Moving Day!

Well, we're finally moving in this evening. It's been quite a journey! We got a lot done last night installing closet shelves, bathroom accessories, and door knobs, and the carpet was put down on the stairs this morning. It's going to be great to get settled in to our new house.

Crazy last days

Well, everything's at a fever pitch. The carpet installation got pushed back to this morning because the installer injured himself last week and one of the carpet pieces was defective and had to be reordered. So they'll install the basement this morning and the stairs on Thursday. It'll be great to get that in.
The building inspector is coming for final inspection on Friday afternoon. Hopefully everything goes well so we can get our Certificate of Occupancy.
Just a lot of little finishing details now like bathroom accessories, some painting, door knobs, urethaning, 3 closet shelves, Comcast hook-up, ... We're not going to have it all done by this weekend, but that's okay since it's all stuff we can easily do after moving in. Speaking of moving in, we were planning on this Saturday but it's supposed to rain so now we're going to try for Friday evening and a little on Saturday if we need it.

Carpet

Carpet's going in today...yayyy! Christine and I are continuing to plug away at things in the evening, like touch up painting the trim and urethaning the balustrade. Then Dave and I will have one more big push on Saturday to do a lot of the final details like undercabinet lights, closet lights, smoke alarms, etc. So close!

Almost done

Working away

Well, we've just been continuing to work away at the house. In many ways we're very close to finishing, but we also know that there are a million little details that still need to be completed. The biggest job is going to be the railing and balusters. In addition, we still have to put in the bathroom vanities, upstairs toilet, sinks, faucets, door knobs, lights, smoke alarms...

On Friday I was able to go to Home Depot to get all our final materials. So we've got pretty much everything we need to finish - we just need time to do it all. What we've accomplished recently...Well, with my mom's help we got the tile in the bathrooms all finished up and it looks great. Also my dad installed a bunch of electric outlets. We've also put about 2/3 of the interior trim up. I've been working on this a lot - I got all the windows trimmed out and am now doing baseboard. My father-in-law has been installing doors and door trim. We also finished putting in all the electric outlets and switches, so they're ready to get plates put on and be done. We're moving along and there's a lot of little jobs that Christine and I can do in the evenings. If I get a chance, I'll take some pics soon and post them.

Pics

Tile

Haven't posted in a while. But we have been working hard. I'm doing a lot of tiling - we're putting in 13x13 porcelain tiles in the mudroom and 2 bathrooms. I've completed the mudroom and now need to rent a wet saw to finish up the bathrooms. Hopefully we'll get that finished up pretty soon. Next up, start trimming out the windows (interior) and install all the electrical outlets. Fun!

Sometime soon I'll get some pics up of the tile, as well as the crown molding and counters that are all finished in the kitchen.

Cabinets

Over the weekend, my in-laws worked hard over at the house and got a bunch done. As you can see, Dave was able to install all the cabinets in the kitchen and they look so good. While he was working on that, Joyce got all the interior trim painted. We are so appreciative for all their help!

Next up - finish the hardwood, lay tile in the mudroom and bathrooms, and put up interior trim.

Hardwood flooring

Last Saturday we had a productive day starting to install the hardwood floor. We are so pleased with how they look. We got the kitchen, dining room, hallway, and master bedroom all done. We just need to finish laying it in the living room and around the stairs.

Painting

Exterior finished

Well, it's great to be able to say that the exterior is finished, the siding and trim anyway. We still have to paint the exterior doors and spread some mulch. But now we're turning our focus inside. With the help of Christine's grandfather and some others, we have finished all the interior painting downstairs and will now start upstairs. We just ordered our hardwood (Nougat Maple) which will be delivered next week, and our kitchen cabinets will be coming tomorrow. And we also have a functional toilet and utility sink, so we'll be able to get rid of the Porta-potty soon. Yay!

This is going to be the boys room painted a blue color called Serene Sky

View as you enter the downstairs door (you may not be able to see it well in this picture, but the walls are a bright green all around the stairwell and into the playroom to the left)

Moving forward on all fronts

Wow, it's great to be making progress in so many areas. The drywall is now complete and we have begun priming. Next up, we're really excited to get some paint on the walls. Outside, we have 2 more half-walls to put up siding on and then trim. And as you can see, the porch is nearly finished and there's grass growing in the yard. Check out some pics!

