taking shape

i stopped by the lot yesterday to show a friend from college that was in town and was shocking to see that workers had been there to setup the frames for the basement walls.  it is really starting to take shape and be a 3 dimensional structure as apposed to just seeing things on paper or outlined on the ground.  the ceilings in the basement will be 9'1".

this picture is from the left side.  the wall on the right will be separating the kitchen from the garage.

i think the wood you see in between the walls there will be a window opening.

this will be the garage floor.

shot from the back of the house.

shot from the right side.

throwing stones

we went by the lot sunday to show charlie and nichole where the house is being built and so they could see the area.  it was the first time that jack and rachel and been down into the basement.  jack, needless to say, was a huge fan of the gravel.  he was very happy to throw the gravel out of the basement and at the rest of us.  this was his first of many fun times in the basement!

our marathon day of getting ideas

it has been a few days since we've updated you last. we went to cynthiana for the weekend and stopped by on sunday when we returned. we couldn't tell if anything had been done, but on tuesday when we stopped by, we noticed several piles of gravel had been delivered. yesterday we thought we could check out the lot and found that all the gravel had been dumped into the basement hole and filled in between the footers. kurt believes they will start doing the rebar next in preparation for the basement walls to be pored! below are pictures of the basement so far.

monday, jack went to ma ma and pa pa's house for the day so that kurt and i could get some things done.  we started off at the place where we will get the stone.  we met with the stone designer to talk about the look we are wanting to achieve in the house. he suggested that we pick the color of the house and go from there. after we left the stone place, we went to get samples of the shakes and roof. we have some major homework to do to pick out the color of the house. there are several colors we like so we will need to narrow it down. this i think by far, is going to be the toughest decision to make. once we pick out the color, then we will go back to the stone company and pick that out.

after we picked up samples, we ate lunch at losta pasta....yummy! our next stop was the tile shop. our builder told us that you can really blow your tile allowance if you don't watch out. we basically went in there unaware of how much tile and stone actually costs. wow! we know picking out tile won't be for a while, but it was good to pop in there and get ideas.

after the tile shop,we ran to benjamin moore to look at paint for interior and exterior. once we chose the color of the shakes, we will take the color to benjamin moore to match the color and that is what the exterior walls of the house will be painted. the exterior of our house will be lap board, you can find it here www.certainteed.com  it is cement fiber siding (not vinyl siding) and will come primed and then we will have it painted.  it is the same as the house that i pictured in the previous post as our "vision" home. 

our next stop was lowe's. there we talked to someone about kitchen sinks, garbage disposals (we need to replace ours in our current home) and hot water heaters.  we looked at their kitchen cabinets, hardwood floor stain and lighting to get ideas. 

after that, we needed a beer and to see our little buddy! we went over to tom and joan's to eat supper and got home finally around 7. it was a long day, but well worth it. we know we have a lot of homework, but thank goodness for the website houzz. you can check it out here, www.houzz.com 

footer update

we ran by the lot on yesterday to check out the footers. they had removed the boards around the concrete which meant they probably have cured. i wouldn't think they wouldn't have cured that quickly since it was so cold, but i guess the sun did warm it up a bit. they have evened out some of the dirt that is where the garage and driveway will be. this weekend we are heading to cynthiana, i look forward to seeing what progress they will make while we are gone. 

since we are off on monday for mlk day, kurt and i will be meeting with our stone guy and hopefully our cabinet guy as well. we plan on going to the carpet and tile stores, as well as checking out lowes for fixtures, faucets, etc. 

for those who remember the movie old school with will ferrell, i thought this quote was appropriate to add here:

Frank: I told my wife I wouldn't drink tonight. Besides, I got a big day tomorrow. You guys have a great time.
College Student: A big day? Doing what?
Frank: Well, um, actually a pretty nice little Saturday, we're going to go to Home Depot. Yeah, buy some wallpaper, maybe get some flooring, stuff like that. Maybe Bed, Bath, & Beyond, I don't know, I don't know if we'll have enough time.


will update after our big day of shopping!! p.s. kurt and i both said after our trip on tuesday to pick out the doors, windows, etc that it was just like registering for a wedding....except, we are paying for this stuff! ha!

here are some pictures of yesterday's trip to the lot:

we have feet! well....footers actually

for those who don't know what a footer is (like me before this whole process started), it is the concrete reinforced supporting base or groundwork of the home. and ladies and gentlemen, we have footers!! when we stopped by yesterday, they were in the process of hardening. 

the left corner is where the screened in porch will be on the back of the house.

 this is looking from the left side of the house to the right. the garage is the dirt on the right side of the picture.

 

this is a picture of the garage area. they poured concrete around the outline of where the garage will be.

 this is the front of the house, the garage will be to the left.

exterior elements, doors, windows, and trim- done!

well, we met today during lunch with our builder and the lumber guy that will order our doors, windows, exterior elements, trim, etc.  we can cross the following off our to do list:

- windows- done!
- interior doors- done!
- front door- done!
- trim around interior doors- done!
- trim around interior floor- done!

we also decided that we are going to have vertical planks, stone, and shake on the house. the picture i have posted below is our vision. this house is located in louisville and we absolutely love the look. we are going to do this color scheme on our house.  next we will pick out the paint color for the house and the stone. i've also attached what the front of our house will look like.

