October 20, 2013 by Sandy

Tomorrow, Tomorrow . . . You’re Always a Day Away!

Delay is preferable to error. ~Thomas Jefferson

Yep, we had another delay. I was really hoping to have some photos of our house being framed. Unfortunately, the framer had another delay. 😦 He told Jim it’s looking like Thursday, October 24 to start.

However, the good news is we still had some activity at the construction site.

Bill installed a saw post, which is a temporary power post. I’m thinking it is called a saw post because you hook your saw up to the electricity on the post. Sounds logical, right? Anyway, it was the post that Jim’s parents used when they were building their home. Bill installed this while I was on my little vacation. He said it was really heavy and awkward.

Saw Post

Close up of all the wiring

And since the concrete guys were available, they finished the rest of the foundation by spreading rock into the crawl space. Boy was there a lot of rock.

Piles of rock

Spreading the rock in the crawl space

While some guys were spreading the rock, one guy pushed dirt all around! 🙂 All of this foundation is supposed to be under ground.

Dirt work

Moving that dirt

And, they also had to install some pipes. First was the pipe that will bring the water from our well to the house.

Water pipe from well to house

Next, they needed two pipes to drain the crawl space.

Crawl space drainage pipes

Here’s what the crawl space looked like with rock in it.

Crawl space with rock

We had heavy rain the weekend before they did this so we had standing water. They put more rock over that.

Standing water

Then, they decided to pour our garage floor. The excavator had to dig out a lot of dirt from our foundation for the pole barn pad. I’ve been told they don’t put dirt back in those areas before laying the concrete. Instead they put rock. So, we had MORE rock delivered. A lot MORE rock. I think Bill said 6 more truck loads. This is gonna cost us!

More rock delivered

Rock for the driveway up to the garage

In the picture below, the top part is our front porch. Looks like it will have to be filled with rock eventually, too! The bottom half is the rock in the garage area before the concrete was poured. Bill said that the very thick layer of rock made a very good foundation for the concrete and should eliminate cracking.

Rock in the garage area

Then they started working on the garage floor.

The garage floor being prepped

HVAC duct work

Here comes the concrete

Smoothing out the concrete floor

And, here is the finished product.

Shiny concrete floor

Bill picked up after the guys left and did his first burn in the fire pit.

fire pit

Remember that saw post Bill installed? Well, Vectren came out to inspect it and told Bill he needed to install an 8 ft ground rod to it. He thought it was going to be a pain to hammer it into the ground. But the guy at Lowe’s said to dig a 8-10 inch hole about 10 inches deep and fill it with water. Then push the rod up and down a little at a time and the rod would go all the way in. He had his doubts that it would work . . . but, sure enough, within 5 minutes Bill had installed that ground rod. He wished I had been there to videotape it because he said no one would believe that it actually worked!

Ground rod in the hole

Friday Vectren sent a crew to install our new pole! The good news is the old pole was . . . OLD! And, we were able to move it several feet away from the driveway which is what we preferred. And, they installed a new pole for Jim and Jill, too!

Drilling to install our new pole

There she goes up!

See the old pole to the left? Yeah, it needed to go. 🙂

Here’s the new pole with the transformer installed on it – ready to go! And, the old pole gone.

New Pole

Here is the saw post with our temporary electricity. Now, we’ll start getting an electric bill from Vectren. 😦

Saw post

Bill said he needs to buy another long extension cord to get the electric back to his pole barn. He still plans to run his saw, planer and joiner equipment using the generator until we have full electricity hooked to the pole barn.

Guess what? Bill started working on cabinets again! After an almost five-month hiatus, he’s back! He started what he calls, “making wood” this week. “Making wood” means he takes rough sawn wood, runs it through the joiner, then the planer, and finally saws the wood to size using the table saw. It then becomes finished wood. This week he was working with maple for the drawers of my kitchen cabinets. The cabinet frames, drawer fronts, and doors are made of mahogany wood. But the drawers are made of maple. Sorry, I have no pictures of this. I’ll take some soon.

Bill did find a use for the very fine wood chips. Jim, Sr. is going to use the chips for the chicken pen and Jill thinks they can use them for bedding for the guinea pig and rat. Bill fills up a 30 gallon garbage bag of wood chips for about 5 pieces of wood when he’s making wood. He makes lots of wood chips! When we lived in our other house, the guy next door used the chips in his horse barn.

