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This past week was exceptionally productive over at the new heezy. Or, actually, it was probably just as productive as any other given week, but it appeared to be extra productive because when I went to visit everyday there was always something new to see.
Basically, Christmas came everyday last week for Rob and me, with Santa bringing us various items each day: doors one day, stone the next, cabinets another day.
Speaking of cabinets…
Here’s our kitchen cabinets. Maple, with a craftsman-style door. Me likey.
You likey?
Then there’s the cabinets in the laundry room. I don’t particularly enjoy doing laundry, but I think in my new laundry room the experience might be a little bit more entertaining, thanks to a pretty environment.
Or maybe not.
I mean, it’s certainly possible that I’ll still hate doing laundry. But if that should happen at least I can hide it inside all the cabinets and avoid it by snuggling in front of the fireplace with The Bubs.
Speaking of the fireplace…
Our fireplace mosaic tiles have been put into place. They look awesome, just as I expected. The grout has yet to be done, and shortly after that they will install the mantle.
It’s all coming together! Before we know it – about a month from now – everything will be complete and we’ll be moving!
On Sunday morning Rob and I headed over to the new house before church to see what had been done the day before. And when I say “what had been done”, what I mean is what had been done in terms of WORK – painting, laying tile, etc. However, “what had been done” was not at all what we expected. When we pulled up to the house we saw our two front windows punched out and shattered. We also noticed when we walked in that the front door had been kicked in, which means that our door jam was busted.
Special. It was just all so special.
We called our builder and he came over and noticed that the perpetrators had stolen some tools. Now, mind you, there were some sweet power tools laying around: an air compressor, a nail gun, saws. However, none of those things were stolen. I guess all the person wanted were some lame tools that were in a tool box, which made me wonder why he didn’t just go for the gusto and make this worth everyone’s time?
But what do I know, I guess I am not the professional thief here.
The good news is that a) there was no other damage done to the interior of the house, and b) paint pictures! I have them!
This is my purple kitchen. My sweet, sweet Kitchen O’ Purple. If you don’t like it, don’t tell me, because I am clearly having an serious love affair with it. And in case you’re all YOUR PAINTERS SUCK because of the ceiling and everything, I know. And they don’t suck. They just sprayed the house in a day and are going back to edge out the ceilings. Don’t hate.
This is the view into my living room from the kitchen. My mom had the genius idea to paint the inside of the arch purple, and I love the way it ended up. She’s very creative and helpful like that.
And this is the master bedroom, with orange wall. It’s bright, but I love it and am pretty sure it will look BOMB when we get our furniture in there. Have faith, all you doubters out there.
That’s all for now. Have a good Monday!
Way back when Rob and I started picking out interior details for the house (flooring, cabinets, etc.) I also picked out all – ALL - my paint colors. Remember this?
That was my beautiful, vibrant spectrum of paint colors. I still get butterflies when I see them. They excite me almost as much as a fan of twenty dollar bills.
Not that I actually see a fan of twenty dollar bills very often. Or, ever.
When I presented the builder with this array of paint chips, by the look on his face you would have thought I had three heads. He was definitely taken aback by the number of colors, but said he would see what he could do.
Turns out, he saw this as a business opportunity and a chance to make an extra large amount of money. He wanted to charge us XXXX extra dollars to paint the specific colors that I wanted.
At that point I was absolutely livid. They were going to paint the walls anyway, why couldn’t they just use the colors I wanted without charging me? His response was something about dark colors, blah blah, take more coats, blah blah, corners and edging, blah, blah blah.
So I fired back and said Fine, we’ll just do it ourselves! Tell us when, and we’ll be in there painting out little hearts out! Now you’re not getting any money for painting!
Well, then I took some time and allowed my temper to cool off (there may have been some assistance from a margarita) and Rob and I decided that maybe we should re-think the colors and scale them back a little bit, in hopes that we could compromise with the builder and still have them paint for us because, let’s face it, did we really want to paint? No. Of course not. Ew.
I once again consulted with my personal interior decorators, my mom and My Bff Mo, and had them help me scale down the amount of colors. Here is what we ended up with:
I was trying to still get the same effect using my favorite colors, but not use as many colors. Basically, the eggplant is now going to be in my kitchen, the tan and green in my living room, and the orange and gold in the master bedroom. I’m confident that it will still look good, even if I had to go from sixty colors to six.
The good news is that they start painting tomorrow! And they’ll be done Friday! They’re almost as fast at painting as Rob and I would have been.
Heh.
In preparation to move into our new house, I have spent the past couple of weeks figuring out the best way to lay out our new Living Room. Where to place a sofa in relation to the fireplace; how many end tables we need and where to put them; would a sectional work better than a regular sofa in this particular space?
