What's the word?

Well we've been told we will have water and electricity today!  Now we have been told this before so... you know we don't hold our breath over hear because we would be plenty dead by now;)

But...I think it is really going to happen!  Can I tell you how excited I am to be able to flip a switch and see light?!  VERY! 

The water meter was finally put in a few days ago and now the plumber just has to connect to it and then he can put in our faucets!!

Again today the dozer is suppose to be there to move dirt around for the driveway(one broke down, then it rained, then there was miscommunication:(.  Tomorrow the rebar goes down for the driveway and then the concrete is scheduled to be poured on monday!  So next week it should all get real!! There is a ton of clean up to do before we can move in so we are hoping that can happen early next week and then we will MOVE IN!  I can't believe the end is almost near.  I suppose at some point deep down I never thought it would happen but it will and we are so ready to get back to some sense of our "normal"! Yahoo!

A Big Surprise

Hi there. Hope everyone enjoyed the long Easter holiday. We enjoyed a little road trip to see family for the first time in a while. We've felt a little tied down due to the always pending construction decisions so it was nice to step away for a couple of days. There were however some things happening while we were away! As a matter of fact hubs said "I can't believe we are leaving THIS weekend!" because he had been told this and that would happen but honestly that's always the case and I didn't want to put off seeing family once again just in case something happened at the house.   On the way back into town we decided to stop by and take a look and SURPRISE......they had finished our countertops, installed door hardware and finished our back porch railing!

It was so good to walk away feeling half decent about a couple of things.

So first up is the countertops! More specifically the island. I think I might be in love. It is huge.  I'm so glad we went with the Silestone in Lagoon for the whole space.  We had considered doing their gray expo on the perimeter to cut costs but it wouldn't have been so bright and I'm diggin it!

OK you guys know by now I only take phone pics anymore so bear with me and this horrible shot of our lovely little scratch and dent stainless apron sink.   I think I likey!!  

This is the master bath double vanity with gray expo countertops.  Hubs is still working on the whole staining of the cabinets thing so hopefully this will look more finished ASAP.  We are also still waiting on someone to come measure for the tempered shower door glass.

The kids bath got the gray expo too!

And BAAM we can finally get down to the back yard without twisting an ankle.

We went with the hog wire look for the back porch railing because well...because we like it.  We were going to do a cable rail system in the beginning but we decided not to venture there with our builder because I'm certain he has never done anything like that before.  

We love the way it turned out.  Mostly because it makes it look less like a construction site!

The electrician had also been there as well.   I don't think I have shown you guys the front porch light we bought a while back?  It's been hanging there for a bit but he didn't have the "cagey part" on there so I had never taken a pic but here she is.  I love her too....

As for the hardware I totally forgot to take a picture of the handles on the doors but here is a peek of the pocket door handles/pulls.  We felt like the standard small circle ones would be funny looking on the 8 foot doors so I found these instead.  I like that they are more substantial but simple.

So there you have it.  There were some things that hadn't happened too.  The driveway guys wanted to pour the concrete on monday(tomorrow) but the builder hasn't had the dozers out there to move the dirt and such yet so they haven't been able to finish framing it or lay the rebar. And most importantly we still don't have water or power in the house yet. Here's hoping for a promising week.

I'll leave you with a lovely big surprise that I noticed when talking to contractor J as we stood in the kitchen/dining area.

A gorgeous rainbow!  I was really taken back by this today.  I have always admired a rainbow like most of us have but there was something really special to me about seeing this reminder from God on this special Easter Sunday!

Oh Ya'll

Stuff is happening.  It looked like a real live construction site out at the new place yesterday with several subs and several helpers. 

The very very most exciting part was this.

The countertops around the perimeter of the kitchen were on and the bargain costco tile was up!

The craigslist find oven and ebay scratch n dent vent hood go right there in the middle.

Over to the left the one of the many things the cabinet guy messed up on was the enclosed look for the fridge.  So that wood there on the left will obviously be made to blend in and be painted white.

I hear the hardware on the cabs and doors will start going on today and then it will really feel like a house!  Except there is still no power or water.  Hubs gets to have a come to Jesus meeting with the builder about why the water company is saying they have had no contact with or payment from him.  Fun stuff.

Then the fireplace tile was finished!!

Do you remember in the last post I mentioned that hole was bugging me?  Contractor J(my hubs) was told by the builder that nothing could be done about that but when he talked to the plumber the plumber said he didn't think it would be a problem to move it.  We shall see.

The plumber was busy installing toilets and bath fixtures too...

As usual these are sad phone pics but someday soon we shall get the real camera out and share more details about selections and colors and such.  

I'm loving the light and neutral tones of everything and contractor J says he feels like he is in a black and white movie;)  But...as usually he has faith in my choices and is just excited as I am to get our old dirty furniture in the house to warm it up.  HA! 

Wowza

Hi guys...

Well looky what we have!

