This time last year...

They had just finished putting the siding on the outside of the house...

We made our final decision on the exterior color...Steal Blue...

I would share a new photo of the outside of the yard today but the weather is super icky and it has not changed that much in the front yard since the banner photo was taken :)...I hoped you enjoyed a quick look back with me.

Blessings Kelsie

One Year Ago Today....

We began clearing the way to build our family home on the location we believe is very close to, if not on the place the original homestead stood over a century ago...I also began this blog on that day as a way to document and share this journey with our family and friends...Along the way both the blog and the house have become so much more than I ever dared to dream...


This photo was taken from the top of the driveway when we arrived for the first time in Feb of 2004...The old trailer had been the home to Hubby's Great Uncle, the final family member to live on the property before we moved here a couple of yrs after he passed away...He is still our neighbor as he is buried in the family plot that shares a border with our 5 acre parcel.


Following are some then and now photos taken from the same spots in the yard one year apart...

Top of Driveway

17th November 2009, minutes before clearing began

20th November 2009, clearing completed

17th November 2010


North West Corner of Front Yard.

17th November 2009, minutes before clearing began

20th November 2009, clearing completed

17th November 2010

Thank you for traveling this far with us...I hope you will stay with us as we see what lies ahead...

Will be sharing this anniversary for

And

Curb Appeal Challenge.

So here it is, the front of the finished house...no building materials on the porch, no saw-horses in the front yard...but this photo is very deceptive...In reality, we have no front lawn...this lovely lush green lawn is courtesy of my computer...



This is the real front of the house...The four of us spent hours out the front of the house pulling out weeds and bramble and the underbrush that was trying to return...You have to remember it was less than a year ago this was nothing but an over grown mess of wild cherry trees, rotten water oaks and lots and lots of bramble...so thick we could not even walk around.

So the challenge is to take these supplies and start creating some defined areas for both garden beds and the lawn areas.... All these border packs came to me at 50% off...I cleaned out Dollar General and now have 100ft of borders, which should be enough to do the beds in the front of the house and around the pecan tree. I did the math and worked out I paid just 35cents per ft...Now the down side is they are black, but that is nothing a can of white spray paint can't fix...Which is the job on the top of my "Hope to do" list today.

I did find the time to dead head the butterfly bushes and they are looking great now...Even got a few blooms to show for my trouble of rescuing them from the clearance bin....Hubby went back and got the rest, so now we have a total of 5 to spread around the garden.


Hope yall are having a great weekend
Kelsie

It's mine all mine...well ours!

This view of the house seem to be appropriate for the crazy Topsy turvy week it has been....Each night I have crawl to my bed exhausted and unable to think straight let alone write anything...I know I owe many of you emails and believe me when I say that I appreciate all the lovely comments and support everyone has given us during this adventure...(though the adventure is not over, this was just chapter one lol)...Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Finally with the dumbster removed we can see the back of the house.

Anyway in the last post the big question was, did we pass final inspection...YES and did the final walk thru with Leon of Built Wright Custom Homes on Thursday evening....So the house is now officially OURS and we are super excited....Now the long haul of trying to get moved in around a toddlers sleeping schedule (that changes daily) and David's uncooperative work schedule (that seems to be designed just to be the most inconvenient this week)

I have been trying to take final photographs of the kitchen for Leon's scrapbook before we move in, and I got some really nice ones on my Nikon 990, but alas I forgot to format the memory card to that camera last time I cleared it and now my computer will not read them...So I will try again today (if baby will let me)

She is slowly getting better and I will be glad with the antibiotics are almost over...I hope this is the last bout for the season...and also that the new house and super filtered A/C unit will help keep her allergies at bay from now on.

I finally got all the USA Graduation Announcements done and in the mail yesterday morning...Mic looks so gorgeous in her hat and gown....For those of you in Australia, yours are coming too, just have to have time to get to them....I do not know what I was thinking taking on building a house during the same yr as having one child graduating high school and the other one hitting the terrible 2's.

So on that note, much to get done today...

Week 16_While we wait....

So today was supposed to be the final inspection...Did the inspector come by?? Did we pass?? Who knows...We have not heard yet, leaving me wound a little tight right now...Can you imagine that, me wound tight??...because I am usually such a level heading, go with the flow type gal...*watch the sarcasm drip from your monitor here*

So while we wait, I thought I would share a couple more pictures of my kitchen with yall...Below is the view of the kitchen from the front door.


...I had hoped to be sharing photos of a completely finished kitchen by this point...but the cleaners did not show up on the weekend so
A: The blue plastic on the appliances can't be removed yet
B:And the corbels should have been stained to match the espresso cabinets , but the painters will not do the final little bits until the cleaners have been.


