Building a Foundation

This is just slightly delayed with me going back to teaching full-time, but here it finally is! The foundation!

This will be quick since it's already 10pm, but basically here's an overview of what's happened since the footings were poured.  After the footings cured, the builders:
1. Delivered the forms for the foundation to be poured into.

2. Set up the forms in the correct place, then poured the concrete into them.

3. Let the foundation cure with the forms still in place.

These pillars will hold up our front porch.

These forms are around the base of the garage

4. Remove the forms and continue to let the foundation cure.

This is a view from the back of the house looking towards the front of it

5. Once it's cured, spray it with a water sealant and add some drainage.

The black stuff is the sealant.

Can you see the drainage running along the foundation?

6. Let the sealant dry.

And that about wraps up where we are now.  It's been crazy hot here (heat index about 100+ for the last few days) so not much action on the house.  Plus the builders are on vacation.  We are trying to be patient, but are anxious to move on the next phase of building!  Backfilling was supposed to happen yesterday, but hasn't yet.  Hopefully soon!

Moving day, Part I (part II will be when we move into the new house!)

So yesterday (in this post yesterday refers to Thursday--that's just how long it takes me to write one post!) was a wee bit busy because, well,  we moved out of our current house, AND the foundation for the new house was poured.  Seems like the big stuff keeps happening all on the same day (like the day we broke ground AND made our selections), which is kind of stressful and exciting all at once. 

Anyway, yesterday started off perfectly fine.  The kids had a special breakfast of donuts, raspberries and milk.  Yum!

Then we got to work. We had most of our stuff ready for the movers, except we had one teeny, tiny problem.  The movers we'd reserved canceled on us 2 days before the move.  Oh, yes, you read that right--they canceled 2 days before the move. Ack! Eric scrambled around and found some movers online that he scheduled at the last minute.  However, we never really received confirmation from them so we were 50/50 on if they'd show up.  Not knowing what would happen, Eric and I loaded the moving truck we'd rented and tried to get as much on there as we could, thinking we'd take a load over before the movers (hopefully) came.

See how ready we were? Everything is waiting for those movers!

This took longer than expected, though, so we had to quick change plans and instead took over our 2 cars that we'd loaded up with our stuff so we'd be back in case the  movers showed up.  For the last couple of days, we've been bringing stuff over to the condo we're renting which helped the kids get comfortable with the new place.  Shout out here to Sue for letting us rent her condo--thanks so much!

Here's a view from the condo we're renting--nice!

Our current living room/family room/office/play room

After that, we had a quick lunch and had pretty much given up all hope of the movers coming (it was 1pm by this time). In fact, Eric and I were in the middle of deciding whether or not to put out a plea on Facebook for help when a couple of cars pulled up with the movers! Hallelujah!

They got right to work and moved all of our larger stuff, plus tons of our boxes in just 4 hours.  In the meantime, I had to run over to the condo to get the cable guy started and get Evan to a birthday party.  Luckily, my wonderful mom had taken Marea for the day so she wasn't underfoot.  Then it was back to the house to pack up more stuff in the cars and then get dinner.  At this point, I was utterly and completely exhausted and had a migraine that wouldn't go away no matter what.  Eric felt about the same.  But we kept going. More loading/unloading/packing/unpacking, etc. 

At 9pm we finally called it day.  My parents had put together the kids bunk beds (they're so excited to sleep in these!) so the little Siegers could go to sleep right away.

Eric and I still had to get our bed together, and once we did, we crashed.  Today the kids and I went back to the house to pack up some more odds and ends and to do a deep cleaning.  A huge thanks to my parents for fixing the aforementioned bunk beds (the top one had a saggy board underneath that wasn't safe), helping with the kids, and helping clean/unpack/setup over the last couple of days. Tomorrow, we still need to finish up cleaning/clearing out/mowing/etc but at least it's looking more like this at the house now.

  
Maybe because it's been 10 years since we moved, or maybe because it was so awful I blocked it out, but I don't remember moving being this stressful before.  To be honest, yesterday and today were rough.  At least I think I can see the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel--for now anyway.  Gotta do this again in 2 months when the new house is done, but trying hard not to think about that now! Be back with the foundation update soon!

Finding Our Footing(s)

Who's got footings? We've got footings! Oh, yeah, the concrete workers poured those babies today, so now the "house" (can one call it that at this stage?) looks more like this:

Eric and Evan went out to check out the lot after Evan's last session of junior golf this morning. They happened to arrive while the workers were on a break, waiting for more concrete to arrive.  So the boys were able to pop down to see the footings up close without disturbing any work.

