Week 12: Before and after

After only one day of work, the sheetrock is practically finished! The photos below are both of our kitchen, however the first one is the "before" and the second is the "after." Note: in the first photo, you can see Jeremy looking out bedroom #2's window. The arch on the right of the photo is the doorway to the hall which leads to the master bedroom and bathroom.

Week 11

Winter has arrived! This past week Owatonna received a few inches of snow, but the white stuff didn't sideline the building crew or our fearless soon-to-be homeowners one bit.

We purchased our bathroom hardware, doorbell, and all of our lighting in one adventure-filled, marathon evening. Unknown to us, doorbell technology has apparently reached impressive heights. One figures, when it's time to purchase a doorbell, it will be one of those items which takes little or no time to find. Oh no, be prepared to spend at least 45 minutes listening to every conceivable version of "ding-dong" possible. And once you suffer through that, get ready to decide if the on-key "ding" is worth the off-key "dong." Needless to say, we spent quite a while analyzing the perfect "ding-dong" for our new home.

On a positive note (no pun intended), the plastic covering the insulation is up and the sheetrock is sitting in the house, ready to go. The patio door for the walk-out basement has been installed, and the concrete for the front steps has been poured. We also approved the kitchen and bathroom cabinet configurations for the house, along with the counter tops. If things continue to move at this pace, it looks as if next weekend may be the highly anticipated paint weekend!

We thought we'd post a couple different views of the house this week. One from the side and another from the back. Keep in mind our lot isn't quite as large as it appears. Nobody wants to live by us yet, that's all.

Week 10.3

Here it is! A photo of the inside of our home--as seen from the bottom of the stairs. What you're looking at is the patio door and window in our dining room. To the right of the patio door will be the kitchen, and to the left of the window will be our living room area. The two bedrooms and bathroom are a right off of the top of the stairs.

Looks like we're only a few short days until sheet rocking is complete and then we're "on call" for painting!

Week 10.2: Our days are numbered

Great news! We've received word that the house will be complete in the next 30-60 days. In celebration, we have submitted our Notice to Vacate and have "officially" started the packing process.

In other house news, the rough-in electrical work on the house is complete, in addition to the rough-in plumbing. The concrete flooring in the basement was also poured this week and we should start seeing insulation any day now.

Up to this point, we haven't noted exactly where in Owatonna we'll be moving to. The map pictured below is a fairly accurate description of our current place of residence and our new place of residence--feel free to click on the map for a closer view.

Although we've enjoyed five years living on the north side of town, I think the east side will be a fitting change. Before the chilly weather we enjoyed quite a few walks in our future neighborhood and look forward to being known as, "the people who live on Stony Creek Drive," rather than, "the creepy people who drive by all the time and always walk back to the car parked in the abandoned field." Yup, we'll be happy when we can watch the other neighborhood newbies from our nice, new home.

Week 10

Generally, we like to post toward the end of the week, however today we thought it might be nice to point out the major drawback to building a house during the winter months.

During the past couple months we have benefited from the unseasonably warm winter weather, and one could have hoped that today would be no exception, especially given the fact that we had our electrical walk-through in the house today. Unfortunately, Mother Nature wasn't having any of that. She decided to make today one of the coldest days of the winter--and everybody knows that no electricity equals no heat! No amount of boots, scarves, mittens and sweaters could have helped us today!

Week 9: Signed, Sealed, Windowed, I'm Yours

If you believe the old saying "clothes make the man," then the house equivalent would be "windows make the house." From the photo, you can see significant changes this week included the start of shingling on the house, finishing of the roof, and addition of the windows. But to our amazement, those weren't the only changes that took place this week. Two others included the completion of house wrap and a shiny new "sold" sign in the front yard.

Since our house is actually starting to look like a house, we thought it was a good time to do our first rough "walk-through" of the place--a somewhat challenging obstacle since we have no staircases, lights or heat. Given the circumstances however, we decided to take our chances and check out the place for our self.

The kitchen, bedrooms and bathroom are exactly as we had imagined. The big, unexpected surprise of the week was our bathroom. Sure we have no doors, electricity or walls, but hey, we've got a tub--and better yet, it's already installed! We're certain our house is the envy of all the other construction jobs on the block right now, but of course, one can never be too sure.

Here's to having a house that looks like a house and a tub to boot!

Week 8

What a difference a week makes! Not only has there been a huge change in the physical appearance of the house, but we've also nearly completed the process of selections (cabinets, hardware, flooring, etc). The garage and foyer have been framed, and the roof trusses have been started. It won't be too long before the shingles, siding, and roofing will be up we're sure!