One year ago today...

Last year at this time we were busily getting ready for trick-or-treat, as well as, e-mailing our offer to purchase to the real estate agent for the land we are building a house on now. Secretly, I did take it as a good "sign" that we made the offer on the same day that my husband closed on the house we currently live-in 14 years prior. In fact, when we heard from the agent early Monday morning that we got the land, I was in a state of happiness and great disbelief. It hardly seemed possible that this "thing" that we had talked about doing practically since the moment we knew one another was actually coming to fruition. Yes, it has been a lot of work in that last year; clearing the land, finalizing the plans, getting everything ready to submit for the permit, and all the other things that have been documented in this blog since we broke ground, but already it has totally been worth it.

So, what were we doing one-year later this weekend, you might be asking yourselves? Keith was busily working on the completing a good portion of the backfill and setting-up the sill plate. He and Ronnie moved an extraordinary amount of soil by hand, in addition to the large amounts Keith was able to move with the tractor for the backfill. Tomorrow we are having the basement slab poured, which will make him one happy man. He is excited to be able to finally work on concrete, rather than be in the dirt all the time. My parents are coming in from MN on Friday to stay with us for a couple of weeks. We hope with my dad, Ron and Keith on site that a good portion of the framing and trusses will be up by Thanksgiving. I look forward to seeing that amazing transformation!

We also purchased all the windows for the house this week, and the glider door for the screened-in porch. They won't go up for a while yet, but it is nice knowing that one more major task is completed. We also purchased the linoleum flooring that will be used in all the bathrooms, the kitchen, the foyers and the laundry room. While the rest of the house (great room and bedrooms) will be wood, we were looking for another low-allergen flooring option that would be fairly low maintenance and would hold-up to kids over the years. Linoleum often is confused with vinyl floor covering because at one point, they were both manufactured by the same company and they were both a sheet product. However, true linoleum is a completely natural product made from linseed oil (linoxyn), pine rosin, ground cork dust, wood flour, and mineral fillers such as calcium carbonate, most commonly on a burlap or canvas backing. I am very excited about using this in our home, especially because I was able to find a great deal on a color that has tones very similar to limestone. Since we are building a craftsman/arts and crafts type of home, I wanted to stay as true to that style, which often dictates wood and stone floor covering, as possible. Not to say that I am trying to fool anyone that we have limestone, but I do like the fact that the color tones will mimic those of limestone in our house. A picture of our "Caribbean" Marmoleum is in this week's slide show.

Of course, I couldn't post our blog on Halloween without pictures of the kiddos, so those are in the slide show this week as well. Andrew made a great dinosaur (roar is his favorite word, after all) and Julia was a fabulous cheerleader. It helped that she had a great coach, her daddy, who taught her a very inspiring cheer, "2, 4, 6, 8 what do we appreciate? CANDY!"

Another block in the wall

The blocklayers finished all the work for the screened-in porch, parge coating and the crawlspace piers. They also finished up all the miscellaneous items that needed work. Keith and Ron worked on getting the basement prepped for the slab pour, finished putting on the foundation coating, and laying the drain tile. It was a very productive weekend and we hope this week will be just as productive with three inspections (backfill, draintile and basement slab). Keith and I also want to thank Ken Southard for all his help last weekend. It was a huge help for Keith to have another person on site while he was finishing-up the basement slab grade and gravel work.

In this week's slideshow I have started to label the footprint so that everyone can get a general sense of what you are looking at and how it is reflected on the house plans.

As always, while my husband was hard as work, I was just playing around with the kiddos :) First a birthday party on Saturday with some of Julia and Andrew's friends from school. After naps, we had a great visit with my friend Dell, and her adorable kiddos Evangeline and Wyatt. On Sunday we were just as busy with a great fall expedition to Serenity Farms. The farm is located right over the bridge from where we will be moving, so I am sure that we will go back many times in the future. They had a great hayride, petting farm, pumpkin patch, and a very child friendly Casper's Castle. The bonus was the pink barn they had on site...perfect for a four-year old girl! It wiped them both out, as you can see from the carseat photos on the way home.

Block, block...who's there?!

