A past due update

We've been in the house 7 months and I'm surprised how quickly this house felt like home.  Everything about it just feels right.  I was so excited to decorate for Christmas, I couldn't wait until after Thanksgiving.  I'll try to get some updated pictures in soon.  I'm going to try and jot down a few things that others may want to know, not in a particular order, just as they come to mind. But first, our house in the snow.

1) We put our own hardware up on the kitchen cabinets.  We used the same hardware we had recently updated in our old house.  We liked it there and we like it here.  In regards to the dark cabinets, I do feel like I have to wipe them more frequently than I had to wipe the lighter colored cabinets at my previous home.  That being said, they wipe pretty well.

2) I still like the darker kitchen engineered wooden floors, but they do show all kinds of dirt.  It needs to be swept frequently to avoid looking nasty.  

3) We got a one level upgrade on the appliance package.  As some others have mentioned, the only appliance I don't really like is the dishwasher.  It is noisier than my old one.  I also miss having a delay wash cycle, especially in light of the noise factor.  The microwave is fine, although there is quite a bit of cold air inside this time of year.  My husband wonders if they forgot to install the damper.  It's going to go on our one year check list just to make sure.

4) We have only painted one wall in the house; in my studio.  We painted it because we were installing shelving so it made sense. I am looking forward to painting the rest of the house.  We have quite a few nail pops coming in and a small crack above the sliding door, so I think it's going to make sense to do that after our final walkthrough.  My husband (a structural engineer) says the house will likely settle more over the winter, so we'll just hold off.  The picture below is of my studio.  Love love love the way it turned out.  

So much I love here, the table slides under the desk so I can still put an air mattress in here if we have a lot of guests. I also love the chandelier.  Being the only girl in my house, I love that this makes my room girlie.

My children occasionally use my room.  At this time, it was being used for legos.  

We found these maps at Costco.  They are a great reference for the kids (and us!).  I'm going to try and carry a bit of a map theme through the room.

5) We've had two service calls out, both in regards to the master shower.  The first was the soap dish fell off the wall.  In the middle of the night.  That gave us quite a stir.  They had used the wrong adhesive stuff when they initially installed it.  It is supposed to stay up now.  We also had two hairline cracks in the basin of the master shower.  They were not severe enough for water to get through, but might have if we had let it go.  In both cases I made a service call through the website.  I wasn't sure at first if I was going to need a log in, but you do not.  You just put your address in and your issue.  It was very simple and they called my back both times very quickly and everything was resolved to my satisfaction.  

I have a few more things to post about and I will try to get some more pictures.  I'll do that soon!

More pictures

Sorry some of these are blurry, but you get the idea.

Dining Room

Guest Room - the desk in this room I've also redone.  It was my great grandmothers.

First floor/ guest bathroom

Oldest son's room, this is the room on the back of the house.

Another view of my oldest son's room.

Younger son's room.

Another view of my younger son's room.

Living Room

Another view of the living room.

One view of the basement. This area is usually littered with toys. It will eventually become a bar.

Laundry/cat room

Unpacked office

Unpacked Studio

Getting Moved In

We are getting closer to being moved in.  The bedrooms and guest room are unpacked. The kitchen is unpacked, but I'm still moving stuff around. Living and dining room have new furniture.  I haven't put any pictures up throughout the house, so it doesn't feel quite complete yet.  Basically, we have the office and the 5th bedroom (studio) that haven't been unpacked at all.  The basement is even mostly put together with the exception of the stuff in the storage part of the basement.  Here's a few pictures of how things are coming.  Other pictures are on my phone, so I'll upload those in another post.

Kitchen: we haven't yet decided how to cover the sliding doors. I also would eventually like a new, coordinating table for the dinette.

The area to the left of the fridge has become my catch all. A rare clean moment here.

I haven't yet organized the pantry; but there's food in it!

Mudroom: I look forward to being able to build something to better organize coats and shoes. The closet in the mudroom is still a disaster.

Master Bedroom: complete with kitty cats.  The dresser/desk in the corner was my grandmothers. I've recently refinished it. I may post some pictures of that in progress at some point.

Master bath

Master Shower.  Not sure why my husband put the scale there. Lord knows I don't want to step on it right now.

Master closet, my half. This is remarkably cleaner than it was. I can't wait to get a better shelving system.  It's not quite working for me yet.

