that)


Kids' bathroom


My craft/sewing room (Looks small to me. Looks big to hubby. What does he know)


Living room-the biggest room in the house at about 21 x 15


Master bedroom closets (otherwise it is a smallish bedroom with 1 large window). We chose to use a regular closet rather an the walk-in that was in the original plan. We added the extra foot to the living room. It's still a nice sized closet.


Mudroom (just the corner with the sink). Steve will clean away a lot of dirt (and I don't want to know what else) in this nice deep sink.


And last and most certainly not least (only the most important room-we all have to eat, right?), the kitchen. I'm not 100% thrilled with the countertop color now that it's on-it's not easy to visualize an entire countertop just from a small sample-but we'll live with it. It's definitely nicer than what we have now and the best from the choices we had. Also, I want painted cabinets in the worst way but hubby is a typical guy and likes wood-tone everything so he insisted on wood. He chooses so little so I let him choose this one thing even though he almost never cooks. Also, the painted cabinets were an upgrade that would have cost quite a bit extra.


In the background of this picture, you can see the door to the laundry room. My vintage pyrex and ball jars will go on top of the cabinets, along with any other cute vintage-y stuff I find.




Cooktop will go in the middle and oven to the right-we couldn't get them both in the same cabinet-I guess this company doesn't make one that will work like that. I opted for a counter height cabinet for the wall oven so we would have more counter space.


I didn't get a picture of the other side of it, but there are 8 more drawers in the island, plus two shallow door cabinets-one on each end. The narrow pantry does not have roll out shelves so my crafty self is hoping to make a few for it. We'll be adding our old pantry, which is about 4' wide, to the other side of the refrigerator. It won't match so I do get to have at least one painted cabinet.

The house is due to arrive on Wednesday and will be set on Thursday. Then I can take more pictures. In a day or two I will share our paint colors (we'll be painting the girls' rooms, my sewing room, the kids' bathroom and the kitchen to start with).

Waterproofing and the first visit

Last week they came out and sprayed some black tar substance onto the outer walls of the foundation. Waterproofing. It stunk for a day or two but we definitely don't want water in the basement.



current view from the end (this is the garage end)



They also poured the basement floor. See that beautiful sump pit in the corner? I love that. Why? because our current basement, which is 9' deep (maybe more) has no sump pit. In addition, our house was built on one of the lowest spots on our property. PLUS there is a creek just across the field. All this means that if we get a lot of rain, the creek backs up, floods the field, and it backs up into the drain in our basement. And when that happens, since we have no sump pit, my husband has to pump it out manually. He uses an electric pump but it's not automatic at all. So if it's a pretty big rain, he has to pump it every few hours around the clock-including overnight. He doesn't even bother to sleep in bed during those times. Even when there isn't a ton of rain, he has to pump it out two or three times a day. Still a pain. And all this also means our basement is pretty much useless for anything. So yeah, that sump pit is a wonderful sight to me (and to him). And this is also the reason the new house looks like it's sitting way up high. It's because it is-the basement will only reach about 5' into the ground and the house will sit well above the ground.



We also visited the house today. There isn't much to show-the inside was all plastic covered floors and drywall. We go again on Saturday and hopefully there will be innards to show. In the meantime, the back of it (with and without kids). The spots are from the flash hitting the dust that was flying all over the factory.

There are two entry doors on the back-one goes directly into the mudroom and one goes into the dining room. That small window will be above my sink. I haven't lived in a house with a window above the sink in about twenty years. I can't wait.



See that double window? That room is going to be my new craft/sewing room. Lots of light-I love that.