Want to hear the latest on the fireplace and stone saga? While I was on vacation, Bill took the new fireplace design to Rick, the stone guy. Rick really like my design and thought the lighter color border would really look nice and he could create something similar for us. Whew! But, it doesn’t end there. 😯

Rick emailed Bill on Wednesday to ask if it was okay to order the stone. He said he would need a deposit to place the order. No problem. Bill emailed Rick to tell him to create an invoice and send it to the construction company so we could get a bank draw the first week of November. Then, Thursday Bill says to me that he wanted me to consider changing the exterior stone back to what we originally picked out! He thought we should use the Centurion Cutface (Suede color) for all the exterior (wainscot, columns, and chimney) and use the Centurion Stack (Suede color) for the fireplace in the interior.

Yep, we went there again! 😆 Honestly, I was fine with the change. The colors are the same. The Cutface stone has a rough edge and Stack has a smoother one. After having a brick fireplace for years and trying to clean dust from it, I thought it would be better to have the smoother edge for the fireplace. Bill agreed. We emailed Rick on Thursday about the change and said it was our last one. I hope it is!

Centurion Suede Stack Stone

Centurion Suede Cutface Stone

Before I went on vacation I found out that Costco has a cabinet company and their October flyer said they had a big sale going on for the month of October. I checked out the company online and called them. They have a free design service, too. I ended up sending snapshots of the two bathrooms from our floor plan and the dimensions of cabinets we wanted. We already had two quotes for the bathroom cabinets and had decided to go with one local company. But I was having second thoughts on the stain color and I didn’t want 4 drawers on the sides of the cabinets. I wanted 3 drawers. And, I realized we had never had the bath storage cabinet quoted. (See photo below of Jill & Jim’s bath storage cabinet we wanted to replicate.) So, if we were going to have to get a re-quote, I might as well check out the new company, too, and compare the two.

Master Bath Storage Cabinet/Seat

Within several days I received a quote for all the cabinets from All Wood Cabinetry (Costco). They were about $1000 higher than our local cabinet company. The quote said they were all wood construction and had soft-close doors and drawers. I could order sample doors for quality and finish. But the two times I asked what wood the cabinets were made of, they never answered me. I got an email last week asking me if I had received the quotes because I had not ordered any sample doors yet. I emailed again that I would not go any further in the process until someone answered my question about what wood they were using. I promptly received a reply stating that the majority of the cabinets were made of maple but they also used other hard woods (which they didn’t mention what kind – again!). Since Bill and I wanted Hickory for the bathrooms I emailed the company back and said we were not interested.

Last week I made another visit to the Lensing Home Consultants center to check out the finishes for the Peace Valley cabinets. Originally, I liked the really dark black cabinets, but I was wondering if it would be too dark with the tile flooring and granite countertops we had selected. Here are the two finishes I’m considering.

Bathroom cabinet finishes

Bathroom cabinet colors

I emailed Rick at Lensing to see if I could get samples of the two finishes and asked if he had any photos of their cabinets since all I had was a sketch of what they would look like. He quickly replied that he would have Peace Valley make me two sample doors – one with each finish. Yay! I can’t wait to get them. By the way, I’m leaning toward the Brandy Wine finish. But, we’ll see . . .

I also called Surface Encounters in Noblesville where we picked out our granite slabs and ordered them before our move. I wanted to make sure they still were holding our granite. Everything was still good and I gave Luc an update of how our construction was going. I asked if he could also get us samples of the granite we picked out for our kitchen and bathrooms. He checked his stock and called me to say he did have samples. Then I asked if he could mail them to me. 😯 I told him I’d pay for shipping. He was supposed to call me back Friday to let me know if they could ship them or if I’d have to pick them up. But I didn’t hear from him. I guess I’ll call him tomorrow. I really need the samples to make sure everything looks good together. And, we will need the kitchen countertop sample to pick out our backsplash tile.

Bill found out he has another PIA (pain in a$$) job that has been assigned to him. He needs to install a vapor barrier (heavy plastic) for a conditioned crawl space. It wouldn’t be as bad a job if he could install the barrier now over the rock like in the photo below. He could stand up and do it.

Crawl space with rock

But, he can’t install the barrier yet. He has to wait to install it AFTER the framer (which means the floor boards will be installed) and AFTER the electrician and plumber have run their cables and pipes through the crawl space. The barrier has to be placed over those items. Which means Bill will have to crawl through the crawl space and install it. Jim just gave Bill an article on conditioning crawl spaces and they suggested using mastic to seal the barrier to the inside of the block walls. Poor Bill! He thought he would never ever apply mastic again! But, he is hoping he can get it in a caulking gun. Bill hopes this is his last PIA job for the house construction. He would prefer to work on building the cabinets while the contractors do the rest of the construction work. I prefer that arrangement, too!

