...projects...

So we - er, I mean, Jeff has been working on some projects around the house since we moved in (I've been working on "projects", too, but they're of a different nature). He had several things in mind to be done to the house relatively soon after we moved in so he and his buddies got to work straight away.

First up was the attic ladder. We definitely need to utilize the storage space we have in the attic but to do that, we have to be able to get up there. Jeff had already purchased his attic ladder of choice from Lowe's and we'd been storing it in the storage facility down the road from our new house until we could move in. Friday came ("come get your keys, Wenzels!") and with it came Joel Greco, Joey Alphin & Brian England. They came to help Jeff put the ladder up. And they did a reallygreat job. I personally have not tested it yet, but I think Jeff has and he feels perfectly safe on it. Thanks a bunch, guys!

Next was the A/C unit that Adam Batts & Joel installed in the garage. Jeff knew with the garage being mainly a workshop for him (with an extremely small space for my car in there when he's not working on one of my projects) that he would need to have some sort of climate control so he could work no matter what the season. [I married a smart one.] He got the unit from Adam's wife, Melissa. Her family owns Pleasant Heating & Air. The guys came out and installed it for Jeff on the Saturday after we moved in. They worked their butts off and I know Jeff (and I) really appreciate their hard work on that. It's so nice in the garage at any given time. It's more like another room of the house now, instead of just a garage. Thanks, guys!

The other major thing (so far) was the storm door on the front of the house. I love fresh air in the spring and especially in the fall (my fave season...can't wait for it to get here!) so I really wanted a door on the front that had a screen in it. Also, I wanted a storm door simply for the fact that I like leaving my front door open when I'm at home (Kassie, our cat, appreciates that, too). The problem was that Jeff flat out told me he wasn't going to fight with a full pane of glass in the summer & winter months and a full screen in the spring & fall months. I was going to have one or the other for ALL of the months. Hmmm...that was a problem. But did you know that they have doors that are both without ever having to take one or the other out??? At Lowe's (yes, they know Jeff by name...), they have a glass storm door that has a dividing line in the middle and all you have to do is "unlock" the middle part and pull down from the top of the door and the glass slides down into the bottom section while a screen unrolls from the top. So you have screen in the top half and glass in the bottom half (I can live with that). It's the coolest thing ever! So Monday night, Jason Parker came out to help Jeff put in the cool storm door. His sweet wife, Jackie, brought dinner, bless her kind heart! The door works great and it's so nice to be able to leave my front door open now! Thanks so much for your hard work, Jason!

I'm sure we have (many) more home projects in our future but I wanted to share those with you for now.

we're in!

You'll forgive me if this is brief...and maybe it won't be so brief...we'll see. But I know some of you have been wondering how the move went and when I might post something to the blog. Well, I might've posted something before now but we had some issues with our DSL switch-over so I just last night was able to access my email and internet connection for the first time in a week. I wanted to just get a quick update and a couple photos up to keep you in the loop.

The house, of course, is still a disaster area, but we're making progress. We flew Jeff's mom down as our "cleaning crew" and GOD BLESS HER SOCKS OFF! It was such a load off knowing that our previous house would be cleaned while I was busy unpacking our stuff. And it was just nice to see her, too! :) She was here from Saturday to Wednesday.

I have the kitchen put away (I think; until I find another box labeled "kitchen") and some other miscellaneous things. We're waiting on the rest of our furniture to arrive this Saturday and then we'll be able to do more with the living room. Our bedroom seems to have become the "catchall" room so that will be long in coming together, I think. We both have our computer desks set up in the back bedroom so we can at least check email (and post to the blog!) but that's about all that's happening in that room right now. No crafting yet; I haven't unpacked my stamp/scrapbooking stuff yet...mostly because I don't know where I'll put it at this point (Jeff will eventually build me a wall of cabinets to store my stuff). The guest bedroom & bathroom are pretty much set up but the bedroom is a work in progress as I have more plans for that room than the budget allows right now. :)

I want to take this opportunity to give A THOUSAND THANKS to those who were able to come out and help us get moved in: Joey & Amy, Brandon & April, Adam & Bekah, Adam & Melissa, Trent & Anjie, Brian, Scott & Brooke, Matthew, Joel...and to those guys who came out again to help do other house projects like attic ladders, a/c units & storm doors: Joel, Adam B. and Jason - you'll never know the value of your help! We are so blessed to have such kind, caring friends - we love you all!

