Our house in the middle of our street.

Hello All! 

I am currently couch or bed bound, I didn't get though a whole day at work without feeling like absolute garbage. I seriously think that spring time in Florida is the worst time to get sick ever. Thankfully my "boss" is The Hubs so he takes it easy on me... even gave me a ride home when the migraine hit. Bless his heart he came home and got my butt up and out of my sick bed to go see the house! 

 The guys left a ladder up the other day (notice I am smiling this was obviously not today) so we decided to take some cheesy photos. haha! The Hubs got higher up than me for a two reasons:

1. He is much braver than I am

B. As I started up the ladder he called out to me "I did the math in my head and you are 80% more likely to hurt yourself than I am climbing up the ladder!" 

Thanks babe! Your lack of confidence in my coordination is a breath of fresh air. jerk. :) He is probably right. Before I get on to a few more photos I just feel like rambling for a bit.

The faster this house seems to go up the more worried I get. Sure, it does seem a little silly to say that but I have always lived in a house that has pretty much been complete and I never had to make decisions this big before. The Hubs is great for listening to my ideas but on the other hand he doesnt come up with much because he knows that this is truly what I love to do. I got the home decor bug way back starting with Kirklands, then Pier 1, I eventually got out of retail but on my weekends I would head out with my parents and go "Junk" shopping. Our home was always filled with interesting things to catch your eye or start a conversation, I am more than excited for this part! What really worries me is wall placement, is the flow of the home right, flooring, counter tops, cabinets, bedrooms, closet sizes.... pretty much everything that makes a home a home before you can decorate! I usually go into things feeling very confident that I can power though it successfully, this time I dont feel very confident. My expectations of myself for this house are very high! I want a home that people want to come over and stay for a bit. I want my home to be a pure lazy sunday home where your only plans are to get out of bed before the sun sets. I want my home to one day wish it could tell stories of parties past and echo with laughter from celebrations. I think I might just be going though Hostess withdraws :(  Who knows, things are getting more and more serious each day... 

They started measuring out where the walls go today! This is the office area here looking at it from the front door. We had to make a decision on our fridge today as well. Since the fridge is going to be counter depth Todd needed the exact measurements for it. Oh lawd! Thats huge. Thats big. wow. So we are going with the LG fridge. When we got that call from Todd today to make that decision I think thats when I really felt my nerves stand on edge! EEEP! 

Dear Bailey, stop second guessing yourself! You are doing it right!

Love, 

Your not crazy half

This was Thursday! 5-16

This was today! 5-17

All of the peel and stick is up and applied to the roof! This has a texture of the stuff on a skateboard. It comes in these huge rolls and then just like a sticker the backing is pulled off and its put down on the roof. Todd suggested this to us and we decided to go with him on that. I know from watching House Hunters and shows like that how important your roof is and the potential cost of replacing it from being poorly done. We wanted something that is really going to last. Since we also decided to go with materials that could really hold up in a storm the peel and stick was the way to go. Todd told us that if anything on the roof needs to be fixed... in about 30 years... then they would just apply more peel and stick and replace shingles. He doesnt know of any roofer who has decided to take off a layer of peel and stick... so that must mean it really holds its own... I think (pun intended) 

In the second photo you can see the shingles are here now as well. We picked this about a month ago and I honestly wasnt nervous at all about this decision! 

Found this great photo! This is also a photo of the shingle color we picked. 

We decided to go with GAF Timberline Ultra HD Shingles. Click here for more information on this product. Sure a lot of websites go into the great things about this product but they have a lot of great reviews and have a great UV rating which is perfect for our huge amount of sun here in the Sunshine state! They really hold their coloring well here in these areas and Todd just loves them. Our roofer even told us that it was a good choice, after he had some choice words for us about picking the Charcoal colored shingles! haha oops. To offset the dark colored roof we will have foam sprayed inside to really seal it up. This will reduce our energy bill in the long run. We will also have 2 Air conditioning units in the house as well. Some people may see this as being a little excessive but its not. The rental we are living in now isnt sealed up properly and is about 1/2 the size of where we were living our power bill is much higher than the last house. We have closed all the vents in the rooms we are using for storage and still come night time its hot as can be. We sleep in about 70 degrees and kicking down one unit in the master is a lot cheaper than kicking down the one to the main house. 

I think I feel my migraine coming back... off to shower and sleep for my 19th hour. <3 

The Orb Photo.

We now have shelter!!! woohoo! get your tents ready we are moving in! ha I wish we could. As much as I am enjoying my urban container garden that we recently added too I am ready for some peace and quiet.  A Few days ago one of the many children next door to us fed the dogs something through the crappy little chain link fence... which was then followed up by unspeakable things that a dog owner never wants to have to deal with.... gross. Needless to say I am very unhappy about this even though they are feeling much better I am still throwing dirty looks over the fence every chance I get. 