Our son Bryan came yesterday for a visit. When he saw the house foundation he said it looked smaller than he imagined. I said I had the same feeling. But, Jim and Jill say we will go through the small and then big (or just right) feelings throughout construction. I’m hoping it feels just right after the framing starts!

Until then . . .

August 6, 2013 by Sandy

This Waiting is for the Birds!

Yeah, I’m thinking we’ve waited long enough to hear from the builder. I’m tired of waiting. And, STILL NO PROPOSAL! I warned you that I failed my patience lesson.

Jim called the builder a week ago (July 29) and asked if he could please get an answer before Jill and Jim left on vacation on Wednesday evening (July 31). The builder called Jim on Wednesday and told him that he still did not have the proposal complete. 😡 He told Jim they had completed another home similar in quality to ours which was 1800 sq ft but had a 3 car garage. He told him a price per square footage that it ran. It was really low to what we got from our bids. But, like Jim said, we still don’t know if the builder had weeded through our thick specifications document yet to make a true comparison. We would LOVE for the price to be that low per square foot, but we just don’t see how that is possible. Jim asked the builder to continue to work on the proposal and to get back with him ASAP even if it was when he was on vacation.

It’s going on four weeks since we met with the builder. I keep picturing the grains of sand trickling down the hourglass. We locked in our construction loan with the bank some time ago with the house to be completed by March. If we keep getting delayed, I’m afraid we won’t be able to meet that deadline. Not sure what happens then. We locked in our rates, too. They have gone up since then. In the meantime, our loan has gone to underwriting and we have had to provide them with every receipt and/or invoice of each item we purchased for the new house. That took me several days to compile, but I did it – complete with a spreadsheet and corresponding numbers to match receipts to the line number on the spreadsheet. Our loan originator was so impressed she wants me to work for her! 🙂

During our waiting time, they did finally install the cupola on the pole barn!!!!

The cupola sitting on top of the pole barn. That white door needs to be painted bronze!

My expensive cute cupola

Guess what? It leaks! Yep. After our last rain, Bill said water was trickling down from it. He called the barn foreman and he came out and looked at it. He is supposed to send someone out to caulk it. Wonder how long that will take? Do I sound skeptic? Where is that sarcasm font when you need it?

Bill did make a trip up to Indy to get one load out of the storage unit we have up there. Unfortunately, he will have to make another trip to get the rest. But, we do have most of our new cabinets down here now. Well, they are all in pieces and unfinished, but they are here. Still more up in the unit, but they will be here soon. And, he was able to bring the rest of the mahogany wood, shop vacs, and three antique chests that Jill wants to have re-done.

Mahogany wood from storage unit

Cabinet parts from storage unit

Bill has stayed busy while we wait on the house building. He has taken advantage of the two Lowe’s 10% off coupons we got from Lowe’s when we moved. And, he’s taken full advantage of the 11% rebate program the last several weeks at Menards. He’s been purchasing all his supplies for insulating the pole barn walls and ceiling, in addition to putting up interior walls. Thanks to Jim, Sr. having scaffolding and a large ladder for Bill to use. Plus, they are letting us use the electricity from their barn to ours until we ever get electricity down there.

2 x 4s

scaffolding and ladder

One wall all prepped

Rolls of insulation

One wall with insulation up

Area around garage doors and man door insulated (including the ceiling area)

When I saw what Bill was doing to install that insulation on the ceiling (standing on a board on top of the scaffolding!), I made him promise he wouldn’t do any more of the ceiling by himself. He’s too old to be up there. I asked that he have Marty, the college student who works for Jim’s parents construction company, to do the ceiling. Now, if we can only get Marty to help that will be wonderful.

Bill found another piece of equipment he wanted to buy. I didn’t even complain. It will help him with the installation of the interior walls which he will probably be doing himself if Marty isn’t available to help. It’s called a drywall lifter. But, Bill will use it to lift up the interior wall panels so he can then nail in place.

Drywall Hoist

Panel Lifter

Bill has already found a use for it to lift several rolls of insulation at a time, too. He says he’ll sell it after he’s done. But, I have a feeling he could find other uses for it as time goes on.

