Third Little Piggy

Hopefully this week I will become like the third little piggy and have a house made of brick instead of sticks (2x4's). Cute hugh!! This is our brick and rock selection. The house itself will be brick but we will have rock accents on the corners and around the windows. The post by the front door will also be rock. It's going to look great.

Sheet Rock

We are waiting on an inspector to look at the insultation before we hang the sheet rock. There is two more stacks this big in the garage.

A STAR IS BORN

This is the Texas Star laid into our foyer. It is just beautiful. Thanks to our friend Armando who owns King Concrete. He took such care to make sure our floor looked great. In the picture the white looking stuff is dust and it looks like there is a line in the floor but there isn't. As you can see in the top of the photo we pulled back the tar paper to get this picture. Our whole floor is completely cover by this paper and will remain that way until the very end when it will be mopped then waxed with a buffer.

The Best Sand Box Ever

Patricia was excited about the new feature in the front yard- hope she doesn't expect for it to stay. I took this picture of her playing atop the 6 foot high sand pile. This sand will be used for the motar for the bricks- but for now today it was the best sand box ever!

Lots going on

The weather here today is just terrible but there are workers at the house working hard. Armando from King Concrete is there with his crew and they are getting ready to seal the already stain concrete floor. We got to see it from the garage for just a few minutes and it is so pretty. I could not have asked for a better job to have been done.

We are also getting the water line run under the road today. This was really needed step because the brick masons or the sheet rockers cannot proceed without water. We also saw the shop drawings for our cabinets. I can't wait until they are installed.

I am going to try to get pictures of the floor tommorrow before it is covered up. After the sealer dries we have to cover the floor completely. This cover will stay in place until the very last days. It protects the floor from dropped hammers, dirty feet, paint and sheet rock dust.

PAINT, PAINT AND MORE PAINT

Well its been a couple of days since my last post. Lots of stuff has been happening. As you can see we have windows now. The framer finished and all the outside soufets are finished. Matt and I spent everyday daylight hour this weekend at the house painting the soufets and overhangs. We finished our second coat about 5 pm. To say the least we are very tired but have an amazing feeling of pride for a job well done. We decided early on to do our own painting. From our research before starting to build we learned that most painters do not use top quality paint but you pay for the top stuff. Some even water down the paint to stretch it out- that way they profit more money. We didn't want that. After some research we decided to use Olmypic Paint that is sold at Lowes. We got the top quality 25 year warranty. It was very expensive but we were told over and over that it was worth the money. The electric is now roughed in. I never quessed how many wires are in a house. Man there is wires in every wall and all over the attic. We are expecting the plumbers to finish more of thier work my Wednesday. Then Armando Paniqua is staining our concrete floors. His business is called King Concrete and he has been by several times to check on the floors and is very easy to work with.

Tough Day

Today has not been such a great day for us and house building . When we got to the house this evening we realized that the fireplace was not going to work! From the original plan the fireplace was suppose to be vented through a wall. It was only suppose to stick out in the floor about 12 inches on the plan. But when we saw it this evening it was going to be about 3 feet out in the living room floor. I to say the least almost had a heart attack. The framers had nailed it down to the concrete floor so it will damage the concrete to just pull it up. Because we are doing stained concrete floors that would be horrible. Our solution is to take the fireplace totally out and grind the nails down. You will still be able to see them somewhat put maybe it won't be to bad. I am told that NO house is ever perfect. I guess on the bright side we got our windows put in today and they look very nice. Randy told me I could get a nicer front door because of the fireplace being gone. Good thing seeing I didn't know I wasn't suppose to get the nicer one and already had my heart set on it. I pray that tomorrow will be a stress free day for everyone. I'll take some pictures tomorrow.

My side of the house

This whole side of the house is mine! Well I guess I will have to let Matt sleep over in this side (only sometimes) and I may let him put his very best clothes in the closet (but only if they just came back from the cleaners). This is the master suite side of the house. Of coarse you can see the olcove to your far right (where all the window holes are Amy). The window hole in the center is above my 4 foot wide whirlpool tub.(It will have glass where you can see out but not in)

And to the far left is my closet. My pride and joy. Momma Pat and me will have to go on some serious shoppin trips to fill it up with clothes. My closet is about 7 feet wide by 15 feet long.

Another view of the back

This is an awesome picture I thought with the way the sun is shinning down. It reminds me that gods light is always shinning down on our little home.

Back of the House

This is the back of the house, but in reality this is the side with the view. Therefore this is where all the windows are and our living space. The two olcoves on this side of the house are nearly all glass. You can't tell by the pictures but each window is 3 feet by 6 feet ( I think). There are four on each olcove and a mostly all glass door. The olcove on the right is the breakfast area and the one on your left is the sitting area in our bedroom. I plan on spending some relaxing time gazing out those windows as I age.

Garage side view

This is a view of the garage side of the house. The two windows next to the garage are Patricia's bedroom windows. Think we should have rethought putting her that close to an exit?

Work in progress

I took this photo about noon today. You will notice that the roof has been decked. Actually the men were on hand to put the felt on the roof but they were eating lunch. It is beginning to look more and more like a house. Amy hope you can tell more about it NOW. This is a picture from the front standing out by the road. Things have been busy for us this week so we have not spent alot of time at the house site and because of that things have gotten a little messy. We are planning on spending the evening on Sunday picking up trash and unusable lumber.

Holidays

Since Christmas progress has slowed alot. The framers have just worked half days on a couple of days. So things have really slowed. We are anxious for normal work days to begin again.