Pardon my lack of humor I have been on a soup diet for a sore throat which I will also blame on the neighbors (even though I know they have nothing to do with that) 

Before I get into the pictures below I will jump into updates on the cabinets... So we missed a huge discount with Lowes while looking into other people to possibly do our cabinets. We tried Home depot but decided since they didnt make much of an effort to really read my email I sent them we just didnt reply back. Sure not very professional I know but seriously?! I asked for pricing on your Martha Stewart cabinets not for you to do everything with Martha! 

Todd was contacted by another cabinet guy (who looked into our permit box <that says: DO NOT OPEN!>) But we decided to give him a chance and sent him over the floor plans and Lowes drawings for what we had already picked out... well he "had a death in the family" and only got back to us after we emailed him... a week and a half later. He originally said a a few days. I normally wouldnt let this bother me but I'm sorry I am over cabinets. I never thought I would say that but this whole thing seems like everyone just wants to waste time and drag their feet. I am annoyed. Shoot me an email and say something has come up and you will get back to us as soon as you can! DONT JUST NOT RESPOND! oh and the kicker to this guy... He said he usually beats big box stores by a a couple thousand and he came back TWO THOUSAND DOLLARS MORE! MORE! Why you ask? Because he thought we wanted all wood cabinets... way to assume guy! 

Along with this whole mess with the cabinets we still havent been able to find anyone who carries a marble like granite... till a few days ago...

We were headed home from work and saw that this granite yard was still open and we decided to pop in... THEY HAD IT!!!! They had my Super White! Oh I was so excited I almost pee'd! We gave the girl our fabricators info and she said she would get with them and send over everything they need... well... she didnt, but we called Roy over at TH Winston and let him know that we liked that. The only issue with that was they had 5 pieces of it which is perfect... except the top on had a huge fracture in it that you could feel. We asked if we could see any other pieces and she kept telling us to go to the website. <the website only has one photo> When we asked if they were getting anymore she said October would be the soonest even after we told her that we would be moved in and the house complete she said that we could wait.... back to me being annoyed. 

<DUMB> 

Thankfully Roy said he would keep on the look out for other places with Super White. We still might make a trip to Orlando to see some other quartzite.

We met with the guy who is doing our roof because he was still working at 7 pm! They were keeping long hours because he wanted to finish it before he had to make a trip north for his daughters graduation. Unfortunately they didnt get it done before he had to leave so things have been slow going. 

The majority of the roof has been covered with plywood the only thing that was left was the front door area. 

The usual back yard photo! See these vines making their way up the trees? Yea well one trip out to the house I took my gardening gloves out there with me and tore them all down. Pretty easy work since they were not all the way around the tree yet. Next time The Hubs will need to go all George of the Jungle and chop them so they dont creep up my trees again! 

We are thinking of starting some yard work out there to get thing ready for when we move in and do the most amazing things to our back yard the world has ever seen! No. Its not a joke, we are super excited to make a glorious back yard! The Hubs was just okay with my garden till we started getting veggies and now he is just as excited as I am! Get ready for some great parties! 

This photo makes me laugh because as we pulled up I am screeching (yes, screeching) at The Hubs to not get any closer to the house because of the nails laying around! Bless his heart he was so excited to just get this close with the car... as I jumped out right at my door there was a giant nail! I was so totally right! Silly man. :)  

I am over city living. Its too hot and muggy to walk downtown anymore, its just so much easier to drive 3 blocks to get to where we want to go. We recently had an outbreak of Bums (Pan handlers for those of you who want to be politically correct) No joke we had them on every single street corner. Some of the signs were so redick its not even funny... there was a guy in a suit who was holding one that said "recently divorced and need to get drunk" there was another guy who had whiter shoes than I have ever had in my life! How are you homeless and your shoes are so white?! There was this one lady who was pushing her shopping cart down my street and she was screaming at my neighbors dog saying she was going to sue them... then she got to our house where the dogs were sitting nicely watching this crazy lady through the fence and she started screaming at them... and me of course and that she was going to sue us. Great. She finally moved along to a foreclosed house down the street and tucked herself in... the cops moved her along. A few days later we were headed to dinner with some friends and I am telling them about this crazy lady when we turn the corner and I kid you not she was right there... still in her blue flannel trench coat I was describing to them! Of course we died laughing! What are the chances!!! We sat down for dinner outside and saw a cop pull up to her and move her along again... after leaving this restaurant (because you really need to be in the mood for chicken and waffles)  we brought up that lady again and as we turned another corner and saw her pounding on a dry cleaners front door. Shes everywhere! After making plans with all of our friends to head out there with our own signs (on our ipads) the city has cracked down a little bit on them... but now its some legal war going on... tisk tisk. 

I wanted to include this photo for my family... who are true believers in the orbs.... well... here are two. No way this place is haunted though, but this will make for some great stories to make up and scare each other with like when we were growing up (Ali, Blake, Mallory, Aunt Terry, and Adam, I know you remember what I am talking about!)