Filling Up

We drove up to Poplar Ridge yesterday for Hubbby's weekly visit. This week lots of things have arrived for the house.

The furnace...

...and the air conditioning unit.

Here is a sneak peek at our decking...it is a composite material. The railings, in a white vinyl, have arrived too. No more deck staining for this country girl!

The girls' window at the egress window well has been installed. It has been backfilled along the driveway side of the house.

The window well is still a popular place for the girls to play. It is filled with pea gravel, and will have a lattice or clear plasic cover. I'm thinking...terrarium with ferns and little froggies...?

The septic lines have been buried all the way out to the tank.

Because the walls are poured concrete inside of 5 inches of styrofoam, they will not be framing inside the house, or putting up extra insulation...there is no need. The drywall can be fastened directly to the styrofoam, so the wiring is run through channels cut into it.

It seems like the wiring and plumbing is taking forever! The builder is hoping to get the dry wall people out in 2 weeks...things will really start to shape up then.

We dug our folding camp chairs out of the garage and set up in the great room. It was so quiet, with a nice breeze. I'm getting impatient to be there! I'm about to go crazy here in town with the traffic noise now that the windows are open every day. I CAN'T WAIT TO LIVE HERE!

Home again, home again...

We are home from Florida, and quite amazingly, our tiny apartment seems ALMOST spacious after living out of a Hotel for a week! We headed up to Poplar Ridge the afternoon of our return to check up on the progress and return suitcases to the jumble of junk in the garage.

We found a bathtub installed in the Girls' bathroom downstairs...

And also the shower in the upstairs Mudroom Bathroom.

The egress window well is installed outside of the Girls' Bedroom window. This is the view from the inside, where you can see the steps.

This shot gives you an idea of how far below grade the window is.

Here are us girls trying it out.

Cable and phone lines are being installed downstairs in the Exercise Room (a.k.a. Guest Bedroom).

They worked yesterday and today on laying septic and water lines outside of the house.

Our assignment for the weekend is to settle on a wall oven for the kitchen so that the builder can wire it in. We are also celebrating Easter with my parents visiting, and will likely have our first Easter Egg hunt on the property on Sunday!

Oh, and another thing...

I have been trying to update this blog for the past 24 hours. First the computer crashed, twice, while I was trying to edit photos. Then the computer chair was usurped by my husband. Then life happened, and we actually made yet another trip up the hill tonight for a pre-vacation meeting with the builder.

So, we have finally reached that point in our building experience where I get a call every day or so from the builder with questions. It's nice to know that we've reached the point where we need to pick out faucets and what-not for the bathrooms. But now we've really reached the point where our "Over-Budget" bill is rising. We have decided to have a wood ceiling put in the great room and kitchen, and possibly a Solatube in the kitchen.

The builder is making lots of lists too. This one is downstairs.

The tinted concrete looks great now that it is completely dry. This shot shows it up against the block of the garage.

Here are the girls' hand prints...a bit hard to make out.

Speaking of the girls...they have decided that the big equipment is the best place to play lately. This time they brought along their baby dolls.

Most of the wiring in the house is done. I couldn't get a shot of the circuit board in the girls' closet because I would have gotten another butt shot of one of the crew. These are a few of the recessed lighting cans in the kitchen/dining room. They are all over the place! (No more bare light bulbs in closets!)

The egress window well arrived for the girls' window downstairs. The very nice folks at Wayne Lumber brought it out for me, and stayed for a quick look at the house. This came in 4 sections, and includes steps for exiting/entering. It is designed to be large enough to fit a firefighter with equipment.

We have had thunder storms and quite a bit of rain in the past 24 hours. The driveway has held up very well so far. I haven't shown pictures of our field and stream (Wisecarver Run) because they aren't where the action is at lately. However, things are completely soggy and flooded over there. It would probably help if we dig all the old tires and crap out of it, but we are focused elsewhere at the moment.

I should be focusing on packing at this moment. By the end of next week, we are promised showers, tubs and toilets!