Pictures from 9/30/06

Andrew and I spent most of the day just cleaning up around the construction site. We started a fire and burnt a lot of scrap lumber and such. Andrew also saw cut the concrete to control cracking. Sorry, no pictures of that. I was lucky to make it down in the basement just to help, let alone to bring a camera. The framers were there from before 8:00 am to around 5:00 pm. They mainly put up interior walls and framed in the garage. We are pretty sure they are putting up the trusses tomorrow (yes, on Sunday). I am teaching Sunday School both hours tomorrow so I won't be able to be there. Andrew is going to early service so he can be out there to catch the action. We'll post more pictures when we take them. These are the pictures from today.

This is the where the sliding glass door in our kitchen/dining area will go.


Looking into the kitchen. Cabinets will go along both walls.


The kitchen window. Our sink will be below it!


Looking into the basement. No stairs yet. We used a ladder to get down there. You can sort of see what Andrew cut today if you look at the line in the concrete.



The view out of our bedroom window (for now, we may move upstairs once we finish that).

A picture of the whole first floor framed. It is amazing how much different it will look by next weekend, when Andrew will probably be working on the shingles.

The Promised Pictures

The promised pictures are below!

A picture of our basement/foundation before the concrete was poured. We forgot to take a picture of the concrete floor but you can imagine. Picture taken on 9/26/06


A rainbow we saw out by our house one day. Andrew says it's a sign that God will not destroy our house with water . . . high winds or a tornado maybe, but we're safe from the water.


The framers beginning to lay the sub floor. This was taken on 9/28/06 at about 1:30 pm. They work so fast that it makes my head spin!


This was taken about 12:00 pm on 9/29/06. The ground is still too muddy to get close to the house, without the proper shoes.


Taken this evening 9/29/06 (by Andrew, I was at my jewelry party). I can't believe how fast it is going. They are ready to set the trusses tomorrow. You can see them laying on the ground in this picture.

Andrew's dad admiring the framing this evening.

The framers are planning on working tomorrow, so I'm sure we will be out there most of the day to see them work, so we'll get more pictures. Surely these pictures are good enough to warrent several comments from my beloved friends and family! :) :)

Framing Update

Sorry that there are no pictures yet. I didn't get a chance to download from my camera. I drove out there over lunch and they had two walls up, the front and back of the house. Andrew is out there right now and he said that they had some of the interior walls up too. Looks like it should really move along, if they decide to work this weekend. I am still at work at 5:30pm on a Friday. My boss has requested that I make up time missed, which I understand, so I've got to grab every opportunity to do that. I've also been invited to a jewelry party over in this area. I normally despise home parties, they just lead to guilt at not spending money, but all the proceeds go towards helping a couple in our church get started as missionaries in Jos, Nigeria. Also, I've been praying that I would make some friends here. I tend to be slow at making friends, but once I make friends, they are pretty deep and long lasting friendships. So, we'll see how this goes.

I should have pictures to post tonight. I'll try to get my smart husband to help me put a video on here because, I have no idea how to even get it off the camera. We'll see.

So many things to say . . .

The framers started today. I drove over at lunch, and it looked good. The ground over there is so very muddy from the rain, so I brought along some old tennis shoes to wear in the mud. In order to not get my long pants muddy, I decided to resort to the 80s pant roll. I knew that I looked bad but I figured it would be better to look bad infront of our framing crew (who by the way, are all of Mexican decent) than have mud on my pants at work. Makes sense, right?! As I was leaving, I bid farewell to my framing crew and walked back to my car. I heard one of the guys say a phrase in Spanish. Now, I'm not fluent, but I did take spanish in high school and I know enough to know that they were making fun of my pants but not enough spanish to reply! I can't believe that they didn't say, "what a smart woman to bring her tennis shoes and roll her pants so they don't get muddy." I'm glad I could make someone have a laugh today.

On a more somber note, I found out this morning that one of my Sunday School kids (who is 3 years old) is having heart surgery for some major problems in November. She is the sweetest, most precious girl and my heart is broken for her. It helps to put things in perspective (again). Why do I whine all the time that I don't have a house when one is being built for me? And why do I whine all the time about my aches and pains when at least I feel good enough go to work and be productive? I'm just tired of hearing myself complain about such petty things, as I'm sure many of those close to me are as well. I'm tired of just petty things being a big deal.

