THE STUFF'S HERE, BUT NOT US!!!

Well, we had to move out of the old house. We are really glad that the house is sold and we don't have to worry about it anymore! It is kind of wierd to see "our house", only it's NOT our house anymore. But I'll be really glad to be moved in to the new one!

Last week, we moved all our stuff into the new house. Big furniture is in the rooms upstairs. But everything else is boxed up in the basement. We aren't pack rats, in fact, we are the opposite. But we still had more stuff than we needed. (Boy, I could go on about that...but I won't) In the meantime, we are sleeping at my mom's house, and watching TV at my grandma's house when we're not working on our house. Sounds fun, right? It's all good!

Anyways, here are some pics of the new bedroom set I bought.

And we now have working toilets! That's definitely appreciated. :) The vanities are in place.

The Green bathroom

Master Bathroom

Kitchen and Carpet

Kitchen Cabinets are in! I think they look really nice and definitely make the room look more "kitcheny"
Here's the view toward the sink area.



Here's looking where the fridge and stove will go. We just plugged in our old microwave temporarily.



Here's the final touches on the carpet. Now, everything that is going to be carpeted is done! WOO HOO!

Giddy with Excitement!

Jeff and I are SOOOOOOOOOOO excited about things that are getting done on the house! I feel like we are going to actually live there someday! Where to begin? And will all the pictures fit on here without creating another entry? We shall see...we shall see...

Garage doors and a driveway! It took many hours to get the first garage door installed. Jeff read the directions very carefully, and still needed to redo something. Then the second door, was completely done in like 30-60 minutes. Anywhoos, they are up and functioning. Today's agenda...garage door openers. :) We also had 2 loads of rock brought in to fill up the driveway!

Front view of the house, complete with garage doors and driveway!

Flooring is the BIG deal! After quite an ordeal getting the carpet here. And working around Kevin's schedule, we are soooo excited that it's getting put down. As of last night, we had one room completely carpeted! It's laid out in other rooms. The vinyl is also done in the bathrooms. Did I say we are excited? This is what is going to get me through the day! hee hee. See pics...

Carpet laying out in the living room.

First completely carpeted room! It's the front bedroom.

The Green bathroom.

Master bath.

First major furniture purchase! We bought a NICE dining room table with 6 chairs, and a buffet/china hutch from a teacher that works with Jeff. (She was having a rummage sale!) It looks really good and is already sitting in the dining room!

New table and chairs.

China cabinet. Maybe it'll hold violin bottles!

So, was that a productive weekend or what!?!?!?!?!?!? We'll be moving out of our old house this weekend, but not to live in the new one. We'll stay with my mom until the new house is DONE. But with the flooring down, we can at least put our furniture in the house! (Mainly so we won't have to move the piano twice...Can I get an AMEN, Louie?)

Hardwood is better than Laminate!

Now, this is some serious progress! At least it shows a lot. We finished putting the hardwood down in the kitchen, dining room, and entryway. Jeff initially wanted to just get some laminate floor, like Pergo. But I was insistant on hardwood. I just love the stuff. It feels good and solid underfoot and looks amazing. Jeff is glad that we have it now, because it does look awesome! It won't be as cold as the stuff in our current home because of the basement underneath. :) So, without further ramblings, here's some pictures...

Entryway.

Dining room.

Kitchen (view from Dining room.)

FLOORING!

We are in a frantic rush to get the flooring down. We have to move out of the old house in about 2 1/2 weeks. The plan is to put all our stuff into the new house, just out in the middle of the floor. We really don't want to move the Big Screen and Piano twice. Just ask Uncle Lew. ;) After much searching and price checking. We finally found the right stuff at the right price in Marion. We have started putting down the harwood floor in the entryway, dining room, and kitchen. It'll be a slow process but so far, we are loving it and think it's going to look awesome. Thank-You Bill for your help in getting us started. My job is to lay out the pieces so that Jeff can nail them down quicker. It's like a huge jigsaw puzzle...and I don't like puzzles. Not physically challenging, but mentally taxing in order to line up all the pieces so that the seams are not too close. AGHHH! Anyways, it's going to be awesome! So here's some pictures...

looking into the dining room

Here's looking at the entry way, heading down the hallway.

Basement Walls

We have had to insulate the basement walls in order to allow the GeoThermal heating and air system to be as efficient as possible. Concrete absorbs heat, so that certainly wouldn't be good to lose! Let me tell ya that Ricky and I were seriously covered in that insulation. Not fun. But it's most of the way there. We left the blank spaces for Jeff to run wiring. Here are some before and after shots of the basement.

Here's looking into the basement from the walk-out!

Here's looking behind the stairwell. It will be a storage area. :)

This is looking across the 2 front rooms downstairs. Now, officially divided into 2 rooms. The far room will be our laundry room.

Porch and Patio

A couple weeks ago, Kevin and Jerry came and poured the concrete for the front porch and the walk-out patio. Check out the pictures.

Here's a little helper that came along!

Here's the front porch and sidewalk!

The walk-out patio! Also notice the back of the house is finished.

My Husband, My Hero!!!!!

I must take a brief moment to go back to painting. I did not believe that my dear husband, Jeff could prime the entire house in less that 3 hours. To my suprise and delight, HE DID IT! We rented a paint sprayer, and ended up using more than 15 gallons of white primer. Boy, it worked fast though. Here are some pictures of our white primed walls.





