-- August 25th, 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...

-- 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...

-- 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.

-- 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!

-- 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.

3/24/2012 Back Patio

3/24/2012 Office Loft

3/24/2012 Kitchen

3/24/2012

-- Latest Pics

3/19/2012 View From The Front

3/19/2012 View From The Rear

3/19/2012 View from inside the Great Room

3/21/2012 View From The Front  (The Roof Is Up)

-- New Pictures

Taken 3/15/2012

Taken 3/13/2012

--- Would you like some RICE with that?

So it turns out that I'm not as young or as in shape as I thought I was.  Penny and I went to the construction site yesterday.  As we were leaving I specifically made Penny go around the long way so that she wouldn't hurt herself.  I, on the other hand, am tough, and decided I could make the little jump off of the ledge. 

So I did my best ballerina leap off the ledge, like I was Black Swan or something, and heard a distinct CRUNCH come from my right leg when I landed.   

Penny , to her credit, immediately stopped fussing at me when she realized I was really hurt.  We think I tore a muscle in my calf.  Doctor says use RICE, which isn't quite a delicious as it sounds.   RICE - Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevation.

-- The Winds Of Change (aka Coyotes and Deer and Turkeys, Oh My!)

     For those of you not in the Chattanooga area, there was a nasty series of tornadoes that blew through our area on Friday night.  Let me start off by saying that we're all fine, but the tornadoes kept dropping all around us.  There was a tornado that touched down (officially unconfirmed at the time of writing this) just about half a mile WNW of where we live now (Island Cove Marina).  It traveled in an ENE direction, just barely avoiding the subdivision we live in now, but it zeroed in on the subdivision we are building in (Hampton Cove).


     The sheriff was on the news and said the area of our new subdivision was a "war zone",  We saw pictures of a tractor trailer that was delivering furniture to a house about five doors down from our new property.  It was blown onto it's side and into the house it was delivering to.  The subdivision that is right next to ours had a house collapse with people in it, and another house that was lifted off of it's foundation and blown into the neighbor's house.


     Needless to say we weren't really looking forward to seeing how bad our beautiful new neighborhood was hit.  The ride to the subdivision was not comforting:

     We drove up there and there were police stopping everyone and questioning why they were there.  Most were getting turned around, but most were lookie-loo ghouls who were driving around excited to see all of the damage, or worse yet, capitalize or loot on it.  It was a little difficult to get through, because obviously, our drivers licenses don't have the new address on it yet, but Penny turned on the waterworks, and we were let in.


     It was bad, y'all.  Real bad.  Let's start with our property.  

Here's a picture from Thursday:

 And the same angle on Saturday:

Our tree lined back yard is gone.

If you look at the video from my last post, you'll see a port-a-potty on the front of the property.  Here it is now against the back fence.

Here are some other shots from the neighborhood  Some of these are going to look like some missing trees, but keep in mind, there were thick woods behind the subdivision.

This poor guy had all of his windows blown out - and all three of his cars badly damaged

This was thick tree line. Also, if you look closely, you can

see the subdivision behind us that had the house collapse.

Here is our property from a distance, you can 

see the roof damage on the houses on both sides of us.

     Some of you may have heard about the airstrip behind our house.  Well, that guy's plane was in pieces all over the runway.  There was another house being built about two doors down.  It was almost done, but the garage doors hadn't been put on yet.  The storm got in there and blew the wall out and took off part of the roof.


     While we were on our property, surveying, we finally got to meet one of the neighbors.  His name is Scott, and he seems like a really nice guy.  He is divorced and lives with his two children, young girlfriend, his niece, and his small dog.  He moved to Chattanooga in about 2006 and has lived in Hampton Cove for about 2 years (sounds like Penny and I except without the kids and niece, and I would be Penny's younger girlfriend in this scenario).  He really loves the neighborhood, except for the coyotes.


     That's right, coyotes.


     What coyotes you may ask?  Well, apparently, there's a bunch of coyotes living in the area, roaming the street willy-nilly.  The girl who sold us the house didn't mention anything about the coyotes.  They are supposedly really skittish around people, but Scott didn't say anything about how they are around chihuahuas.  I guess our dreams of letting p-nut roam the backyard freely are now out.


     Scott went on to tell us about the deer that are always in the back yard as well, (which makes up for the coyotes).  There's also a bunch of wild turkey's that fly around and are often seen in the neighborhood too.


     So in conclusion, we lost some trees, but made out better than most people in that subdivision.  I think it's safe to say that our move-in date is going to be pushed back.  There were about five homes under construction by our contractor, and every single one of them had some major damage.  I don't know how those people are handling it.  I remember my first new car.  It was a Jeep Wrangler and I loved it and took extra special care of it.  That is, until about 4 months in, when I got hit by a car that got hit by a drunk driver.  It never was the same after that, and I just had some minor damage.  I don't think I could move into a brand new house that just had it's side wall blown out.  


     I'll keep you updated as soon as we hear anything new.

-- Foundation Update

I know it seems like its been a while since I posted, and there hasn't really been that much to report.  I passed by the house and got to see the three men who are paid to stand around and look at the foundation:

Oh yeah, the foundation has been put in place.
  
It started with what is called a chain wall (shout out to Marc and Barbara for being able to identify it - because Penny and I had no idea)

On top of the chain wall is rebar and concrete blocks

From what I understand, next is the slab.

-- Grade 'A'

I know the updates have slowed down a little, because not much has been going on... until... yesterday!!!


Penny and I drove past the land this weekend and noticed that it had finally been graded.  I think the next step is to start the foundation.  I was worried about the delay with all of the rain we've been having, but it looks like we may still be on target for the May 29 completion date.