These questions have taken over my life. And many nights’ sleep.
When I finally came to a decision and a layout that I liked, I proudly showed My BFF Mo what I had come up with. Luckily she is more decoratively attentive than I am, because she realized in my layout that all of my furniture and end tables were “floating” in the middle of the room, meaning that they weren’t up against any walls. In other words, the lamps that were supposed to go on the end tables? Those would be worthless because, hello, they need a plug and how can you plug in a lamp when the outlet on the wall is five feet away and there is a walkway in between the two? She knew that I probably didn’t want to take part in a lamp cord obstacle course every time I walk around the living room.
So to remedy this situation, Rob and I went over to the house on Saturday and installed two floor outlets. Although I trust Rob completely, and he knows exactly what he’s doing (he built the house we live in now, meaning, you know, EXPERIENCE), I was just a teeny bit nervous about doing this ourselves. I just didn’t want to mess anything up. The drywall; the ceiling; the dusty plywood floor. It was just all so pristine. But for the sake of not tripping over cords everyday, I held my breath and watched him work his electrical magic.
Here’s Rob reading the instructions that came with the outlet. Until that day, I never knew that men read directions. Deep down I was extremely thrilled to see this. But - Psst, honey, put those away…quick…people are looking…
Rob’s aware of the very critical principles of construction. Here is an example of the “measure once, cut twice” rule. Er, measure twice, cut…whatever. I’m just the photographer here.
And he’s going for it! Ahhh! My plywood floor! Oh shiiiiiii….lamalamadingdong.
**breathing resumes** Oh good. It fits. I don’t have a gaping hole in the middle of my living room. Praises a’plenty.
And the finished product. We will now be able to have lamps – plugged in, no less – without numerous DANGER signs scattered around the room. My furniture may now float freely. And I will now be able to bust out in a spontaneous dance party and rest assured that I won’t trip over a cord. It’s a good day.
I’ve been avoiding the whole construction thing on here because it’s been a little uninteresting lately. I still have been going over to the new house almost everyday, hoping to see some major progress being made, but in the past couple of weeks I have seen almost nothing. Nothing has really visually changed. Which makes my brain scream out in disappointment WHAT IS GOING ON? WHERE ARE THE WORKERS?
Did they drop their hammers and skip outta town in fear of my seventeen paint colors?
(And oh, the paint colors. That’s another story for another day, right there.)
Whenever I would get home and complain to Rob that our construction guys must all be vacationing in Cancun because they certainly have not been doing diddly at our house, he was always quick to remind me that yes, they have been working at the house, you just choose not to see all the wires and pipes that have been put in place. Then after he explains it all, I am enlightened to the fact that within the past week our house has been completely wired, plumbed, and HVAC’d.
So I went back to the house and took a good look around for All The Wires:
Sure enough, they were there. Well. Apparently those guys didn’t go to Mexico to drink all those Modelo’s on the beach. Heh.
Anyway, what I was able to notice last week (by myself) was this:
CONCRETE! They finished it all – the driveway, walkway, front porch, and back patio.
The back patio was definitely one of the areas where we chose to upgrade. The standard patio was about the size of my pinky toe, and would have been practically pointless with almost no room to put all of our outdoor furniture. Also, we wanted room to put our grill away from the siding, because – PLEASE TAKE MY ADVICE – grills do not belong anywhere near siding. We have learned this the hard way…and that is all I’ll say about that.
So, to wrap up this recap, things are definitely well on their way. The insulation was finished this weekend and dry wall has been delivered and will be hung by the middle of this week. Then comes all the mudding of the walls and ceiling, then paint (AND OH, THE PAINT, ANOTHER STORY FOR ANOTHER DAY).
Next time I’ll give you a full paint report.
OH, THE PAINT.
As a kid, I watched my parents endure the process of building a custom home twice – once when I was about seven and again when I was twelve(ish). It was always exciting, of course, although all I really cared about was how big my bedroom would be. It was fun to go to the construction sites, but going every single day seemed like overkill to me. Sometimes you couldn’t even tell what had been done that day, so what was the point in wasting time at the new house when we could stay at home watching eye candy Uncle Jesse on Full House?
As with many things in life, perspective changes as you age. I’ve noticed that building a house is one of those things. Not only do Rob and I visit the house every single day, but sometimes the rebel in me wants to go twice a day to snoop around and see what’s new.
Because I like to live on the edge, you know.
But today it’s your turn to snoop!
