Progress Report: Week 3- FRAMING!!!

What an AMAZING week it has been for the house!!!! We actually HAVE a house! A real house!

So, the last thing that happened was our lumber was delivered.  That was on April 6th, Friday.

Here's a recap of what happened this week... along with photos!

Monday, April 9th:  Basement floors were poured.  We were curious to know if this was even going to happen because we got quite a bit of rain on Monday.  Well, we traveled out to the house and saw this:

They most definitely DID pour our basement floors! They had a make-shift like tarp over the top of the basement foundation so that it didn't get too wet.  We couldn't get any closer than this because it was SUPER muddy from all the rain.  So we had to admire from afar.

However, there was more excitement on the lot besides having our lumber hanging out, and basement floors poured:

Those would be our windows, doors, and staircases!  They looked so pretty just sitting there!


Tuesday, May 10:  Framing was started.  Again, lots of rain on Tuesday, so there wasn't much that had gotten done.  We even emailed our PM to ask if they had started framing, because we didn't want to make that 25 minute drive if nothing had been done.
But, our PM said that they had gotten started, but it was slow and work was intermittent with the rain.

So, we went to check it out!  They were able to start the flooring of the first floor.  Not a whole heck of a lot, but hey!  It had gotten started and we were excited to see something done!

Wednesday, May 11:  This was an exciting day! The entire first floor had been framed!

View from the driveway!! Garage is on the left, Front porch is on the right.  Lots of wood still hanging out ready to be framed.

Left side of the house (Garage side)

Back left!  You can see the morning room from here, and the basement "exercise room" below it!

Morning Room!

Walk out basement door opening!  Living room is above it!

Front Porch!

SELFIE!! In front of our garage!

Thursday, May 12: Weather was uh-may-zing on Thursday!  Well, until we went out to see the progress of the framing.  It decided to POUR when we got there... So no walking around for us, and just viewing from the street....They were able to get the second floor framed though, as well as some of the roof!! It was incredible turning the corner and seeing a nearly FULL house sitting in front of us!  

From the driveway.  Isn't it glorious?!

Right side view

Left side view-- this is actually from the street before you turn onto our street. Eventually, we will have a neighbor on this corner lot.

Friday, May 13:  They finished up the roof today and had wrapped the majority of the house. Windows had been installed.  The garage had been framed the rest of the way, and the porch has also been finished framing, and has the makings of a roof on it too.  The workers were all still there when we visited on Friday.

From the driveway!  Look at that gorgeous blue sky!

view from the right side.

view from the left side

Dry enough to walk all the way around! Back view of the house!

Took a peek inside the basement!  It's pretty wet, but we noticed our basement stairs had been installed!!!!!

Saturday, May 14:  We ventured out today to go see our SR and chat for a few minutes.  She wasn't there (she took the day off)... But we also wanted to see if there was anything else that had been done with the house.  We had gotten an email from our PM on Friday saying that our shingles would be delivered on Monday, and the roofers would be out Tuesday or Wednesday for that.  Also, they'd start rough mechanics once the shingles were done.

No one was working when we went out there.  But, it was dry so we took a couple minutes and walked around and just admired our home. OUR home that wasn't there a week ago.  Our home that was nothing more than a hole 2 weeks ago, and an empty lot 3 weeks ago.  It's so amazing!

view from the driveway.  No workers today so you can see the house in all it's glory.  One of the upstairs windows is broken :-(

I got adventurous and walked into the basement.  It's super wet in there, but I walked to our basement stairs and looked up.  This is what I saw.  It's so very intimidating and amazing all at the same time.  I just adore everything about this photo.

Kinda hoping this isn't the only set of the blueprints for the house.  I had a couple concerns here..  One, look at them all messy and jumbled.  Two, they're just LAYING in the garage.  Three:  They're wet.  I kinda wanted to just take them.  But seriously, I really hope this isn't the only set of prints for the house. 

And there ya have it!  This time last week, we had the start of a basement with the foundation and plumbing.  This week?  There's a whole house standing there!  I am so so so so so happy that we drove out every day, even in the rain, to see the progress of framing.  It went up so quickly and was so awesome to see!!!

Can't wait to actually be able to walk around inside and see things.  We have admired from the edge of the garage and we know exactly where everything is when we look at the house.  But I can't wait to walk in and see each and every part for myself!!!

