Our First Pizza Delivery - Sunday, April 25, 2010

Now that the builders put their white doors with the ugly red stamps on our house, they lock them so no one can get in after they are done working for the day.  Last Sunday, they unlocked the doors around noon so we could get in to do a little special wiring throughout our house.  We wanted to run speaker cables in the living room and family room for our TV speakers and to also run blue internet cables (sorry if this is not the correct technical name for the type of cable) throughout the rooms where we may want to have computers.

With Jason's drill, a hammer, 500 feet of blue cable for the internet, 50 feet of speaker cable, and a few other do-dads, he got to work drilling through the wall boards so he could run the cables to the basement.

The plan was to have all the blue cables meet together in the laundry room.  This is where we will keep our internet router.  My job was to help string the cables through the walls and rafters of our house and to also color code the cables with red, white, blue, and green tape.  Ta-da!  Mission accomplished!

My mom came over  to see the inside of the house for the first time, and she arrived when we were almost done stringing the blue cables.  She also brought her handy plastic step stool for us to use.  We are both pretty tall but not tall enough sometimes.

After we finished withe the blue cables, Jason went on to string the speaker cables only to find out that 50 feet was just shy of what he needed to finish the job.  So the three of us piled into his truck and made a run to Fleet Farm, where we picked up some more speaker cable and a ladder, and then we went back to work.

At this point we hadn't eaten anything at all, and it was well after 3pm.  We were starving!  Earlier when we drove up to the house Jason laughed and said, "Wouldn't it be funny if we ordered  our first pizza at our house today?"  I laughed and sort of thought he was joking at the time.  After all not only is our house not quite a house yet, we don't even have our house number up on the outside.  Even hours later when he mentioned the pizza idea again, I was still a bit skeptical about the idea.  But when he assured me they could find our house without a problem, he also said, "Come on!  It would be a lot of fun, and it would also make a great blog post.  And I did agree...Yes, it really would be quite a funny to tell the story later. 

So, we ordered Domino's.  They said the pizza would be done in 30 minutes at the end of my order and I told the guy on the phone, "You might want to make a note that our house is under construction right now too." 

It wasn't but 10 minutes later and the pizza was already there!  When I went out to get the pizza, the delivery driver laughed and said that this was the first delivery he had where the house wasn't exactly built yet, and I laughed and thanked him for finding our house. 

Jason flattened an empty box that he found in the garage, and I pulled up piece of dry wall for a seat on the floor.

And my mom laughed and said, "Little did I know that I brought my own chair today." (She was reffuring to her little plastic step stool.)

  And then we all enjoyed a pizza picnic in our dining area after a hard afternoon at work!

Windows, Siding, & Lights

Remember that garage full of windows?  Well, when we visited the house on April 23rd, they were out of the garage and had all been installed.   

Here's a shot of the back of the house, complete with siding.  This shade of green is called Cypress.  (Our side of the twin home is on the right in this picture.)

That night, Jason and I took a trip that store with the catchy/annoying song that drives you crazy when it gets stuck in your head.  Our mission was to purchase our lights for the house.  We learned an important lesson that night.  In order to "save big money" you should avoid this store all together.  All jokes aside, we did some great shopping and remained under our budget for light fixtures.  So maybe that catchy ditty is true? 

With windows installed, the siding started, and the lights that have now been delievered to the builders, the house is quickly coming together, and we couldn't be more excited for the day we close on our house!

Back From Vegas - April 21, 2010

We had a wonderful time in Las Vegas!  And the highlight of the trip was that Jason proposed to me on our one year anniversary of dating!  It was a very special night that I know I will never forget.

Jason's mom, Sandy, picked us up from the airport on Tuesday the 21st, and she surprised me with a beautiful bunch of flowers!  After she picked us up, she took us to go check out the house.  Thank you, Sandy!

 
We were only gone for the previous Friday and Monday of the next week and were amazed at the work they'd accomplished in just two days!  In fact, we had a call that they were ready to do the electrical walk-thru with us the next day.  Here's a picture from the front.  We have a full house now.  Our twin home is on the left side.

And here's a picture of the back.

In the garage we found all of our windows and the patio door.

That will be a lot of window treatments.  Ugh!  Jason decided to measure the windows.

One will eventually go here....

I had to snap a picture of Sandy and Jason in the foyer.

This is where that big patio door will go.  Jason is standing in the dinning room area.

And here's a couple pictures of the kitchen area.  Jason (and I) cannot wait for the gas stove.

Here's a picture of me in the basement.

Things really came together in two short days while we were in Las Vegas! 

Playing Hooky - A Great Start to Vacation

Both Jason and I are officially on vacation until the middle of next week!  (Las Vegas here we come!)  This morning we had a meeting with the builder to pick out the rest of the inside of our house.  I don't know about Jason but I was in no way was I prepared to think about the little details, such as what sort of handles or knobs we wanted for our cabinents, doorknobs, and etc.  But it was still a blast!  After our meeting we couldn't resist.  We drove by the house at about 10:30 AM.

 
Stairs up to the kitchen/dining room/living room area. 