The white power outlets will be switched out with black ones...I did not even think about them until after I saw black backsplash in place...oops...So right now the remaining 2 are on special order and should arrive any day now...Another thing with the black splash, it actually cracked while being installed, so will be completely replaced by the end of the week...Since this is only cosmetic it has no baring on the final inspection.

As you can see, we finally have the fan inside the ceiling tray installed...I think it looks really pretty...though the glass is white and does not match the kitchen/dining glass, I will have to shop around to find a suitable glass light shade to replace it, but this was the only fan that I like the style and the metal finish matched the rest of my fixtures, never know I might learn to live with the mix of white and amber shades.

Bath vanities are in place and looking very nice. Really glad I opted for the espresso cabinets in the bathrooms, I think they needed the darker color to ground the space...The cultured marble tops are "light coco"...wonder if the mix of the 2 make my bathroom Mocha?? (ok...that was a lame attempt at humor)
Besides being on edge about the inspection, it has been a pretty stressful couple of days around here....The baby has been sick...Nothing too serious, but a sick toddler is never fun...and then this weekend really provided me with good photos to show you why we are so anxious to get the house finished and move out of the mobile home.

We had a severe storm move thru the area and our place took more damage during it that when the hurricanes came thru in 2004...Below shows the south side with the skirting torn away, the table and BBQ's where all around the corner, behind the house before the storm.


You can see here the buckling in the skirting along the back of the trailer...All in all made for a pretty scary Sunday...Worst still the baby and I were not home, but at Church when this took place, leaving Mic to have to ride it out by herself....She was cooler about the whole thing than me though...even while I was calling her to check she was ok.


I am grateful this is all that took place on Sunday, and in no time at all David had it cleaned up and the skirting back how it should be...I count us very blessed.

Week 15 - Under Ground Power - Counter tops

I am happy to report that the permanent underground power has been put on at the house. I am told that when the electricians come back to do their final stuff they will take the temp pole with them. YAY no more ugly power pole to mare my landscape..

Other super exciting news is my gorgeous Uba Tuba granite counter tops got installed yesterday...Lots of pictures to share because they are just sooooooooo pretty....


I guess I should mention the floor since I forgot in the last post and you can see it in this photo (though they are covered in dust right now)...Very pleasantly surprised on how good it looks, and the installers did an amazing job matching up the edges so you can not tell at all where the joints are...We chose to go with vinyl (lino for you aussies) through-out the house for a couple of reasons...the first one being cost...with the money we saved in the floor budget, it allowed us to afford to get the granite counters in the kitchen...Later we intend to up-grade the floors to a floating wood laminate floor and this brings us to the second reason for our current floor, it will act as the moister barrier between the cement slab and the floating floor system..saving us a step and money down the road..Third reason being, that having a toddler, we do not want to be worrying about her damaging expensive flooring..In the mean time it does not hurt that the vinyl turned out looking pretty too :)


But back to the counter tops...Is that not a thing of beauty...Note we have an under mount sink...It is also a full 2 inches deeper than my current sink...yay.


As suspected the counters really did help to define the cabinets against the wall...Going to see how it looks after the range hood and the fridge are in place before making the final decision on painting that wall.


For the island (and bathrooms) I chose these delicious espresso cabinets. The gaping hole is where my dishwasher goes..


And finally, last night we went over to check out how the lights look...Not all the fixtures have bulbs in them yet, but we did get to see how well the recessed lights in the kitchen illuminate the space...and though I did not take a photo the ones in the living room ceiling tray are also very pretty...As David said last night, now we can the light switch, it feels like our home.

Week 14 - So close to the end now...

PLEASE CLICK IMAGES TO SEE THEM LARGER...

Just 12 days to go to meet our deadline and Leon is doing everything he can to keep everyone on track...We now have soffits and fascia, giving it a nice finished look...All that is left now is to add the porch lights and the door bell...at least I think that is pretty much it for the outside...Well besides landscaping, but that will come later and be done by us.

On the inside, I am LOVING how the french doors into my workspace are looking, and the wall of built in closets look great too...I am so excited to get them filled with fabrics and set up my sewing machines and get back to work...I knew I would miss working but this is about driving me nuts...Watching Project Runway is like torture right now. :(

As I mentioned in my previous post, all the lights are installed but for the one in the living room, we needed to find a 1/2inch diameter, foot long extension rod for the fan inside the ceiling tray...This proved harder than it sounds, though we found one, it was the wrong color and had threads at both end so David had to grind them off to make it fit and then painted it black to match the fan.

Even with having to do all that, I am glad to report that all the agonizing over my light fixtures for months, most definitely paid off, I am loving them all...Pictured here is a mini chandelier with ceiling medallion is in Mic's room and will help capture the French country feel we are going for. You will be surprised to find out this fixture was found on walmart.com...Once the bed is in place the chandelier can be lowered, for the moment it is hooked up so we do not walk into it .