Ok, so if everything continues to go on schedule for the house, this is what we're looking at for this week:
Friday, September 29th - Trusses delivered and set and sump pump installed
Saturday, September 30th - More framing
Monday, October 2nd - Backfill
Tuesday, October 3rd - Concrete for porch and garage (although they haven't called me back)
Wednesday, October 4th - Shingles delivered (Yeah, Andrew is putting these on!!)
Friday, October 5th - Windows Delivered and installed

Also this week, we may have the HVAC guy and plumber come in for some rough in. We also might be able to start on the septic. We are anxious to get that in before the cold weather starts! Yikes! I feel as if I'm a bit over my head but things keep moving forward and I'm learning slowly but surely, just to trust, and ask for help, if I need it. I've got framing pictures that I'll post later!

I can hardly breathe!

I'm so sore today! I spent much of the evening last night in our new basement (took some coaxing to get me down there with just a short ladder as a means of escape) shoveling rocks, mud, and muddy rocks so that Andrew could put up some screed board (if you need an explaination, email me jaime_schechter@yahoo.com) for the guys pouring concrete today. I also ran by our window place, and picked up some vapor barrier from Home Depot. I must say that I was very impressed with the service from Home Depot. Of course, I was a woman alone, asking about a 20x50 roll of 6 mil vapor barrier. Not your average, run-of-the-mill, female shopping experience!! I was helped by two, yes TWO, employees and then one of them carried the item to the register and then out to my car. That was good, since it was so heavy, I would have struggled to get it loaded up. I would have succeeded but I may have injured myself trying!!

Tonight we have a meeting with our HVAC guy and then home so that Andrew can accomplish some homework! We are having lumber delivered this afternoon and then our framing starts tomorrow! There is an 80% chance of rain and I mentioned it to the framer, but he said he didn't care. Now we just need to get our septic in place and much of our weather worries will be over. Our trusses are being delivered on Friday so that the framers can work all weekend. I hope all that goes well and there are no mix-ups or anything. The guy is from Romania so it is a tiny bit difficult to communicate with him. I've written down all my questions and things I need to tell him, so hopefully it will go smoothly.

I'll try to take some pictures tomorrow of the concrete basement floor and framing.

Foundation Photos!

Here are the pictures from last Wednesday when Superior Walls dropped in our pre-poured foundation. Enjoy!

This is the sign they placed in our front yard!



This is the first wall being dropped into place!


Wall number 3. It was neat to see how the crane lifted and moved the heavy walls! They also worked so fast. They put these three walls together in just a few minutes.


More Walls!


The crane operator let us take a picture from the crane. I let Andrew do it.



Finished foundation that evening!

The foundation is in!!

I'm at work so I can't post pictures. I will try to put them up tonight. I also have video but I will have to bug my hubby to help me do that. I'm not quite that technology savvy! The foundation is pretty cool. Lots of things are going in next week: basement floor, steel beams, lumber delivered, and the framing starts! Yeah!

Footers, Foundations, and I don't know!!

We are having our superior walls foundation set tomorrow morning. I am planning on going in to work late, so that I can watch them get started! We had a UBI meeting this morning (at 7:00 am) and I am pretty overwhelmed now. I'm not sure what all to do when, but I'm sure I can figure it out. The only two things that are scheduled is the foundation tomorrow and the plumber putting in underground stuff on Monday. The rest of it is in the works. It looks like the framer will start next Thursday (the 28th) so we'll see when it gets a bit closer. Sorry this is so short. I'll have lots of good pictures to post tomorrow. I have a few from the excavation company spreading the gravel (not very exciting) but I haven't taken them off my camera yet.

Hole Pictures!

Once again, these are in reverse order but it's 11:00 pm and I got up at 5:45 am so I'm not going to worry about fixing it tonight! The foundation company is bringing in gravel tomorrow and the temporary pole Andrew constructed is being inspected tomorrow. Enjoy the pictures!

The completed hole at 5:30 pm.

This is what it looked like at noon when we came over on our lunch break.

The monster is beginning to dig our basement. This was around 7:15 am.

We've Begun!

