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.  

ELECTRICITY!!!

A crane came Monday morning and set the trusses on the second story for installation later.  Lee our framer called to say the crane guy had a small opening that morning.  I quick went to school and picked up all three kids.  Unfortunately, we missed the crane, but we had lunch together at our house.   

I don't even want to know how Pete took this picture.  

The trench with gas and electric!

Getting power to our house was no easy task.  We started working with Consumers Energy in May trying to make sure we had power onsite for the framers.  Well, the first guy that gave us the quote no longer works for Consumers and the information we received about bringing power back 650 ft. was incorrect.  So, to make a long story short, it took way longer and way more $$$ to get the gas and electric to our site.  Our framer has framed this entire house thus far off a generator.  The last I knew it was costing us approximately $75 per week in gas to run the generator.  I didn't budget that in!  

They had to bring a primary power-line down our driveway and into this tranformer  box.  I wanted to be on site when they set the box to insure it was hidden behind this pine tree.  Tomorrow, our framer should be able to plug into the outlet in the garage!!!

I stopped on Centre Street and took this picture.  

Look what the excavator dug up!

Here is Lee, Jacob 

and Jerry up very high!

I get sick to my stomach just watching them way up there!  I wonder if Lee is wishing he never took this job?

The Framing Continues...

This was Wednesday's progress!  Almost all of the upstairs was framed in.  

The house is set on an angle with the best view facing the corner of our property and the neighbors very LARGE farm.  We saw coyote running through the farm yesterday when we looked out our master bedroom window.

When I arrived at the jobsite on Thursday afternoon they were setting the trusses on the roof of the garage.   

Last night we had dinner in the "SOMEDAY" Great Room! It was such a fun night!  When we pulled in my former boss from National City Bank was there checking out our job.  He helped encourage us to be our own general contractor.  He told me if I could build a bank branch I could "project manage" the building of our own home.  We are very fortunate to  know so many people in the construction trade that can help guide us when we need it.

Our friends Scott and Leone stopped by for a quick tour and our friends the Schillaci's!  So, fun to share with our friends the progress we are making.  Stop by anytime and check things out, as Pete and I get working more on the interior stuff, we might give you a hammer or a paint brush!

Max loves his neighbor Drake!

 This is one BIG sandbox!  These little guys play for hours.  I'm so glad we have a shower off the mudroom, we might want to consider an outdoor shower soon!

 Tori and Lexy eating dinner last night!

Things move along so fast during the framing process!  I might take Max out of school for a few hours while they set roof trusses with a crane next week.  

September 11th

 This post isn't necessarily about the actual building process, but about what I learned about building a home with your heart.  Ya see, today would have been my mom's 72 birthday before cancer took her.  I think part of the reason why moving out of our home on Mackinaw Cove was so tough is because it stirred up so many memories of my mom.  I can't tell ya how many drawers I went through or boxes I moved that had a card from my mom or a special something she gave me.  

Every bit of my creativeness came directly from my mom.  I always felt like "My Mom Can Do Anything".  She made these valances with matching roller shades that hung for 11 years in our eating area and living room.  I never learned to sew because my mom was so good and I would just ask her, "would you make ________ for me?"  and the answer was always yes.  

My mom could upholster anything, 12 years ago she reupholstered this sofa for me.  She finished it right before Pete was transferred with his job to Kalamazoo. So the wing back and the sofa and the valances were all suppose to go in our 80 year old home in Grand Rapids.  With a little "Rita" magic, she changed the panels to fit our slider and altered the valances to a perfect fit.  This sofa is in sad shape, the fabric is almost worn through to the cushions.  I've taken many a nap on this couch and really don't know what I will do with it in our new house.  Thankfully my good friend Leone Kirklin is letting me store it in her basement.  There just isn't room for it at our rental.  The red wing back chair wasn't finished by my mom, she had started it and had it all apart when she started not feeling well.  All the fabric was off and the chair was in my parent's basement for over a year.  I remember the day when she said to me, "honey, I don't believe I'll be able to finish your chair for you, you better have someone else finish it for you."

Something else I treasure from my mom is this blanket she was making for Tori when she passed away.  This is her last stitch.  I remember many times she would be napping, wake up and finish a few stitches and fall back to sleep.  About a year after she died I took the blanket, her scissors, some embroidery floss all to Hobby Lobby.  I decided to have it placed in a shadow box.  I thought I was ready and could hold myself together while I placed the order...not so much.  I stood  in the framing department and sobbed, you know the ugly cry.  

I've decided that I will hang this blanket in my laundry room in our new home and design the room around it. September 11th means many things to Americans, but to me it's a reminder of my mom and her birthday. The crazy thing about it is, my birthday is December 7th, both dates our country was attacked.  How I wish my mom was here to be apart of this house building process with us, but I know there will be a little bit of Rita in this home too!

Ugh! I'm already behind on this blog!

We are cruising along.  A ton of pictures to follow and I hope to do a little better at keeping this updated.

  

Again, we had dinner n our "Someday Dining Room"

My friend Lindsey is our neighbor and is letting Pete store his tractor in her barn.  The kids have entertained themselves for hours driving around our property.  Now, you should see Pete mow our lawn at our rental.  He just bought a $20 electric mower off Craig's List.  I'll have to take a picture and post it because it's too funny not to share.

Max and I did a little color rendering of our house!  I can't seem to figure out our exterior colors.  

This is the side of our house, the bump-out is our great room.  The windows to the left is Pete's office and the windows to the right is the dining room.

The deck is on for the second floor!  

That is a little too close to the edge Mr. Hoffman!!!

Max took a picture of Pete and I!  We are sitting in our "someday" bedroom.

After dance class tonight I brought the girls over to check-out their bedrooms.  They are so excited to have their own rooms.   We have a wonderful framer, Lee McDonald.  He and his crew are doing a fabulous job and we feel very blessed to have them working on our home.  We should have walls upstairs tomorrow.   That brings us completely up-to-date, I'll try and post more pictures tomorrow night.