I wish I had a picture of Jeff when he was done. He looked like the Abominable Snowman! Funny stuff, really. All this to say...Thanks Jeff for being such a great husband and worker to build our house! You're doing awesome!

THANK-YOU! THANK-YOU! THANK-YOU!!!!!!!!!!!

Boy do I hope that I don't forget someone here. There's been so many people lend us their hands over the past few weeks! What a blessing you have been!



Ricky Kay-the best second mother there is!

Tish-the best first mother there is!

Stacy-my sis

Dorothy-sorry for making you sweat like that grandma!

Mike and Kristy-you're terrific neighbors, glad we're not moving out of the neighborhood.

Bill-thanks for all the encouragement and help with the stuff Jeff doesn't know about!

Kevin and Jerry-the concrete looks great, I'll get pictures up here one of these days.

The Petty chicks! (Vennia, Holly, Maria)-the fastest painters I know! That would not have gotten done without you!



If I forgot to mention you, please send me a note and you'll get you're own blog post!

Where were we? And Where are we going?

Hello all. Quite a bit has been happening since we last talked. Let's see if I can get us up to speed. The drywall is all hung and finished, and PAINTED!

Here's the dining room in a dark brown.

Here's the living room in a tan. (same color as the hall, stairwell, two front bedrooms, and master bath.



Yeah, Here's me in the master bedroom covered in paint. Just call me Grace.



The water lines and power lines have been buried with only some hooking up at the house left to do before we are ready to go with those.

Our neighbor Mike helped a lot with getting the water and power lines buried. Then he got to use his 4-wheeler to cover up the trenches. (Which only further confirms my theory that boys never grow out of playing in the dirt.)
Bill helped Jeff get the power box ready to go!



Well, I guess that about covers it in a nutshell. Things are progressing along little by little. If all goes well, we could move in at the end of October. Let's pray to that end! I'm really getting ready to be done with this project!

GLORY, GLORY, HALLELUJAH!

Sing it now! ok, just kidding about the singing. But seriously, I was doing some rejoicing, Praise the Lord, happy dance when we finally got the West side of the house done. This is the part where Jeff is teetering on the 3rd section of scaffolding and then climbing out onto a ladder and back to work. I'm so glad it is done, no more climbing to scary places! Mom Tish is especially glad for her kids' sake. :) Here's the pic of this part of the house looking all spiffy and nice and DONE!

No longer Naked

Check it out! I'm starting to get caught up here! Jeff took a week off to start the siding. Wow, what a chore and we aren't even done yet. It was quite a process of getting the soffit and Facia (SP?) on. We did that for a couple days, non-consecutive. Then there was the actual siding. I liked this part better. It's prettier and goes faster! A great THANK-YOU to Tim and Jim for their assistance during this week. We basically worked from the time we got up, to dark.

Some people are asking if I'm ready for school to start back up, well, yes and NO! I might get a brief reprieve from the manual labor, but then it's right back to it once I get home. And let me tell ya, dealing with kids all day is like torturing device from "The Princess Bride". You know, the one that sucks the life right out of you until you get a major dose of chocolate from the wizard. ;)

Anyways, while we were on the outside, the drywall folks were on the inside. So the house is looking a lot more like a house, inside and out. Here's the pics.Front view Walk-out view

Living room as seen from kitchenMaster Bedroom

SERIOUS Yardwork

Let me just say that boys must LOVE to play in the dirt. Some more than others. It certainly didn't take any explaining whatsoever for my nephew (5) to learn to love playing in the dirt and mud. When Stacy's house was under construction, Nathaniel was all about playing in the mud. I think he went through at least 2 pairs of mud boots. And not just growing out of them, he wore the suckers out! Ok, ok, all that to say that the only difference between Nathaniel and Mark, out excavator, is the size of the toys. Here are some before and after pics of the yard and one shot of the Earth Mover that was used to create the masterpiece.

Here's looking out the basement doorway.(Before)



Looking out the basement again, after some dirt was moved.



Front part of the house BEFORE.


Looking toward Walnut Hill Rd from garage side, AFTER



I bet this guy had lots of Tonka trucks as a kid, now look at him go!

Getting Ready!

Lots of stuff has been going on. It's going to take a couple of posts here to catch you all up. Please be patient, as we are on dial-up still (I often put off this task because it takes so long).

Jeff spent many hours working on plumbing. That's not exactly his area of expertise, so he called in Bill. Thanks so much, Bill, for all the help with the plumbing! You can see Jeff and Bill working in the basement. It's really nice to reach everything like this! There's also a picture of some sink pipes in the master bath.

While all this was going on, the drywall was delivered. That makes you think that we will have walls someday! It's all very exciting! And very laborious! Check back soon for more updates.

Don't you LOVE that Warm and Fuzzy feeling?

Like your favorite cozy blanket, or a Kerri Afghan! (That's a Keele family insider) Well, I can't say it feels like that...yet. But we have some insulation that will help us feel cozy all year long! This was done by someone else with fancy equipment and it was done in a day. :) I like those jobs.

The other day, I was putting insulation in the garage. It was a really nice day, especially for July, but I was still covered in tiny, invisible fiberglass fibers. Not a good feeling. I've got a little left to go on the garage and then I'll have to do the basement once it has walls.

PS. Here's the porch area with the front door on. And a belated thanks to Becky for helping caulk!