A view of the front of the house.

We were looking at the front of the house and minding our own business when we turned around to leave when I saw a car that looked familiar.  It was my mom!  She'd dropped my dad at work and was just "driving by" to check things out.  It was cool to catch her and talk about our meeting this morning for a bit.  She offered to take the first picture of us both in front of our house in the making.   Thanks Mom!  :)

Since we'll be in Vegas until Tuesday, we'll miss the progress tomorrow and Monday.  It will be interesting to see what things look like when we get back home!  Have a great weekend everyone!

Lunchtime Drive-By

After lunch at Jalapeno's with Julie and my mom, my mom I drove by the house because we were in the area.  The North Dakota wind is still whipping around today, but the sky is a beautiful blue, and the builders were hard at work.  Just look at that guy scaling the wall!  I know I'd totally fall off, if it were me trying to do that.

The wall on the 2nd level is the Living Room wall.  Jason drove by after work today and said he saw stairs going up to the 3rd level but wasn't sure if we had stairs to the basement yet.  These shots are taken from the back of the house.  Since they were hard at work, I didn't want to go to the front and take pictures. 

And just like that the walls start going up!

This builder is working hard on our third level.  This is where the master bedroom will be and the 2nd bedroom.  There will be a 3/4 bathroom in the master and a full bathroom in the hall on this third level that is above the garage. 

And these are my pictures for today!  Stay tuned for more pictures of progress!

Middle of April Progress

We're still going by the house everyday to see the progress being made and to take pictures.  It's my goal to get pictures added to this blog daily.  I'll tell you one thing though, it is absolutely amazing how fast the building of a house comes together after the frame is up.  The next day, on April 13th, the trusses and the workbenches were up.

Pictures from April 13th, 2010

This picture shows the itty bitty space that separates our twin home from our neighbor's home.  It's amazing to think that we are that close together.  We were surprised that there was no insulation in that space between our walls but maybe it isn't needed? 

It was windy on Monday when Jason and I decided to run by the house.  Oh, and as you can see we made our stop after going to the gym again.  This is me standing in our foyer once again in my workout attire.  It seemed strange to stand here without walls around me.  I did my best to picture the model home we toured three times.

This shot was taken from the spot I was standing on in the foyer.  Down there is the basement.  Right now the stairs are a bit invisible, so I wouldn't recommend going down there just yet.  :)

April 14, 2010 - A rainy and windy day!

Tuesday the 14th started out rainy, and although the rain went away in the middle of the day, it remained extremely windy all day long!  Jason took this picture with his phone after he finished work and sent it to me.  We now have the start of a garage and floors in the kitchen, dining room area, and living room on the 2nd floor.  When I talked to my mom on the phone, she said she'd been by the house in the morning and these guys were working hard even in the rain!

I drove by the house myself a bit later that day.  It was so windy that I decided to try and take a picture from my car.  It's so amazing what these guys get done in just a day and they do it all in all types of weather conditions!

Just two weeks ago, there was nothing here but the concrete foundation of the house!  The progress has been very steady since then and now there's only two more days to go before Jason and I go on our trip to Las Vegas.  It will be interesting to see what gets today and tomorrow and then on Friday and Monday while we are gone.  Our little twin home isn't so invisible any more! 

Our Invisible House

In the last month, we've looked at a lot of houses.  Single family houses, bi-level twin homes, tri-level twin homes, townhomes, model homes and etc.  In our search we visited some real fixer-uppers and a few that were a wee bit out of our desired price range.  Life for is pretty busy for us both right now, therefore we knew we didn't have a lot of extra time or money to put into a house that needs a lot of help.  In the end, we decided a new home would be best option for us.  After looking at a couple different models of twin homes, the tri-level twin home held a lasting impression on us both, and on April 1st, 2010 we made the decision to purchase our first house together!  Although there isn't much built as of yet, it is expected to be finished sometime on or before June 30th.

We try to drive by everyday to see the progress on our house.  On April 2nd this is what I saw at lunch-time...a bulldozer in our backyard-to-be!  I took a picture on my phone for Jason and sent him a text while he was at work saying, "Look what's in our backyard!"  Not much of house but a cement basement.  It's a start!

Pictures from April 2nd, 2010 - Don't you need a yard to do yardwork?  :)

I want to drive!  Looks fun, doesn't it?

We even had a baby-Bobcat in the front yard.

Pictures April 8th, 2010 - We have cement in the garage!

Jason and I visited our house-to-be after going to the gym.  He snapped a picture of me standing in our invisible garage. 

I caught Jason looking into the very bottom of our basement.  He wanted to jump down there, which is a pretty big jump but decided not to.

We found lots of materials in the yard.  This led us to believe that they were ramping up to get busy building our tri-level twin home!

Pictures from April 9, 2010 - Freeze Frame!   It's really being built now!

It was cloudy spring day when we discovered that the frame had been put up.

Jason was explaining the next steps in the house-building process to me.  Yes, I had to snap this shot, Honey.  :-P

Now that we have a frame, it won't be long now before it really starts going up!  Stay tuned! :)