Meet Us

Mud and Tape

What a difference a little mud and tape can make. The rest of the pictures can be found here. We have decided that J and A are going to have their own bedrooms. Spoiled kids. I think that that term may as well be spoiled parents! Right now, it is hard to put the kids to bed because they just like to play with each other so much. So now, we will be able to tell if they get out of their bedrooms to play. Ha ha! Take that! Parents 1, kids 0!

Wait a minute, they are going to have their won bedrooms. Hmmmm, parents 1, kids 1. And I wasn't able to have my own bedroom until my older brothers moved out. Kids 2. and they are going to be able to paint it the way that they want - kids 3. And each have huge windows - 4, and ... 5, and ... 6.

But HEY! Who's counting? It is a win-win situation. Everyone is happy!

--- --- grumble, grumble --- ---

Cabinets & Tile

The last major projects of our old house are really in the final stages of completion. The tile went on pretty nicely. I have to fix a couple of spots that I missed with the grout and then seal it up and caulk. It looks really nice. And with the cabinets, I have the drawer faces to finish and attach. Other than that, they are done. That is a good feeling to have. Here are a few pictures but I also posted a lot more here.

The drywall is what?

Yup - it is done. At least it is hung. They still have to mud and tape, and for the most part, they did a pretty good job. They did mess up on my wiring a little bit, but I hope that what they did will be salvageable. I will have to post some pictures later on that. But here are a couple of pictures, and as usual, the rest are on my picture site.

More progress

Well, whether I am done or not with what I want to do with the house behind the walls, it is too late. The sheet rock was delivered yesterday. I happened to run into our supervisor again and he said that they would have it all hung by the end of the weekend. Whoa! Oh yah!

The rest of the pictures are at my picture website". You can see that I did all of the telephone, cable, internet, and surround sound. I am excited for that. We have the bonus room, family room and the master bedroom with surround sound built in the walls. That is just too cool, I think. With the speakers as well, I pre-wired speaker wire for two in-ceiling speakers in the kitchen and in the master bedroom. There will be wall switches/control to change the volume for those speakers.

And you can see the insulation between the inner walls of the upstairs. OH YAH! Crank up the Van Halen for the morning shower! I am so looking forward to this house.

So I think that all of what I need to do on the house before we close is just about done. I will have to put on the faceplates for the voice, data and cable, but that is very little. This is just so cool.

"We like to do good work"

I saw the handrail go in and I thought to myself, without saying anything to the framers, "man - that is pretty wimpy for a handrail." But I caught them talking about it alter - in spanish - and they were discussing how to strengthen it. One of them drew were they would cut out a place for a 2x4 to go through the floor and attach to the joists below.



Their comment about this was this: "Many of the framers don't do this - it isn't written in the plans. But we like to do good work."

Yes, my friends, you do like to do good work. I was really impressed by the work that they did. I hope that they continue to find work in the valley. They said that work was slowing down for them and that there wasn't too much work to do. I hope that other people can see the quality of work that they do as compared with other framers in the valley.

They really like to do good work.

We have Doors!

We went to check on the progress today and found not only the plumbers there (they were installing tubs and the shower and drain lines (as far as I could tell)) but there were also doors! What a nice surprise to see that we have doors! Even more exciting is that the patio door is the same brand as the between-the-glass blinds I was looking at last night while online.

Here's the front door, it rained really hard yesterday and today the living room and family room are filled with water. It's a little disturbing. It will be nice to get the roof shingled and windows installed so things stay dry inside.

Here I am admiring the mudroom. The plans called for a closet to be in the corner, but I thought there were too many doors for such a small space, so we had them take the closet out. We'll put a nice bench in to sit on, with shoe storage underneath, and coat hooks that the kids can reach. On the far right is the laundry room. You can also see the furnace in the garage. We thought it was going to be in the attic, so this was a nice surprise. I guess the water heater will sit next to it.

This is the master bathroom, with a separate tub and shower.

That's our house! We're hoping to be in sometime in february.