Right side of house nearly finished

Rear of house pretty much finished

The porch

Grass growing in our front and side yard

Sheetrockin'

Wow, we've gotten a ton done recently. The most exciting thing is that we hired someone to do the drywall professionally and it's turning out great. We also hung a bunch more siding, planted grass, and did landscaping. Have a look!

Long time - no post

Yes...it's been a long time.  But I've been busy, so cut me some slack.  So much has been accomplished since my last post.  We've gotten the plumbing all roughed in, finished the leftover framing (stairs and pocket door), started siding, and almost completed the insulation.  And we've decided to hire a professional to do the drywall, who will have that done by the end of the month.  We're excited about that.  So now the big challenge is to complete the exterior by the Eastman imposed deadline of July 15.  I think we'll make it, but you can pray for us:)

Check out some pics of the work.

It's electric

Well, we had a great weekend full of work on the house. We got a lot done and I'm tired out! My dad and brother-in-law came to visit and give us a hand (thanks guys!). Matt, who's an electrician, was an especially big help. We got all the electric roughed in, and now we actually have some switchable lights at the house. Here are some pics of the first day of work.

We came close to finishing the upstairs framing today

Galley Kitchen, and behind that you can see the bathroom

I am standing in the hallway leading to the Master Bedroom

on the right and the bathroom on the left 

Strapping Upstairs

Just stainin'

Well, my father-in-law (who is the real builder) is out of town, so the construction stuff is sort of on hold (which is why I haven't posted in a while). But we have been doing a lot of staining of our shiplap siding. We're pre-staining it before putting it up, so we can seal the entire board from the elements. It sure is time consuming though (especially staining a 16' 1"x8" board).

If you look at the second picture in the previous post, you can see a few long 2x4s hanging horizontally between the walls that we framed. That's our siding drying rack. Because it's still cold outside and the paint has to cure in above 45 degree weather, we can only stain in the basement where the heat is. So we're staining away - slowly but surely.

Interior Framing

Here are a couple of pics of the interior framing we did downstairs on Saturday.

There's a house there somewhere in the midst of all that snow

As you can see, we finished the roof last weekend. And if you're really on top of things, you'll notice that we installed the rest of the windows today. We're pretty happy with how both turned out. After we finished the windows, we actually got to work inside where it's warm for a change - we started framing interior walls downstairs. Sometime in the near future I'll take some pics of the inside, since it's been a while. Happy viewing!

Roofing

We had a relatively warm weekend which allowed us to get up on the roof and start shingling. We got about 2/3 of the front side done. Unfortunately I don't have any pictures yet - there's not really much to take a picture of until it's finished. My father-in-law and I are going up to Maine this coming weekend to help my brother-in-law put a new roof on his house as well, so we won't get to finish our roof for a couple weeks. But it was good to get it started anyway. After that, we'll be putting in the rest of the windows, then framing interior walls, and then siding.

The boiler is boilin'

On Monday our boiler was fired and it's now a balmy 60 degrees (at least in the basement!). So now we're hoping the ice melts off the inside of the walls and we can de-humidify it in there. Also, over this past weekend we put up half of the roof trim. Hopefully we'll finish the rest this coming Saturday so we can put up the shingles soon.

It's a cold January

It's been a very cold January so far (as you can see from the frost in the pics), which has not allowed us to get much done on the house recently. However, we are pushing on. We were very happy when our electric was finally hooked up recently. We have gotten the whole exterior Tyveked and we installed three windows. We also started staining trim (thanks for the help mom and dad).

But the biggest battle has been keeping it warm inside so the fairly new concrete slab doesn't get too cold and so we can stain. We've got a diesel powered heater that we've been using for this, but it's getting pretty expensive. We'll be glad when we can get our boiler going in a week or so. The next big job will be to put the roof trim and then shingles. We're hoping the plywood on the roof is not iced over too badly so we can work with it.