We watched the excavator begin to dig this morning at 7:15 am! We've officially started construction. We got video and pictures of the event, which I will try to post later. It was hard for me to go to work and not stay and watch. We watched him dig up some interesting pipes and things. We were hoping he didn't run into a big septic tank, from the old house so we'll see. He said it was an easy dig (hopefully means cheap). We have another meeting with our consultant there at 12:30 pm today. Good thing I've found the fastest route, since it takes me about 30 minutes one-way between work and the lot. I'll keep you posted with pictures and updates on the progress.

Timber and Heavy Equipment

Sorry these pictures are in reverse order. I can't figure out how to get blogger to load one beneath, instead of above. I'll work on that.

I took this picture at work on my way out to the mailbox. The driveway was covered with rain water! I've never seen it rain so hard for so long. It was only a slight drizzle here, which is why I chose this moment to go to the mailbox.

The heavy equipment in our lot, waiting out the rain!!

Dewey is watching and learning how to cut up a tree from Wayne and Andrew.

Unfortunately, this was our favorite tree in the yard. It was just too close to the house site. We'll enjoy the firewood.

Our neighbor volunteered to help us cut down the tree. So . . . we let him!!

New Sidebar Item

I searched today and found this neat little weather channel thing (for lack of a better word) to put in my sidebar. Since the weather is drastically effecting our building, I decided to keep all my family and friends up-to-date on the current weather, using my blog. I took some pictures of the rain today and I still haven't found out when we are going to dig. I would imagine that it would be either tomorrow or Thursday. I spent my lunch hour picking out windows at Pella. I went by myself since it was down in Montgomery (only had to turn around once . . . huge improvement) and it was too far for Andrew to come. We just need to decide on colors and place an order since Andrew and I have agreed all along on the style of the windows. I was shocked to learn how soon we would have to be ordering all of these materials. Also this week, we are picking out lighting fixtures, plumbing fixtures, roofing color, and maybe appliances. I guess doing all of this while you are waiting on the rain rain to go away, saves time later. I'll should have several boring pictures of rain, and our excavation equipment, later on today for your viewing pleasure.

Our first delay

On my way to our land this morning (at about 6:50 am), our consultant called me and said that he suggested that we postpone the excavation because of rain in the forecast for tomorrow. He said it would also save us money because the excavator wouldn't have to drive out to our place twice (or more). So I'm ok with that. I'm ready to get started but I know it will happen soon. I'll find out more about our new schedule later on today.

We're digging a very big hole . . .

financially and in the ground!! :) I discovered today (long story) that we are breaking ground on September 11th at 7:00 am. Yeah! We're finally building our house! I feel like I'm going on a trip and I have no idea where I'm going.

Unconscious Love

Last night, Andrew fell asleep while I was still up reading my book. Right after I turned off my light, he rolled over and said, "Goodnight my perfect angel." I answered back (jokingly), "Oh, your just talking in your sleep." Well . . . he was talking in his sleep!! I am honored to know that my husband has such nice thoughts of me while he sleeps! :)

Firework Pictures

The banks were crowded. I heard the next day on the news that there was 1/2 million people down at the river for the fireworks.

The "waterfall" fireworks were displayed from a bridge that spans the Ohio River.

Jaime, Jennie, Maggie, Michael, and Andrew (the photographer) at the fireworks last Sunday night. I had a good time, I promise. Not sure why I am scowling.

Weekend and Such

We had a nice relaxing weekend. I really enjoyed my day off! I helped clean the church in Monroe on Saturday, did laundry, had tea (from people who didn't show), and watched a movie. Then on Sunday, we went to a movie, and then we headed downtown to watch some Labor Day fireworks. They are put on by a local radio station, so the station had music playing that coordinated with the fireworks. It was really neat. I especially liked the "water falls" coming off of the bridges. The news channel said that there were 1/2 million people there, and I believe it. It was so crowded! Yesterday, I slept in (very late), went to a movie, and then enjoyed a cookout at my in-law's house. So, we watched lots of movies. We hadn't been to one for several months. It was nice.

We are moving forward with our house stuff. We have appointments this week to pick out windows, and siding. I am working on calling people to talk about shingles, trusses, and lumber. I will hopefully have an official word on our dig date by tomorrow or Thursday. It's nice to have a four day week, and then another weekend. Since I got our building permit on Friday, we are now cleared to begin work. We are just waiting for our foundation to be built. Very important step in house building! :)

We've Set a Date

We've set a tentative date to dig, September 18th. This all hinges on when our foundation will be ready to install. I've been so swamped at work and with the house. Hopefully, I'll write more later.