Evan is standing at the back corner of the house in the above photo.  You can see the stake next to him that marks approximately where the house will end.

I took the kids out later in the day, after working in my classroom for a few hours.  The workers had left which gave us a really clear view of  how the house will sit on the footings.

The bumped out area you see in the forefront will be the office.  To the left of that is the front door/foyer.  The front porch will be directly in front of them, spanning the width of the front of the house.  This is feeling more real every day and our excitement builds with each  new stage of progress.

Now that the footings have been poured, they have to sit and dry.  We expect the foundation walls to be poured in the next day or two. 

Selections Part II

Yesterday was a huge day for us with making our selections for our new home as well as breaking ground.  We broke the selections stuff into 2 parts to make the posts more manageable.  Today we continue with the rest of the selections saga.

After we choose the kitchen and hardwood floor selections (see here), we made our ceramic tile choices for the mudroom, all the bathrooms, and the laundry room.  I don't have photos of most of them (we ended up with 3 different tiles for those various places), but the tile we choose for our master bath coordinates with this tile for the master shower.

This is the accent tile in the master bath so it will be only in one row at eye level in the shower.  We love the pale bluish-green hues in it, which are also reflected in floor/main shower tiles we chose. It seems so spa-like to me--the neutrals with the pale blues.  Actually, I think the name of this stone is "Spa"! Aah, the perfect way to relax after a crazy day of teaching!

One of the last things we chose was the paint colors.  We get two interior colors without having to pay extra and we can use them as much as we want anywhere in the house.  The master bath color is the tan color you see just under the tile sample in the photo above, called Bennington Gray (Benjamin Moore). Marilyn calls is a "chameleon color" as it changes so much depending on the light. 

Here's three different shots of ol' Benny Gray (it's the larger swatch in the background) and it looks different in every one--I guess Marilyn knows what she's talking about! Actually, because the color can look so different (see how it reads grayish, then taupe, then tan?), we choose this for a few rooms, hoping it will have a little different feel in each one while still keeping a similar palette throughout the house to give it a more unified feel.  This color will be in the main level powder room, the master bath (see above photo) and the master bedroom, as well as the office.

The second color choice we had actually pretty much decided on before we even arrived at Focal Point.  We saw it when we visited another house that Reilands are building, which also has the trim/cabinet color we will have, so we knew it would look fantastic.  It's Kilim Beige and is a really warm, light, inviting color, which is exactly what we were going for.  It's the smaller color in the above photos, but here's a close up.

At this point,  Marilyn left us on our own for a bit to browse carpet samples, and we got a little crazy--I think we needed a mental break:) We discovered these beauties:

Who doesn't need a tartan plaid or zebra print carpet covering their stairway or great room? Oh, that's not your style? Maybe a nice leopard or cheetah print instead?

I'm all for a little animal print as a subtle accent, but I really didn't want it covering my floor.  So then we started checking out carpet samples that were actual possibilities (no plaids or animals this time) when I quickly realized that the feel of the carpet is just as important as the look and quality.  The only way to get the feel of a carpet sample is to, well, feel it. So that's just what I did.

Except, silly me, after touching the samples with my hands (and apparently my face--not sure why I did that!), I figured it would be our feet that would need to be happy with how the carpet felt.  That explains why I started doing this instead:

I think at this point Eric was pretty embarrassed to be associated with me, but hey, I think he should be thrilled I go to such great lengths to keep our tootsies happy!  In the end, we went with this neutral toned carpet that has a 20 year guarantee (we wanted something durable).  It's the one in the lower part of the photo in front of our paint swatch.  And yes, it's very soft and cushy for our toes:)

We had a few more details to choose, like grout color, but that's not very thrilling so we won't bore you with those decisions.  Luckily, Marilyn told us we can change our minds if we'd like and we'll go back in a couple weeks for a review appointment to finalize these decisions (and there were a couple items we couldn't decide on because the samples were out, like the stone for the fireplace) that we'll wrap up at that appointment as well.  We'll choose plumbing and lighting at other times in this process, so we'll give you those updates when we get to those stages.

After we finished at Focal Point, we had a few minutes to go look at appliances.  We had to finalize our fridge selection so we popped over to Sears and looked at these in person (vs online).

This fridge wasn't really a contender until we actually opened it up and looked at it.  Wow--there's a lot of space, plus pretty lights.  Ooh, pretty lights--that's a good reason to buy a fridge, right?  Actually, we liked the door storage, the sliding tray that has flexible temperature control for different foods, and, of course, the lights:)  The freezer was the best, though, with a door that tips down for easier freezer access and easier opening.  We are 99% certain this will be the one living in our new home with us and I'm sure Eric will do this every time he uses it:)

We were happily exhausted after making all those decisions, but we really had fun with this part of making our dream come true. And then, as if that weren't enough for one day, the hole was dug out for our new home!  Eric missed it because he was golfing, but the kids and I went and they had fun running around, "touring" the house.  They asked over and over where everything is going to be and we had fun pretending we were knocking on the front door, visiting each other's bedrooms, and so on.

