Goodbye, 2011

I almost let December go by without a single blog post! Periodic updates have been going up on Facebook, but let's catch up quickly. This month we've gotten sheet rock, GORGEOUS trim, painted, and finished the stonework on the outside of the house. Now we're waiting on cabinets, granite, floors, light fixtures, toilets, sinks, and all that silly stuff.

Kitchen

Double tray ceiling in master.

Living room

Living room

Living room

Back of house - dining area.

Front patio.

Rock in progress.

Completed stone work in front.

Fireplace and mantle.

Hard wood floors.

"Grassland" by Sherwin Williams - main interior color.

Absolutely beautiful door trim.

Kitchen ready for cabinets.

Final rendering of kitchen cabinets.

Cabinet samples - white is for kitchen, the darker ones are for the bathrooms.

I've run out of patience. I've been a saint up til now, if I do say so myself, but it's getting so close that I want to move in now now now! Unfortunately we are probably still 3-4 weeks from completion.

The Final Goodbye

Well the time has actually come to say goodbye to our McMansion. We are moved out, and ensconced in our temporary living quarters until our new house is finished, and we close tomorrow. So goodbye, house. There is a part of me that is wearing my graduation goggles and it really is a little sad to say goodbye to the house we built, where we've lived for 11 years. But I'm mostly relieved to have sold the house in only 6 weeks on the market; relieved to have finally gotten our 15 metric tons of crap out of the house; relieved to not have to live with the uncertainty of not knowing when the house will sell; just relieved to be moving on to the next phase of our lives. I wish the new owners nothing but the best, and I hope they are happy there, because it really is a beautiful house.

The Back 40: The Gift That Keeps On Giving

The Back 40 still had some rocks underneath the leaves, so we hired our contractor's girlfriend's little brother (it all makes sense to us) to clear the rest out. He diligently worked and worked and worked, bringing out rocks, and before we knew it, we had a problem. A real problem.

Just for scale, here's my 6 foot son laying next to some of the rocks. (He volunteered to lay down for the picture. No teenagers were harmed in the making of this blog post.)

Ashley, on seeing this picture on my screen: "Oh no! Who killed Matthew?")

It just goes on and on and on...


Here's another shot of yet more random branches and junk.

We'll get there eventually. Someday. Some way. Somehow.

Here are some more in progress shots of the exterior and interior.

Front

Back - the new gable is the extension for the breakfast/dining area, which we pushed out onto the screened in porch. Re-doing the porch will be Phase II.


Kitchen

Pantry/Utility

This week they have been doing HVAC, Electrical, and Plumbing, so it's nothing much exciting to look at. I probably won't post more pictures until we have sheet rock inside and limestone outside, probably around the 1st week of December. Rolling right along!

Floorplans, New and Old

For those who have been lusting, I mean, wondering, what the inside of this house is going to look like, this is for you! Jon did these himself in a program we bought, and has spent countless hours poring over them and refining them.

Old floorplan.

New floorplan
There are some limitations of the software, such as the shape of the island in the kitchen, but this is more or less the idea.

More pictures coming soon! They are now running electrical and plumbing. We are looking at sheet rock by the first week of December.

The darkest hour is just before dawn

Not a lot of explanation required for these pictures.

Standing near front door looking through old living room and garage to the back corner where the Paris Bistro kitchen was.

Standing in hall bath looking into master bedroom.

Standing in what used to be the garage looking toward living room and hallway. Note the giant stack of popcorn ceiling debris in the foreground.

Anyway, as the Mamas and the Papas said, the darkest hour is just before dawn. It can't actually look worse than it does right now. So it's all downhill from here! Or uphill? How does that saying work again?

Let the destruction begin

This week we got concrete slab poured for the additions, and got underway with demo! The Paris Bistro kitchen is now just a memory.

Pictures from this week:



Breakfast room bump-out onto patio:



Oh wait, that's not a house picture. But she sure is cute.

Beautiful finished slab!

And here comes the demo.

The water line to the fridge wouldn't shut off altogether, so the kitchen turned into kind of a yucky muddy mess. We've found that the walls in the house aren't sheet rock, they're nasty paneling that has been textured over and painted. However, the old paneling was untouched behind the kitchen cabinets. So there's a new plan - tear out the walls, too. The house is going down to the studs.

Behind the oven - the house comes with a free spatula!

The current state of the "master bath".

And the "master bedroom".

Carpet rolled up and pad exposed in living room.

Kitchen just about done.

Action shot of the walls starting to get taken out.

Next week I anticipate... more of the same. Lots and lots more.

You're Welcome, Central Texas

This is big news. It's huge. I've figured out the way to end a historic 12 month drought. Just break ground on new construction, and the skies will open and pour forth their bounty.

So here's some pictures of the mess from this morning after the glorious rain, and some pictures from earlier in the week. The trenches are going to have to be pumped out to be able to resume work.

I'm not complaining about the rain. God knows I've been complaining about the LACK of it for months. The dying trees and plants, the poor birds and squirrels and deer and even the coyotes, everyone has suffered. I loved driving to check on the house this morning and seeing birds and squirrels frolicking in the puddles along the sides of the road. Little do they know that they have ME to thank for it! You're welcome, little squirrels!






From earlier in the week:





It's a huge mess, but at least we're under way. Thank you, God, for the rain. Could we try to keep it down to just a few major deluges until our house is done? Thank you, Amen.