It's hard to believe we have our 30 day walk through scheduled for next week.  We have a large memorial day party each year, so that's been our motivation to get so much done so far. 

All Moved In

We've been in the new house 10 days.  The bulk of our belongings are unpacked.  I've been meaning to update the blog, but I only just found my camera today.  I thought I had lost it during the move.  I thought I'd at least update with some pictures of what the house look liked finished, before we moved me.  We took these pictures after closing.

Garage, which is currently so full of stuff we can't park in it. 

Mud room.  There are currently 4100 shoes there.  Ok, maybe 12.

We closed on Monday, my kitchen was unpacked Tuesday while I waited for the internet and fridge to be installed. 

Living room, furniture was delivered Friday after closing.  Three days with just bean bag chairs.  Not cool.

 This is the first floor office.  Currently, like 5% unpacked.

Dining Room.  Furniture also delivered Friday. We've actually eaten two meals there.  It's pretty cool.

View from the front door.

Stairs going up.  There are 16 stairs. Holy hell.  I'm gonna have some bangin' legs soon. 

Master bedroom; it's incredible how big this room is. 

Master bath, it is mostly unpacked.  While I love the look of the all glass shower, it feels like showering in a fish bowl.  And, the glass is already dirty.  I think I'm going to try some RainEx to try and keep it cleaner longer.

Master vanity, I'm loving having my own sink.  For the record, the mirror on my husbands side is already dirty. Mine? Not so much.

Master Powder Room. Not much to say about the pooper.

Already talked about the shower.  I did get a cool thing to hold bath stuff so they aren't all over the bench.  I'll take 'after' pics soon.

Hallway looking from the Master bedroom. That's a lot of carpet to vacuum, by the way.

Front facing bedroom, son #2's room.

Laundry/ cat room. 

Fifth bedroom/ art studio.  This room is also not unpacked, but has boxes very neatly stacked. 

I realized I am missing pictures of my older sons room, the kids bathroom and the basement.  Oops.  I'll still be sure to take some after pics.  

We are 10 days into our 30 day check up.  I really don't have a lot.  Our floor outlet, which is a half hot, isn't working.  The carpet looks a bit weird in one spot by the stairs.  But, the carpet continues to be an ongoing issue for me.  I continue to walk over hard spots in the carpet.  We talked about this in our final walkthrough and they did fix a few spots.  The PM told me they were likely nail pops; we should hammer them and they'd be ok.  That's dandy, but why am I feeling them in the basement, which is on a slab? I was here on the day they installed the carpet the first time, and I don't think they fully cleaned the floor before putting the pad down.  In other words, I think I'm stepping on bits of drywall mud and who know what else that they didn't clean.  GRRRR.  If I'm right, this will severely, cut the life of my carpet.  So, I have to figure that out.  

Currently, most of our leftover boxes are non critical boxes that were in storage before we moved. And our master closet.  I might spend mothers day organizing my closet.  Woo hoo.  

Closed!!!

Our closing today was at 11 am.  It took about a half hour.  Everything was smooth.  We loaded up a minivan and my dad's truck full of some essentials. My husband is at the house now, sealing the granite so that we don't have to worry about that for a while. I've taken all new pics of the house.  Internet is set to be installed in the new home tomorrow, so hopefully I'll have a few minutes to upload those.

Lucky 13 - Numbers 11, 12, 13

Tomorrow is the big day!  We close at 11 am local time tomorrow.  I've already got my van loaded with some things to take over to the house tomorrow. My head is spinning with how much stuff still needs to be done, but I'm confident everything will go just fine.  I got behind on my Lucky 13, so I'm going to finish it off today.  

Upstairs laundry - No more lugging laundry down a flight and a half of stairs. Woot woot! No doubt I look forward to this!

Basement - My husband finally has his man cave. Plus there is room to send the kids down there to play also.  There will also be storage space, so I don't have to put holiday decorations, camping gear, etc, in the attic. This will make everything so much easier to access. 

Neighborhood pool - my kids are really looking forward to this.  Another thing having an HOA affords us.  It is a short drive or bike ride from the house and I know we'll be spending some time there this summer.  The neighborhood seems to have a lot of kids in it, which will also be nice for my children. 

That's it!  I hope I make some time to unwind and update the blog this week. I haven't taken good pictures of the house since everything has been completely done, so I'll try to do that before we start moving everything in tomorrow.  Wish us luck please!

