Almost there....

Well we are days away from moving... hard to believe!!! Miles was out to the house at midnight-ish last night helping Scott (neighbour) template the granite & took a few pictures for me while he was out there! It's looking very yellow! We were going to go with a yellow similar to what we have now but it has turned out to be quite a bit darker - it does look better in the daylight though :) Hardwood started going in yesterday, most of the lights are in, granite should be in on the weekend... LOTS is going on on Tuesday - it will be an insane day of deliveries and hook ups & getting settled and I'm sure the list goes on!!! The movers will come here Saturday morning to load up. They will probably deliver some of the garage stuff etc and then the remainder will stay on the truck until Tuesday afternoon, when we can hopefully get into the house! Looks like we will be motel-ing it on Monday night - maybe Tuesday too?!

Laundry room - Boghemp green

Basement getting framed

Mechanical room

Upstairs (with back to the master bedroom) looking at the linen closet (left), Ethan's room & boys bathroom. Across from closet is the laundry room & to the left is the bonus room. On the right hall, there is Jackson/Liam's room and Cole's room! Make sense?

Master bedroom - I'm hoping my colour scheme comes together as envisioned! Should be interesting!!! The walls are Pinesap green :)

The bonus room cabinets - fireplace below & tv above (Mommia brown)

Walnut hardwood

Chablis yellow!!!! It's all coming together with the lights, flooring etc...

Paint

It's painting weekend!!!! YAY! It's very exciting to see colour on the walls - it's coming to life! Still no camera but I asked my hubby to take a couple pics on his phone so maybe I'll have something more exciting to post later!? (Note: the pics weren't worth posting!)

The hardwood still hasn't shown up which is extremely maddening because it is supposed to get installed on Monday and needs to climatize to the house temperature! Was supposed to be there by Wednesday.... of course the distributor is closed today so Miles called the builder @ home to see what's going on...

Pictures!!!

Since I was going to Jackson's class today, to make gingerbread houses and also wanted to show some house updates, my neighbour graciously lent me her camera for a couple hours! When I popped in this afternoon, the guys were filling the nail holes on the casings, getting ready to paint tomorrow! There's a few glitches to fix with some of the cabinet doors/drawers but I'm really happy with the colours etc. My kitchen is so much bigger than what I'm used to! We were also REALLY pleased with our finishing carpenter! Yay for Bob & a job well done :) Most of the duct/tin work is done in the basement & we're ready for the framer to come back. Then it'll be plumbing & electrical & we should soon be on the way to drywalling the basement! So much to do & think about... so little time before moving day! Does my mother want to fly out for a "visit"??? hint hint :)

The raised eating bar - espresso in colour

Staircase (to be stained espresso with metal spindles)

Master bathroom

Boys' bathroom (the electricians had to move the lights over a smidge, so that hole needs to be patched up)

Mudroom lockers!!!! YAY! The second shelf down is going to have three hooks on it & is moveable, as the boys grow! Each boy will have their own section & then opposite of that is one of sorts for us! I love them!!! This is one of my favourite features :)

Living room - will be stained espresso

Kitchen... waiting for floors & counters :)

Cabinets...

Things are really starting to look great out at the house. Our cabinets were installed this weekend - a few minor (yet time consuming) glitches but they look great & I'm loving the colours! Our finishing guys are busy working on the mudroom lockers, the staircase railings and the cabinets surrounding the fireplaces. Can't wait to see everything painted white or stained espresso :)

Flooring should be started by the end of the week and I guess the walls need to be painted in there sometime too.

We had picked out our furniture & appliances way back on my birthday (March) and it was all ordered in July & now sits in the warehouse. We assumed that the appliances were ordered at the same time but being that it was a different salesperson in that dept., we really started doubting this week! Good thing I called today cuz they had not been ordered! The washer/dryer are in stock and the kitchen stuff should be able to get here on time...

Casings & doors

Things with the house are slowly moving along. Looks like our possession date will be around the 19-20 of December. I have the movers scheduled to arrive at 9am on Saturday the 20th. We were also able to change this possession date with the new owners & we now don't have to be out of our current home until the 22nd - a huge relief since moving to a motel for just one week (before Christmas) was going to be bordering chaotic! Yesterday, I did 'expressaddress' and was able to change a bunch of addresses as well as schedule the disconnects and reconnects for a few utility services - power, energy, sewer/water, health, drivers licences. There will be other things I need to take care of but this was a big start! I haven't really started too much packing but I have a friend moving tomorrow and she is giving me a bunch of boxes and my neighbours have also set a bunch aside for us! It all helps :)

As for our new pad... they have primed the walls and then are now in the process of doing the casings and hanging doors. If it were me, I would paint before putting on the trim cuz that sounds like a whole bunch of extra pointless 'cutting in' to me but whatever works I guess! Our cabinets are apparently arriving in town today and can be installed sometime this week too, so that's exciting! It's all coming together - slowly but surely. I'm really looking forward to getting settled, since I haven't really felt that way all year... we did some extra stuff to get the house ready to sell (fence, touch-ups etc), then we de-cluttered and got a storage unit, then everything needs to stay somewhat clean while we try to sell (about 3 1/2 months) and so I'm just really looking forward to HOME!!! There will still be lots that needs doing but it will be fun to chip away at it and see the progress!