***please note the color of this house is not exactly what it looks like in person.  ***

this is the front elevation of our house. our plan is to do stone on the bottom 3 or 4 feet of the house. then the middle section will be vertical planks. the peaks will be the same color as the planks, but will be a shake texture.  we also plan to put stone inside the front porch area as our vision picture did above. 

moving right along

well, after a few days of being bummed about not getting our walkout, we found that it was all based on water. we met with the builder on sunday the 13th and he said that he wouldn't be able to put in the walkout because we could eventually have water in our basement. once we heard water and basement, we were done! no problem we said, we are fine without having a walkout. enough said, the conversation is over.

if you do recall, it poured on sunday! we met out at the lot and came prepared to get muddy to check out the lot. our basement hole looked more like a pond on that day. i really wish i had taken a picture of it, but i didn't. curtis our builder said they would pump all of the water out, lay the gravel and it would be no problem. we ran by yesterday after work and sure enough, water was all gone, gravel was in the hole and it looked great! we heard today from the builder and the footers were being poured. of course we are going by after work!!!

walkout no more

well we got our first disappointing news today and that is we will not be able to have a walkout from our basement. seems there was too much rock and they couldn't get deep enough to shape the lot.  while it is by no means a deal breaker, it is a bummer.  that being said everything else is moving at a pretty quick pace.  had the area not received a bunch of rain overnight they were prepared to pour the footers for the basement walls.  onward and upward!

decisions to be made

we met with the builder's assistant this past friday to discuss our "action items" and order of decisions that need to be made. within the month we need to make a decision on the following

1. windows (style and color)
2. exterior elements (stone, brick, shake, etc)
3. color of roof shingles

4. exterior doors

because i'm a planner and i want to make sure i have plenty of time to think about these (very important) decisions, i want to be ahead of the game and not have to make any last minute decisions. today, we made an appointment with the company that does the brick and stone. the main contact was out of the office, so we met with his assistant and found out quickly that she was most likely the lady who just answers the phone. she was able to show us some homes they did around louisville, but couldn't help us design. it wasn't a total waste of time, but we quickly realized, there is a lot to choose from. our homework this weekend is to drive around and find some properties we like. we will also be searching the internet for ideas.  our home is going to be a craftsman style so we will be focused on that look.

yesterday (wednesday the 9th) we didn't drive by the lot. today, since i'm working at home, i decided to swing by on my way to the brick place since it was on my way. i could see some big progress in just the day we missed. you can see the outline of the basement in full and that means the dirt and rock piles have grown!

"big 'chine" as jack calls it!

we are trying not to drive by every day to see the progress of the lot, but it is only 4 miles from our current house and is easy to just swing by on our way home.  however, if we go every day, we might not see a difference of what has been done. 

tuesday the 8th, we did drive by and the dirt pile had gotten bigger. there was also a new piece of equipment that was digging. we were surprised to see the guy still digging at 5:45 and almost dark.  this machine (picture below) was moving the rocks underground.  our builder told us that he had hit a lot of rock digging the other homes in the area.  jack couldn't take his eyes off the "big 'chine" (big machine). 

dirt is being moved!

after weeks of waiting, the day finally came when we broke ground. sunday, january 6, 2013- the day the earth moved! we didn't know until monday the 7th, that they had actually started digging the day before.  we couldn't wait to drive by the lot after work that day.  5 o'clock on the dot, we left and went straight to the lot. there, we saw the most beautiful pile of dirt we had ever seen! there was a pretty good size hole in the ground and some massive rocks boulders they had taken out. it was official, we were doing this! kurt and i had the biggest smiles on our face. i'm sure you could see our big, bright, white teeth through our tinted windows at dusk when we were driving back to our house. we couldn't wait to share the pictures with our family of our big dirt pile. jack was so excited as well, when we saw the big dirt pile he said, "dirt!" if it hadn't been so chilly and if he had been wearing different clothes/shoes, i would have let him climb on that big dirt pile. he would have loved it, right charlie??

why don't we just build!

first of all, welcome to my our blog! we thought this would be a great way to keep everyone connected on the progress of our new home! let me just give you a quick rundown of events that led up to this point in time.

2012
august- october
kurt and i had been thinking about buying a new home. we knew we wanted to be in oldham county, but not far from the jefferson county line. we searched realtor websites high and low, every night and every day. we looked and looked until we found a listing for a "built to suit" home in the development of ash landing.  kurt went out to the subdivison, which happened to be 4 miles from our current home to check it out. the house was great, a little smaller than what we were looking for, but overall beautiful. kurt and i discussed it and we looked at each other and said, "why don't we just build!" we decided to call the developer of the subdivision and he put us in touch with the builder.

november 2
we met the builder out at the subdivision, which happened to be on the same day our furnace went out in our current home! ugh, what timing!! we found out the builder had built several homes in the current subdivision, including his daughters. we met a few people that lived in the neighborhood and they were all very friendly and were still talking to the builder (that's a good thing!).  we found out the neighborhood are families around our age with young children. they have block parties, potlucks, their children play together, and they have all become friends.  our dream is to raise jack in a place where he could have friends close by.  ash landing was exactly what we were looking for and we were thrilled! we decided on a lot...lot #6 was going to be our future home.

november 9
we met with the drafter and came up with the most beautiful (in our eye's of course) floorplan we had ever seen. it took several weeks to tweak it, but finally in the middle of december, the big blueprints were in hand and we were ready to start digging!