Lucky 13, Number 10

Today my husband is working on packing the garage up.  Being outside reminds me of my number 10 thing I'm looking forward to.

Lot and HOA

We are currently on a corner lot. Much of our usable yard is on the side of the house and a bit awkward. Plus, my husband has lots of sidewalk to maintain. (He's one of those yard guys that edges the sidewalk several times a year.) Our street is a main thorough fair in the neighborhood so we get trash and yucky stuff in the yard. The lot size at the new house is almost identical in size to the current house, but the way it is situated on the lot makes more sense.  We have a true backyard. We also currently have about 11 full grown trees and while it's pretty, they all leaf out at different times, so hubs seems to be always raking.  We have a gorgeous gum tree, but it drops these little spikey balls all over the side yard which makes walking through that side of the yard painful. We are actually happy to have a few less trees! Hubs did build a tree house for the kids, and I will miss that though. Our new street isn't a through street so we should have less traffic. I know plenty of people that aren't happy to have a home owners association, but we are actually happy to have a HOA. We like to maintain our yard and are happy to live in a place that seems like people also take care of their yards.  Having an HOA helps enforce that - no broken down cars and so on.

Lucky 13, Part 9

I'm still in a flurry of packing but wanted to take a minute to rest and share the next thing I'm looking forward to.

Fifth Bedroom 

Five bedrooms seems excessive for a family of 4, but its kind of our bonus area.   Plus, that room will be my room. It will be a designated craft room/art studio and I can't wait.  I'll be able to have a place for scrapbooking that won't have to be picked up every day, allowing me to do a little at a time if necessary.  Plus, this means I'll really be able to stay out of hubby's office. This will also be another option for guests to stay. 

Final Walk Through

Yesterday was a whirlwind of a day.  We had our final walk through on the new home and the inspection on our current home.  I thought I was going to have to reschedule the inspection.  We've had company in town for the Easter holidays and unfortunately we all came down with food poisoning. Ugh.  It was awful.  I didn't think I was going to get my house cleaned up in time, but by the grace of God we did.  To top it off, the inspector got to my house an hour early.  I was not prepared for that.  Fortunately, he was very kind and started on the outside, otherwise I would have had to turn him away.  

Our final walk through was successful.  We taped up the walls some more with drywall and paint touch ups.  We weren't able to test the fireplace as it wasn't quite working yet, but the PM sent us an email later saying it had been fixed.  It seems as though the kitchen vent may not be completely venting outside, so he has to look into that as well.  There were a few hard spots under the carpet.  I wonder if the carpet guy didn't fully clean the full before placing the pad and carpet down.  The PM thinks it may just be nails coming up.  The correct carpet is set to be installed today, so we marked the spots I thought were bad and hopefully they'll get them taken care of when they have the carpet pulled up.  

We are four days from closing. I am in full packing mode, and I plan to have as much as I can packed by the end of the weekend.  We'll be switching to paper plates pretty soon!  It's all a bit overwhelming, but it's coming along.  

Lucky 13, Part 8

Lucky 13, Part 8 

Separate Master Bath 

Our current house has two full baths.  The bathroom downstairs has a standing shower only, which we never use.  We share a bathroom upstairs with the kids. In the new home we will have two upstairs baths and 4 sinks between them! We can shower in the morning without worrying about waking the kids and more than one person can brush their teeth at the same time. Our family had a case of food poisoning/stomach flu earlier this week.  I was really wishing we had the extra bathroom space now. Plus, we have a separate guest bath, so my guests won't have to use my kids bathroom. Which, I've already decided, they will have to clean themselves. (The kids, not the guests!)

Above are my current bathrooms.  What an upgrade we'll be getting!

Lucky 13, Part 7

As I think I mentioned, we have family in for the Easter holiday.  I try to sneak in packing a box now and then.  Today I packed up some things from my son's rooms and it reminded me of my number 7 thing I'm looking forward to in my new house.

Larger kids rooms

Our boys bedrooms are pretty small right now, so even with the bare essential furniture, there's not a lot of room for toys.  They'll be able to play in their rooms. We have a bunk bed at my dad's house that we'll be moving to the new house.  If we have a lot of company, like this weekend, one child can sleep in the same room as the other child and the company can sleep in the other room. 

