And then it stopped!

Well hello and welcome! We have had some amazing changes happen recently... But then again what isn't amazing when you are building a house!? 

Our floors are just getting further and further along....

And let's be honest.... They look AMAZING! 

So much so that I may or may not have rolled around on them already.... Haha! 

Some other new changes would be... 

Our grass is here! We had our irrigation installed a few days before our sod delivery.... But only for the front yard... Oh dear I'll tell you more about the back yard in a bit. They brought in two giant truck loads or 16 pallets for the front and side yards... That's a ton of grass! They installed it all in about 30 minuets it was crazy! 

These guys are going to go away and be swapped with actual sprinkler heads... They must have not heard me correctly when I told them that this area was going to be grass and not bushes... But it's pretty with these micro sprayers looks like a low fog! 

These cool sprinkler heads make me feel like spider man shooting webs all over the place! 

Obviously this means our Well is all set up and complete! The company we used was actually one of our clients so he gave us a hell of a deal! 

Here she is with all her grass! I would like it to be noted that it looks like a storm coming from over in the right hand corner but.... Since the day we had our grass installed we did not have one single drop of rain until today. 3 full days of no rain! Crazy right? When we need it the most it's bone dry! 

We have been waiting on the guy who did half of our fence to complete the rest of our fence.... But he's been MIA and hard to get on the phone. He has a few other jobs to complete around the property but we will see if that's even going to happen... From the last time we spoke to him we should be seek him out there tomorrow at 8:30am to fix the neighbors fence and also complete our fence. If you ask me I think he is going to be a no show and my patience is very very low. Get ready for an explosion. Not even joking. 

On a much better note, we headed out to the house today to begin preparing our back yard for more dirt and grass, and eventually a deck. On our way out there we passed by a local plant nursery... 

...and we picked out our first two trees! We got a beautiful magnolia (since the flowers smell heavenly) and a hibiscus! Yes, I know it's kind of a slow start but we are learning as we go and slowly building the outside area of our dreams. 

Here is my big strong man digging my holes :) how cute is he? 

We had great ambitions to clear out more of the saw grass and vines with roots from the back yard but the heat was a killer. Most of what we got done in the back yard was just clean up. There were tons of water bottles thrown in the back corner and I have no idea where they came from! We cleared some cement blocks and some boards with nails in them as well but I think they were left over from the land being so over grown for so many years!

We didn't even have a chance to spray the weeds! I think I almost blacked out a few times... I ended up with a t-shirt and shorts tan... And when I tried to power through throwing a few huge branches into the back of the truck I ended up covered in dirt! Thankfully no wasp stings or ant bites so I'm pretty happy! Even chugging all the water I could stand I am still fighting a headache that's just on the edge of being upgraded to a migraine. Oh and my knee... Bless its heart, after jumping out of the back of an SUV this week and landing wrong I am on and off crutches right now I'm back on. I'm ready to just cut it off and make it a peg leg. Seriously 3 surgeries is enough and I WON'T be going with a 4th

Here they are! 

Not much of a start but I am happy that I could do this with my wonderful husband by my side. 

This week brings some more changes, we got the phone call shortly after I took this photo tonight letting us know that our cabinets are being delivered at 7am. Yep. Gross, we asked that he push it back till a little later but he said the truck is already loaded and the latest he can do it it 8:30. We seriously have the worst luck with deliveries! Not even sure if the truck can make it down the road but we will keep our fingers crossed! I'll have my camera ready to see the struggle haha. Our appliances are also scheduled to be delivered this week! Not too worried about them but I'm sure we will have some delivery issues with them as well. 

We have almost all of our light fixtures and fans for the house but we are still deciding on what to do over the dining room table (that we also have not picked out), the office, and the bedroom. We were originally going to have a fan over the bed per The Hubs' request but he recently told me that he wouldn't mind a chandelier. Excuse me for a second while I pick my jaw up off the floor, what?! Okay. I know I want the chandelier covered in twigs for the bedroom but I don't feel like my stomach could handle me spending that kind of money only to hate it months down the road when there is dust on it! Haha. I have scoured my favorite salvage places looking for a shell of a chandelier I can convert into a luxurious drippy chandelier but have come up empty... Looking online I would spend about the same amount as the down payment on a car for the perfect drippy chandelier.... So I am open to suggestions on where to find one or what to do. 

This is my top contender for the bedroom. Does it look too much like the bathroom one? 

This is my top choice for the office. 

And this guy is getting all my love for over the dining room table. 

I just don't know. Obviously my theme is sparkles and bling. I just can't quit. I probably need to some sort of support group for this. Who knows. I've got to go pick some more money off the money tree so I will try and update tomorrow with news on the fence and the cabinets. Xoxo 

 

Land Clearing Time

Well its time for us to start clearing the land! After finding out that we have 15 more feet on the side of the property its just that much more for us to clear! yuck! Just kidding! We are actually super excited about this revelation! Since we are fencing off the whole property and adding a gate up front I have been super worried about looking out of the windows on the sides of the house and seeing... fence. Ew. Nope, not anymore we get to have actual plants and such now! Everything with a pink flag around it is set to be removed... this is a total of 20 trees. Todd told us that this was going to cost us anywhere from $12,000 to $2,000 and we needed to keep our fingers crossed. Who knew that cutting down trees was so expensive!? Not only do they need to cut down these trees but they need to grind and remove the stumps as well... needless to say we will be selling firewood for the next few years to make some of this money back! haha! Kinda joking... kinda not...