Before I tell you about the cabinets, I do have to mention the 3 pendants over the breakfast bar, because the extension rods that came with them are 12inches long and the kitchen ceilings are only 8foot high, using 2 rods per pendant made them hang a little lower than I had hoped for, BUT having just one rod made them too short, while trying to work out which height would work best, I had the electrician hang one short and one long...and BAM...we had our solution...I love how unique they look now.

Ok, now for the cabinets...I had wanted and "thought" I had ordered an off-white (ivory) cabinets with a caramel glaze for the outer wall...well it seems when you combine ivory with caramel glaze you get TAWNY BIRCH...which would be the color we painted the walls...I have thought of little else this week end but how can we fix this problem of my cabinets now blending in with the walls and still keep on schedule...

Well a couple of things, once the counter tops are added and the appliances, this should help define the cabinets some more...Plus we do plan to add a tile back splash, and this may now happen sooner rather than later....Obviously sending them back is not really a option if I want to have a kitchen when Mum and Nina arrive from Australia...So PAINT...after much mulling over and discussion in the wee hours of the morning, since this is literally keeping me awake...We go with the easy option and paint the kitchen and dining walls a darker color...and if it gets to the point I just CAN'T live with the cabinets this color then I will just have to paint them white myself....ANY AND ALL INPUT WELCOME BTW..

On a happy note... LOVE LOVE LOVE my hardware...after much searching online I was able to find the exact cup draw pulls and cabinet door knobs I wanted for less than 1/3 of the price of the ones at homedepot...So thank you The Knob Store on ebay...http://stores.ebay.com/theknobshop

I had my heart set on these cup draw pulls as they remind me of my Aunty "Loopy's" kitchen and bring back so many fond childhood memories of visiting her on the farm and chasing their many many ducks...

So is it surprising at all how fond I am of ducks now...Here are our 2 new additions, Peeps and Hula at only a week old...they are now more then twice this size and still growing...They are Giant White Pekins and supposed to reach 7lb's by 8 weeks of age...YIKES lol.

That's it for now. Hope to have some exciting counter top news by the end of the week.

Week 13 - Exterior Painting Done

View of the house from the North East, steal blue body, white trim and red door (Not sure what color red because they lost the sample card..oops). Still have to add the soffit, which will be white like the trim and should add the final POP to the outside...That is until until we have the time and money to add the railing to the porch and get some landscaping done.

Talking of landscaping Spring is definitely in full bloom here in Florida...I could not resist taking a photo of the wisteria that drapes the driveway and gives such a pretty frame to our little blue house.

In other news, all but one light fixture has been hung and they begun laying the flooring today...I hope to be able to get inside to take some pictures tomorrow afternoon or at the very latest the weekend. Also meet the granite guy, can't wait to see those counter tops go in...But first we need cabinets (due middle of next week)

I mentioned in my last entry that David had the septic guy use his machine to dig the trench for the underground electric conduit. Yesterday the electricians hung the outside box on the wall, allowing David to run the final pieces of conduit to make the connection from the pole by the road to the house complete. I have a great picture of David in the hole but he said I couldn't use it so this is the only one I have to share :(

David also ran all the phone and satellite lines for the TV and Internet throughout the house. Plus has framed in additional attic floor space the full size of the living area tray, which is about 16x16 square feet on top of what the builder had already made into attic storage space...

So not really house related but "down on the farm"...We got 4 more Chickens this last week...One is already laying and the other 3 younger birds are just pullets but should be laying soon also...For the moment they are still using the small pen to keep them safe at night but have free rain of all 5 acres during the day...though the younger birds seem to prefer the safety of the pen....Not sure if they are hiding from Bravo (rooster) or Sara lol...Actually they all get very excited to see Sara because she always brings them food.

David also brought 2 ducklings today, but they are just a week old and are currently snug as bugs in the old cockatiel cage in the utility room...About the time they are old enough to live outside full time we should have the new chicken/duck pen build closer to the new house and under the shade of the trees for both shelter from the summer heat and also predator birds.

I guess that is about it until I have some pictures from inside the house...I am very excited to see how the flooring looks tomorrow.

Week 12 - The count down begins.

I feel like I have been chasing my own tail all week, trying to make sure everything we need to get done is completed and we are not holding any of the work on the house up. We really need to hit our April 30th deadline and I refuse to be the cause of any delays....Everyone and everything needs to run smoothly over the next 29 days.

So the big things for this week, we have color on our interior walls..Tawny Birch...the best I can describe it as is, a yellowy beige. Notice they have removed all the doors again. They took them away to spray paint them...They will not be rehung until the flooring goes down sometime next week.

