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.