Again, dont worry we will be more than compensating down the road with new plants, trees, flowers, and other misc landscaping. Thanks to my father I learned a lot over the years and cant wait to hit up the local growers and get to planting! I also have plans for a garden... my lovely garden box that The Hubs made for me when we first started dating is sadly sitting empty in the garage. :( 

Back to what I was saying, we did get quite a few quotes for the land clearing and all I can say is thankfully we did not hit the 12k mark! Woo! Mini celebration! 

With a construction mortgage you have to come out of pocket on about 25% of what you would like to get a loan on... this can include: Land clearing, Contractors fees, Architect fees, Survey Fees, Sewage survey, and so on and so forth. Just posting this so that if you decide to build on your own land... you should just know that the land itself probably isnt down payment enough for a bank anymore. Ew and more Ew to this one. Sucks that we have to come out of pocket this much before hand but glad we are prepared. 

On a lighter note! I dropped off the final check to Jason our Architect yesterday! Do you know what this means?! Do you?! THIS MEANS WE GET TO FILE FOR OUR BUILDING PERMITS! <insert happy dance> 

Yes Ladies and Gents, if all goes as planned we will be breaking ground very soon! This puts a swarm of little butterflies in my stomach! This isnt like your normal cookie cutter builders special house that you found in some neighborhood... this is our dream! This is excitement kept me from tearing my neighbors head off with my bare hands after he took a leaf blower to his "yard" and covered my white dog in dirt and leaves while he was peeing. Let me be clear that the word yard is used very loosely... he  has a busted driveway and stupid oak trees. The landlord cut all the branches off before we moved in so we wouldnt have to deal with his leaves... but thankfully he blew them all into our yard! They just drove away so I'm about to bust out the blower myself and give them back to my very giving neighbor. If I knew where his hose hook up was I'd use that and wash my little white dog with his water too! 

6 more months. 6 more months. 6 more months. 

I think the dogs will soon join us in this chant too... they are hating being in this house... 

well dont look at them right now... you couldnt tell. 

Have I mentioned yet how much this oven sucks? I'm sure that my baby chicken that I am cooking right now will take a good 2 1/2 hours... waaaay more than its used to. grr. time to go baste it again.... talk to you soon! 

Master bath

Here is our master bath floor plan. We dont have a ton of ideas for this yet when it comes to colors, but here are a few: 

We love the look of the river rock floor for the shower, its a pretty nice sized and will be glass on the outsides of it so it will have a real clean look. We will be going with 2 shower heads and a bench seat in the corner. There will be shampoo and soap cut outs in the wall so you wont have to look at the ugly metal things that eventually rust anyways. Looking for suggestions for brands of good shower heads. We arent into the massagers with cords or anything like that. Maybe a rain shower head? 

Aunt Patty, The house we are in right now has a roman shower... at first I loved it, its open and brighter than most showers but then I spent 2 years using it. First it has glass blocks for the partition the grout between them is thicker than most tile and has been a bear to keep clean. I think somewhere along the line it also cracked and is leaking next to the tub. (this just could be poor builder quality) I also noticed that I am using much more hot water to keep the temp up while I am showering.  I love the open feeling to it but I think I will pass on it this build. 

We will have separate sinks... This is working for us so far... I need my space in the bathroom. Sure I may not ever use my faucet (because I dont right now) but it will give me my quality make-up/ hair product space that is needed. I did find these above counter shelving that I am in love with, or I think I am in love with them right now... :/ I have never been great at decisions. (except for my husband choice)

This is my side, this sketch was also done before the vanity was moved to the other side. The sinks will end up directly across from each other and I will not be putting on my makeup next to the toilet room. Gross. yea. No built-in Medicine Cabs I really dont like the look of them. (your home pharmacy should not be exposed to the moisture of a bathroom)   

This sketch I was asking for built-ins where the tub is going to be but I would lose my corner units if we did this so I passed on them and will end up doing some sort of shelving here. The bath will also be completely covered on top so it ends up being a flat surface. See photo on bottom. 

Love the look of the marble on top and black mosaic tile on the bottom. Sure the tub is not going to be set in the middle of the room (thats the next house we build) but the tub we have now has this yuck bland tile around it in 4x4 squares. Try washing a dirty dog who tries to escape... yea that grout isnt so white anymore. Wiping down a solid slab will be so much easier! Yes... it will be a soaking tub, I have one now and I love it... I will miss it when we move to our 8 month house. 

We recently went to a home show (never again because we entered to win a home depot gift card and were signed up to win a "free" disney vacation, jerks) anywho... we did find this company called Cambria. Its a natural quartz company who had some very beautiful slabs to look at, its a little less porous than granite so we might be using it here in the bathroom.  click this link to see some of the collection: Cambria Website

We really loved the jewel collection but we will revisit that when we get a little closer to that point. Also Cambria quartz has a lower carbon footprint when compared other companies. It is also American  made so that makes it a huge plus to us!

I have some sad news... 

My dreams of soaking in my lovely tub filled with bubbles while eating oreos and sipping on a glass of wine and leaning back to look at a glorious chandelier have been dashed by The Hubs. He doesnt want this look: 

He hates the look of the light fixture. :( this makes me sad. I will not feel like a queen while I decompress in the tub... This also goes for over the dining room table but I will show you what I found for that fixture soon! 

I found this guy up here tonight that I will spring on The Hubs next time he comes out of the room! Maybe he will fall in love with this... just kidding. He makes fun of me for looking at this stuff for hours on end but I make fun of him for yelling at the video gamers like a fool ;) The silly man would probably be okay with pot lights all over the house if it were up to him. 

Kidding again! He's a good man for letting this huge project of this home be my baby for a while! He trusts my decisions (for the most part, we all know I can get a little sparkle crazy sometimes).