More posts to come as we work to get our house unpacked and looking just the way we want it!

emptying out...

Yes, the rooms are emptying out...those are the shelves in my makeshift "craftroom" sans my stamp sets. I gotta tell you, that made me pretty uneasy - to have to pack all my stamp stuff up. You can be sure that will be one of the FIRST things that get unpacked! :)
Everything is getting piled in the living room where we have no sofa/sectional anymore (we sold that Saturday to the very excited proud new owner of our sectional). Jeff's pretty glad we don't have to move that honkin' thing...that joker's heavy!
We're pretty much to the point of just throwing things, pretty haphazardly and with no real direction, into a box and taping it up. The question to ask yourself is this: Will you/we be using this in the next 2 days? If the answer is no, PACK IT UP! I cleaned the coffee maker, in fact, last night in preparation of packing it, after asking myself that question.
Jeff is mowing the grass for the last time as I post this... We're eating cereal & sandwiches for meals... The countdown is on - 2 more full days and then we're off to the attorney's office to "close the deal"!

it is done...almost

We had our official walk-through with the builder and superintendent today and everything went really well. We had our realtor, Lisa Matthews, with us since she has experience with this sort of thing. We only came out with a very short list of things that need to be taken care of, and Tommy, the superintendent, informed us that most likely those items would be taken care of today. We're both very pleased with how the house looked on the inside (wanna see? click here); the only things we even saw were very minor cosmetic-type things to be fixed. The builder, Gary, was very nice and had great tips on upkeep of the house that would save us money in the long-run. Super-nice guy. Both of them.

In other news, THEY MOVED OUR CLOSING UP!! We are now closing next Thursday, August 16 (instead of Friday, August 17). The sales guys wanted to move it up one day because they said although they aren't planning to have any "snags", if something happened at closing on Friday that caused it to go longer than anticipated, it would possibly be Monday before they could give us the keys. Uh, no. No. It won't be Monday. With it being on Thursday now, if we encounter a "snag", we'll get it resolved before the weekend and still be able to move in over the weekend. Yeah. That's what we're doing.

So, 6 more days. Less than a week. To get all the rest of our stuff packed and ready. Omigosh. :)

"yards" of grass...

Went out to the house tonight and we have grass! And bushes! As a matter of fact, the yard is done. The inside is done (with the exception of a few things that need to be corrected; things like switches that don't work or don't turn on what they're supposed to turn on). We have electricity & A/C (oh, how GLORIOUS that was to feel when we stepped into the house!). They are planning to do the inspection tomorrow and hopefully have the CO (certificate of occupancy) by tomorrow or Thursday. Then our walk-through will be Friday at 8am.

We are 9 days away from moving into our very first home...I can't begin to tell you how excited we are...

my beee-uuu-teee-ful stove...

It has been a week since I've seen the house and I was going into withdrawal! Jeff goes by everyday on his way home from work so he'd been telling me the things they'd been doing, but today was the first day we got to go see it. They have pretty much finished the inside. The carpet is down in the entire house and the linoleum is down in the kitchen now. It looks good! My "beee-uuu-teee-ful" stove is in - boy, am I excited about the fact that it's a smooth-top...it really doesn't take much, you know? You can see in the video just how excited I am about it. :)

They have also put in things like towel racks in both bedrooms and all the doors have doorknobs now. We have big gigantic mirrors in each bathroom, too (you can see that in the video, too...oops!). We're starting to measure the rooms to try & figure out how we're going to place our stuff...

They've picked up all the debris in the yard and have re-graded it in preparation for the sod. That will be going in pretty soon, I suppose, since the walk-thru will be NEXT FRIDAY!!! I can't believe we're 2 1/2 weeks away now...it seems like we took so long to get to this point, and yet, it seems like they just started the house.

lots of "little" stuff...

