Home Sweet Home

Finally Here

We can't believe the time has finally arrived. We will be closing on our house on Thursday. We went there today for a preliminary walkthrough and pointed some problems out to our builder, nothing major just little clean up matters. The carpet is in and they were putting door knobs in while we were there. They only have to put the grass in and touch up the paint. Thursday morning we will do a final walkthrough at 10 a.m. and then we'll close on the house on Thursday afternoon at 2 p.m. It's very exciting, but there is so much to do. We still need to pack the bathroom and the bedroom, along with the miscellaneous items that are laying about here and there. We also still need to buy appliances. So, we'll close on Thursday, buy appliances on Friday and move in on Saturday. Then Sunday and Monday we'll just be settling in to our new abode. Hopefully we'll have pictures available as things happen.

Tile and Countertops!

We took my mom out to see the house this weekend and it was very exciting. It was Jason's first time to see the tile and countertops together. It was my first time to see the backsplash. So, we have some pictures to show you!

The Living Room -

The Guest Bathroom -

*don't worry, we'll clean it before you come visit!

The Master Bathroom -

And The Kitchen -

I don't want to overload your browser, so you can click here
if you want to see our countertops up close and here
to see our entryway with the little light in it. We close in 10 days, can you believe it? We're currently battling a tower of boxes with more to pack before all is said and done. We're very ready to get into our house. As always, we'll keep you posted!

A Real House

No pictures today because I just stopped by the house on my way back to work from a high school visit. But, I do have an update to share. The walls are complete, textured and painted. The tile is laid and it looks like they were going to grout it and all of that yesterday afternoon. The Corian countertops are in place and the tile and countertops look great together. Oh, and the brick is finished above the garage and we have a garage door. It appears that there is little left to be done. The carpet needs to be laid and the shower/toilets installed. They also need to install our light fixtures/ceiling fans and faceplates for the switches. We are finally close to having a real house! I couldn't be more excited. So, this weekend we are going to buy appliances and maybe a dining room table and chairs. Then, we'll have this weekend and next weekend to pack before moving on the weekend of February 28th. It's going to be quite a whirlwind but I can't wait! We'll keep you posted!

We Have Walls

Sorry it's been so long since I have posted. We have been just insanely busy with all of the logistics that come with the house. From locking in our mortgage rate to getting home insurance to beginning to pack, we've been busy folks. You can check out all of our new pictures in the Our House photo album. But, here's a few of them to give you an idea of what our house looks like now. Here's the new view from the front.

The entryway is such fun, now that we have our window in. Eventually there will be a little light hanging down so you can see it from the outside of the house.

And, here you can see how tall our ceilings are.

For more pictures, check out the photo album. There you'll see how the ceilings are shaped and a new view of the window seat. By the end of the week, we're supposed to have our corian cabinet tops and the texture on the wall. The current timetable has us moving in by the end of the month! We're keeping our fingers crossed.

What a Difference a Week Makes

Our house is looking more like a house every day! It's very exciting to finally see progress and begin planning furniture placement and things like that! First I'll give you a tour room by room. I don't want our page to load horribly slow so you can click on the room names in order to see pictures. Jason's office is the room that has caused us the problem from the beginning, with the foundation problem on the bay window. But, it's going to be huge. There will be plenty of room for him to have a computer desk as well as a place for him to work on his paintball guns and other projects. It will also be big enough for when we have people over for LAN parties (and he counted 5 outlets, which is helpful, too). The office is the first room you see from the entrance. From there, you walk into the kitchen. It doesn't look like much of a kitchen right now, without cabinets and appliances, but it will come together soon. The kitchen overlooks the breakfast nook, which will be our primary eating area since the formal dining room will be Jason's office. This doesn't show the full size of the nook, but does show the window seat which is my favorite feature of the area. The breakfast nook is open to the living room (which I didn't get a full picture of this time). This picture is of a great window in the living room that I love. The window style is echoed in our master bedroom. The space between these two windows is where we plan to place our bed. Oh, and you always need to see the bathroom, so this is the guest bathroom. Finally, this is the view from our back bedroom, which will be the hobby room. Granted, you won't have this view once the put the fence up. Just to show you how pathetic our poor little yard is, it will go out to the orange flag on the right.

