Mrs. Egg and Her Little Chickies

Here It Is! Now Get Off My Back! ;)

At the request of numerous, insistent relatives, here is a tour of our new home. Instead of taking and uploading a bunch of photos, I just walked through the house with the video camera. It's not the best, but i'm a busy person. We are enjoying the heck out of it, but we've been so busy with school and soccer that we haven't had time to tackle the little things like hanging pictures or embarking on big projects like landscaping. If you want to see more of a particular room, i'll post pictures by request. Otherwise, come see us and you can get a first hand look for yourself! Now i'm going to go sit out on my back porch while i'm still able to do so without getting eaten alive by mosquitos or sweating until i'm dehydrated.

 

FYI

I get to move into my new house on Saturday. That is all.

Pictures of the house I have yet to move into.

We're mere days away from completion. The carpet is being installed in the bedrooms whenever our HORRIBLE carpet company decides they would like to grace us with their presence. Sometime before Thursday, i'm told. The attic insulation is being blown in on Tuesday, and our yard is being prepared for grass on Wednesday. Cross your fingers I will be able to move in on Friday.

The driveway was poured this past Friday. Pay no attention to the weirdo demonstrating "the running man" dance.

The front door.

The living room. The fireplace STILL needs to be washed. It's very dirty, so what you see is not the true color of the rock. I'll be up there tomorrow with a scrub brush, a bucket of water, and wet/dry vac because i'm sick of waiting.

The kitchen. Appliances are scheduled to be delivered on Wednesday.

Dining room.

Hallway mudroom.

Guest bathroom and shower. Behold the slate! It was originally planned for this to be a walk in shower with no door, but the shower head could only go over so far for a reason I can't remember now, so we'll probably end up having to put a door on it so water doesn't splash everywhere.

Our bedroom and bathroom.

The laundry room. I'll never look at dirty laundry the same way again.

 

The Chickies' bathroom. The vanity area is separated from the shower and toilet by a pocket door.

The bedrooms. Both girls' bedrooms as well as the office/guest room all look the same and are about the same size.

The back porch and our pretty peach trees in bloom.

Anxious Does Not Even Begin to Describe My State of Mind

I'm so sick of all the dirty, dusty men traipsing through my house with lack of proper shoe coverings. I understand they're doing important things such as hanging mirrors and installing my range hood so I can cook up some bacon without smelling like bacon for three days, but I want them OUT. I've decided to not go up there during the day unless I absolutely have to. I feel like a dog who needs to go around peeing on everything to make it clear that THIS IS MY HOUSE, WHICH I DEARLY LOVE, SO QUIT BUMPING YOUR LADDER INTO MY PRETTY WALLS AND JUST BECAUSE THE TOILETS CAN FLUSH DOESN'T MEAN YOU CAN STOP USING THE PORTA-POTTY OUTSIDE THAT I PAY $80 A MONTH FOR. I'll just go up there at night and look at the progress--what I don't know won't hurt me.

Yesterday the gas was hooked up, the alarm system was trimmed out, my cabinet pulls and knobs were installed (glory!!!), the mirrors were put up (hooray for Hobby Lobby 50% off sales because mirrors, they are not cheap!), and the ac/heat was installed and turned on (yay for not having to wear a parka in the house!). The electricians worked all day Saturday, so now we have fully functioning lights, except for the master bathroom vanities, Maggie's room, and one light on the back porch. We also have water everywhere which makes it much easier for certain little girls to take care of business while up there. Read: no more going behind a tree and getting poked in the hiney by briars. The painters repainted our yellow eaves today, giving the house a much less "getto" look. They also stained my front and back doors and touched up the paint inside where it needed it. The electricians are coming back tomorrow to finish up those remaining few lights, the driveway will be poured Thursday, and depending on the efficiency of the carpet company (which has been less than efficient so far), we will have carpet by Saturday. Sooo, all that to say it should be done by the weekend. We hired a guy to clean up all the tedious stuff like windows, so all that's left for us to do is general cleaning once the carpet is in. However, even though our builder assured me I could move in over Spring Break, he now tells me I have to wait for the appraisal to be done. He doesn't look me in the eye when I ask him how long it normally takes for an appraisal to be ordered and completed, so i'm taking a wild guess that I won't have Spring Break week to get moved in. Boo. My new furniture and appliances are paid for and waiting to be delivered. We don't want to put the appliances in too early because, even though the alarm is working, we don't want to risk theft. So all i'm doing now is biting my nails down to the quick and packing. I have found approximately 942 Silly Bands and 319 stray Polly Pocket shoes.

The longest two weeks of my life!

Will I EVER get to move into my house?! The days seem to creep by so slow lately! This past week was an unfortunate loss. My bathtub was supposed to be delivered a week ago from yesterday, but it didn't show up until Thursday. It's so big and heavy, the tile guys couldn't tile the bathroom floor until the tub was set because it would have cracked the tile rolling it in. So it not only held the tile guys up, it held the plumber and everyone else up as well.

All the bathroom counters are in, and so are the sinks. The plumber came out Thursday afternoon and ran water to the house and the tile guys are putting our floor down this morning. I met with the hardware guy early this morning, too. He and his wife are installing all my door knobs, stops, towel hooks, toilet paper holders, etc. today. I also told him which pulls and knobs I wanted for my cabinets. I need to go into the hardware business. I have A LOT of doors and drawers in my house. I also tend to gravitate toward the more expensive hardware (don't we all). He felt sorry for me that I wanted the expensive cup pulls for all 60-something drawers in the house, so he cut me a really good deal on them. But still, the invoice was painful when it was all said and done.