Wow, between the last two days of progress on the house, we have had a lot of "little" miscellaneous things installed. We went up to the house a little later last night and I just didn't have the energy, honestly, to sit down and post to the blog. Tonight, however, I have a little more energy so I'm going to cram what I would've posted last night into tonight's post, too. Hope you don't mind. :)

Bear with me as I try to remember everything they've done to the house in the last two days (and this will probably be pretty random, too).

Let's see...they have put down the vinyl/linoleum in the 2 bathrooms, they have installed all the light fixtures and/or ceiling fans including the one on the front porch (the workers are so nice; they offered to put up the fan we bought for the porch if Jeff would bring it to them the day they were working on that [yesterday] - so he did!). We have a ceiling fan/light fixture in the living room and the master bedroom and light fixtures in the kitchen, bathrooms and the other 2 bedrooms (the bedrooms are prewired for ceiling fans, though). They have wired for and installed all the outlets and light switches. They have the dishwasher, microwave oven and water heater installed. The microwave went in today and it's super-nice! It's a hood microwave so it's right at eye level and seems really roomy inside. They also poured our driveway and sidewalk today! Jeff says, "Now it's starting to look like a house.", like it didn't before! :D

housewarming!

Our sweet, sweet friends threw us a housewarming shower Saturday evening and we had the best time! It was hosted by Joey & Amy at their home and the weather was beautiful! We were able to sit outside and just chat and watch the kids (young & old) play. We had yummy appetizers to snack on and then we opened presents! We received so many nice things, things that we'd registered for (by request of the hostess) at Target & Bed, Bath & Beyond. We are so blessed to have so many kind & caring friends. Then Joey fired up the grill and we ate some more! The whole evening was such a blessing to me & Jeff, and we especially want to thank Joey & Amy for hosting and those who were able to come celebrate with us. We missed those who weren't able to be with us...we love you all.

counter tops...

Hey, look at this...2 days in a row I'm posting!

They installed our counter tops today at the house. It's really hard to see in the photo what color they are, but it's kind of a mix of a really light clay color and beige-ish tan. Is that sorta clear? As mud? Well, hey! It's kind of like a "mud" color! :) I crack myself up sometimes...

Anyway, we also had 2 big boxes sitting in the house when we got there tonight: our microwave oven and our dishwasher - WOOHOO! The microwave will go above the stove (that's a smooth-top stove) and the dishwasher will be at the end of the counter, beside the sink, next to the patio door.

paint...

The interior of our house is now painted! When we got out to the house tonight, all the walls were painted with the "bone" color we picked out (one of 3 choices, mind you - we would've gone with a little more color if it was up to us!). The doors and all the trim were painted white, as well. Boy, it really looks sharp with the little bit of contrast there. Everything is just so cleaned up. I wish you could see the video I took, but it was too large when I tried to upload it. Bummer. But hopefully, you can see the paint color and how nice it looks from the photo, and NEXT TIME, I'll try to remember to keep the video a little shorter!

I'd like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who's had an interest in our "house-building journey" and who's been checking the blog periodically. I've had lots of comments and compliments on it and I appreciate the feedback. I've really had a fun time with this blog and I hope it's kept you pretty informed on what's been going on. I'm sure it will continue on, even after we've moved in, with things like how we're decorating it to make it our own, landscaping/gardening (ha!) and the like. Stay tuned, and thanks again to you all!

30 days from closing...and counting...really fast! :)

cabinets, doors & trim...oh, my!

Jeff went by the house on his way home from work today (as he does everyday) and he called me to say, "You better get down here with your camera...". When I got there, we had all our interior doors up, all the trim was up and our kitchen and bathroom cabinets were in! The trim, though, it's not primed or painted, really cleans things up. They still don't have the baseboard trim down; that will be next, I guess, before they prime everything. The cabinets in the kitchen and bathrooms are just as I remembered them (you know, you sometimes forget the exact color of what you picked out, all those months ago!). The sink/cabinet in the master bathroom is a nice height; a little higher than the ones we have currently and higher, too, than the one in the guest bath of the new house. But it's nice all the same.