"Some houses just go more smoothly than others"

Framing is completed. That is a nice feeling to have. I went over yesterday morning and found the HVAC people in there doing their stuff. I was surprised because the framers had just finished the day before. It was a very nice surprise.

This morning when I went over, as I pulled up, the HVAC guys recognized me and called out from the upstairs window, "HEY! I've got a question for you!" I went up and he was about to put our laundry room in the upstairs bathroom. Hmmmm. That would have been interesting. I quickly reminded him that the laundry room is downstairs in the LAUNDRY room.

I was taking some exterior pictures in the back and the superintendent was at our neighbor's house finishing up some stuff and he came over and talked with me for a little bit. He said that it is interesting that some houses go along really smoothly where everything seems to just fit together and go right after the other. And then in other houses run into problem after problem.

Am I (as the owner) the deciding factor? There were a couple of problems with the framing plans that I had the framers fix. The major ones (missing wall, walls where they shouldn't be) I took up with the sales staff - like I was supposed to do. But if I let them do something wrong that I know is wrong, if it was really small, I brought it up with them. To be honest, I think that they appreciated the fact that I took interest in their work. They even asked me a few questions on my preferences on a couple of items. And they were really good. They did high quality work. I was really impressed with them (see a future post on this subject). So if I wasn't in to building my home like I am, would the HVAC people have cut through my bathroom and put in the laundry room there?

As good as we say that the plans are perfect, all of the little details of the house cannot be planned and put on paper. The walls for the house came to the job site pre-assembled. But there were still a few errors with the walls. Four walls weren't built right and the framers had to fix them. Another wall wasn't even built. So why didn't the HVAC guys have a detailed drawing that specified where the laundry room was? They weren't even on the right floor?

I guess I am glad that I can "overlook" the construction process a little bit. The superintendent didn't say anything about me being on the construction site a lot or talking with the subs. Maybe he views me as someone who is helping him with his job? Maybe I shouldn't go that far.

Latest pictures

I know that it has been a while, but here are a couple of the latest pictures of our house:


I know that I wasn't supposed to talk to the workers, but hey, when they are hispanic and I respond to them in their native tongue, one can't help oneself to talk! It is very interesting as a lot of the walls are built off-site. All of the door frames are built off-site. All they have to do is put things together like a lego set. They said that they would be done in a week. SAY WHAT!?!?! Oh yah - they will be done in a week.

Another interesting observation was made by my better half. She said that there were hardly any other houses near the same stage as our house. I guess the market for new houses has dropped quite a bit - even for our builder. It will be very interesting to see just how long it is going to take to build our house. With no other houses in the stages near ours, there will be more subs to do the work for our house.

So expect another update near the end of the week. You should see a fully constructed house!

Houston, we have a foundation

The front:


Looking from the left hand side (for the neighbor's view):


Looking from the right hand side:

Cool picture

The Beginning

Dig Date

We have a dig date!

October 9th

Big process

Almost done!

Another step...HUGE step

What a difference a day makes! I am starting to get really sad about leaving the house. Here is the latest addition:





I feel so bad for Allie in not getting the kitchen done sooner. I hope that she will forgive me in some future time. It is looking really nice. I am really excited with how it is turning out.

A big step

I went over to the woodshop last night and brought home a cupboard for our kitchen. This one goes to the left of the window above the sink as noted in the picture:



This is just the beginning. I am planning on bringing over quite a few more on Saturday.

Speaking of Saturday, we have a friend of a friend coming over and taking a look at the house. We had someone look at the house yesterday. They seemed pretty interested, but it is hard to read people. Even though our house has "been on the market" for 30 days, we have been happy with the response that we have received from just listing it with KSL classifieds.

I am giving us one more week to complete everything that we need to do in order to get it ready to sell. That includes the kitchen and the bathroom. Everything else can be done in the interim while it is "on the larger market."