So what has been going on over the past two weeks? Lots and lots of framing! And man, those framers are like incognito magicians! Those cigarettes hanging out of their mouths? They’re magic wands. Magic wands that when waved allow for hundreds of two by fours to collide into a cohesive structure, otherwise known as My New House. I keep pointing out to Rob, why do you think Jesus was a carpenter? POINT PROVEN.
Okay! Pictures! Here is the first day of framing. Would you believe that I began drooling when I pulled up to the site and saw this?:
Walls! Tyvek! It was just all so surreal. My new house is going to have walls. Yessssss.
Then, this was just a couple of days later. As you can see, they had already finished the first floor and were working on the second:
Here is an interior view of our living room. The middle hole in the wall is our fireplace, and those are the two windows on either side. I have visions of cold wintery Sunday mornings spent lounging in front of the fireplace with a steaming cup of coffee and my laptop on my lap…ahhhhh….
This is another view of the living room, prior to the second floor being done. That big hole in the floor is our security system, a booby-trap:
Oh, I’m kidding. But stairwells are just so boring, aren’t they?
Just a few short days later, this was the view from the exact same spot. You can see the second floor is now framed (there’s two bedrooms and a bathroom up there), as are the stairways going up and down:
Here is the same view yet again a few days later; now we have a roof over our heads! As is evident, the living room has a cathedral ceiling, so it will be nice and airy and open, which will be perfect for my deep eggplant wall color (the one that Rob may or may not trust my judgement on):
And finally, here is the one and only photo that many of you could give a flip about:
The house in all of its framed glory! Isn’t she lovely? Isn’t she beautiful?
Isn’t that a song?
The next steps are shingles and windows, which I have no doubt will be done in about sixty-three seconds. So look out for more progress!
Although I have been seemingly MIA the past week or so, I wanted to fill you in on the fact that our new house? It’s growing everyday. They have been framing for the past week, and are scheduled to be finished by Friday. I have been taking pictures of the progress almost everyday, but thought I might wait to show you them until there is a little bit more subject matter to look at. In other words, I’d like to sufficiently waste your time all at once, rather than just show you a few new two-by-fours here and there everyday. Know what I mean?
Watching all of the construction is very exciting, but a little bittersweet as well. Because right now as I write this, from my favorite chair, eating candy corn, and deterring Oliver from walking all over my laptop, there is still a FOR SALE sign in our front yard. There is. I see it. And I’m not gonna lie, I’m scared. Nervous. Hating the thought of possibly paying two mortgages.
**puking**
Lately I have cried many tears, prayed many prayers, and am trying to have faith that there is a plan for us and for this house. It’s been difficult though, knowing that we have everything against us right now, including but not limited to: the depressed economy, the 700 trillion billion dollar bail out, job losses, on and on. However, instead of being upset that our house hasn’t sold, I’m trying to maintain a feeling of gratitude that we are even able to be in this situation and build a new house. The oldest child in me also tries to also pick out the hidden lessons in situations and what I came to realize today is this: building a house has great potential to make one greedy. There are so many decisions to make, and so many endless possibilities, that although this is nice, that really is nicer and I think we deserve the nicer things. And oh, that refrigerator is a hundred dollars more? That’s okay. It’s only a hundred bucks, that’s nothing in the grand scheme of things. And our cabinets? They’re only two hundreds bucks over budget. Ain’t no thang. But then by the power of arithmetic, hundreds grow into thousands and OH CRAP WE’RE WAY OVER OUR BUDGET, HOW DID THAT EVER HAPPEN?
However, I think that not having our house sold yet is helping Rob and me to reign ourselves in a little bit. Not to say we haven’t gotten carried away a time or two, Lord knows we have, but we are definitely humbled and brought back to reality when we remember that two house payments may possibly be just around the corner. I think it’s really keeping us grounded through this whole process.
Anyway, for those of you who have already been aware of this, I can’t thank you enough for your prayers. You bloggy friends are amazing, and I appreciate your support more than you know.
Next time, I promise Debby Downer will have left the scene and I’ll be back to my old, ridiculous self. And I will for sure give you the first tour of the house at the end of the week when the framing is complete.
Throughout the past two weeks there has been quite a bit of progress being made on our new house. Rob and I go over to the lot almost every day to check out each step of the process, take pictures, and do our Happy Pants Dance because all of it is just so dang exciting.
If you haven’t ever built a house before, let me tell you something about the beginning stages: THE MOVEMENT OF DIRT IS AWESOME.
And what’s even better are PILES OF DIRT.
I never knew dirt could give me such a rush. It’s just so weird, man.