The primary progress this week was the completion of the roof, the installation of electrical and cable cords, the windows and bathtubs are in and the air conditioning system has been installed (very important in Texas). We should have our frame walkthrough soon and then we'll be one step close to being in the house. I'll leave you with a view from the outside of the house, now complete with a roof.

Completion Date Update

Just talked to the builder and it looks like the completion date is looking more like sometime the third week of February. He told us part of the reason is that our countertops aren't ready, yet, but we didn't think there was any way we would get in by the end of January as was last estimated. So, hopefully the end of February, maybe early March. We're not in a bit hurry and just want it to be done right, so we'll wait.

Mess of Construction

We went to the house Saturday and they were working on it! We pulled up to see this...

What a mess! Here's a bit more the mess they've created. They told us it would be messy and that they would clean up three times during the construction process, but I never realized what a mess it would actually be. But, progress is being made. As for the progress, they have put the siding on the back of the house and wood on the roof. They are beginning to close the house in and put the inside of the walls up. When we were there, they were installing our hot water heater which will be housed in the attic and the bathtub for our second bathroom. As I mentioned before, the frame of the bay window has been put up as well.

As they begin closing things in, the house just seems bigger. They have also framed out the house that will be next to us, so we'll have next door neighbors soon after we move in. We got to speak with the our builder who was hard at work on Saturday. He plans to have the roof finished by Tuesday and we will have our frame walk through either at the end of this week or early next week. It doesn't appear that they will be finished by January 26th as most recently planned, but we're hoping to get in sometime in February. Now, to begin packing.

Houston, We Have a Bay Window

The front of our house has been framed. It had been held up due to the foundation problem. We went out to the house tonight, but it was too dark to take pictures. We'll head out there this weekend to snap a few. The front room of the house (Jason's office) is huge and the window is going to be amazing. The insulation is there waiting to be put in and the bricks are our front waiting to be laid. Hopefully, most of the outside of our house will be complete sometime next week. I talked to the mortgage lady today and we have final approval. Now, we just have to lock in our rate. That's very scary because you never know what the rates are going to do. That will be Jason's job, so he'll get to check the rates each day. It's so exciting to finally see the house progress after seeing it remain stagnant for so long. The completion date is still January 26th, but we'll see. We're hoping to get into the house by mid-February. As always, we'll keep you posted, more frequently now that we actually have progress to report.

SLOW progress

Well, we're told that our house will be ready at the end of January. I think it will be easier to become excited about it as we see more progress. For now, it still looks like the previous pictures of the frame. They should be fixing the foundation as we speak and we're told that from there progress will be quick. We hope to stay in this house for a while because it's been quite a progress getting into it!

We have begun to look into different things to put in the house. Today we went to Lowes and checked out ceiling fans and mini-blinds. They have some great fans. There will be one provided in our living room but it's not really our style, so we're planning to buy one to go in the living room and we'll put that one in a bedroom. We are also thinking about purchasing some sort of natural fiber rug to go in the living room (seagrass or something), since it will be tile flooring.

As mentioned before, the guy in charge of building our house is only in charge of one house for the month of January, ours. So, we're expecting to see a lot of progress in the next few weeks. As we see progress, we will be posting pictures here. We plan to go out to the house at least twice a week. Please come back and share the progress with us and let us know what you think! More news soon!
- Sarah

Finally, Some Good News

It looks like we will have a house after all. :-) Hopefully, the stress is over and now the fun will begin. The builder called today to let us know that the changes to our foundation have finally been approved. This means that it will be fixed this week so they can move forward. The told us that the estimated day of completion is January 26th because the guy in charge of our house is only in charge of our house for January. He has nothing else to do but concentrate on getting our house built. He feels really bad about the situation, too, so hopefully he will get it built well. Just thought we would share! Many more updates to come...