It's been WAY too long :)

So life has change a TON since our last post. It has gotten quite crazy and quite fun. We moved into our new home, and it is everything we imagined. We absolutely love it. I promise to post pictures soon, since we are all unpacked!

Here are a few highlights from this past month.

1. We got a 42 inch LCD tv with a free wall mount. Walmart display model prices are INSANE!!

2. Josh has done a ton of projects around the house. Everything from:

a. garage door opener

b. new lighting fixtures

c. put up shelves

d. put up the TV

e. blinds

f. installed microwave

g. made a coat rack

3. Elsa had surgery. She had a tumor removed on her side. I was concerned it was cancer, but it was benign!!!!!!! It was just a fatty tumor, which is pretty unusual in cats. When we dropped her off at the vet, the nurse took a look at her lump, and said it was "uggie". That was pretty funny. That evening, she couldn't even lift her head up. Broke my heart.

She has been a very good girl. She has taken her medicine and been a trooper about wearing a onesie. We cut off the butt of the onsie, so she is just wearing this really adorable t-shirt. Insanely cute. She has 4, rather larger, stitches that will need to come out in a few weeks.

4. I got an internship!!! It starts in May and is with a public accounting firm called CBIZ. The people seem wonderful, and the work seems fascinating. The internship will be 50% accounting outsourcing and 50% auditing. A perfect combination to determine which is a better fit for me long term.

I have NEVER felt so blessed in my life. This is such a happy time that we are just trying to soak in and enjoy immensely. Life is beautiful!

--Cara

God is awesome!

So we were FINALLY told how much to bring to closing, and the number was $1000 less than we thought it would be :) YAY! We had been over estimating the closing costs.

So, of course, we had to buy something for the house... so here is the new dining room light fixture from one of my favorite stores, CB2. Much better then the porcelain socket that is currently in the dining room.

Just about there!!!

We are set to close on Thursday! (that is, if they will ever tell us how much we need to get a cashier's check for)

So I thought I would take this post to talk about the choices we made for the house. Once we move in, and are there for a while, I will post whether or not they were worth it, or if I wish we would have done things differently.

Upgrades we chose:

We chose to do mainly structural upgrades, because we figure we can change just about anything else later for a lot less money then the builder would charge.

1. Vaulted ceilings in the kitchen and living room. The model had these, and it just opened the entire house up.

2. Move the kitchen from the front of the house to the middle. This seemed to be a much less awkward floor plan. It also allowed for a kitchen island.

3. Additional window in the living room.

4. Elevation B. I had to have a front porch, it was my one requirement I was not willing to give up.

Elevation A:

Elevation B:

5. Brushed nickel doorknobs and hinges. They overcharged us on this, considering that brass and brushed nickel cost the same, but I would have cost us more to change this later.

6. Overhang on the kitchen island. This would have been a lot of work to do ourselves.

7. A better oven. For $95 we could upgrade to an oven that had a window in the door, and a light! OOOOhhhh

Things we didn't upgrade:

1. floors- we hope to put in hardwood later

2. cabinets- eventually some Ikea ones would be great!

3. No fireplace- but it would be great eventually.

4. No coach lights- Josh will be putting those in.

5. No dead bolts- again Josh will do that

6. No ice maker line

I think that is it!

--Cara

Our builder and chapter 11 bankruptcy

So it took about 5 days for the news stations to start reporting that Whitaker went into chapter 11 bankruptcy. (we have known since Thursday) So, in case you saw it, I just wanted to let everyone know that we already know, and we aren't concerned. It's chapter 11, not chapter 7, so they aren't closing or anything. They are just restructuring their debts. All of the money we pay at closing will go right to the suppliers and subcontractors, so we are not worried about liens.

--Cara

Breaking into our own house

Today, we went by to take a look at the house and, we got in. I won't say how we got in but, since we were in there, I took some pictures. I will give you a little tour.

This is from towards the front of the house looking to the back. On the left is the dining room, kitchen and living room. On the right is the garage, steps to the basement, and the hallway leading to the bedrooms.

Here is a picture from the entryway looking into the kitchen. The dining room is on the left and the living room is on the right.
This is from the living room looking back at the entry way. This one really shows the vaulted ceilings.
And, this is my basement
-- Josh

Lots of Progress

I went by the house yesterday after work to find that on Monday and Tuesday, they finished putting in all the cabinets and counters, put in all the outlets and switches, installed the gutters, put in the forms for the driveway and patio, had the appliances delivered and it looks like they are working on the ducts in the basement.

I if the weather holds out, we may have a driveway and patio by the end of the day.

The list of things yet to be done is getting really short!

-- Josh

Another Siding pic

We were able to lock in our interest rate today, so we are happy. Next step is appraisal then underwriting. The vinyl flooring is is, as well as the baseboard. Hopefully we will be able to take some interior pictures this weekend.

--Cara

Siding and a closing date...

Well, it seems like October 31st is a good day for us. Three years ago on Halloween we got engaged, and this coming Halloween we will be moving into our first house!

Our closing date is set for October 29th, and move in day is set for the next Saturday (Halloween).

Today, there were a ton of people working on the house. Most of the siding is finished, and the interior has been painted. Josh peered through the windows and it looks like some flooring will be going in tomorrow.

Now we are praying everything goes ok with the loan!!

By the way, have you ever tried Starbucks instant coffee??? Josh got a free sample today, and it tastes exactly like real coffee.

-Cara

Drywall pic

Josh stopped by the house this evening, but couldn't go in, because they were still there working on bringing the gas line to the house.

Here is a picture from yesterday of the kitchen with drywall.