Above are the boys rooms now.  They will also be getting some new bedding for the new house which they are excited about.  

One week until closing!

My Lucky 13, Part 6

I went by the house today and was delighted to see the door was painted black and the shutters are up.  The concrete looks beautiful (well, as beautiful as concrete does.) I didn't go in the house as the cleaning crew was mopping the kitchen.  The energy star test was taking place at the front door.  I did talk to the PM and everything seems to be going along great. He wants us to walk through the house this weekend; kind of a pre walk through of our official walk through on Wednesday.  That way we can get him the list of anything we see that needs to be done and he can actually have it done by Wednesday. From other blogs I've read, this is not a normal thing, but I'm very happy for the request. I know that the PM is really trying to make sure that everything is just the way we want before closing. I've really been impressed with the way that he handles that sort of thing. Our plan is to walk through either tonight or Sunday, after the kids find their Easter eggs.  Which brings me to the next thing I'm looking forward to in the new house.

A Guest Room

We have family coming in from out of state.  It's been a while since I've seen them and I'm so glad that they are staying with us.  I *wish* our new house was done and closed on before they arrive though.  One person will be staying in my sons room while he bunks up on the floor in my other sons room. Another will be staying with her child on the couch in our living room. It will be a little cramped.  I'm am so grateful that we have an offer on our current house, so I don't have to be ready to show the house why they are here. 
Anyway, I'm excited to have an actual guest room. I want to have a private, cozy space for out of town guests which we have several times a year. I have a whole board on Pinterest for guest room ideas.  I can't wait.

Here's what the house looks like with the shutters.  So pretty! I couldn't get a real good angle; there were so many people working on the house I had to try and stay out of their way.

My Lucky 13, Part 5

Our PM called me today to give me the last bit of run down on the schedule for the next 11 days.  That's right.  We close on our house in 11 days! Things are coming nicely and I have no doubt that everything will be done by closing. At the end of our conversation he offered me a very sincere apology about the stress we've had here at the end with several things being ordered incorrectly. He really wants to make sure we have a good experience. I was honest with him and told him that while we kind of scratch our heads and wonder how so many (big) things could be ordered wrong, we are very pleased with the way he has handled everything. Everything has been corrected without negotiation and as quickly as possible.  I did ask him what Rite Rug was going to do with the wrong carpet after they take it out of the house.  I told him that if they were just going to throw it away, I'd really like them to leave us a large remnant.  This will allow us to finish the other section of the basement at some point in the future.  He checked with them and they have agreed to leave us enough for that part of the basement.  I'm glad we can put some of the waste to use. He said that if there's anything else we would like him to do before closing, that he would work on getting it done.  He specifically mentioned garage door openers.  We've already purchased some, and after talking to my husband, it would be really nice to have them installed before we move in. So, we're going to take him up on the offer to have his crew install our garage door openers for us.  I really appreciate how he's trying to go above and beyond to make us happy. While we're on the subject, that brings me to item number 5 that I'm really looking forward to in the new house. 

Three Car Garage

We make it a habit to park both of our cars in the garage.  Once we started accumulating more kids things, like bikes, we built a mini barn at our current house.  I don't think we are allowed to have one in the new house.  And, realistically, the kids never take their toys all the way to the mini barn and instead just leave them in the garage.  We'll have space for two cars plus the kids bikes! If my husband has any garage projects it will also allow for extra space for that kind of thing.  

My Lucky 13, Part 4

Twelve days left until closing!  Time for one of the things I look forward to in the new house.

Dining room 

I know a lot of people that don't use their dining room, but I think we will. I can't wait to get our large dining table that everyone can sit at easily when we host for the holidays or when we have friends over for cards. I have an older set of family china that has been in my attic since it was given to me.  I haven't decided if we'll use it yet, but at least I'll have a place to put it - in the buffet in the dining room.  I will also be putting my husband's family silver in there.  

Above is a picture of our current dining area, which is in the kitchen.  It's nice because it's all together and open, but it's just not big enough for when we host.

Here is an example of a dining room from Ryan's website.  I think we'll orient the table in the opposite direction, but you get the idea.  We'll also have stools at the island, so I imagine the kids will eat their breakfast there. Below are the pictures of the dining room set that we ordered, which I'm pretty excited about.

In other news, our driveway and porch are being poured today.  The granite has been confirmed for tomorrow.