I have decided to start a blog so that we can track the progress as our new house is built.
I'm sure some of our friends and family may be interested in the progress as well.
So please feel free to follow the journey of the building of our first home together.

Sunday, March 27, 2011

03/27/11 - Walls finished, Cabinets In, and Trim Completed

Yet another week goes by and tons more progress.  Since my last update the builders have completed the walls and they are now painted, the trim is finished, most of the doors are hung, the tile is all grouted and our cabinets have been installed.  Today we spoke to our sales lady, Liz, and she told us that they think they will be done with the house by April 15th....that's only 2 weeks away!  They also have decided that they really want us to close on our house in the month of April to make their books look better, so if we should decide to close in April, they will pay our last month of rent for our apartment.  Why would we pass that up!?!?  So, the plan is that we are going to close on our house on April 29th.  This will give us a full month to do any additional painting that we would like, and also move all of our belonging from our apartment to the house.

This is a picture from the front door, of the staircase that goes to the second level.  The door you can see leads to the basement.

Here are a few pictures of the kitchen and our cabinets...

Picture of the butler pantry cabinets

This is in our kitchen, in the island.  The sink and and the dishwasher will be in our kitchen island.

This is a picture standing in our living room, looking towards the front door.

This is our dining room.

A picture of our living room.  Fireplace tile has been completed, and the door to the study has been hung.  I love the glass pane in the study door!


So, I went shopping today and bought this 8x10 rug to go in the living room.  Love it!

 This is the railing on the second floor that looks down to the front door on the first level.  The doors to the left and right are the extra bedrooms.

2nd floor - Hallway to our master bedroom.  The arched door on the left is the bonus room, and the door on the right is the laundry room.

2nd floor - Master bathroom.  Floors completed and cabinets installed.
 
 2nd floor - Master bathroom.  Garden tub and where the shower will be.  The door you can see is our closet.

2nd floor - Master bedroom, looking towards the master bathroom.

2nd floor - Picture of the bonus room from the top of the stairs.

And below are a couple more purchases I made today.  I bought 2 of these chairs for the formal living room.  It looks grey in this picture, but they are chocolate brown.
 

 And this is the table that I bought to go with the chairs in the formal living room.  Furniture bought for one more room....meaning...one more room that won't be bare when we move in!  :-)

Off to bed....if they are really going to have this house done in just 2 weeks....there should be only a few more updates!  Liz told us today that the next steps will be installing the counter tops and also the tile around the showers and bath tubs.  She also said that the carpet install will be about the last item on the list.

Friday, March 18, 2011

3/18/2010 - Exterior painted and most of the flooring installed!

Well, it's only been 10 days since I've last posted updates, but since then they have completed the drywall, and textured the walls.  Also, they have painted the exterior of our house and installed most of our flooring (minus the carpet...which I'm guessing will be one of the last steps).

Here are a couple of pictures of the exterior of our house.  I love the colors that I picked!  Chad's doesn't "LOVE" the colors, but he doesn't think they look bad.  He was leaning toward some light greys, and I really liked these green colors...and since I seemed to care more about the colors, we went with the greens.  (We've both compromised a few times with different decisions made with the house.)




And here are some interior pictures of the house.  They still have quite a bit to do, but it's progressing very nicely!  Note, we did hardwood throughout most of the 1st level.  They have installed the hardwood, but it's not finished.  We did choose the lightest color of stain though, so they shouldn't be much darker than they currently are.

Our garage....



Living Room - They started the tile around our fireplace, and have the hardwood floors down.

Tile around fireplace...still needs grouted

Dining Room

Kitchen

Picture of the front door / hallway from the living room

Master bathroom...they have the tile down, but needs to be grouted still.  I  love it!

A close up of our tile in the master bathroom, to show the design in the tile.

Second story, hall to the master bed room.  The first arch on the left is the bonus room and I'm taking the picture from our loft at the top of the stairs.  The door on the right is the laundry room.

Bonus Room

 2nd floor, I'm standing in the loft while I took this picture.  The first door is the laundry room, second door the bathroom, 3rd door is a spare bedroom.

I'm standing in our master bedroom.  Through the arch is our master bathroom, and the other door you can see in the master bath is to our walk-in closet.

A picture coming down the stairs from to the first floor.  That is the front door and to the right of it is the formal living room. (This was before they got the floors installed)

In just 2 more months we will be able to move it!

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

3/8/11 - It's been a while, but they are making progress!

It's been a while since I've last updated this, but yes, they are still making progress.

Sometime between 2/13/11 and 2/20/11 they finished the shingles on our roof...so no more water and ice in our house (as long as they keep the windows closed).  Speaking of keeping the windows closed...I really wish they would to keep that darn pigeon out of our house.  I hate birds and it has decided the second story of our house belongs to him.  Oh yeah, they also got our garage door put in and they have the house prepped to start the stone work on the front.



On 2/24/11 we met with our builder and had a "Pre-drywall Walk Through".  During this meeting we made sure they had all of the plumbing and wiring where it should be.  We also found out that they put our second story furnace up in the attic so they are going to knock out the wall that was supposed to be a closet to store the furnace in our laundry room...meaning...I get a bigger laundry room (an extra 3 foot longer)!!!!  Ross the construction manager told us that the next week they will start insulating and then after that drywalling.

On 2/26/11 they started the stone work on our house.  Here is a close up of the stones.


And here is a picture of what the house looks like so far with the stone work they had completely.


On 3/1/11 we found out that Ross (the construction manager) had been fired, but he was quickly replaced.  Thankfully this event will not effect the progress of the building of our house.

And as of today, they have all of the insulation done on the inside and the drywall has been delivered...that means drywalling this week!  The stone work on the front has been completed and the front step has been poured.  Here are a few pictures of what the outside of our home looks like for now.  Looks like the only thing they have left on the outside is lighting, painting and grading our yard!




Tata for now!  

Thursday, February 17, 2011

2/13/11 - Siding has almost been completed!

In the past week they finished most of the rough in plumbing, have our bathtubs in, have all of the gas lines ran, have some of our heat ducts ran, put our furnaces in...and have most of our siding up!  Great progress!

The siding they are putting up is a cement board siding that requires being painted.  So in the pictures below, that is not what the color of our house will be. 


Saturday, February 5, 2011

2/5/11 - The windows and doors are in!

So I went over to our house this morning, not expecting to see any progress because it's been very cold this week and has snowed off and on.  To my surprise, they have our windows and doors in.  They've also started running the plumbing through the house, and have put in our fireplace.  This house is going to be done before we know it!

 The back of our house.

The front of our house.

They've started putting up some sort of covering over the plywood.  Not sure what it is, or what it for...

A closer picture of the back of our house and the east facing side.

Our fireplace.  Taking good pictures as they install this, because we plan to tear it out some day and move it to the formal living room in the front of the house.

They've done some of the plumbing in our powder bath on the 1st floor.

I love the hallway to the front entrance!   They've finished up the archways.

 This is the view of the stairs, that go to the second level, from our front door.

This is a picture in our basement.  They've started running some of the heat ducts, and the flex lines (which I'm assuming are for water).

No one was working today when I went over there, so I'm assuming when both Chad and I go over tomorrow there won't be any changes.