Updates

So, this will just be a quickie update of what’s gone on the past month or more at our house construction.  The plumbing is done.  The electricity is done.  The sheetrock is done.  The siding is – not done.  The decks are almost done.  The interior painting is half done.  The septic system is done.  I have tons more to post later, but this is it for now.

Septic System

  
 

Sheetrock.

  

The girls picked out all their bedding and then the paint colors to match.  Emma & Reagan have lime green, turquoise, and hot pink.  Harley chose blue and chocolate.  Katelyn lavendar and yellow. 

We have a few pictures of the paint we have so far.  The tan is the great room, kitchen, and hallway.  The blue room is the master bedroom.

  

We’ve been having dinner in the house in the evenings.  It’s so nice to be in there with the heat on, lights on, and in comfort.

 

Katelyn was helping Grandpa Mick & Grandma Susan return these devil horns to Uncle Pat and Aunt Tera.  They had borrowed them for Tank (their lab).  Luna had to do a little post-Halloween dress-up, too.

I’ll have many more updates soon!

Pink Panther Puked on our House

We passed the plumbing and mechanical inspections, but we had a few changes to make to our wiring before we could pass the electrical inspection.  The inspector gave us the go-ahead to start insulating though because the changes we needed to make could be checked with the insulation in.

We got the garage emptied and insulated right away so we could have it sheetrocked and taped because we needed to be able to store all our cabinets and stuff in there while the house was being sheetrocked.  It took us about two days to insulate it, and it took the sheetrock crew another day to hang, clean-up, and tape it.  They worked VERY fast!

 
  

After the garage was taped off, it was time to unload the house of all the “stuff” we had accumulated.  The girls moved that stuff while the rest of us worked on insulating the house.

  

  Luna discovered that bare insulation was pretty comfy to lie on compared to the bare floor, so she found herself a pillow and supervised.

It seemed like it took forever, and I still haven’t stopped itching but it’s finally done!  It’s amazing what a difference the insulation made in the landscape of our house.  I think in the long run we will be extremely happy we elected to insulate the walls between the bathrooms and bedrooms, and also the walls between the utility room/kitchen and family room/Reagan & Emma’s room.  The noise reduction is completely worth it!

   
   

Ta-Da!  The last piece of insulation is done! 

My dad also finished installing all the doors, so now we can stay out of the darn cold wind that tends to blow around here!

The insulation’s done; that means it’s time to sheetrock!

Dinner

When we eat at the property, we generally eat in the new house because the weather is getting cold and there isn’t enough room for all of us in my parent’s trailer.  Unfortunately, the days are also getting shorter which means light doesn’t last very long.  Lucky for us, the electrical work was completed far enough last Wednesday that we were able to turn on a couple lights and we enjoyed our first meal in the Dining Room.  The girlies really thought it was cool, especially sitting under the working lights!

       

The rock retaining wall is almost done!  We only have a few bricks left on the East end, and about 20 feet to go on the West end.  Aaron can’t wait, he’s really tired of bricks!

 

Last week, we also passed our electrical inspection, and we have started insulating.  We think we’ll be done with insulation by Wednesday evening or Thursday morning, and then the sheetrockers can have at it!  Woo-hoo!

Schtuff

Big happenings in the Tolar Home lately.  The plumbing, framing, and mechanical inspections have all passed, and we’re almost done with the wiring.  The electrical inspection is scheduled for either Wednesday or Thursday this week.  After that, its insulation city!  Sheetrockers are coming Monday to hang the garage, so we will be insulating like crazy all weekend getting it ready for them.

After we got home from hunting Sunday, Aaron, Katelyn, and I stopped by so Aaron could help Dad and Tom put the French Door in place.  It’s not actually installed yet – just held in place with bracing for now - but we had to get it out of the kitchen area so Dad and Tom could finish that wiring.  We were supposed to only have a single-swing door (only one side opened), but the place we ordered our doors messed up the order and we ended up with a double-swing door (a big mistake in our favor), so that was a very nice surprise!

   
   
 

I even ended up helping – holding it in place from the outside when a couple of the braces fell off.  Katelyn was our photographer for the day, and she did a WONDERFUL job!