We Broke Ground!

So after a week that has been just not great at all, getting an email from our PM that they got the basement dug was some very uplifting news!
So naturally, we HAD to go out there to see it.  And, since it was Friday, that means we have Reds baseball to go and watch.  We can technically make the ride to the house "on the way" to the ballpark, and that's just what we did.

I was SOOOO nervous turning the corner onto our cul-de-sac.  But there it was!  Piles of dirt everywhere and our very own hole in the ground!  I think we had the same reaction of everyone that has seen their holes for the first time {haha}.  We thought it looked small.  Like it wasn't going to fit a 2600+ square foot house RIGHT there.

But,we walked down into the hole to check it out from the inside.  It's gigantic! It's crazy to think that THIS level is where the basement is going to be and that our home will sit higher than that.  But seriously?!!?!? YAYAYAYAYAYAYAY!  We have a hole!  Our PM told us in our email that they should be pouring our footers on Monday :-)

Here's a few pictures of our hole.  It's so exciting!!!

Looking at our lot from the front.  The cleared stuff on the right will be the front porch.  The garage is on the left.

Walking into our hole.  I honestly don't remember which angle this is, haha!

This is looking from where our living room/back of the house (the deck) will be.  

Different angle. From the back of the living room/back of the house, looking towards the front.

Another view from the front porch-ish area :-)

Seeing this yesterday was such a great thing!  We really really needed and can't wait to be back out to see more progress!

A very long week.... And we met some of our neighbors!

It's been a long hard week for Jason and me.  One of our shelties, Chase, got super sick in less than 48 hours.  So sick that we had to make the decision to end his suffering.  We have no idea what took him so quickly and there were a lot of complications when he was at the emergency vet on Tuesday night.  So we had to make the decision to say goodbye.  It's been a long hard week because of that.  He was my baby for nearly nine years and Jason knew him for five of those years.  I have so many memories with that sweet boy and my heart is just aching because he was FINE on Sunday and very late Tuesday night we said goodbye.

I know this blog is focusing on our house, and this post is too, but I had to preface it with the loss of our sweet Chase because it lead to the events for the rest of the week.

After a very long day of work on Wednesday, on no sleep and being emotionally drained, we decided to go out to the lot on Wednesday.  And we decided to take our other sheltie, Cody, with us.  We were secretly hoping that MAYBE they had started breaking ground and digging.  But another part of me was secretly hoping it hadn't been started yet.  I was heartbroken at the thought that our little Chase was never going to know his new house.  A house that we built with both him and his brother in mind.  But, I loved the idea of letting our Cody run around on the lot and checking it all out.

And that's just what we did.  Our lot looked just how it had the last time we saw it (at our pre-construction meeting just over a week before).  So we got out, and let Cody run around.  He peed all over the lot.  In the future kitchen, the morning room, the living room, and even in his future back yard!  We had a laugh and made sure he knew that one day the back yard would be the only place he's allowed to actually go potty ;-)

But it was good for all of us.  I haven't even thought much about the fact that they hadn't started digging at that point.  Because we now have a great memory of our Cody enjoying the big open field.

Check out how much he was loving it:

His smile just makes me so very happy.

So, while we were out at the lot there were a couple of other families that have their houses in different phases of the building process checking out their houses.  The guy that will be directly across the street from us came over and chatted with us for probably a good 15-20 minutes.  It was so awesome to meet one of our neighbors!! We discussed lots about our experiences and chatted about ourselves and learned about his family.
They're building a Bateman.  That floorplan will be the only one in our cul-de-sac as it isn't on the "approved" list for the neighborhood.  They were lucky enough that the neighborhood had that lot available and that it fit the house.
Anyways.  He was super nice.  We even discussed that the neighborhood has its own Facebook group! This made me super happy.  I love the whole social media everything.  It's a pretty active group too!  Lots of funny posts, and lots of different neighborhood events going on. Anything from crazy wind storms carrying garden pillows and doormats all over the neighborhood, to having easter egg hunts and an upcoming beer olympics!

I'm excited to see our house get started.  Hopefully that's soon!  And it was great to meet our neighbors too!

We have a street sign!!