Standing by the front door

The kids are standing where the "back wall" of the house will be

And that brings us to the end of our selections.  What are your favorites? Do you think we should have gotten the cheetah print carpet? Kidding, kidding...

Ground Breaking News + Selections Day Part I

Hold on to your hats, people--it was quite a day! We had selections today plus we broke ground! Woot! There was way too much today to put into one post, so we'll break it into 2 more reasonably sized posts. Up first, part 1 of our selections!

This morning Eric and I left the house at 7:30 to head up to the cities for our selections meeting.  (A huge thanks to my mom for watching the kids while we were busy deciding a million, kazillion house things.) We arrived at this place at 8:15am and got started right away. I was so excited!

The fabulously talented Marilyn greeted us and assisted us throughout the whole appointment (4 hours), and we were thrilled to have her expertise and knowledge.  One of the builders, Mike, was also there to help us for the major decisions.  We started with one of the biggest decisions of all-the exterior colors.  Nothing like jumping right in! The type of siding we'll have is Hardie, which is painted, so Marilyn told us we could literally choose any color we wanted, which sounded a little daunting. Luckily, I had pinned a few ideas to my houzz ideabooks to get us started.  This is the one Eric and I liked the most and we used as our inspiration for our home on the Lane:

 

We really love how the cream trim pops with the darker siding color. This house also has siding and shakes, like ours will, and we like how they're the same color in this photo.  Plus, no other houses on our new street have this siding color, so it makes it a little more unique.  With all that in mind, we began the task of sorting through the hundreds of exterior color options.

Marilyn pretty quickly realized what we were going for and pulled out that large swatch you see in the middle.  We then started comparing it to all the other colors you see in the pic, just to see if there was anything else that caught our eye.  We really liked a similar color that was more gray, called Dolphin, but in the end, we decided to go with that color in the large swatch.  While it's a really pretty taupey-brown color, it has an awful name--Texas Leather by Benjamin Moore.  All four of us joked about who picks out the names for paint colors.  Seriously, there was Weimeriner (it's just 3 swatches away from the large one up there), Dolphin, and of course the ever-creative, Grey.  

Once we had the siding color chosen (Marilyn recommended we use the same color for the siding and shakes, which is why we ended up with just one main exterior color), we could then zero in on a trim color.  Marilyn pulled out a ring with about 200 swatches of off-white. No, really--it was about 2 inches high and the woman flipped exactly to a few she knew would look good with Texas Leather.  Pretty quickly, we decided that Navajo White (Benjamin Moore) was the perfect exterior accent color--not too yellow, or too gray, or too greenish.  With that decided, we moved on to the stone accents that will be on the columns on the front porch.

We chose the rock above because we like how the rock picks up the dark and light tones of both exterior colors we choose.  You can also see the roof swatch sitting on top of the rock sample so this is really all the exterior colors except for the front door (we're staining it to look like wood, but we'll choose that color later).  I am completely head-over-heels for this color scheme and can't wait to see it on our house!

After all that was decided, we moved on to the interior selections and the kitchen was up first.  Long ago, we'd decided we wanted white cabinets and white trim throughout the house.  However, one cannot simply just choose "white" cabinets.  Again, there were several types of white to choose from, but we ended up going with Linen White, again by Benji Moore. It's a creamier white rather than a crisp white, which we think will give the house a bit warmer, more inviting feel. Here's the pic with cabinet/trim color in the background, although this photo reads more yellowy than it is in real life.

The granite slab you see in front of the cabinet is the granite we chose for our kitchen counters.  Now, some explanation here.  We don't love this granite, but there were only about 10 options in our price range and this truly was the best one (again, it's not this yellowy in real life) for us.  Upgrading would double our granite cost and that simply isn't in the budget.  However, on a positive note, we both like this okay--we just don't love it. And, Mike told us that granites can have a lot of color variation and we can actually go choose the slab of granite that will be in our house.  We like that idea because then we can choose a slab that has less yellowy undertones and more brownish ones, if that makes sense. Also, we talked about adding a backsplash tile, but based on Marilyn's recommendation to wait, we'll be installing that after we've lived in the kitchen for a few months.

