Insulation and Shingles

So here we are post-Christmas, ringing in the new year with insulation, and a "finished" exterior. The siding is done, and it is looking VERY CLOSE to the autocad picture.

Studio double windows. 

We decided to insulate the garage ourselves. Ben is going to get started on that himself this week. I'm so glad my husband is good at this kind of stuff.  Doing this side by side with experienced builders is such a great introduction to the world of building. We love this process....there's nothing quite like seeing your home go from the ground upwards.

 The sheet rock is coming up next......  :)

This last one is a cool shot of the underside of the house. Ben stuck his phone down the crawl space access and clicked a shot. You can see the foundation walls that were out in broad daylight a mere few weeks ago. Very cool. There is a moisture barrier in place (the sheet of black plastic), now, helping to keep us dry from the ground-upwards.

Siding and Doors

Just some pictures of the progress this weekend.

We have doors, now!! This week we're doing the not-so-obvious work like septic, gas and electric trenches........

and some beautifully obvious work like SIDING!

The primer color is kind-of Bleah....can't wait to see our colors. We're still vacillating between a brown and a grey. Can't decide!!

Christmas finds us moving out of our rental in Yelm to stay our last few weeks with friends in Lacey. Luckily, they live about 1 mile from the building site, and I will be so relieved to be able to keep better tabs on the house this way. Also, we will be able to save while not paying rent. :) :) :) That's always good!

Sunshine Miracles

Because of a record 14 days straight of no rain, our house is basically dry inside, which is AMAZING for this time of year in the PNW. 3 weeks ago we were talking through our "living room" drenched and dripping, splashing through inch-deep puddles. Now, it's crisp and dry, though still cold! What's really amazing, is that the 14 days of sun were during a crucial time for us: roofing time! In fact, to make things more amazing, we saw our first drops of rain the same day SAME DAY the windows went on!!

So we now have a layer of weatherproofing on the house, in addition to windows and doors. The rain held off for us, and it feels good and dry inside. As soon as we see the siding go up, we're going to begin caulking....while the de-humidifiers and heaters are going full-tilt inside to dry out the walls in preparation for sheetrock.

We also have wiring and HVAC inside, as well as plumbing!

This Week

Mostly this post is about pictures, because that is the most inspiring part about these Adair blogs. Getting to see the progress on the house is worth a thousand words!

Front view of our house from the road

 
Standing in the front door, this is the view: hallway extending to the living area in back, piano studio to the right.



My piano studio!

The "great room" Kitchen is left and back. The sink goes under that little window.

Ben, sweeping the sawdust out of his office. (4th bedroom)

Master Bedroom

This is our Lake View out our bedroom window.   :)

Our soaker tub in our master bath. (LOVE)

The view of the back of the house. Middle upstairs window is the laundry room. I am going to LOVE having the laundry on the upper floor! (With a lake view, nonetheless!!)

We Have A Wall!!

Excited to see some new activity on the house this weekend. Took pictures on Thursday, and expect there's more than one up by today. :)

Walls & Port-A-Jon

Remember I said I was holding out for the port-a-potty? There it is, in all of its plastic glory. :D

Looking at our front yard from where the driveway will be.

Foundation walls are up, now!

 Grace & me checking out the garage.

It's Happening, It's Happening!!

Guess what?! We have a foundation!

Above you can see my studio on the right-hand front. The porch is what is jutting out front.

I haven't spoken to anyone at Adair yet, since we are waiting on another excavation project before we can move onwards. Monday should be the day.....then everything starts moving UPWARDS.

:) :) :) :) :) :) :) Can you tell how happy I am?

Progress!

We have a temporary electric pole set up, as of today, YAY! Also, more exciting was to see all the dirt moved yesterday. Yep, we officially broke ground!

Here are some pictures.

It is like Christmas, seriously, to see actual movement on the property after so much dreaming, scheming, and waiting. So far, all the people we've worked with have been amazing, too. No horror stories of 4-month-waits here. Our people have been fast....and very patient with us, as we're learning all the ins and outs of this home-building stuff!

For instance, we thought we were still waiting on the water meter.....emailed our water company......and the reply was, "We believe it was installed Sept 15." Uuuhhh.....*blush* Thanks! We'll go check on that!! :D :D :D

Yeah, we're noobs. But we're learning!!! And Adair has been great at coaching.

It Happened!

We have a building permit! After feeling a little "lost-at-sea" in the wonderment of paperwork for so many months......WE FINALLY HAVE A PERMIT!!!

Whew.

The way I understand it is......we can pretty much start digging this weekend. Things are filtering in like the temp. electric, not necessarily in the best possible order, but....Terry says we are pretty much good to go for excavation.