This actually happened nearly 2 weeks ago, but we have been busy worrying about mortgage stuff and life in general, so not much updating or anything has been happening here.
The whole mortgage thing, that will eventually get explained.  I don't wanna jinx anything for now.

But, a couple of weeks ago, we went out to see our SR, Shelli.  We pretty much just like to visit her whenever we can because she is so amazing and nice and friendly, plus we had a paper that we hadn't signed that she needed.

We scheduled a quick meeting with her today, too, for some concerns we had.  I feel a MILLION times better after talking with her and can't wait to just have everything squared away.  She also said that we SHOULD have an address by Tuesday next week!! It's super funny how excited that makes me.

Anyways, when we had visited 2 weeks ago, I noticed that we had a street sign!

I'm tellin' y'all.... it's the little things!!

And other than that, nothing too exciting except dealing with this wonderful mortgage company. But that is gonna be a post by itself, and I don't want to jinx it!

So, happy 2 week birthday, street sign. You're adorable and I like you lots :-)

Lot 98-- The Site of Our Future Home

That cute little highlighted lot on the development map? That's OUR lot. Lot number 98.

We went back and forth with whether or not we wanted to pay a lot premium or just stick with a lot that had no extra costs.

Well.  When it was all said and done, we went with one that did have a premium.  Not because we just love to spend money, but because we decided that a walk out lot was perfect for us. 

In our neighborhood, if you have a home with a walk out, you are required to have a deck.

A deck was definitely something we wanted.  And when Jason and I discussed everything, the walk out was great for us.  We have 2 shelties {that are going to live forever, and don't you DARE tell me otherwise} and we just think that it'll be great in the winter time to be able to just open a back door and let them go outside to play or do their business and they won't have to go up or down a set of icy stairs.  Believe it or not, these dogs used to be Florida boys and had NO idea how to even get up a set of stairs.  They're pros now though.  But, safety first, right?

Our Boys <3

Plus, we like just having that outside access if needed via the walk out.

And, the square footage of the basement can be counted in our total for the house with a walk out.

And let's face it:  I'm a Florida girl.  Y'all have NO idea how excited I was the first time I went into a basement.  I have such great plans for our basement and hope it's going to be a fabulous area.

We also like lot 98 because it's on a cul-de-sac.  I know I mentioned this before, but it's nice knowing that we will have that dead end, and eventually just another cul-de-sac on the other side of the road.  No main drag of road for people to go flying down.  And a nice little bit of privacy with being on a cul-de-sac.

OH!!!

And, let's chat about the VIEW we will have.

Jason standing at the front of the lot, checking it all out

I learned rather quickly that all of Cincinnati is covered in hills.  Our area is no exception.

Well, with those hills come gorgeous views.  

From our morning room and back deck, you'll be able to see rolling hills for miles.

In the fall, think about those fall leaves changing colors.

And in the winter, pretty snow all over the hills and naked trees.

And don't worry about the spring and summer.  That's baseball season and we live at Great American Ballpark during that time of year.

I asked about measurements on the lot, for anyone curious (I know I was).  Our lot is just shy of a quarter of an acre. Front width is 96.15'.  Rear width is 55.64'.  And Front to Rear is 115.16'.

Here's a few more photos of our lot!

We were the lucky ones that got to put our "SOLD" sticker on the lot sign the day we signed papers. The little guy on the bottom is Baby Jay Bruce.  You can follow all of his adventures {he goes EVERYWHERE with us} by searching the hashtag #adventuresofbabyjaybruce.  My selfie stick would have been ideal here.  Didn't even think about it. 

And here's a photo of OUR lot!   That house you see in the back with the wrap on it is nearly finished now.  The one on the very left of the photo has framing and wrap on it now too! They seem to go up so quick!

And finally, the day we went out to the model home to make our selections for siding, counters, cabinets, stone, etc...... it had snowed earlier in the day.  It was really the first snow we have had all season.  I felt it was only appropriate to snap a photo of our lot's first snow <3

I most definitely did NOT get out of the car for this photo though! It was super cold, winds were really strong, and just nope.  Car snap shots will have to do ;-)

January 10th

Can't wait til we have our address!! It's going to be exciting hear that little bit of information.  But, for now, our cute little Lot 98 is absolutely perfect and ready for our home!