-- More Updates

Well, we finished all of our meetings at the design center.  I could post a ton more pictures of all of the tiny decisions we made but, quite honestly, I'm sure you've already got the big picture down.  There were just so so so so so so so so many decisions that had to be made, down to some pretty minute details that it would boggle your mind.  Let's just say - design phase is over.  Next on the agenda is to pick out all of our lighting fixtures.

We drove by the property this weekend because we are scheduled to be breaking ground any day now.  While we didn't see that, we finally saw the sign on the property had been upgraded from FOR SALE to SOLD.  I know it was a tiny thing but we got real excited about it.

So now we're at the stage where we have to start thinking about moving.  You know, we found out we were moving from New Orleans to Chattanooga and only had two weeks to do it, and we accomplished that.  However, the thought of moving about 7 miles in 5 months just seems overwhelming.  I guess last time, we didn't have time to panic, and this time we have more stuff.  Penny has already been going around collecting boxes.  I don't know why, it's not like we have that much that we can pack now, but it seems to make her happy.  :-)

Anyway, hopefully I'll have something more to update shortly, like maybe the picture of our foundation.

A boy can dream...

-- Pictures!!!!

Well, I promised you pictures of what we were doing, and here they are:

The outside brick that is going to go around the house is Spanish Forte:

The stacked stone is going to be the Shenandoah colors:

but in the style of the 19th Century stone with the multiple sizes (kind of looks like a castle):

The Cedar Door in front is going to be stained this red color while the cedar shutters and trim will be this green color  (I tried to do a color match on this sample as best I could.  It looks completely different when it is actually stained on the cedar, but this will give you some idea):

(If you can see the little color samples squares, they are on the bottom row, far right and far left.)

There is an exterior Hardy Board Shake section on the house and the garage door that will be the color of the Backdrop (the lighter color on top).  All of the trim will be in the Well Bred Brown color (on the bottom):

The interior of the house will be the Functional Gray (the lighter color on top) throughout the house, except for the Dining room, which will be the Griffin color (on the bottom):

Those choices are all locked in.  So no comments if you would have done anything different ;-)

Now the following isn't definite yet, but we are leaning to the following choices:

The bottom floor will have this hard wood floor style and color.  The wood sample will be the color of our kitchen cabinets, and the granite sample will be our kitchen counter tops.  You may also look closely and see the kitchen paint sample square and how it would blend in.  This picture is a little "yellowey" which isn't a word,  I know, but I snapped it fast and the lighting may not have been the best.

For the kitchen back splash, we are leaning to the larger tile on the left of this picture with some of those glass tiles in the middle spaced throughout on a diagonal.  Once again, not the best pic color-wise, but you may get an idea of where we are headed

Oh, and I also forgot to mention that we have selected our appliances.  These are the actual pics of our makes and models:

Gas Cook Top

Wall Oven

Convection / Microwave oven  (we are doing a double wall oven, but the bottom is going to be the true oven, and the top is going to be this convection / microwave combo.

Dishwasher

Chimney Hood

-- Designer Meeting Number One

Well, after a little schedule rearrangement, we met with the designer today for the first time, a nice woman named Sharon. We met from 2:00 to 5:00. It was Penny and I, Penny's sister, Tisha, and our agent, Susan.

BTW if you are in the Chattanooga area and are looking to buy a home, I can not recommend our agent, Susan Reardon with Prudential, enough.

Anyway, we were really glad to have both of them along. We started the meeting reviewing some documents and the floor plan, but quickly moved into choosing the exterior. I wish I had snapped some pictures of our finished choices, because me describing them won't do them justice... but I'll try.

I didn't really have any strong feelings about the exterior either way. I know the kind of stuff I don't like, and was more than willing to speak up if I saw it. But overall, I was going to just trust Penny. Penny, on the other hand, needed someone whom she could bounce color ideas off of, and that someone had to be less blasé about it than I, so she invited Tisha.

When Tisha, Penny, and I walked in, Tisha became obsessed with the color of the receptionist desk. "This is the kind of chocolaty color you need to have somewhere in your house." she kept saying. Then when we got to the brick, she thought we needed a peanut butter shade of grout. And when colors were matched up that she liked, they looked "yummy." Then Tisha started asking, "Is there a vending machine around here?" and "I could go for a Snickers." and suddenly it it hit me. With chocolaty brown and peanut buttery grout, Tisha is subconsciously steering our house to look like a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup because she's hungry!!!!

While all of that is funnily true, in all seriousness, Penny and I were both so glad she came along. She has this unique gift of being able to see the big picture in her head of what everything would look like. There were so many choices to make, and I'm afraid I was not a whole lot of help. Penny admitted later that she would have definitely been overwhelmed there if it weren't for Tisha. And, if I do say so myself, I think the house is going to look awesome, and that is due in no small part to her with ideas like making the door a different color than the shutters, or bringing in the idea of green to our color palate. Actually, now that I think of it, the ideas of the colors of the shake and trim were hers as well. Big shout out to Tisha again!

So to describe it as best as I can, we have a light brown brick, with a reddish brown accent brick. Our stacked stone is multi colored (all "Earthy" colors, for lack of a better word) we have the brown from the receptionist desk as the color of our shake, and a lighter version of that shade for the trim. Red cedar posts and shutters, and a dark green stained front door.

I'm going to have to post some pictures.

We then went over our spa shower and electrical plan. We chose our faucets and then finally called it a day. We meet again on Monday the 16th at 8:30am to review all of our choices and sign off on them, and then choose our interior colors and cabinets, etc.

Big day today. Lots of decisions made, but we are sooooooo excited!!!!!!