We are also working on the basement right now & hoping to get it past the drywall dust phase before moving it! Miles & I will probably paint it ourselves, once we are moved in.

My digital camera was left on the plane, coming home from Mexico and hasn't surfaced, so sorry about not adding any pictures! I am in the process of applying for an insurance claim, so I'll hopefully get a few $$'s to put towards a new one. I am hugely blessed that all but one day's worth of pictures were downloaded on to the laptop, so I'm not stressing about my pictures - can you imagine!? I also took the 35 mm 'film' camera with us so I have four rolls in for developing now too!

mud, mud and more mud :)

Well the past few days we've had sunshine and then rain... which freezes. Then the sunshine melts it all and makes mud and then it rains a bit more and then you get more mud and on and on it goes...... BUT the best kind of mud that we have going on today is DRYWALL MUD! Whoo hoo! They'll be at that probably for the better part of next week and then they'll start painting, lights, floors, finishing touches & move! Sounds easy hey? I asked our two site manager type guys if December 19th was a realistic possession date & they thought so.. guess we'll soon find out!

Wowie....

You can imagine our surprise when we popped out to the house today & found out that the top two floors were completely boarded and the basement was starting to be framed... YAY! Also, the conditions were removed on our current house yesterday, so we are now awaiting a SOLD sign! Double YAY! :)

For some reason, Liam was very attracted to all the drywall dust...

The gables looking MUCH better than last week!

Front entrance (with construction door)

Laundry room

Looking down the staircase (obviously still in need of railings)

Staircase from upstairs

J&L's room

Boys' bathroom - it will have a double sink

Basement - floor poured & exterior walls being framed

Looking up the stairs - these two levels will have metal spindle railings

Living room

Garage

Wednesday

By 9am this morning, I knew it was a good day... we have an offer on the house and our basement floor was poured! Hope you're having a great day too :)

Here you can see that they fixed the crosspiece in the gables & have patched the 'hole'

Tuesday...

Miles got called to work early this morning, so I had to drive Ethan out to school and stopped by the house on the way home... it was full of (working) people so that's a good sign. Water pipes were going in etc. But there was a van full of guys, taking their wheelbarrows & boots etc out of the basement and LEAVING! I asked, "aren't you pouring the basement today" - and they said no, they were just doing as they were told by their boss and they were told to take everything and leave. Then 'Mark' came over & introduced himself and said that between him and 'Jack' they were basically overseeing things now (for our builder) and were making sure that things were going to stay on schedule. Apparently he 'pulled' this concrete company OFF the job and is bringing in someone else... later today or first thing in the morning. I have no idea what the story is there but I'm sure it's a doozy, considering it's taken four weeks to pour the basement so far!!!

House For Sale update....
Saturday: showing at 1pm - people were there for almost an hour (my neighbour informed me) and are very interested. Going to get financing approved this week and hoping to make an offer.
Monday: showing at 1pm - people were here for one hour (I watched from across the street!) and are talking about making an offer. Even inquired as to what our power/energy bills were per month.
Tuesday: showing at 1:30pm and another at 6pm.... I'll let you know :)

Mystery solved

So... my hubby is out at the new house this morning, as I type (and talking to someone out there)... and here is what we found out:

* The hole cut in the house was to bring the DRYWALL in, only it wasn't supposed to be there yet and was going to be done neater/differently by this guy, Mark, that Miles is talking to right now.
* The plastic ripped in the bonus room was going to be another entrance point option but obviously when they pulled it all apart, they noticed the wiring, so had to move to plan 'B'. Very interesting.... so I guess only the windows are vandalism and the rest is builder approved! Crazyness - has anyone else seen this done??????????

Where do I start????

UPDATE: see post above for an explanation - it's apparently not as bad as it originally seemed but we just hadn't heard of them doing this before. A short cut I guess?!