I have not been doing anything productive since the other families went on vacation last week. In fact, I’m having a pretend vacation for a couple of days. It got quite hectic in the household the week before Jill and Jim left on vacation. They were working long long hours and that meant I was in charge of the kiddos. Let’s just say it was a little stressful by the day they left because we had all had been together too much! 😉 I’m sure they are having a wonderful time in Hawaii! Bill and I are pet sitting: four dogs, two cats, six chickens, two roosters, one guinea pig, one rat, and two beta fish! Thank goodness Bill is taking care of those chickens/roosters. I don’t like them. Bill said one of the roosters is so mean. For years I had nightmares of the roosters out at grandma and grandpa’s chasing me around and I’d scream and scream. I hated them! 😡

I definitely am out of my comfort zone with the rat. I don’t mind Mario when he’s in his cage and I feed him through the cage. But, today I had to clean both Cookie’s (the guinea pig) and Mario’s cages. That meant I had to take those little ones out of their cages and put them somewhere while I cleaned. 😯 Megan had shown me how to handle Cookie. She was fine. I held her close and Megan even had an alternate place to put her while cleaning. I started cleaning Cookie’s cage first. Unfortunately, she is the messier of the two. Bill gave me throw away gloves to wear while cleaning. Thank goodness. It was bad-smelling and yucky to clean. But, her cage is now nice and sparkly. Now, Mario is another thing. I HATE mice. Mario has a long tail. He’s a rat. A large rat. All Jack told me to do was coax Mario into his rat house and carry him in it to the bath tub. Yeah, well that was easier said than done. I didn’t want to hold Mario. I got him into the rat house thingy and carried him with his long tail hanging out of the house. 😕 As soon as I placed the house into the tub, I quickly shut the tub enclosure door so he couldn’t get out.

Mario’s cage wasn’t nearly as bad to clean. He isn’t as messy or stinky as Cookie. I brought the tray back upstairs after cleaning and tried to figure out how I might be able to carry Mario from the tub back to the cage. I get the bright idea that I’d place Mario’s rat house inside the cage tray and carry him that way out to the bonus area and then put the cage on top of it. OMG! That wasn’t the brightest idea. As soon as I started walking, Mario came out of his rat house and tried to crawl over the side of the tray. I had to actually touch him and hold him in place as I was walking. That wasn’t easy. I kind of ran and then immediately put the cage over the tray so he wouldn’t escape. Whew!

Cookie up close

Cookie in half of her cage. Note: I had just put her in there after cleaning it and putting down new bedding. She had already dirtied it!

Mario the rat – he’s cute as long as he’s in the cage!

Look at that tail! Eeeek!

I really do NOT want to clean the cages again. But, I’m supposed to . . . on Sunday. 😦 I guess things could be worse. At least I don’t have to take care of those chickens and roosters. Thank you, Bill!

I did join the YMCA and immediately signed up for an arthritis water aerobics class (free for members). I go twice a week and I love it. There is no bouncing in this class but they stretch every muscle and joint in your body. It’s really helped the knees. However, I think I won’t be knee pain-free until we move into our house without any stairs. I do more stair climbing every day than I ever did in our other house because of guiding Goldie up and down the stairs. Poor thing. If you get out of her sight she gets lost. And, her balance is bad and she doesn’t hear. But, she keeps waddling along.

I’ve also had fun taking some nature photography lately. I probably need to regain possession of our big SLR Nikon with the huge zoom lens which Jill borrowed a year or two ago. However, my Sony Cybershot 12X optical zoom camera has worked fine with the photos I’ve taken. I take the majority of the construction photos with my iPhone 5 just because I always have it with me. Although the most of the photos are fine, I prefer the photos from my Sony. I can definitely zoom a lot more. As you can see from the photos below, I should have used my Sony for the deer photo. I zoomed as best I could with my phone. But, then you just never know when a deer is going to run across the lawn. I grab whatever is handy and try to get a shot.

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Today I have my “Welcome to Medicare physical” at my new doctor. I hope I like her. Afterwards I’m heading to water aerobics and maybe a little shopping. Bill and I have to coordinate when each other is away from the house because of Goldie. She has to go outside quite often. I’ve already decided I don’t think we’ll have another pet after Goldie is gone. It really limits what we are able to do. Besides, it seems we have enough pets living around us to get a fix if we need one. We’ll see if we stick with that decision when the time comes.

Bill was able to find a new doctor who is an internist and has his first appointment next week. I still need to find a dentist . . . soon. We are gradually getting things set up for our new life here. We got our driver’s licenses changed. I got a library card for the county library branches. I’ve become pretty proficient in finding my way to most of the stores we frequent. And, for being so directionally challenged, I’m probably better at getting to places than Bill is. I think it is because I take the slower side roads instead of the highway. Heck, I’m retired. I have all the time in the world.