I can't tell you how relieving this is. Seeing how quickly the fall Chill has set in, with its promise of rain, rain, rain, and more rain, I have been getting nervous. Last post about starting "this week" was a bit premature, I guess. Like I said, "lost at sea" is how we've been for a while, now. We thought we saw LAND, but then it turned out to be a mirage. ;)

Another thing to rejoice over: cabinet issues are resolved. I'm delighted beyond words at how Adair treated us to a tailor-made solution, going out of their way to get us the black-stained finish I was so dreaming about. They're going to come in raw, unfinished, and I'll be staining them myself. I'm pretty excited about getting the Dream Kitchen I've always wanted. :)

On The Cusp

I've been putting off a post because there was just nothing to tell. We have slowly been shoving paper around, permits, mostly, and finally got the last one out.......the building permit awaits. We decided to make the time go fast and went south for a vacation to San Francisco. It was great visiting friends there and having adult time while our kids played. We forgot all the intensity of Home-Building. We checked our email Thursday to find a note from Adair saying they expected to break ground this week!!


WOW!!

We drove by the property today and saw the Adair Homes sign planted prominently in the front. :) :) :) I got all tingly. :) :) :)

I am waiting to get a phone call from the excavator for an actual Ground-Break Time, when I'll be sure to haul the entire family up there with a camera to document the entire process.

THEN IT WILL ALL BE REAL!!!!!!!!!!

Colors

The one major project we opted to do ourselves is the painting. Inside and outside. Because I am obsessed with interior design (and exterior, as it follows), it takes a mammoth amount of research and refinement to figure out what colors are appropriate for which room. I have a LOT of decisions to make. We may end up painting everything in a neutral just to get started, but I'm not convinced YET that I can't get it "right" the first time. The exterior, for one, has to be Just Right the first time.

We have the added complication that we are building in a neighborhood, an older neighborhood, to boot, so we have to consider our color choices in the light of what is next to us, and WHO is next to us...we don't want to annoy our future neighbors with our extravagant house colors.

Sherwinn-Williams has a phenomenal program to help choose colors. You can upload your autocad picture of your house (better to use a computerized picture than a real one, less shadowing and stuff to deal with) to their program and choose from all kinds of paint colors. VERY helpful.

Right now, we're pretty undecided. Here are some ideas we're going back and forth between.

We both love the green.....but we love it so much we're already going with green for our big great-room/dining/kitchen downstairs. I'm afraid of having too much green. I want something warm...that will combat the greyness of the long winters here. I love choosing opposite shades for the accent gables. One cool color and one warm seem to do very well together.

Hmm....I've spent 6 hours on Sherwinn-Williams website today. I guess I should go get something non-virtual done. Like clean my rental home. ;)

The Paperwork...Again

Well, the update is anti-climactic. We own the property!! But we haven't started anything. That's what we keep telling people. YAY! WE closed!! No, we haven't broken ground. :P It's such a mood-killer.

Anyhow, the financing took another week to finish out, then another week to get our draw sheet, then another few days to get the checks, then a few more days to mail the checks to the people who need them....and now....we're waiting to hear from our septic designer that he's turned his design into the county. THEN we can apply for a building permit. :) When we get the permit from county, we can BREAK GROUND.

This week I'm going to start picking out paint colors. I take a long time to decide stuff. I lovelovelove interior design, and I don't want to make any hasty decisions that I will regret. I'll only have about 1 week to paint and I don't want ANY second thoughts. I need weeks to ruminate over color choices. A friend who is an interior designer has lent me a BOX FULL of paint swatches. :)

We're also working on some landscape sketches. We're watching shows like "Curb Appeal" to get an idea of how to do some of this stuff ourselves. There isn't any part of this new home that we haven't dreamed about and schemed about. Back yard, front yard, roof, porch, inside, upstairs, great room, kitchen.......I already have dreams about walking around inside our new home. :)

Closing Coming...

Got a Heads Up email today that we look like we're on time for closing on the lot! They want us to come in tomorrow to sign papers. YESS!! :) :) :)

I was just reading another Adair blogger's post about how excited he/she was about seeing the Honey Bucket set up on their lot, a sign that they were ready for construction to begin. :) I will be equally excited to see that sight on our little Carpenter Road place.

Honey Bucket, I'm holding out for you!

This process has been majorly exciting. Like a good movie....parts where you want to cover your eyes, then parts where you are on the edge of your seat, eyes glued to the action, then just times when it's ok and happy and there's hugging going on. Right now, there's just lots of hugging! I'm so thrilled to be doing this, I'm already thinking about building another home in like, 10 years. I am totally hooked on this building thing!