We're still packing things up each night...we've actually made a good amount of progress. We took an empty bookcase over to the storage facility on Saturday so having that out of the back bedroom REALLY makes it look like we're moving out! I've gotten a lot of things packed up that were in the spare closet of the room that I use for all my craft stuff - we were using that closet for storage, really, anyway, so most of it is stuff that can just be packed up because we don't use it right now (things like Christmas decorations, etc.). So that closet is being emptied pretty quickly.

32 days from today!

a place for our cars...or stuff...

We got out to the house tonight (after WAY too long) and they had our garage door on! They also had the doorknob & deadbolt on our front door - a pretty brushed nickel look. We had to manually lift the garage door so we could slide underneath and get in to look around. When we got in, they had all our doors stacked to the side...the doors for the doorways and closets. That was exciting to see. Still no primer on the walls but I think they're waiting for the trim to come in.

We are 36 days from closing, people. 36 more days of the crappy sliding glass door on our house...36 more days to pack all our stuff! And speaking of which, I'm proud of how motivated I've been to pack. I've packed all our (my) books on the bookcase in the back room, all my scrapbooks (except the ones I'm working on - what am I saying??? Like I have TIME to work on a scrapbook at a time like this!!), some office stuff like 3-ring binders, etc. and tonight, I packed up all our photo frames and candleholders. Boy, that'll make your house look bare in a heartbeat! It really looks like we're moving now...we took about 10-12 boxes over to our little storage facility that we're renting to store our stuff until we move (in 36 days). We're trying to do that each time we go see the house progress since it's so close. We'll have less to move on actual moving day...which is in 36 days. :D

ceilings are done...

We went out to the house this morning and they had the ceilings done. It's a pretty design - not the popcorn-ball effect but a star or asterisk-looking design. I hope you're able to see it in the photo there. I like it! That was pretty much all that had been done since Tuesday when we went out to see it.
We're still trying to pack things here and there...still getting boxes from work, from friends...man, we have a lot of STUFF! :)

We're " packin' "...

We went out to the house tonight but there wasn't anything photo-worthy. Nothing had changed visually; they had just gotten the 2nd coat of mud on the drywall. The next step will be the ceilings. That will be the first thing on the inside that will look "finished" since we started this "journey".

So this post will be to let you know that we have FINALLY started packing! We've been saying we need to start and we've had our (sweet) friends saving boxes for us...well, it took us getting to 7 weeks to start!

I packed 3 boxes last night while Jeff went through some of his stuff and decided what he was going to list on Ebay to sell and what he didn't want. We're trying really hard to throw out stuff we haven't used in a year or more...we'll see how that goes... :)

So I packed a lot of the breakable stuff in the kitchen last night - a box of vases and wine glasses wrapped in my hand towels & washcloths. Then I packed a box of coffee mugs and travel mugs (save 2 each for us to use until we move) wrapped in a fitted sheet (getting pretty creative with my padding!). I also packed up a box of glass salad bowls and pitchers with goblets. Those were wrapped in some bath towels and kitchen towels.

Planning to pack some more tonight...and each night until we get it all done. That's the best I can do for now!

7 more weeks (officially)...

We have an official closing date! Friday, August 17, which is just under 7 weeks away. Jeff stopped at the house on Friday and that's when they told him. We both had a chance to get out to the house just today to take some photos and a video of the house with all the drywall mudded up - the first coat, anyway. They'll put the 2nd coat on this week and then move on to other stuff. It's really starting to look almost "done" to me...there are several other houses under construction around us and when a house gets to this stage (the mud on the walls that you can see as you drive by), then I say to myself, "Wow, that house is 'almost done'!" when, in fact, there is still a lot to be done before it's actually done. But they only have 7 weeks to do it! :) They actually only have 6 weeks because we'll do the "walk-through" the Friday before, August 10.

7 more weeks, folks. 7 more weeks of:

• the dirt road...
• nasty well water...
• washing my dishes by hand...
• the U-turn...