Some** of our Silestone countertops in Lagoon finally arrived.  I actually haven't seen them in person because well honestly I have a hard time going out to the job site these days.  I'm afraid I will get real ugly real fast (no one wants to see a crazy redhead throwing her finger around and spitting fire) when I hear one more excuse about why this and that didn't happen.  My poor husband should be charging per hour for all the time that he has had to spend watching over and fixing things and all out building things on his own.  I know what many of you are thinking.  Why on earth haven't they fired these people?  Well it's complicated. We keep thinking " it's almost done.  Next week a ton is going to happen". HA! It's because we are told it is of course.  We would actually have to find another builder willing to finish the job for the amount of funds left in our construction loan and the bank would have to verify that all subs have been paid in full before we could've started that process(which they probably haven't been per our experience and per things we have been told). And many people have asked why we aren't taking some sort of recourse?  Well that too is complicated.  We want it to be over.  We don't want anyone hurt even though we get furious(as a matter of fact after another negative discussion with my husband who I'll now call Contractor J) he said he felt like his eyes were bleeding he was so upset with the newest news.  

The newest news is the water company is telling us that the hook up process hasn't even been started by said builder and yet he is promising us that he took care of it and has a receipt.  Unfortunately it's hard to believe anyone at this point.

Remember the last post about the countertop guy no showing 5 times?  Well Contractor J (aka hubs) got to talk to the countertop guy yesterday before our "contractor" got there and was told they would have been there a week ago but have yet to be paid for all materials so he wasn't willing to finish the job.  We had a suspicion the countertop contractor wasn't answering our calls for a reason but hated to make assumptions against our builder.  Apparently there is a history with non payment:/  and our job was his last straw I guess.  He decided he wasn't going to do business with our guy until he was paid.  Makes since right?  So we have two different stories.  Funny thing is our builder took the countertop guy in  another room to speak with him as soon as he arrived.  Looked fishy to everyone around.

So...what we have now is the perimeter of the kitchen only.  He agreed to do that much until he was paid more because we keep having to reschedule the tile guy who needs to do our backsplash.  

Again I say...It's Crazytown up in here!!!

But lets leave with this...

This is the section in between the two pocket doors which is directly across from the fireplace.  We are planning on doing something fun above these cabinets since we opted for no upper cabs on this wall.  That big hole there will house a single oven.  

So tomorrow something is suppose to be happening (I think the tile is going up) but I don't remember...Oh and he told us the water meter was going in but...uh yea I doubt it!  Days mentioned don't mean a thing to us anymore.  We believe it when we see it.  Just today contractor J said "I wish for once I could call you with good news like they got this this and that done today"..and all I can do is apologize to my husband for the many mini heart attacks, gray hairs, and high blood pressure because I have had to wash my hands of a lot of it and just let him be the leader.

All that said...I can't wait to make this our home.  It will happen.  And you know what...even if it didn't I would be ok with that.  Give me my family a little house and some chickens and all would be cool. And another thing...I would do it again.  What? You say.  Oh yes WE feel confident that we have learned enough through all of this to build a casa on our own.  We aren't but I'm just sayin.

Thanks for giving a rip my friends;)

Guess what happened?

A little update and then some progress:

We were stood up two more times by the countertop contractor.  I think that's five times now? He doesn't answer our calls or the builders so the builder has had to go to his shop and wait for him.  He went and waited for him yesterday to find out that the guy was still cutting them:/  This is after he supposedly took the measurements 3 weeks ago and would have them ready in "5 days".  It's crazy!!  Anyway, the builder told him he was picking him up at one today and he taking him to the site with whatever he has ready because we keep having to reschedule the tile guy and the plumber.  Since the guy was already paid it's not that easy to fire him and start over but we will definitely be sharing our experience with the BBB and yelp and wherever else is necessary. Grrr...

And now to more positive things:

Remember I showed you a little snippet of the fireplace on facebook?  Well here is a closeup!

The gray penny tile is looking swell on the fireplace and we are trimming it out with slate trim around the edges.  There is still some grout to clean up because...

well the tile guy ran our of tile.  They bought all they had at the store.  Unfortunately we had mentioned weeks ago that the stores were having a hard time keeping this in stock but there was some in the town that the builder lives in but they were too late.

Thankfully they found more and the fireplace will be finished when he does the backsplash(which will get done if the countertop guy EVER shows up).

Did you notice the hole in the tile?  I'm not too happy about it.  This is where the gas key will go.  Great place right?  I've never seen someone stick one right in the middle of the fireplace?  Unfortunately we can't do anything about it at this point.  I was under the understanding they would move it down but it didn't happen:/

And then there was this hole!  This one is suppose to be there and I'm happy to finally see. It is the trench for the electric lines.  Remember when I mentioned that the builder had hired one guy with a pick axe to dig this?!  Well two or three weeks later he finally hired a real trencher tractor guy to get her done.  