With the ceiling tray walls painted the same color as the rest of the walls, the tray really takes on definition. You can also see the A/C vent covers have been put in place, Can't wait to see how it looks with the light fixture and recessed lights installed also.


The septic tank was also installed along with the drain field..While the machine was here they also dug the trench for the conduit to be laid for the underground power line....



Other stuff but not photos:
All the shelves in the closets have been installed today...And we have got an outside color match, so they will start painting there on Monday...They switched and did the inside first so we can get the next wave of sub's come thru in order for us to keep things moving towards the looming deadline.

Weeks 9, 10 and beginning 11 - Where did the time go

Everything is really moving along now...Our walls all have insulation now...The inner walls have batts, but the outer walls got a spray in foam type stuff that fills every little nook and cranny, making it much more energy efficient...First they spray it in the walls, then they take what looks like a drill operated paint roller on a frame to knock down the excess and smooth it back to the studs...Then they have a second guy with what looks like a super large vacuum hose sucking up all the stuff that is knocked down, it is sucked back into the truck and reused....then the walls are left for the glue/bonding agent in the insulation to dry...I do have video of this process but it needs editing and I do not have the time to mess with it atm, so will post it at a later time.

BUT the biggest difference to the interior of the house so far is the drywall has gone up and we have walls and ceilings now...YAY.

This is a view of the soon to be kitchen area, you can see the built in pantry and the half wall that will be the back of the kitchen island bar.

It is amazing how much bigger the space feels now...all the rooms for that matter..

And talking of making a space feel bigger, here is a view of the living room ceiling tray...The extra 18inches really make that part of the living area feel huge.

It also gives that part of the room a feel of separation from the kitchen and dining without having to be closed off by a wall...it is hard to describe, but it is a very positive thing.


After the drywall was up and it had passed inspection and all the joints plastered, they came back and "shot the walls" to create a Spanish Knock Down effect...This will give the walls a slight textured look...With the soft yellow color I have chosen for the interior walls, it should really help lend to the country cottage look.

You can also see in this picture that my interior doors have arrived and are actually been installed as I type this...The painters are supposed to be coming by today also to start caulking in and prepping the walls to start painting tomorrow...I am so excited to see how how the colors we choose are going to look.

Kitchen cabinets have been chosen and should be ordered today...I have chosen my counter tops...See pretty picture of Uba-tuba granite to the left...I am loving the subtly of the coloring and hope it should contrast nicely with our cabinet colors.

We have also finalized our flooring selection, our lighting fixtures have been picked, door knobs purchased and OH BIG NEWS...The duel flush toilet price has been reduced to just $118 per unit...So not only are we saving more money, but hopefully this will make even more ppl choose this energy/water saving option for their bathrooms.

Well I think that is about you all caught up now...And hopefully by weeks end I can show you pictures of our pretty Steel Blue home.

Week 8 ends and week 9 begins...

Where to begin...So much going on all at once this last week...Well on the outside as you can see, the siding was completed and the roof is now on...Once the siding is painted they will return and do the soffit and facier.

And talking of painting the siding, though we had originally thought we would paint the siding white, but after much pondering and driving around looking at older cracker and craftsman homes in our area decided it would look better with color that would really make the white trim pop...Not to mention we have been living in a white house for the last 6yrs and it is a rather safe color.....

So final decision is "Steel Blue"...I know those that know me well are rolling their eyes at me painting yet ANOTHER house blue...though in my defence..A: this time it is the exterior and B: It was actually David's idea and decision...I had wanted green but seems he is allergic to green houses or something lol...oh and the fact out that 3 out of the six houses on our little country road is already green lol.

So anyway moving right along to the interior work for the week....The Electricians did the rough in, which then left me to fuss over every light fixture placement, having them tweak and tweak until I think (hope) I got them just where they need to be...After tomorrow it will be too late to move anything as they start spraying insulation and adding drywall.

I also have to choose 23 different light fixtures for the house....My head has been swimming in possibilities...I have so much respect for interior designers, having to decide both the function and the form of each fixture is proving quite overwhelming...

The plumbers were back and put the drop-in fiberglass shower and bath units...I am so glad I went with builder standards for both bathrooms (besides the duel flush toilets) because I am not sure I could take the pressure to make any more decisions.

The pantry in the kitchen has been framed out...I know I mentioned just getting a drop in pantry later, but well I am a woman building a house...I AM going to change my mind many times lol...I am getting more and more excited to see how this kitchen turns out...Meeting with the cabinet maker soon to discuss cabinet doors and finishes.

Picked up some possible color samples for the interior but until we have walls inside the house I will not know what the natural lighting will truly look like to see if these colors will work....But at least I can narrow down my selection compared to my furniture colors before I buy the sample pots.

I am sure I am missing something in this weeks post....Well as my mummy would say "Can't have been that important, if you can't remember it"