March House Update

I know, I know, it has been over a month since my last posting about the house...it is just very hard work picking out all those things that go into building a house, you know like doorknobs, and trim, and sinks. Even though I haven't actually been sweating I have been doing a lot of "brain work" or some would call "decision making", which if you know me well, is a very difficult task for me at times. With that said, I really have no good excuse for not posting, it has been going very smoothly, our contractor is great and all our workers have been very pleasant. And believe it or not, they are currently finishing the drywall and are projected to be done with that by Wednesday of this week.
Here are some new pictures, but not necessarily the most current...the exterior is the same, it is completed except for the painting, we will be doing that hopefully this spring as soon as the ground dries out and we decide on a color!!

I have finally caught up with our builders, I think. Whew! They are fast. Tommorrow siding, yeah, yeah, yeah!

A Beautiful Sight!

House framing

You are going to be so surprised when you see what the framers have accomplished! The first day of framing was February 8 (they laid the floor joist on the house), in just one week they were able to frame the entire house and garage.

Monday February 11...the first floor is framed


Friday February 15 the entire house if framed!

House update!

There has been a lot going on around here these days, some of the most exciting have to do with the fact that we actually have some progress on the house!! A few weeks ago the footers were poured and then the crawl space dug out. The weather has been so crazy that they have not made been able to do any more work. However,this week was very exciting, they were able to lay the block for the foundation and the first floor ( as you can see in the last pic with Merrill standing on the pile of mud) was put on the house yesterday!!!

Closing Day!

We signed all the papers today to close on our construction loan. Now what you ask? Now our builder can get to building and digging and all that stuff that takes money. However, we will see how fast this starts due to the small mountain of snow that fell on the ground this past weekend!!

Day 7...

No pictures, just use your imagination for this one...we have a well. Not extremely exciting, but hey it's one more thing to check off our list and who doesn't like indoor plumbing! Another step closer to that dishwasher and second bathroom :)

I Can't Believe What My Eyes Saw Today...

Yes, I actually saw trucks, dirt being moved, a "tractor thing", men standing around talking about where something should go or which way something should be moved,(you know those things that guys talk about when they are standing around), a big metal thingy that goes under the driveway to help the water drain(I think), and the best of all a dump truck unloading one load of gravel!! Yes, we have what looks to be the first signs of a driveway. And since I wasn't sure if this could be called our "official first day of building" I decided that without a driveway big trucks and "tractor things" and men can't drive onto our property and talk about where things should go and build our house or dig our well and all that other stuff that needs to get done before I can actually have a dishwasher or second bathroom. So I am declaring today our official first day(even though they were only on our property about an hour!). Work has been done and we are on our way!!!!!

A few days...A month...

So it is now November 16th, exactly one month since I posted about being days away from getting our house started, and we have NOT started building our house, hmm. So when I said we were a few days away, obviously I did not know what I was talking about. Nothing is wrong, just slow. Very slow. Dean heard today that we have our final approval from the Bank and they just need a couple of documents from our builder, and then...well, then I have no idea. I assume we close on the loan and they will start, but for some reason I have this feeling they(the Bank) are going to ask for some other document and it will then take a few more months, I mean days. Anyway, God is good, we are all healthy, and He is teaching us lots of patience!

THE COUNTDOWN BEGINS...

Well, we are finally (I think) days away from starting to build our house!! Now I didn't say how many days, but we are close! I thought it might be fun to blog about our house building experience. To get you up to speed, in February we talked with my Grandma about purchasing land from her in order to build a house. At the end of April our land was approved for rezoning from Agriculture to Residential. In June we had house plans drawn up and in August received a bid from our builder for those house plans. At the end of August we threw away the first house plans and drew up new ones. Needless to say we simplified without losing space and we fell in love with our new house plans and also the new bid price(which we received last week). The beginning of October we started applying for permits and continued our banking loan, which had actually been started in June. Today we meet with our builder to sign the contract with him, tomorrow I will go and apply for our last permit (building; we have already received the other permits needed) and we will sign our approved construction loan and give final papers needed for the banking side sometime this week...