On a side note, all these contractors need to follow the hardware guy's example and bring their wives with them to work. She totally understood my reasoning behind wanting low hooks in the girls bathroom, even though a bar up higher would have looked better. I'm sick of picking up wet towels off the floor because the girls are too short to hang them up. She also commiserated with me on the toilet paper issue. Yes, the regular toilet paper holders are cheaper and there is more of a selection to choose from, but the Euro holders are cool looking and make replacing the empty roll easy enough for a kindergartner to do, so THERE WILL BE NO EXCUSES FROM NOW ON!!

Next week will be jam packed--carpet in the bedrooms, our front and back doors installed, plumbing fixtures, lighting and fans, and a walk-through of what needs to be fixed and touched up. Our builder told me yesterday that I would be able to move in over spring break, which is March 14th, if not the weekend before, which will work out perfectly. We would have been a week ahead if the bathtub had shown up on time, but I guess those thing happen. It will all be forgotten when I can actually fill that sucker up and soak in it.

Just To Get This Off My Chest

I have to tell you that our bathroom tile was partially installed today and it is the most gorgeous thing i've ever seen in my life. I will probably be spending a great deal of time in the bathroom once we move in. We went with a honed travertine with chiseled edges on our bathroom floor and shower and a multi-colored slate in the guest shower. If you come visit me, you will certainly want to take lots of showers to enjoy the beauty. I will post pictures once it's done in a couple of days. Tomorrow our granite is being set. The joy is just too much to handle right now.

2-3 Weeks and Counting!

Winter is stupid. We are two weeks behind because of the freezing temperatures and snow and ice. The painters painted what they could using heaters, but it was just too cold. The tile guy couldn't do his thing because the mortar would freeze. So, this week we are getting back into the swing of things. All the inside has been painted and stained. I woke up many times many nights second guessing my paint and stain colors, but I am SO happy with the way everything turned out. Tomorrow they are painting the outside trim and garage door. Yesterday we picked out our granite slabs, finalized our tile choices, and picked out carpet. Rocky the granite guy will do his thing this week and our tile guy will start doing his thing this week, too. We discovered that somebody filled in about half of the knots in our knotty alder cabinets. The filler looks horrible and sticks out like a sore thumb. Hopefully it can be fixed in a timely manner. I guess they didn't like the look of the knots! Our trim guy was less than spectacular and there is a shelf/clothes rod THING in the laundry room that is absolutely horrible. It looks like he wasn't real sure about what he was doing, so he just slapped something up there. I'm so excited about my big pretty laundry room and there's this big ugly shelf ruining it. There are a few places in our closet that aren't right, either, so i'm sure he'll be just delighted to come back out and fix everything.

The cabinets are VERY dusty in this picture. The island will be turned the other way. They just put it there while they stained it.

The living room. The fireplace still needs to be acid washed, so the stone will turn out slightly darker than this. Also, we didn't take into account the hearth, so our tv outlets aren't centered on the wall. Shoot. Also, that cabinet door isn't supposed to be there. It's just a sample that got left behind and I was too lazy to move it.

 

Oh My Word, It's A Kitchen!

Our walls were textured last night. In the dark. It turned out really good, despite our worries of 4 non-English speaking guys texturing by the light of two truck headlights shining through the windows. Today all of our cabinets were installed and they are just gorgeous. They haven't been stained or painted yet, and the trim work hasn't been added, but they are still so pretty all on their own. We went with knotty alder. They didn't set the island where it belongs yet--that's the end of it in the bottom left corner. The kitchen will be stained "Early American" which is a warm light/medium color, the bathrooms and closets will be painted a shade of creamy white yet to be determined, and the laundry room will be painted kind of a greenish/grayish/khaki color also yet to be determined. Our trim guy is coming tomorrow to start hanging doors (finally!) and installing trimwork. Our brick and rock is done, but they still have to acid wash it, so i'll wait to post a picture until I can get a picture of the true colors.

 

Drywall is up!

Our drywall is up and taped and bedded! They finished yesterday and tomorrow it will be textured when it gets above freezing.

 

The brick and stone is almost done. They lack about one more day until they're finished (waiting on warmer temperatures), then i'll post pictures of my bee-yoo-tee-ful house. On the schedule next week is the trim guy and tile guy. Our doors were supposed to be in this week, but that didn't happen, unfortunately. Last week we had an incident with some wire thieves. We went up there to check on things one afternoon and walked in on a young couple "touring" the house. Never mind the gate was locked and there were "no trespassing" signs in clear view. They acted a little strange and nervous, then left. We couldn't see any damage, but we still didn't feel right about it. They were scummy looking and asked if we thought they could build a similar house for under $40,000.  Umm, no. The next morning the drywall crew found two inconspicuous places where they had cut wires and taken about two or three feet (the girl had a big purse with her). Luckily, the electrician came right out and fixed it so it didn't hold the drywall crew up. We didn't think to get their license plate, but we called the sheriff with their description and they have been driving by keeping an eye on things around our house as well as other new construction in the area. I'll be glad when we get some permanent doors so we can lock things up. Our move in date is dependent on the cabinet painter/stainer. He's doing a 10,000 sq ft house, so depending on when he's available, it will be either three or four weeks from now. If it's four weeks, that puts us moving in the week of February 14th. Pretty good Valentine's Day gift, if I do say so myself.

Moving Right Along

Roof finished: Check!

Electrical: Check!

Heating/Air conditioning: Check!

Fireplace: Check!

Stained floor: Check!

Cute little girl who loads her coat pockets with as much scrap wood, wiring, nails, and whatever else she can find: Check!

 

Tomorrow the window people are installing my Christmas tree window (the missing one on the front porch in the above picture) as well as a couple of other replacement windows. They installed mis-matched windows in the girls' bathroom, a window in the garage was wrong, and the window in my laundry room was crooked. Our brick is also being delivered tomorrow and our builder thinks they *may* start laying it in order to beat the cold front.