SHUT The Front Door!

Lee was back to install exterior doors!

 I can officially say, "Shut the front door."  Our exterior doors were installed on Saturday!  I LOVE the front door.  It is 8' tall and looks great on our beautiful front porch.  We decided to not do sidelight windows from the door company and do actual windows.  The front of the house faces south/west and we wanted to be able to get that nice west breeze.  

For the last two weeks we've had many trades working on our house.  We have been blessed by guys that do wonderful work and keep their word.  Let me tell ya a little about them...

First, we have Nieboer Heating & Cooling.  Our first meeting with them was in May or June when we were still finalizing our blueprints.  We relayed to one of the owners, Luke, what our biggest concerns were and he assured us they could handle the job.  We made a few minor changes to our house plans, one was changing an exterior wall to a 2 x 8 wall to accommodate two heat runs to the second floor.  I'm so glad we met with them early on.  

We had four guys on site working on our home.  Jason, Lee, Adam and Dan.  

Lee, Adam and Jason working on the vent for the fireplace.

The mechanicals are complete and passed inspection!  We may even have timed it just right to get Carriers new Wi-Fi heating control system.  This would enable us to download an app to our I-phones and control our heating remotely!  So cool!!!

 We hired Fawley door for our garage doors.  From the time I ordered them to the installation was a week and a half!  The day I walked into their showroom I walked right over to these beautiful barn style doors and said this is exactly what I want.  Michelle the sales lady wrote up the pricing, (of course ridiculously expensive) and I proceeded to continue looking.  This was before I realized the oops with the tray ceiling, so  I ended up with a very basic door under my budget so I could afford the tray.  I have no doubt I made the correct decision.  

We still have hardware to install on the doors.  

This is Andy and in that cardboard is garage door parts.

Mike Deleeuw of Deleeuw Plumbing is our plumbing contractor.  I think I've only driven Mike and his guy Jon slightly crazy!  First, I should have ordered my shower/tubs earlier.  Rookie mistake!  This week I watched them cut out a few wall studs to get the tubs in.   Second, I forgot to mention an additional dishwasher.  And third, we had a shower unit missing in action.  It was suppose to arrive on Thursday.  Of course I didn't go over to the house on Thursday and when Pete did go at 10 pm at night the (unnamed) plumbing supply company wasn't open to inquire on the whereabouts of our shower unit.  I assumed they said Thursday, it would be there Thursday, and no one contacted me to inform me different.  I called first thing Friday morning only to find out they weren't sure when it would be delivered.  This was frustrating because Jon from Deleeuw was at our house ready to install the shower.  I'm not sure why no one called to inform us of the delay when we had been told Thursday.  

This did not go over well with Pete.  He just happened to be leaving a sales call right by the unnamed plumbing supply company and paid them a visit.  Wouldn't ya know it they placed the shower unit on a truck in Grand Rapids and drove it down to our jobsite.  We had it by 1:15pm on Friday.  

Jon is on the left and Mike is on the right!

They should be finishing everything up and I'm hoping for a plumbing inspection on Tuesday!

That's Max's tub going up the stairs.  

 Our electricical contractor is JR Electric.  Jesse is the owner and has been working late many nights to get our job finished.  He has a big commercial job he is working on and owns Jaspares Pizza on Gull Road.  He is one busy guy!

 A few weeks ago we spent about 2 hours going through the house to discuss outlets, switches and lighting.  I appreciate his level of detail.  He was patient with me as I walked from our master bedroom trying to figure out what lights I would want on as I made my way to the coffee pot!

So, tons has happened in the past two weeks.  Again, many people worked hard to get us a few big steps closer to our dream.   We are hopeful to pass all inspections and start insulation at the end of this week.  I'm just excited to say, "Shut the Front Door!!!"

Once Upon A Time

Once Upon A Time... A girl with really big hair... 

Met a boy with a mullet...

they fell in love and lived happily every after!

The End!

Well, that isn't exactly how the story goes.  I thought since today is our

  19th wedding anniversary, I would explain a bit about our house building journey and how it started 22 years ago.

 I was Western Michigan Universities student coordinator for Habitat For Humanity.  It was my job to coordinate different campus groups to work on the WMU Habitat house.  I loved this job, and became very close to the family we were building the home for.  The only problem was getting college students to show-up on Saturday mornings to work.  

That fall I had a buildings codes class, which was a mixture of interior design majors and construction management majors.  This cute boy spoke to our class and invited us to join the "Collegiate Construction Association".  I had no intent on joining this association, but thought these are the students I needed working for Habitat.  I went to their next meeting and asked for volunteers for Habitat For Humanity.  The same cute boy came up to me after the meeting and said he was VERY interested in getting their group involved and could he have my phone number.  I fell for it!!!

So, the interior design major started dating the construction management major.  We worked together on the Habitat House and spent many Sundays walking through Open Houses.  We attended the Parade of Homes and always talked about, someday when we build...

The first thing I ever remember Pete building for me is my SMOOCHING STEP,  I know it sounds corny.  When we were dating I lived in a really old apartment on the second floor, when he would leave, he'd always say, "Come give me a smooch on the smooching step."  The first Christmas after I moved out of that apartment he gave me a wooden smooching step that he made and told me no matter where we go in life we'll always have a smooching step.

I surprised him on our wedding day and had the step hidden under the pew.  When the pastor said, "You may now kiss the bride."  I made him wait for the kiss until my sister had the step in place.  

I'm so glad he signed the bottom of it.  

 Pete has made many things for me since the smooching step and I'm very blessed to have a guy that can build anything.  

Happy Anniversary Superman!

Quick Update From Last Week!