Our house is still in the dirt

I know, I know. This hasn't changed too much. I just wanted to say that as our house is progressing, we are going to take pictures from the same angle and put them all into a movie. It will be like the cool fast-motion-documentary-type of a movie that shows things at different stages. Here is the first picture:

Design process finished

We found an interesting fact yesterday while we were doing the final designs for our home. The design center is not owned by Woodside Homes. We found this out almost near the end or our process so I think that had something to do with some of the pressure that we felt when picking out our stuff.

Our design lady was really nice and really helpful. I could tell that she had a good eye for things (maybe it was that she suggested something, say for instance our house paint color, and I would like it). But she helped us out a lot. I guess my only feeling was that she really tried to upsell everything she could, instead of look after our best interests - getting into a nice house the least expensive way. She really didn't want us to put in the standard grade vinyl flooring. Our refute was that we were going to just replace it with hardwood later on. "Are you going to do it in the near future - like within 6 months? Because if not, I would HIGHLY suggest upgrading." Well, that kind of made us feel stupid, because "we weren't getting the BEST STUFF for our house." I kind of just played along with her through most of the stuff - lighting, plumbing fixtures, etc.

But we survived with our original thoughts on upgrades - and even escaped with lower costs. The fridge was lower cost, and we added a vinyl (not-so-near-future hardwood) walkway through the family and living rooms which lowered our costs by $1! SAWEET!

So even though I thought that the salesperson was just trying to up her commission, I am pleased with what I think is going to be the final version of our house.

How much longer do we have?

One down, how many more to go?

I finished up one of my many projects around the house this last week. It had been bugging me for quite a while. I cleaned up all of the cables in our media closet and now it looks pretty good. The telephone can cable go into that closet and is distributed throughout the house from there. There is also a DSL filter so instead of having a filter for each phone in the house, there is just one filter for the entire house. It has worked seamlessly while we have had it.

Here are a couple of pictures:

Because we're Stalker-Neighbors

I think the only place that windows overlap is their stairway into our bonus room. Good to know for passing secret flashlight code messages.

Are we really THAT old?

8 years ago, I married my best friend, the woman who I love more than anything in the world. Can it really be THAT long ago? That means that I (we) am getting old. So many things have happened in those 8 years. I am glad she loves me as much as I love her.

Allie - you are my one and only. You mean more to me than anything. I am so glad that you have stuck by me for these past 8 years. I hope that we will be together for another 80 (if we live that long). HET - I LOVE YOU!

eddie

The secret's out

We're not keeping our plans to move a secret anymore. The hardest thing about the whole new-house thing has been leaving our wonderful neighbors. I wish I could take all of them with us.

When we bought our current house nearly 7 years ago, we knew that it wasn't going to be permanent, but that doesn't make it any easier to say goodbye to neighbors who have become family. Maybe we'll have to make more of an effort to maintain relationships, because I can't imagine life without some of those incredible people.

WE FINALLY UNDERSTAND EACH OTHER!

Allie and I had a date on Friday night. It was most exciting - we went to Ikea to look around and have dinner. (man - we are getting old if that is our excitement for Friday night) Ikea is a pretty cool place. We have a list about a mile long of things we would like to buy there - entertainment center, dining table, toy storage, pants hanger for closet, and a corner sofa. We had a good date and the food wasn't that bad - it was actually pretty good. It was a fun date.

On the way home, Allie told me how much she wanted the toy storage bins, and the various closet organizers that they offered. Almost automatically, I rolled my eyes back and shook my head. I have heard all of this about a million times since we have been married (which will be 8 years tomorrow! But then the light finally clicked on. I have been talking to Allie about home automation and zoned audio throughout the house (not necessarily this but something like it like Apple TVs, Mac Minis, etc) and I get almost the same knee jerk reaction that I give her when she talks about home organization. I explained this phenomenon to her and we both just laughed and laughed when we realized how true that was.

We both have things that we want that are extraneous, not necessary, maybe kind of expensive and frivolous (probably mine more than hers), but things that each of us think are just really cool. We are hoping to have a budget set aside for those types of things in the future. But it is so nice to finally understand each other and be understood. Communication. Who woulda thunk it?