More blockwork was completed this weekend. Enough is finished that you can really start to see the footprint of the house. It looks so different now that you can actually get a perspective on how the house will sit on the lot. In a way, this process has reminded me a lot like raising kids. You appreciate all the steps that go into each milestone, but you also have these moments that are marked with significant differences that just wow you. Just like other projects, you have items that are just as important (like the drain tile, or the waterproofing), but they don't visually make you take notice quite the way all that block and concrete does. The blocklayers will be back on Tuesday to finish the remaining work for the porches. While they worked on the block, Keith and a couple others worked on getting the gravel in the basement to prep for the slab pour. He was also able to get the LVL beams up. Again, very exciting stuff as you start to see things take shape.

While Keith was working on the site all weekend, I took the kiddos to the National Zoo with some friends. Julia had so much fun running around and pretending with her friend Madeline, that I didn't end up taking any pictures at the zoo. Suffice it to say, however, that they both had a great time. Mommy's favorite part was watching the elephant perform for the trainer, but Julia said her favorite part was a the pink flamingos. I think Andrew loved all of it, so much so that he took a nice, long nap afterwards!

It's amazing how 13 yards of concrete can make someone so happy!

So, just a quick update on the progress this week with the house… We finally got to the point that our building inspector let us pour the additional footers this morning. A big thanks to our wonderful professional engineer who helped us navigate that process! We were definitely watching the weather maps this week with great anticipation that we would be able to do the pour before a bunch of rain came through again. Thankfully, even though it rained this morning during the pour, it was light enough that they could get them all done. We have been watching major rain come down where we currently live today so we are thankful that just a little bit of distance, made a huge difference today! The weekend weather also looks good, so the blocklayers should be able to finish up their work on Sunday. We hope to have some exciting progress pictures at the end of the weekend for everyone.

Thank you to everyone who kept their fingers, toes and eyes crossed

Thank you to everyone who kept their fingers, toes and eyes crossed for us this week to prevent the rain. What I forgot to tell you, was you also needed to do some sort of "building inspection dance" for us. On Tuesday we had our second footing inspection for the footings that were not part of the basement pour, and our inspector failed us for not having "continuous footings". I am not going to even claim that I really know what this means (my husband is the genius in this family, remember?!). We resubmitted our calculations and the certification by the professional engineer and we were told on Friday by the office staff that the inspector failed us again. We have no additional information on why we were failed this go around. We hope to get some information from the inspector on Tuesday so we can finish the footings, the other blockwork and move on. Two steps forward, one step back-remember?

The nice thing when you are at the beginning of a project is there is still a lot to do. So even though Keith was not able to get the footings poured and the block laid, he was able to work on cleaning out the footings again, plant some more trees, and get the foundation waterproof coating almost done. We have some pictures of the foundation coating going up, as well as some that I took on Saturday from the annual Oktoberfest outing. I also took a quite a few shots today at the property when the kids were playing on the gravel pile. Who knew a bunch of stones could be so much fun?! Enjoy, and don't forget to do your dances this week (with your eyes crossed, of course!).

Time flies when you are building a house!

I can't believe that I have been blogging about the house for a month already. Time is flying by between working on the house, and making plans for the next steps. Unfortunatly, even while time is flying, housebuilding can sometimes be a two step forward, one step back process. So while Keith made a great deal of progress digging the other footers last weekend, the 13+ inches of rain this week destroyed that work before we could get them finished this weekend. So he had to start all over again on Friday. He finished digging them today with the help of Bob and Stuart (who we also have to thank for cutting a channel through a 4 ft rock with a 5lb hammer to lay the footer). We hope that they will be okay with any rain we might be getting tonight and tomorrow before they are inspected on Tuesday. Please keep your fingers, toes and eyes crossed for us on that one. If that goes well, the additional footers will be poured this week as well as getting the drain tile down, waterproofing the foundation with the tar, and something else that I am forgetting right now, but that we need to have inspected before the foundation slab is poured. Lucky for me, my husband knows what needs to be done and he won't forget :)

In addition to house stuff this weekend, Keith and I took Julia to a wedding in VA on Saturday. It was in the middle of the afternoon, and we figured that no nap+ Catholic wedding would be a very bad combo for Andrew. So he got to stay and get spoiled by Grandma Lorriane and Grandpa Bob. He had a blast playing with them, and we enjoyed ourselves as well. Julia was mezmerized by the fancy dresses, the lights on the dancefloor, and the chocolate strawberries. In the slideshow this week are a couple pictures from the wedding.