Oh boy... Here we go again!!!

Well... Remember in my last post I had mentioned we wanted to be 100% finished this house by mid-May? There's a perfectly good reason for that... We're doing it all over again!

That's right, we're building another house.

Are we crazy?! I think so!

We love this house. We love Lucan. We love our property. But we don't love the distance between the girls' school and home. So we want to move closer. Right now we're about 25 minutes door-to-door. The drive to and from school isn't bad. The issue is when the girls have activities after school, but not until 5:30 or 6:00pm. We don't have time to come home in between and we end up just killing time in the car... for hours! And I don't know how we'd even deal with the distance when one is in high school and the other one is still in elementary school with two different start times. We hadn't really thought all of this through unfortunately. 

So after LOTS of thought and lots of tears, we've decided to sell our pride and joy. 

The first few weeks after our decision didn't feel real, but now that we've posted our house for sale on Facebook and people are coming through it, it has started to sink in. I know we're making the smartest decision for our family, but it's going to be really hard to leave this place. I thought of every square inch of this house in great detail and spent so much time and energy on planning our perfect home. 

I'm sure the next family that moves in here will enjoy everything there is to offer, so that makes it sting a little less. 

When I start feeling sad about selling our house, I try to think ahead of yet another amazing country property. Except this one is way closer to school!

 

 

Here we are... nervous and excited smiles!

I'll fill you in on more, once we know more! We're still working on floor plans and site plans and we're actually excited to do this all over again!

Quick Update!

I have been seriously slacking on blog posts lately. We've been frantically trying to tie up loose ends so we can officially move in on Friday!!!  I thought this day would never come!

So what's been happening?

1) We have doors! They took a little longer to install because most of our rough openings were just a hair too small. Great... Oh and our pocket doors were also framed incorrectly so we (by we I mean Dave - our finish carpenter) had to remove drywall, cut studs, change the pocket door frame and repair so we could repaint. Nightmare. 

2) We have trim! It's not 100% done yet but it will be by Thursday!

3) We've started finishing our stairs. It took me a few days to get the GIANT staples out that were holding down some protective plywood. It mostly took me so long because I was frustrated that anyone would intentionally use such an annoying method of securing plywood. I dented a couple stairs trying to get them out too. 

Any that I gave up on got covered in tape and left for another day! 

We conditioned and stained every other stair so we could still get up and down. That was a recommendation from my sister and it was great!

The risers will be black and the stringers will be white. Eventually...

4) The man we bought the barnboard from dropped off some goodies for our house! They came out of century old barns just like our floors... I can't wait to decorate!

There are spade hinges, a door latch, a pulley and a cart thingy. Technical term :)

5) OUR KITCHEN!! It's soooooo close to being completely done. I am SO in love. Don't mind the mess... We have cleaners scheduled for Thursday morning. I just can't clean up construction mess anymore. I've been doing it since October!

6) Our bathroom is taking shape too! The plumber is coming tomorrow to install the sinks and toilet. 

7) Our walk in coset is a work in progress! It took me pretty much an entire day to put it all together and figure out the best design and use of space. I  am quite happy with how it turned out. 

See that gap behind the shelving? I didn't like it... So I cut a piece of pine around the baseboard and am going to paint it white and attach it to the side. I think it will make a huge improvement. 

On the wall straight ahead will be a little white 3 drawer Ikea dresser and above it I'm going to hang a large cork board. I want to hang jewelry from it and also tac up any important piece of paper to avoid clutter! 

On Friday we have two 8'x8'x20' shipping containers full of 2 households of our stuff... Time to unpack and prepare for the worlds largest garage sale! Jake has had his stuff in storage since July! He can't even remember what he has. The girls are dying for all of their stuff and I can't wait for the day when I can stop saying, "it's in storage"! 

Wish us luck!

Stress and Siding... Not related.

What should I start with? Stress? Might as well... Because it will likely be throughout this post anyway!

Things are starting to get really stressful as we near the end. If I thought it was stressful before, I had no idea what I was heading into! 

Our drywall is all hung and the taper worked all weekend and is almost finished as well. The house is really starting to look good! (Trying to maintain a positive attitude :) )

When we decided to build this house ourselves, we never really thought about all the little things we'd actually end up doing BY ourselves.  When it came time to hanging drywall, there were all these little spots that needed blocking and strapping so they had something to actually attach the drywall to. Our framer had done a pretty good job of getting most spots, but not all of them. So we attempted to do things on our own. Keep in mind, we work the exact same schedule, and it's the WORST possible schedule for accomplishing anything. 

We had to work on these small projects between our 3 night shifts with little sleep, little patience, little skills and lots of grumpiness. 

We didn't get it all done. So areas were drywalled, and yesterday was spent taking the drywall down in these areas... Ugh. Thankfully it's just the garage that we didn't get time to finish, but it still annoys the hell out of me that we didn't get it done. So now, we are going to have to buy new drywall, hang it ourselves, tape and mud it ourselves. After paying for professionals. But not before we add more support for the garage door brackets behind the drywalled areas. And hopefully we get this done before our garage doors arrive this week. Oh have I mentioned that our schedule this week is days Monday and Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday we're off (but I have the girls so I can only be available between 9:30-3) and then we work Friday, Saturday and Sunday days followed by Monday and Tuesday nights. Right. Plenty of time. 

Have I also mentioned that my house has now sold and we need to be out of here by February 11th? So add packing/storing an entire house in that schedule too. $&@!#!!!!! If you see me, and I have no hair, it's because I pulled it all out. That could be true about my eyelashes too... They seem to be the first to go when I'm stressed. 

We are also painting our new house during this time. That should only take a few hours, right? It's about all I've got left, once I give up sleeping and eating for 3 weeks. Annnnnd I should probably move onto siding now, because I'm getting chest pain thinking about everything that has to happen with no time to do it in! 

Siding... It's up! Not all of it, but I'd say 1/3 of it. And I LOVE it!! 

We are using James Hardie fiber cement siding. The body of the house is called Iron Gray. I know what you're thinking, it should be called Iron Blue! I agree, but I love it all the same :)

The trim around the windows and doors is also James Hardie and it's called Cobblestone. I am so happy we went with it over a stark white. 

I have no idea when they plan on being finished with the siding. They're super nice (and funny) guys. But they don't move very quickly! It's also been bitter cold most days so I don't blame them. They've been at the soffits, fascia and siding for 2 weeks now... at this rate they should be done around May 2-4. ;)

I guess I should get off my butt and start packing... I've taken all the pictures off of my walls, but that's about it! Maybe I should get a job with the siding guys! My hours would be better...