Let me show you what I’m talking about. Here is the day our lot was cleared and staked:
Then the next day when I was pulling up to the lot you can imagine how delighted I was when I saw the infamous piles of dirt:
And then…and then I saw…the hole! The awesomely dirty hole that will soon be my new house:
I thought the hole was exciting, but then a couple of days later the foundation was completed and that was even better:
And finally, just last Friday, the basement was poured:
The next step is the framing, which should begin sometime this week. That part should be especially exciting, seeing the house rise from the ground and actually start to look like a home.
I can’t wait! In fact, I think I’ll be ready to move in.
Yesterday we finally had the first official showing of our house.
Unfortunately, we didn’t know about it until about three hours before it was going to happen, which resulted in my morning workout plans getting the kibosh and replaced by a major cleaning of the house, complete with me running around resembling a chicken with its head cut off.
It was a bit crazy yesterday morning in the Taylor household, to say the least.
Anyway, we haven’t heard anything yet from the realtor, as to whether or not the people liked it.
My fingers are crossed and my prayer is on repeat mode; please let this house sell soon, please let this house sell soon.
Because I am willing to gamble that paying two mortgages at the same time really stinks.
ps…we break ground on Tuesday!
After Rob and I made all of our interior selections for the new house last Friday, we brought all of the samples home so that we could then begin to think about paint colors that would match the wood, the tile, etc.
However, I panicked and absolutely knew that I couldn’t do that alone because I seem to have a master’s degree in Indecisiveness Especially When it Comes To Interior Decorating.
So I did the only thing I could think of; asked My BFF Mo and my mom to come over and please help my desperate, equivocal soul. With the help of muhgirls, I was able to eventually pick out all sixty-three colors for the inside of the house.
Okay, not really sixty-three. But I’m telling you, I never thought I would end up with as many different colors as I did. However, I am confident that the end product will look beautiful and won’t resemble a Crayola box whatsoever. Promise.
So here is a picture of everything:
There it all is; starting at the top and moving clockwise we’ve got THE AWESOMEST ceramic tile for around the fireplace; maple hardwood floor; ceramic tile for in the kitchen, laundry room, and bathrooms; all eighty-five paint colors; maple cabinets; bathroom countertop (light color); kitchen countertop (darker color).
Oh, and we will have thick, painted white trim all though the house, so picture that thrown in there, too.
And FYI, we are also having carpet in our house. I just left out the carpet from this picture because, well, it’s boring and wasn’t worthy of the photo.
(Sorry, carpet, this blog is just not an equal opportunity type-thing.)
Okay, so let’s check everything out. We’ll start with the colors you would see as you first walked in the front door of the house:
The gold color on the left will be throughout the Foyer area. Warm and inviting.
The orange-y color in the middle will be in the powder room and laundry room.
And the green on the right will be in the office.
Can you picture it?
Then there’s the kitchen:
I chose a taupe-y/green-y paint color in here. In some lights it looks more taupe, and in other light it looks more green. Either way, I like it, and I think it’s actually pretty neutral and will give me enough freedom to decorate the kitchen in other ways (ie: colorful ceramics/artwork/accessories). I was going to go with more of a brown-y color, but I don’t know. I think I’ll try this.
I’m such a daredevil, you know.
THEN there’s my most favorite aspect of the house, the fireplace and living room:
These mosaic tiles will be laid all around the fireplace, and then larger 12×12 tiles will be laid on the floor in front of the fireplace. LOVE THEM. Then you can see the two paint colors I chose for this room; the color on the left will be on the same wall as the fireplace, and is actually the SAME color as what will be in the kitchen. See? Doesn’t it look different? Then, the plum-y color on the right will cover the other walls. I think it will be a very pretty jewel-toned, warm room. Yummy.
Then the master bedroom and bathroom:
We currently have an orange wall in our bedroom and really, REALLY like it. Not only because I am on an orange kick lately thanks to all the Orange Tree business (more info coming on that soon, too!), but also because it matches our duvet really well. So we’re going to continue the orange thing in our new master bedroom. One wall will be orange, and the rest will be the golden-beige color on the left. Then our master bathroom will be that chocolate brown on the right. Earthy.
Last, and also least, we will have a Boring Beige (not pictured because it, along with the carpet, is-you know-BORING) color painted upstairs in both bedrooms and the bathroom.
I figured that SINCE I’M NOT PREGNANT, I may as well wait until we have kids to paint the bedrooms anything other than Boring Beige.
Unless I painted one pink and one blue…I mean, I couldn’t go wrong with that right? But with my luck, I would end up having twin boys and would then have to paint the pink room blue anyway.
SEE?
Boring Beige it is.
So, there you go! Our new house in a nutshell. Now we just need to break ground…hopefully this week!
