Andy and Penny are Building a Home

Saturday, August 25, 2012

-- August 25th, 2012

Saturday, June 2, 2012

-- Throwing Up Some New Pictures

Here's a tip from your good friend Andy... It's probably not the smartest thing to do to take one of the most time-consuming and stressful things you'll ever do in your life, and promise to write a blog about it. I know I should be posting more pictures and writing more funny stuff, but I'm just whipped.

Honestly, I don't even know what I think anymore, It's just been push, push, push to get everything done. I spent most of this morning packing up my entire garage - and keep in mind that my garage has extra storage space where we keep Christmas decorations, heavy duty kitchen stuff, all of my tools, and all of our dry goods that we stock up on at Sam's ('cus a home ain't a home without a 96 pack of toilet paper, enough paper plates to feed all the troops in Afghanistan, and enough red solo cups to make Toby Keith ashamed).

I'm so tired, in fact, that I just realized that last paragraph was one long run-on sentence and I don't care enough to go back and edit it. ANYWAAAAAAAAYY...

Let's get down to what you're here for. Here's the latest picture of the house:

We still have to stain the cedar around the entrance, swap out the front door, hang a light in the entranceway, hang the cedar shutters and cedar trellis, and stain both of them.

Here are two pictures of our Roman master shower. To keep anyone from having to Google the term, a Roman shower is a type of architecturally designed shower stall that does not require a door or curtain. Trust me on this one... DO NOT GOOGLE THE PHRASE "ROMAN SHOWER" unless you want to be nauseated.

The accent tiles look a little orange in that picture, but that is the setting sun shining through the transom window.

Here's another picture of our great room. The mantle still has to be painted or stained (I've forgotten which). You'll also see we have paper and cardboard down on the floor to protect the hardwood which has already been put down.

Here's another shot of our kitchen. You'll see our backsplash is up. Under the piece in the center will be our gas stove and over to the right will be our microwave and oven set up like a double oven. In the space above the center backsplash we will have our hood.

And that's about it. Penny won't let me put too many pictures up, I've got to save some of the goods for the Big Reveal Party. they are supposed to be done with construction on June 12 (7 more working days), we do the walkthrough/punch list on June 13, we do the signing on June 20, a few piddle paddle things for us to bring over/ install June 21 and 22, and the movers are coming on June 23.. AHHHHHH!!!!!!!

Oh well, it will all be OK, it will all be OK, it will all be OK. That's what I have to keep telling myself.

Until I put up some more pics, take care.

PS - June 21st is Penny's birthday. Make sure you wish a happy one.

PPS - And if you've already looked up "Roman Shower" on Google... For shame...

Tuesday, May 8, 2012

-- 5 Weeks And Counting

I really wanted to be more up to date on this blog, and I'm sure things will soon start to ramp up, but I feel I could only type," more bricks on the outside, more drywall on the inside" so many times. Who would have thought that this phase would last this long? Not I...

So where were we? Oh yeah, more bricks on the outside, more drywall on the inside. In addition, the interior paint first coat just went up as well as baseboards, crown molding, wainscoting in the dining room, and the tile has been set in the laundry, master bath, and around the fireplace. Here's the most recent pic:

Penny told me not to keep giving out too many interior pics, because she wants everyone to come see it in person. Something about buying the cow when you can get the milk for free, but let me sneak a few to you anyway.

Great Room looking into Kitchen

Formal Dining Room

Quick Shot of the Tile in Master Bath

The Rear of the House

Finally, we've all been getting ready for the big move. Where I once had a reasonably sized office in the current house, we now have a staging area for where we are storing our packed boxes. Now I just have a desk, a chair, and a small pathway to get there. Even p-nut lost one of her beds in my office. I had my hands full and kicked it to the side, near another one of her beds (that dog has more beds than Dennis Hof). It landed on a 45 degree angle against the filing cabinet. I came home over the weekend to find p-nut's horizontal bed untouched, and p-nut curled up - upside down and under the blanket - in the bed I had tossed to the side. I managed to snap a pic before she woke up.

That dog is spoiled rotten...

Monday, April 16, 2012

-- What's going on?

First off, I realized I haven't put a picture up in a while. This was taken this past weekend.

