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.

Ceiling fans

Since nothing is happening with the foundation right now (they're letting the concrete cure) here are 2 of the ceiling fans we've bought. Actually 3 but 2 are exactly the same.

This one will go in the living room and master bedroom. The price was right so even though it's probably a little big for the bedroom, I got it anyway. We didn't have many choices after all of our requirements. It had to be fairly close to the ceiling since our ceilings are 8'. Also, we didn't want exposed bulbs, and I wanted it to have at least three 60 watt bulbs. This one isn't as flush as we wanted but it's as close as we're gonna get.



This one will go in our younger daughter's room. She loves pink and insisted this is the one she wanted. Pretty fancy! Her room will also be painted pink. eek. I'll share the exact color in a later post. She also wants black curtains. **shaking my head**



The other two kids couldn't care less what theirs look like, so for now, we'll be reusing our current bedroom fans in their rooms. They are really outdated (think shiny brass and schoolhouse light fixtures) but they don't seem to mind. Also, I need to buy one more fan for my craft/sewing room. I didn't want another of the same fan so I'm still looking.

Days 3, 4 and 5 - the basement and foundation walls

Last Thursday the forms for the walls were set up. Friday they poured the walls and on Monday they removed the forms and dug out around the whole thing for the drain. Here are some of the pictures. I didn't take any on Friday since it looked exactly the same on that day as it did on Thursday (only with cement in the forms, which you can't see anyway, other than on the very top).













After the forms were removed:







I'm not positive but I think tomorrow (which is Tuesday in my world-I'm posting this well after midnight) they will finish up the drains, put the outside waterproofing on the basement/foundation walls, and maybe pour the basement and garage floors. Or at least get everything ready to pour the floors.

I never realized the underneath part of the house took so long to make.

Day two

Today they dug and poured the footers. I think I have figured out that those are the outer edges of the foundation or basement, where the exterior walls will sit. Here are some pictures:

Digging them out-you can see the little trench dug out all around the edges


Digging out where the stairs leading to the basement will be


Concrete going in (or is it cement? I'm never sure)


View from the west side. You can see the stair area in the foreground, the basement in the middle, and in the back, the crawlspace. There will only be a partial basement but still plenty big for lots of storage, the wii and kids' tv, my treadmill and maybe a pool table.If you look waaaaay in the background, you can see my turquoise blue chicken coop.


Better view of the stair area


And these last two are the ones I took after the end of the workday from the same spots as before




Tomorrow I think they are going to set the forms for the basement walls and foundation and pour them. There's a heat advisory for tomorrow so I hope the guys stay hydrated. I have the ice bucket all filled up and ready.

This is not an outhouse

I just wanted to mention, in case anyone didn't know-the little outhouse looking thing in my last post is not an outhouse! As I was looking at the pictures I realized it really did look like a port-a-potty like they use at construction sites. Nope. It's our Heatmor outdoor woodburning stove. We use it to heat our house (and it will also heat our new house) and it saves us a ton of money on our gas bill. We burn wood it in, which we get for free from my father-in-law's woods, and it heats a tank of water. The heated water goes through a pipe into our basement where it goes into a radiator-like device. Our regular furnace's fan blows over it and that forced air heats our house. It comes through the heat registers just the same as if it was heated by our regular furnace. If the wood fire ever goes out and the house gets too cold, the regular furnace will kick on. That almost never happens though. We could hook it up to heat our water heater and dryer but we haven't done that. Maybe someday. We first had it installed and starting using it in February (can't remember what year) and when we got our natural gas bill, it was less than it was the previous August. And if you've ever lived in the Midwest in February, you know that's saying a lot. It gets cold-there's a reason they say February might be the shortest month but out here, it feels like the longest.

Here is a better view of it (that is a big patch of weeds in front of it)


And I was going to put this in my last post and forgot - a picture of a very curious kitty among the dirt piles

Day One - the excavation begins

Today the excavating/cement crew came out and dug the basement. Here are some before, during and after shots. I took these from two angles, standing in the same spots each time. I'm planning to take all of my progress pictures from these two spots-whenever I remember.


The site, before any digging (ignore the grain head in the 2nd picture-Steve moved that before they got started).




during the dig




after the dig




Tomorrow they'll come out and do...something. Maybe the footers, whatever those are.