The other sample in the above photo (besides the granite and the cabinets) is the hardwood flooring, which will be in the kitchen, and other places on the main level. Originally, we leaned towards a darker wood floor, like in this Houzz inspiration photo I marked.

Reilands had let us take home these flooring samples last week, so we stared at these all week and had narrowed it down to a couple of options. We also spoke with a few people who have really dark wood floors and generally heard the same thing from most of them.  The floors are pretty but every speck of dirt shows up on them so you have to be meticulous in cleaning (so not me!), plus they're harder to fix if they get scratched.

At the selections meeting, Marilyn and Mike also steered us away from the really dark colors, so that, along with the other advice we'd received, helped us select this as our new hardwood floor color. 

Jacobean (how do you pronounce that? we had some fun over that, too!) is the winner! It's a brown color, but not too dark.  The wood will be oak so the grain will be slightly darker, which still gives us that rich color we were hoping for, while avoiding the negatives that come with a really dark floor.  The floors will be site finished to give them a more seamless look, and this also means there are no tiny gaps between the individual planks of boards--it'll be one huge smooth surface.


And that ends part 1 of our selections.  We won't leave you hanging on the breaking ground thing, though, so here's a quick peek at what's happening at our lot on the Lane as of 6:45pm this evening!

We'll be back tomorrow for bathrooms, interior paint, carpets, and more! Nail-biting excitement, I tell you!

The Day We (almost) Broke Ground

We've been waiting on pins and needles (have you?) to get started on this house of ours and today was breaking ground day! Except when we drove past the lot this evening, it still looked like this:

See that? It's a whole lotta grass not being dug up.  Boo. Nothing has happened and we're not sure why.  Just 4 days ago, the builders told us that today was the day they would start.  There's not even any equipment sitting there, ready to get to work.  This makes for some sad Siegers:(

In other news, I packed like a crazy woman today while the kids were at VBS.  Just 2 1/2 weeks until we move out of this house into our temporary condo! So now instead of this:

The house is looking more like this:

Disaster area!

While packing, I discovered all of these that we had to put away while the house was being shown back in the spring (the rule is no personal photos on display while showing your house!). 

We never hung them back up because we knew we'd need to pack them soon, but they sure did bring up some memories.  I'll admit I shed a few tears going through these photos and reminiscing over all the bits and pieces of Evan and Marea's childhoods these photos capture.  Snippets of their younger selves, special events, vacations, and just every day moments.  Sigh. 

Today was kind of glum weather wise, too--rainy and damp this morning, cool until late in the afternoon. It seemed fitting since my mood was low, too, with all the reminiscing and the house not being started.  Oh well--tomorrow is another day and we know we'll be updating with the real breaking ground post soon!

Twiddling Our Thumbs

No, I haven't forgotten about you (if there's anyone who has been checking, you'll have noticed I haven't posted for a while).  That's because we are twiddling our thumbs, waiting for something to happen.

Me twiddling my thumbs:)

Today we met with Mike and Matt, owners of the company that's building our new home.  They suggested we visit another home they're building that's currently under construction but has similar colors/finishes to what we are envisioning.  Love that these guys not only made themselves available to us for this, but also suggested it. So we drove about an hour to go see this house and it was worth it! 

I have wanted white enameled trim and cabinets for a long time, and this house had them.  Actually, they weren't a true white, but a little creamier white called Linen something or other.  It was a-maz-ing!  Totally what I was hoping for! As was the wall color, faucets, door knobs, lighting fixtures, carpet, and cabinet hardware.  The boys sent us home with some color options for wood flooring and the cabinets that will be stained (bathroom ones for sure, maybe the island, too).

Ooo! Aah! Possible colors for the wood flooring on the main level.

Options for cabinetry colors--what do you like?

Next Friday (on the 9th) we meet with our selections representative and she'll have all the info from the house we saw tonight so we can use that to make our selections.  Mike will even be there to answer any questions we might have.  How many owners of a construction company personally attend a selections meeting? Uh, pretty much none, which is one of the many reasons we love Matt and Mike (they're twin brothers, by the way--how cool is that?).

After visiting the house, we stopped off at Home Depot to check out appliances. I really like this beauty here, but we're still a ways off from a final decision on these.  I did really, really like that the handle for the bottom freezer just lifts up and then it's easy-peasy to open.  Also loved the storage in the fridge part and the easy slide drawer in the freezer.  But we'll have to wait for another day to decide on appliances--just getting a head start on some research for these for now.

In other news, Monday is the day we expect to break ground.  Next week should bring lots of updates with digging, pouring foundation, and all the selections. Can't wait to share (and to stop twiddling our thumbs)!  In the meantime, which flooring color do you like? Which cabinetry color?