Progress!

Where to begin!  So much has been happening at the house the past few weeks, it's always an exciting surprise each day to see the changes that have occurred.  And with so much happening, we can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel.  Unfortunately, it looks like that tunnel may be a bit longer than we were hoping and our move in date may be pushed back to May.  Luckily our landlords have been very flexible and are happy to have us for another month if need be.  So on to the progress...

Because we're building in the winter, certain things have taken longer to complete.  One being the pouring of the concrete.  Weeks ago, they had enclosed the front porch area and had been warming up the ground so that they could finally get the front porch poured.  And then one day, there it was.  We now have a porch!

The garage doors have also been installed.  I've never been so excited to see a garage door before.

The sheet rockers had been waiting for the fireplace to be tested before finishing up the last piece of sheet rock at the bottom of the fireplace.  The fireplace must have passed the test because it is now completely sheet rocked.

With the sheet rock up and the mudding complete, the painters came in to spray a coat of primer on all the ceilings and walls.

The upstairs loft freshly primed

Then on went a coat of ceiling paint.  The ceilings are looking smooth and white.  Hopefully once the canned lights and speakers go in, it won't look like a field of gopher holes!

Last week, all the trim and doors had been delivered.  The woodwork spent several days getting acclimated to the temperature inside the house before going up.

Cole next to the newly delivered doors

Cole and Owen watching a movie on the piles of baseboard

We showed up just in time one day to see a dump truck come and proceed to dump a pile of dirt on the driveway.  Turns out, the guy from Xcel Energy came out a week ago to hook up the electric, but in order to do so, he would have had to stand on a step stool to reach and he refused to do so.  So the builder arranged for all this dirt to be delivered so the area next to the electricity connection could be made higher so that the Xcel Energy guy wouldn't need to use a 12" step stool.

Once the doors and trim were ready for install, a large crew came in and doors and trim were going up left and right.  It was loud (and a bit scary) with nail guns nailing and saws cutting away.  The kids were not overjoyed by all the chaos, so our visit was cut rather short that day.  We stopped by the next day when no one was around so we could take a closer look.  Nearly all the doors have been installed, the window trim is up, and the baseboard has been installed in all the carpeted areas.

The doors are two paneled and will be enameled white to match the windows, trim and baseboard.  I was surprised when I first saw the baseboard - it is super tall!  Much taller than I was expecting even though I was the one that picked out the 7" baseboard!  Surprisingly the baseboard nearly matches the height of the strip of wood going across the bottom of the doors. 

Owen super excited to have doors on his closet

The breakfast nook window, trimmed and ready for paint

We have several art niches throughout the house.  As a last minute add on, we had shallow maple ledges installed on the bottom of each niche.  These will be stained a dark chocolate color, the same as all the cabinets.

Art niche at the bottom of the stairs

The tile guy has laid the cement board on the bathroom and mudroom floors and even started laying the tile on the floors in the kids bathrooms.  We had some extra tile left over from a remodel project at our old house, so we decided to use it in one of the kids baths.  I didn't take into account that he'd be tiling underneath the cabinet so we came very very close to running short!  He still has the floor of the linen closet to do, but I think we'll end up with just enough!

Cement board on the floor in the bathroom

And now there's tile!

The boys bathroom with a new tile floor

The master bath shower is looking more and more like a shower.  The floor has been water proofed and the bench has been made.  There will be a 3" ledge built behind the bench for storing all the shower essentials. 

Master bath shower

Of course, with a project of this size, some issues are bound to arise.  One of the bigger ones (at least so far), was the door to the master bathroom potty room.  I didn't even notice the problem at first, but luckily Shane pointed it out.  The door opening was a mere 22 3/4"!  That's tight, even for me!  Our specs call for a 30" door.  Not sure what happened and it's unfortunate that it wasn't caught earlier,  but our job supervisor was great about it and is going to widen the space to the standard 27".  Of course, this now means that the newly installed, mudded, and primed sheet rock will need to be torn down so that the pocket door can be made larger which will push back the tiling of the master bathroom floor, but at least now we won't be smacking into the doorway every time we walk through it!

The boys playing with the mini door

Another exciting thing we happened to see as we pulled up to the yard one day...our well was being drilled.  All the homes in North Oaks have well water and most have septic tanks.  Thankfully we lucked out of having a septic tank with our neighborhood being one of the few in North Oaks connected to the city sewer.

Drilling for water

Water pouring out of the spout

The well digger came out today to dig the water line to the house.  In order to do so, he had to get the backhoe into the back yard.  Our back yard has a pretty steep drop and watching him ever so slowly maneuver that large piece of machinery down the hill was quite impressive and nerve-wracking.  I had to ask Owen to stop watching just in case he tipped over.

The backhoe slowly going down the drop off

Inching down the slope

Phew! He made it!!

Our rental house has slowly been taken over by online purchases and samples.  It's quite the pile and somehow it just keeps growing!

The garage at the rental has also become quite full.  As luck would have it, we stumbled upon a free John Deere riding lawn mower.  Our very first John Deere!  Popi Jerry would be proud.  The boys were excited to test out the driver seat.  I'm sure it'll come in very handy once we finally have some grass to mow!

The "serious" pose

The "wild child" pose