Last Weeks Progress...

We have a roof!  The picture below shows Steve on the left and Nate on the right.  I wish I would have gotten a better picture of them, but every time I was at the house they were on the roof.  They worked until dark many nights.   Two more great guys that worked very hard to help make our dream a reality.

 I believe we were over 55 square of shingles to get this baby a roof.  

 

The trusses for the tray were delivered and installed on Thursday!  It was interesting to watch.  Pete took a 1/2 day off work to help out. They were approximately 28' long and attached to our existing trusses.  Lee and Jerry then used a SawZall to cut out the tray.   

It's hard to tell from the picture how wonderful this is in our room.  Our ceiling fan will tuck approximately 18" up into the tray.

We also have our colored concrete front porch and rear sidewalk.  

This is the siding I chose.  The color is Hearthstone by Certainteed, next to the Sage concrete sidewalk.  

  

All windows are now officially installed.  

Lots of Ants On The Hill & Oops We Goofed

Another busy week!  Things are moving pretty fast and it's fun to post so many changes.  I know this will change soon.  Pete and I are planning on doing most of the interior finish work ourselves.  Once drywall is up we will be putting in long days trying to finish things up.  That's when I'll be posting, "We Are Painting, and  the following week, "We Are Still Painting."  

Well, on to this weeks progress...

Johnson Construction was back this week to pour the garage floor.  I TOTALLY stressed this guy out and I wish I could remember his name.  The reason why is, Pete and I wanted our garage floor to have some texture.  At our old house each of the kids wiped-out in the garage.  They would run into the garage with wet feet, hit that smooth garage floor and down they would go.  I too almost fell many times in the winter getting out of my Sequioa, it was like an ice skating rink when it was wet.  

From the first day I met the flatwork crew I kept telling them, PLEASE put a texture to the garage floor.  Jamie the supervisor told me he would put an orange peel finish on the garage floor.  The guy that worked for him thought I was crazy and he really wanted to give me a perfectly smooth troweled finish.  He was concerned that I would hate sweeping the garage floor. 

Here it is, the textured floor!

Thank you, Jamie and crew for my textured garage floor!

On Wednesday the windows were installed! 

 Notice we are missing a window...I'll get to that in a moment.

An interior shot of the windows.  We've been eating in the someday Great Room.

Our neighbor to the north is a 30+ acre grape farm.  They were harvesting the grapes on Saturday right next to us.  The grapes are all Welch's grapes, so the next time you buy jelly it could be from grapes grown by our home.

I also went for a walk and took this picture from the east property line.

Now for the oops!  We missed the tray ceiling in the master bedroom.  In our previous house we had 8ft. ceilings on the second floor, but in our master we had a tray ceiling and our ceiling fan tucked nicely into the tray.  I had mentioned to Pete that I wanted to do this again but wasn't sure with the window bump-out how big I wanted it to be.  He said no problem we'll figure it out when they are framing.  Well, the roof trusses were installed and it became apparent that we messed-up on tray ceiling in the master.

This is the view as you walk into our master bedroom.  It's hard to tell from the picture, but the ceiling fan would hang down into this beautiful view.  We were both sick about it, we have poured over every detail of this house and couldn't believe we missed this.  I was ready to give up on the tray and was working on paint colors for the ceiling and crown molding to give the illusion of a taller ceiling.

Pete, that never gives up called our friend Doug at Zeeland Lumber and together they figured out how to make it work.  We have 6 trusses coming on Thursday that will slide through the large window opening and be set in place.  Once they are attached to the existing trusses they will cut the frame out of the old truss and we will have a tray ceiling.

The good news is, this wasn't very expensive to accomplish.  I decided to take the $ out of my garage door budget and go with a much more basic garage door.  I think it will be worth it.

This is basically where the tray will fall.  

The front porch and the screened porch were constructed this week too.

  

Remember the post about the missing shorts?   Well, Pete can't seem to locate some of his basic tools like his hammer and tape measure, see this post A Lot of Changes in 1 month.  I drove his car Friday night and sitting in the passenger seat was a brand new hammer and tape measure.

  I guess I'll cut Superman a little slack, he's been working pretty hard.

It's starting to look like the picture!

It's starting to look like the picture!  

Another week down and a ton of progress made.  Last Monday afternoon we had a visit from OSHA. Apparently, they don't like the lift our framer uses.  To me it appears that it makes things much safer and they can put material on the lift and take it to our very steep roof.  I also found it interesting that the OSHA rep gets a kick-back for all the fines he writes.  Of course he'll find problems at your jobsite.  What a bummer for our framer.  He's one of the good guys, doing great work and he gets fined!

Lee (our framer) needed an extra set of hands to wrap the house in Tyvek and he asked Pete if he could help.  He strapped on his tool belt and headed out to the jobsite Saturday morning.  I was thankful he could locate his tool belt.  Now, we weren't able to locate his hammer (he has at least 3) or his utility knife, but Lee had plenty to share.  They must be with his shorts...

Don't tell Lindsey that the kids went for a little ride in the lift.  

Tori and Lexy showed up late for the first ride so I hopped in the lift with the girls and Jerry.

I took this picture of Pete out our bedroom window.  He worked hard and his back is still sore today.  

The tallest part for the house, they had to stretch to get the wrap up there.

This guy has a whole new level of filth!  He spent about 5 hours on this dirt pile Saturday!

Yep, these are his socks!  Anyone have a good white sock recipe they'd like to share?

I didn't take pictures of today's progress, Tori was home sick from school today.  Tomorrow the garage floor will be poured, the windows will be delivered and they will continue to work on building the eyebrow roof.