Today, we took a drive out to the new house, so that we could walk around together without all the construction crews being there... we were quite surprised to see that we had been the victims of some ridiculous vandalism. How some people can stoop this low is just beyond comprehension. Why??!! First of all, I noticed a big hole cut in the master bedroom wall, beside the window and insulation was showing. Then Miles told me that the bonus room window had been broken last week because a beer bottle had been thrown at it. Also... because they have taken one of the basement windows out to pour the concrete floor (still not done), it's been sitting outside for close to four weeks and finally got kicked in - I'm not surprised. Then, in the bonus room, someone has taken the vapour barrier and ripped it... at least it's not our problem and sadly enough I'm sure the builders have to deal with this kind of garbage more often that they care to but really people...
On a postive note, we met one of our new neighbours! They have three little girls, a four year old and two-year old twins :)

Basement window smashed

Bonus room window smashed

Vapour barrier ripped *NOTE: we found out the next day that this was the first place they were going to bring the drywall through BUT ran into wiring

Hole in wall from inside, with insulation pulled back...

Hole from the outside... *NOTE: the next day we found out that this was a deliberate work-related 'cut' and used to get the drywall into the house

Last week, they started insulating and also started putting up the soffits and facia. It's looking great but I was a bit concerned that they hadn't put up the two decorative cross pieces in the peaks of the gables yet, so I called the builder and mentioned it. I wasn't sure if they went on before or after the trim and didn't want to be told, "it's too late".... so on October 30th, after picking the kids up from school, I drove by the house to find out that they had put up the cross pieces, only they couldn't be more WRONG! I took a picture of what had been done and then drove by our 'inspiration house' and took a picture of it AND THEN drove straight to the builder and said, "look - this is what you DID... and this is what it is SUPPOSED to be!!!" He got the file and blamed it on being a one dimensional drawing and that there should have been a 3-D picture with it... LOOK IN THE FILE BUDDY! It's been there since about day three!

INSULATION!!!!

The inspiration house... what it should be like!!!

Our house - they put them on the side of the house!?

Nothing new....

Well our 'possession date' of October 15th has come and gone! Miles did the electrical walk-through on Friday; my new kitchen window arrived yesterday (the original was too high & not at all useful for watching the boys in the yard - the new one is perfect and I'm glad I said something because I kept teetering with 'to accept or not to accept'); and lastly, the electronics guys were there yesterday, roughing in the speakers etc!

Still no basement floor but I'm guessing now that they have to get the furnance going since the temperatures are dropping....... and due to the recent snow and rain, everything is MUD MUD MUD!

Some pics

Updates without pictures just aren't the same (in my opinion anyways), so here's a few I took today, after picking the boys up from school. After yesterdays RAIN the roads were complete MUD and I was sure that I might have to do some 4X4-ing to get outta there. Hubby probably won't be too impressed because we just washed the truck two days ago :)

Main floor fireplace framed in

Bonus room fireplace framed in

Master ensuite

All ready to pour the basement... BUT didn't happen today either?! Hmmm...

"Wrapping' the house with plastic & wire! Whoohoo :)

What's Up?!?

If you've been wondering what's going on with the house... here's a little update: we were out there today and were pleased to see that both fireplaces were framed in, plumbing and electrical are in progress, bathtubs are in place, the chute is in place (through the basement window) to pour the basement floor... just to name a few! Nothing's changed on the exterior though. The delay is a little frustrating because we are seeing houses that were signed a year after us (and the possession date of months after us) already way past us... they've had their 'electrical walk-through' and the exterior rock work completed. Argh! We're thinking it's because they still have an agent working for them and we are now dealing with the owner, since our 'guy' left for another company...

Plumbing etc.

On Thursday morning, I met with the plumbing and heating place to go over all our choices and confirm the go ahead. Liam and Cole came with and Liam was very intrigued with all the taps, toilets and tubs... that afternoon when we stopped by the house, we saw that the plumbing has been started!!! It continued to move along on Friday and they are projecting that the basement will be poured by next Wednesday or Thursday!

Liam using his 'perch' to enjoy a snack :)

The shingles are complete!!!

{Shingles}

Well it's definitely exciting to see the shingles going on - feels a bit more 'realistic' now! The plumber also called saying that they were ready to start pretty quick but wanted to meet with us first, so we have an appointment there on Thursday morning. Last night I picked out the vanity (Home Depot) that I wanted for the little 1/2 bath on the main floor, instead of a pedestal sink and today I decided on the spindles for the (interior) railing... so the final little details are coming together. We still desperately need to sell our current home though, so it is almost a good thing right now that the new house will be delayed! It's hard not to start feeling a bit anxious about it all!

Doors, windows...

It's been a slow week on the homefront... still have a house FOR SALE and not a whole lot going on with the new house! They've added in the rest of the windows and doors, finished sheeting the roof and are currently working on the deck. Do you like my red door? We had it sprayed at an autobody shop and we used the FORD 'red' colour (G2 I think the code is). I think it looks great but the only disappointment is the silicone part around the side panel is peeling off a bit (the paint) - it obviously doesn't adhere to the silicone but not sure what I should do???? It is noticeable but I can't un-install the door at this point... suggestions?

Zoomin' in on the red door & deck...

The back with all it's windows & door