Is our house in that pile of dirt?

THE COUNTDOWN HAS STARTED!

We signed our first round of papers, ie. our life, today. We finalized our structural and electrical today with the salesperson there. It seemed like we had been over every single detail about 10 times. So I thought that it should have gone faster than it actually did.

But the choices were not the longest part. Those were really easy. Our salesperson also wanted to postpone the electrical. NO WAY! Let's get this going! So we also did the electrical upgrades. But the longest part was the contracts and all of the gobbledygook that we had to sign. Then we had to have it all explained to us!

All we need now is an appointment with our mortgage guy and then the design center where we do all the rest of the upgrades.

So as we left, we drove by our lot. There were a couple of homes in various stages of being built. We told the kids that we were buying a house right next to our friends, and we pointed to their house. J asked, "Is that the house we are buying?" No, J, we are buying the plot next to that house. "Are we going to have our house in the dirt?" Yup, J, we are going to live in the dirt!

6 MONTHS TO GO!

Our Floor Plan

Here is the floor plan which we have decided to build:

The first floor (with superimposed second floor)


The second floor (with superimposed first floor)


We are really excited. (can you tell?)

Living in the forest

I was just looking at the picture of our house. It's a computer generated picture, and I think it's really funny because the house is shown surrounded in trees. It looks like we're moving to a forest.

We're not. On tuesday I'll get a picture of our dirt (I mean our lot).

Anyone know of any good, fast growing trees?


(EDIT) Hey look! My best friend took a picture our dirt for me!

Our little baby

My how time has flown. It seems like yesterday we first bought this house. We bought it while we were still at USU and didn't have any little ones running amuck. But we have transformed this house into our home. We fully finished the basement. We remodeled the kitchen (even though it isn't COMPLETELY finished - stay tune in the near future for that to be finished). We put in a wonderful garden that produces plenty of tomatoes each year. We put in a little playground for the grommets to play on. We even put in a small covered patio/deck.

But the time has come to sell our home. It doesn't seem right. My brother just moved from his house nearby, and every time we drive by it, we get the odd sense that something just doesn't seem right. But the time has come. If anyone knows anyone who wants a great house, here is our add in the KSL Classified section.

I do hope our home gets sold to a wonderful family. But I also realize that you really can't be choosers when you are beggars. We hope that it sells fast.

eddie

The next few days

We are in a rush to get the house sold. This means getting a last few things that needed to be done around the house. I have to finish the kitchen cabinets, install them, install the back splash, paint the kitchen, finish the molding, fix a few drywall spots, and redo the bathroom tile around the tub. So there is kind of a lot to do, but if I do a little each day, I can get it finished. I am sure there are other things that need to be done, but those are the major ones.

We qualified for the 5/1 ARM loan. I called the mortgage broker and he said that it was just a pre-approval for a loan. We can be qualified for basically any mortgage that we want. That will happen on Tuesday when we have a construction meeting. We have to decide most of the options that we want. The project manager told us it would be 6 months from then. Wow - not that much time.

eddie

The first few days

Well, it has come so suddenly that I really don't know where to start. Our friends invited us to see their house being built nearby. While touring their home, they often kidded about which lot we wanted - the one on the North or on the South.

After leaving their house (and inviting us to the grand opening party that Woodside Homes was offering), Allie and I talked amongst ourselves and the topic was building a home. After reviewing their website and talking ourselves into thinking that we could do this, we went to the grand opening with 20 questions. A couple of weird things about this homebuilder:

- NO SWEAT EQUITY!!! (What is up with that? - to be explained in a future post, I guess)

- We don't get a copy of the house plans

Anyway, we sent in our pre-loan application and we were approved later in the day. We have decided to build this house (plan to be posted later):



Ours will have a 3rd car garage, but we aren't quite sure what color it will be. We are really excited about this, although there is much work to be done on our current house to get it ready to be sold. Too much to do and not enough time to do it in.