It seems as if we were moving at the speed of light over the summer, then slowed down in August, but all of a sudden, we’re back on the fast track.  I am astonished at how much has gotten done so quickly.  We really didn’t do any work in June (it was basically all contractor/concrete work), so we’ve been hard at it for a total of 13 weeks.  We are just now heading into our 14th week.  CRAZY!  That means we’re down to between 6 to 12 weeks before we move in – depending on whether or not you look at the aggressive schedule or the one we’re actually sort of following.  I can’t believe we’re that close already!

It's A Wrap!

Yesterday I talked about how it was pretty hard to tell how much hard work was going on at the house lately because it was all internal – electrical and plumbing.

Wrong.

Apparently while I was sitting on my hind end at work yesterday my parents, or “the geezers” as my mom would say, spent the day “wrapping” our house in Tyvek.  Aaron and I tried to put on the house wrap Sunday, but it was too breezy which made it very frustrating.  Once again, today, I was sitting on my hiney while my parents were working theirs off!  Today they installed ALL of our windows!  I can’t believe what a difference two days made!

Hey folks, we’re ready for siding!

   

This is my favorite spot in the huse right now – the breakfast nook.  I love the way the windows look and I love the view you see from the inside.  I think one of the reasons I like it so much is because I know that once we’re moved in, it will be the place we congregate.  It will be breakfast in the mornings before leaving for school, it will be the place the girls do their homework after school while I’m getting dinner ready, or just a general place to hangout and enjoy our new home.

 

Today after school the girls rode the bus to the property and hung out with my mom and dad because I had to run to town.  On their way to the house from the bus stop, they found these two sunflowers and decided that the house needed some decoration.

I think they’re perfect.

Whirlwind Week!

Last week (nearly two weeks ago now), we poured footings, stem walls, and had the temporary power hooked up.  Last weekend and throughout the week we worked our butts off putting on the sill plate, building pony walls, and adding floor joists, and we also celebrated Father’s Day.  Also this week, Eclipse Heating & Cooling was out to install our HVAC ductwork in the crawlspace.  We have added floor decking to almost 1/2 of the house, and we started to build our first exterior wall!  The progress at this point is phenominal, the landscape of the project changes on a daily, sometimes hourly, basis.  My parents are going to California for a week, so we will be taking it easy with our “Project Manager” hitting the links in Napa Valley.  I am too tired, worn out, and withered to tell a story with each group of pictures, so you’re just getting the lot of them as a whole.  I will take the time to say, though, that we’ve been very blessed with the help of Aaron’s step-dad, Tom, our friends Jason & Yvette, and Aaron’s dad, Mick, who have all showed up to help out.  To them, a huge THANK YOU!  If you’d like to see an image larger, just click on it.

Getting Wired & Footings

Once the electrical inspection was complete and the temporary power was approved, we were able to have UEC come out and hook up our power and energize us.  It’s great because now our trailers can be plugged in (creature comforts of HEAT and cooking).

 

The footings were poured pumped today.  Because of the difficulty driving around the perimiter of our house footprint in the sand (we don’t want that concrete truck to get stuck), Brandon elected to have the concrete pumped into the footing forms today.  He and his crew will be removing the footing forms tomorrow, and then they will be building the stem-wall forms.

           

Those forms will be inspected late tomorrow afternoon, and the walls poured Friday.  Saturday the wall forms will be removed, and we will be able to start building with wood!

Full Speed Ahead

Construction is going full-bore, and it’s wonderful to finally see more and more progress every day.

What would a construction site be without the token port-a-potty?  Gotta love honey houses. 

This week, my dad ran the temporary power to the temporary power panel so we can power all those tools we’re going to need to use in the coming weeks.  With the temporary power came our first inspection, and it PASSED.  Great job, Dad!

This week, we’re also pouring the footings and stem walls.  The footing inspection was today, and it passed, so those will be poured at 8:00 a.m. tomorrow.  Once the footings are solid enough and those forms are removed, we’ll build the stem-wall forms and they will be poured.  Hopefully by the weekend, we’ll be installing floor joists, flooring, and starting framing!

     

I love progress!