Week 6

On Monday they came to put up the forms for the safe room walls and pour the concrete.

The skid steer driver would drive over to the concrete truck, the guy beside the concrete truck would fill the bucket, the skid steer guy would drive back over tho the forms, lift up the bucket and the guy balancing on top of the forms (seriously) would scrape it out into the forms.  It all seemed a little unsafe to me. :)

Framing was supposed to be the middle to end of this week, but the framing guys are a little behind and still on another job, so they'll start next week.  I'm really looking forward to seeing some "walls" go up. :).  The wood is all stacked and ready to go-

In other news, I purchased my first light fixture. It's for my very girly closet/dressing area.  (You're either going to think I'm crazy or you can see my vision... I have found the reaction to it is quite polarizing - everyone I've shown it to says one of the following: "I love it!!" or "Oh! Well, my goodness." Ha!)  :)  I saw it a few months ago and continually kept going back to it, so once it went on sale, I knew that was the sign that it was time to buy.  Anyhoo, here it is...

As you can imagine, Brian LOVES it. :)

Update:  The county came and put the culvert in for our new driveway (it's just moving further down the road a bit). I didn't realize it, but the trees had already been cleared and we have the most beautiful entry to our property now!  I am SO excited!!

Week 5 Wrap Up

Well, I'm still fighting a sinus infection, but the house is coming right along. :)  Brian bought a really cool camera called a Project Recording camera.  It's very similar to a game camera - it's strapped it to a tree but he's set it to take a picture every 10 minutes from 7am to 7pm.  Then we'll have all these pictures that will make a little time lapse movie of the house going up. I think it'll be cool to see the progression.  The last step before foundation was the electrical, so last weekend they came and put the pipe in for the plug in the floor in the living room and the electrical to the kitchen island. 

Early Wednesday morning, I woke up to the sound of trucks barreling down the driveway.  It was almost the time for my alarm to go off anyway, so got up, made some coffee and looked out the back and we had 5 cement trucks out pouring the foundation.  With flood lights and everything. These guys don't mess around. I took this picture out my kitchen window - it was 39 degrees that morning (spring in Texas is just schizophrenic.)   

I made copies at the school and ate lunch with Hudson then came back home to take some pictures.   

On our porches, we decided to dye and stamp the concrete to look like wood.  You can see in the next couple of pictures how the porch is a different color than the house foundation.  Brian picked out 2 colors of brown - the lighter color is what they dyed the concrete with and the darker color is the powder that they were scattering on top before they stamped it.  (I know it looks even lighter than the porch, but it's still dry.  Brian assured me that it was the darker color. :) )  Scattering the dye on top and then stamping the concrete would help push some of the darker down into the "wood grooves" helping to give it a real wood look by adding in more color variation.  

I tell you what... these concrete guys work HARD.  Not only did they work for hours with minimal breaks, but the work itself is back-breaking - bent over or on their hands and knees most of the time.  It makes me want to take back most of the times I said I was tired. :)

 Here is the slab after I picked up the boys from school and took them down to see it.

A close up picture of the porch.

After the porches are totally cured, they will need to be pressure washed.  That's where the magic happens - depending on how much you pressure wash it, it will take off the top layer of dye, therefore causing the color variations.  Shorty, our concrete guy (seriously that's what everybody calls him) said that he would do it or Brian could if he wanted.  Brian said he would because we want a weathered look and he knew he could get what he was going for easier than trying to tell someone else what he wanted. He also said this way if he messes it up, he has no one to blame but himself. :)  I know he'll do a great job though.  On Thursday, it was overcast and sprinkled little late in the day.  I got up in the night and could hear it actually raining a little, so I was anxious to see if you could tell more about the porches with the rain washing off the dye. Uh, no... It just looked splotchy. :)

Next we'll have the safe room walls poured and I think framing isn't too far behind. Yippee!

Week 4

Sorry for the lack of update... we've had a few things going on, but not a whole lot that's been picture worthy and I've been sick for a week, so there's that.  Boo. :( 

What has been going on...

 we had the trees trimmed.  A team of people spent 4 days out here trimming off all the dead and dying branches.  We'd like these big 'ol trees to last a long time - they were one of the main reasons we loved this property so much- and I think having them trimmed correctly will help.  Anyway, I found and uploaded some pictures from 2011 so I would have a before picture. This is the view that will be from our front porch towards the tank... here is the before:

This is the after.

 This is the view that will be from our back porch.  This is the before:

 This is the after.  It's not from the same angle, but you can tell how the tree are trimmed up higher. So pretty!

All the pre-foundation plumbing that has been done...

and they came out and put the plastic and rebar down.  You can really tell a lot more about where the porches and rooms are.  This tall rebar is our safe room/gun safe.  Since we weren't going to build a basement, I wanted somewhere to go in case of a tornado.  All the walls will be concrete and it's pretty much big enough for the 4 of us to sit and that's about it. It also needed to serve a daily purpose, so Brian is going to use it as a gun safe.

Hudson sitting by his room...

and Reed by his.

From this vantage point all the way back is our master bedroom, bathroom and closets.  I'm super excited.

This is a picture of the progress I am making...

Uh... progress there, you just can't see it. I am in the process of figuring out all the cabinetry - where to put trash pull outs, any specialty stuff and where I want it... Which is really hard I will say. You have to imagine living and working in a floor plan that doesn't yet actually exist and try to figure out the most practical place for everything. It's a little overwhelming.   I've also started to look at light fixtures so we know how to do wiring - sconces or vanity lights in bathrooms?  One or two lights over kitchen island? Lots of decisions, lots of fun!