4/14/2012

Since the last picture I posted three weeks ago, the roof has been shingled and you'll see that the unpainted shake and soffits have been hung as well.

But the real updates are what is going on inside. The central vacuum system has been installed, all of the electrical and plumbing has been run, and all of the insulation has been put in. Most of the drywall has been hung downstairs, and everything is moving right along.

In meeting with our contractor, he gave us a very tentative schedule for upcoming projects:

- 4/13 Sheetrock Start

- 4/27 Tile

- 5/01 Trim (baseboards/crown molding)

- 5/04 Paint

- 5/09 Cabinets

There was one piece of news we received that wasn't great. All of this time, we've been told that we should be finished around May 29. The contractor has been telling us that the weather has been good and that we are ahead of schedule. Well, we discovered that somehow, the wires got crossed, and he was given a completion date of June 20 - 3 WEEKS LATER!!! So when he's been saying we're ahead of schedule, he's been meaning we're ahead of that June 20 date. He said he didn't think the May 29th was possible. Of course, we told him not to rush, and that we want everything done right. We were just excited for the May date, and now it seems like the extra three weeks is a lifetime.

Oh, well. C'est la vie.

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

-- Quick Update

Just wanted to give out a quick update. No new pictures to post, the outside of the house pretty much looks the same as it did in the last photos. The inside however has had the plumping, electricity, air conditioning, central vacuum, and surround sound wiring installed. We are scheduled to do a pre drywall walk-through at the end of the week. Once we sign off on everything, they will start putting up the doors and the bricks.

My leg is back to normal and the house seems to be ahead of schedule. I think it's a good week!

Sunday, March 25, 2012

-- How Do You Measure Crazy? Very Tenderly

So, in case I haven't mentioned it before, Penny and I can be a little crazy. Normally, we offset each other because only one of us is crazy at a time. But occasionally the perfect crazy storm occurs where our craziness combines and exponentially multiplies our craziness ten-fold. Let me explain...

From the day the chain wall was laid out on the new house, both of us thought that the footprint of house was a little small. We were certain it was smaller than the model home we looked at - which had our same exact floor plan. Then the foundation was poured, and we both commented that there must be a mistake. So we took a tape measure to the foundation, and sure enough, the length and width of our foundation exactly matched the floor plans we had been given. We must have just been mistaken, but were put at ease... until... the framing went up.

This time we were both sure something went wrong. The rooms we were looking at were way way way too small to be the rooms we saw in the model home. So in a clandestine twilight operation, Penny and I took the tape measure out and measured each and every room in house and once again, it matched the floor plans exactly.

How could it be? How could both of us be wrong about this? Then we came up with the only possible solution, and it made both of us sick. We had been swindled. It was the only explanation. The model home had to have been built to a slightly larger scale. You see, we're already apprehensive because we kind of got pushed around by the contractor who built the house we live in currently. Some shady work in some areas, some things promised to be fixed that never were, some general half-@$$ work that we had to pay someone else to come and fix. It must have happened again. Despite this new contractor's sterling reputation, they must have done it to us as well. We called our real estate agent, told her what was going on, and asked if we could see the model home one more time.

We showed up armed with our tape measure and walked into the model home. One look around and I knew this wasn't going to be good. We went into the dining room first. This was the room that I was sure was the most off. We took out the tape measure and... It matched the floor plan exactly. The kitchen was next. Penny was certain the kitchen wasn't right, but it too matched the floor plan exactly. The large great room, that one was definitely off. I could tell just by looking around that the spacious model home that it's great room was practically palatial compared to the half-closet great room that was being built on our new lot. Zip went the tape measure and... it was actually one inch shorter than our floor plan.

Room after room was exactly like it was supposed to be. We had not been swindled. Penny and I simply pushed each other to the brink of crazy and paranoia. Suddenly, the movie, The Shining, made sense. Needless to say, both of us were more than slightly embarrassed by this. Apparently, houses look different until the sheetrock goes in.

Once again, I have to give a big shout out to our agent, Susan Reardon. She must have taken some course on how to handle crazy people in real estate school. Penny and I had both hoped we could stay in contact with her once our business relationship was over. But she probably prefers her friends to be a little less of the neurotic nut-job variety.

Anyway, in summation, everything is right and on track with the house. the only thing wrong is the new owners.