Wanna see what else happened last week?

We got our "poop pump"! 

 Fancy huh?  Who would've ever thought I'd be excited about having a place for our family to store our poop.  Unfortunately someone didn't think to get any electricity to it to make it work so that had to be added as well.  So as soon as we get some running water to the casa and some toilets we can give this guy a whirl.   

(for those of you who by chance don't know what the heck I'm talking about and are really wondering what's wrong with our family)  Our "poop pump"is a septic system. The area that we are building in doesn't tie into any waste water lines so a septic tank is used to somehow break it all down and it actually has sprayers that will release the treated water down at the bottom of our property. 

 So this area that we are calling the "football field" will be nice and green even though I'm not so sure how I feel about rolling all around in it;)

Taking it into our own hands

You guys know things have been a bit errrr rocky through this whole building process.  Most of the time our hands have been tied and there hasn't been much we could do to speed up the process.  Well we decided to take the whole fireplace into our own hands.

Progress pic:

Do you remember how we had to take down our chunky old oak mantle and the hubs made a new one?

Well we also got tired of receiving no direction on what we needed to do to get the hearth done so hubs decided to whip up something.

We played around with some drawings and came up with this which repeats the pattern in our 3 panel doors throughout the house.

We had picked out a stone slab for the hearth but again didn't feel like waiting for things to happen so we decided to give the whole concrete pouring thing a try again.  After all we made a concrete countertop 9 years ago in our first bath reno...surely we could make it work?

Sadly I don't have a great tutorial for either of these because if I'm not present to snap pics it ain't gonna happen;) (My guy gets to take all of his project making to his parents house these days because we don't have room in our current rental to work and get messy)  I was lucky that I texted him and reminded him to snap a few progress pics for me.

He got the hearth in place and realized it was "off a little" so on another day he had to take it apart and do some adjusting.

Then he and his dad got the concrete top on!  Love it!

Upon further investigation we realized something may have gone wrong with our concrete pour.  It may not have cured just right because it's a bit more brittle than it should be.  So one day while staining the master bathroom cabinets(yes he is doing that too;) hubs decided to put a wax coat on the concrete to seal and strengthen it.  He then started adding polyurethane and after several coats that got soaked up really quickly it finally seems a little stronger.  

I'm a little sad that it has since lost the gray tone and taken on more of a brown because I didn't want it to match the floor but we have both just decided to go with it for now and it we need to try again we will at a later date.  

That't one of the nice things about seeing your house go up from the start.  We are even less afraid of diving into home reno projects now that we now exactly what we are dealing with.  Lord knows we don't want to renovate though...Just want to move in!!  

Soon...Actually we are already taking loads over starting this week because we have to be out of our rental in 2 weeks:/  Eeek..Mind you we have now power, no water, no septic system.  We are going to make it work either way!

Cross your fingers we are suppose to be getting countertops today!  This will be the third time we were suppose to be having them installed so we need toes crossed too.

I'll of course post pics on the facebook page if it actually happens!

Fireplace Finagling

Something is wrong with me.  This is my second post this week and it's only wednesday.  I suppose my priorities just might be all messed up this week;)  

I wanted to show you my sad attempt at trying to envision some plans for our fireplace. 

I know it's bad.. I can't bring myself to take the time to learn photoshop so it will have to do but it helps right?  I'm a very visual person and it makes me nervous to go throwing tile on a fireplace or playing with herringbone patterns and not know if I will like it or not.

Part of me wants to do some fun design in white trim above the mantle but we may do something like the herringbone pattern( on a smaller scale than my crummy pic) instead?

We have chosen this grey penny tile and gray slate trim to go around the fireplace opening.  

We were originally going to pick a slab of grey lueders stone for the hearth but decided it may look dingy against the white paint.  Soo....we are going to build a concrete hearth!  Yippe.  You may have seen the not so detailed post about how we did our concrete countertop 9 years ago in the first house?

Well we are going to play with concrete again!

 Below is the grey lueders with our tile selection.

After hubs built the new mantel and put it up temporarily we used blue tape to envision the outline of the tile.  See how the tape stops way above the floor?  The hearth will sit fairly high so we have an extra place to sit in the living room if need be.

After the sheetrockers came out to patch the holes from taking down our old rustic mantle we then painted the fireplace wall a bright white.

 Wanna see another look I'm thinking about?  Think stencil but a little more 3D.  Confused?  Me too..but I may just have to try a little something.  If I do I will show you if it is a success or not;)

So what do you think?  Again if we do the herringbone it will be smaller in scale and probably brighter white.  Either way...it will be something we can change in the future when we tire of it and you know what it?  It probably won't happen until things settle down after we move so I have time to play and think about it but it is nice to see it in a picture!

Wondering what's happening at the casa?  The stone work is finally all done.   I'll show you a pic on facebook later.  And...we are getting measured for countertops today!