Drywall

I don't have any good pictures of it but, last Thrusday, they hung all the drywall and delivered the furnace, hot water heater, and ductwork.

Today, joint compound was applied to the drywall and taped.

September 23rd

Today, they poured the porch and garage floors

Built the stairs to the basement and the framing around them

Brought in all the sheetrock, mud and tape

Installed the breaker box

And, quite a few small things.

Basement Floor and Other Improvements

Today they poured the basement floor in the house, finished pulling the rest of the wire to the boxes, ran the electrical lines to the meter box and, put in the forms and rebar for the porch and garage floor.

Here you can see the porch forms.

Some of the wiring going down to the basement where the breaker box will be.

Electrical mains going into the meter box but, still waiting on a meter.

The basement floor as seen through one of the windows.

Plumbing

Today the plumbing subcontractor put in all of the waste plumbing. There are also pieces of copper plumbing lying on the floor, so that should be going in tomorrow.

PS. I have an interview with CBIZ MHM LLC. for an internship next summer on October 2. Prayers appreciated!

-Cara

Rainproof

Today, they finished putting the roof on the house and took care of some other things.

In addition to the roof, they also cut all the holes for the duct work in the house, brought some things on site like the sump-pump and it looks like some kind of inspection was done because there was some paperwork in the front windows for it.

-- Josh

Roof

After resting for the weekend, the crew was out working on our house today. As of about noon, they had put on the last little bits of house wrap, put down tar paper on the whole roof, put shingles on about 2/3rds of the roof and they had brought out a backhoe (probably to bring in electric, phone, cable and gas lines).

They also put in all the windows and installed the front and back doors on friday.

It is moving along quite nicely and we hope to soon have a finished roof and siding.

I am going to go take some pictures tomorrow.

OSB on a tiny house :)

Josh sent me this picture that he took of the back of the house during his lunch hour. They began laying the OSB on the trusses. I think this picture is awesome for 2 reasons.

1. You can see how far apart the houses are from each other.

2. Our house looks like a play house for the huge house next door. Good thing I have always love small things!

--Cara

Trusses

Today the trusses went up on the house and the framing was completed (they still need to finish wrapping it) . You really get a sense for what it will look like now.

Ours is flipped with the garage on the left. I wasn't able to find one that was flipped in the subdivision so, I flipped this one in Preview so that you can see about what it will look like when it is done. Ours will be a light yellow with dark navy blue shutters but, this gives you a general idea of what it will look like.
And, here is another picture from the back

-- Josh

Walls

They nearly finished framing all the walls today. almost all the exterior walls are up and covered with OSB and all the interior walls (including closets) are framed out. It was very exciting to walk through the house for the first time. Our house is going to be flipped from the model that we walked through so, it was nice to see how everything was going to be laid out.

In this first picture (taken from the end of the driveway), you can see into the garage and the entryway to the left. All the blue colored wood is the OSB that will go on the roof.

This second picture shows the roof trusses that were delivered to the site today. If you look closely at them you will notice that many of them have cutouts for the vaulted ceilings that we got in the kitchen and living room.

-- Josh

Hard Work

Writing blog posts is hard. Naps are required after every post.

-- Elsa

Working With Wood Now

Now that the foundation has been allowed time to cure, they have backfilled and are starting to build the actual house. Yesterday they put in the three i-beams that will support the floor and started laying out the engineered lumber floor joists. Below are pictures of what was done yesterday afternoon. In the first picture, you see what will be the garage and some of the joists sitting there. The second picture is looking down into the basement (the basement floor won't be poured for a while) and shows a few of the joists laid out. The last one shows how things look from what will be the end of the driveway.

Today they finished putting the joists in place and put down the sub-floor. After that was done, they started framing out several of the walls. When I last went by the house, there were still people working so I didn't take pictures but, I hope to have some tomorrow.

-- Josh

And now the foundation...

Two weeks ago we headed off for our first vacation in two years. We visited the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and had a wonderful time hiking, sitting in the hot tub, and seeing 5 bears. While we were gone, we hoped the foundation would be poured for the house, however, it rained and rained and rained here in St. Louis. So they weren't able to pour until last week. We went out there yesterday, and found that they had taken the forms off and sealed the foundation. These pictures are taken from the back of the house, the metal object sticking out in front of the foundation is the egress window.

-Cara

The Pit Takes Shape

Tonight, we went out to the lot to see the basement that they dug. In the next week, they should be bringing in the forms and pouring the foundation. This picture was taken from the giant mound of dirt that they excavated and piled on the back of the lot.

The garage will be on the left side of the picture where the black Civic is. Where Cara is standing will be the front porch. It should be exciting to see the basement in place after we get back from vacation. -- Josh

The porch swing

Yesterday, my parents' neighbor threw out his old porch swing. Josh went over and asked if we could have it. He said sure, and he is planning on getting rid of a bunch more stuff which we are welcome to take as well! The porch swing needs some work. Josh took it apart, and found a couple of boards that need to be replaced, along with a few carriage bolts. We will also have to buy some chains for it. We hope to keep the whole project under $40. The cheapest new one I could find was $100. So quite a good deal!

The great dig!

Today, they finally began excavating our first house. We are all unbelievably excited! Josh thinks that the foundation and subfloor will be in by the time we get back from vacation next week. We will have to see!

The house is beautiful. It will be 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. It will have vaulted ceilings in the kitchen and living room and a main floor laundry. We picked sunny maize for the siding color and wedgewood blue for the shutters. It will have a large front porch that we can put a porch swing on and an aggregate driveway. The lot is nice and level, and over a quarter of an acre! We really think that, God willing, we will be here for many years.