I have to admit, I really miss my friends in the Indy area. We were there for 30+ years. That is a long time. I keep in touch with a lot of them via text, email, phone, and FaceBook. But, there is nothing like face-to-face friendships. I need to find some other outlets to meet people besides the Y down here. I’m thinking I might volunteer at Megan and Jack’s school. They start back to school next week. I met a couple of volunteers at Jill’s business. I probably should volunteer there, too! 😉 I’ll find my way. It will just take some time.

In the meantime . . . I guess we will continue to wait on the builder to get back with us. Tick Tock Tick Tock Tick Tock. And, I’ll continue to enjoy my pretend vacation. 🙂

June 20, 2013 by Sandy

Moving in the Right Direction

It’s been a crazy three-week period since I last posted. When I left you I was getting ready to clean house for the appraisal which was scheduled for Monday, May 27 – Memorial Day. Well, that is what I did all day Sunday, May 26 – clean. And, that is what Bill did out in the pole barn. Late Sunday evening we got a call from Centralized Showing Service that the appraiser didn’t realize that Monday was Memorial Day and he wanted to reschedule the appraisal for the same time on Tuesday. I was so frustrated. I could not control that situation or any other for that matter. 😡

I’m not going to go into details of everything that has happened in the last three weeks. It’s just too much and I would never be able to get it all posted. But, here are some bullet points of the ups, downs, excitement, depression, anxiety, and fear that we experienced through it all.

Tuesday, May 28: Service Plus replaced a breaker in the electrical box at the same time the appraiser arrived and was taking pictures. Dark rooms.
Appraiser walked out to pole barn; saw Bill and asked him how big the pole barn was and started walking away without ever looking inside. Bill told him he needed to see all the improvements he had made before he left. 🙄
Wednesday, May 29: First moving company (Leaders Moving and Storage) came to give us an estimate for moving all our stuff and putting it in storage for at least 1-1/2 months.
Weds.: We loaded the small trailer with items that the moving company wouldn’t take without being totally drained – basically, it was much of our shed stuff. And, the bed of the truck was filled with light fixtures, ceiling fans, and door hardware.
Thursday, May 30: Second moving company (Greenwood Moving & Storage) came to give us an estimate. One hour after taking down all the info and giving us the estimate at our dining room table, Bill ended up escorting the guy to the door after he tried to strong-arm us to make a decision on the spot. He was so rude and obnoxious, too! Plus, he didn’t help his cause by being twice the price as Leaders.
Thursday: It was the day for the Inspection and we were supposed to be gone for 3 hours. So after Obnoxious Guy left, we got in Bill’s truck, put Goldie in the back and drove down to J&J’s to drop off the small trailer and unload the truck bed in one of their garage bays they were lending us for storage.
On the return trip from Jill & Jim’s we got a call from CSS for a radon inspection the next morning.
Friday, May 31: Bryan flew in from Virginia for a long weekend to help us pack up the pole barn. Jill and Jim came up in the evening with Jim’s parents’ Expedition and their large trailer.
Saturday, June 1: All of us packed stuff for hours and hours until . . .
Saturday afternoon: Our realtor called and said the appraiser had just called him and said our house would not appraise for the full asking price. In fact, he said he wasn’t sure if he could even appraise it for $50K less than asking price! 😯
Saturday late afternoon: After several calls back and forth with our realtor Bill fell into a depression and said he didn’t want to pack anymore. 😦 We sent Jill and Jim on their way back home with our lawn mower and John Deere Gator on the back of the trailer and the Expedition full of 4 suitcases of clothes, files I would need down at their home, and several bins of other items we didn’t want to go into storage. We sent Bryan off in one of our cars to one of his friends to attend a Pacer’s game. I decided I was not going to be depressed and prayed for an answer.

Here are some pictures of our weekend of packing:

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Saturday evening: Jill called and said they had some bad news. They lost the hood of the Gator somewhere on I69. 😥 However, she said the Gator had a new home in their garage.

Hoodless Gator

The Gator’s new home

Before leaving our house on Saturday Jack asked Megan if she wanted to drive the Gator once they got home. Megan said she was going to put the “pedal to the metal!” 😉 Jack ended up being the first to drive it up their driveway. He told me he wasn’t allowed to drive it fast.
Sunday, June 2: Bill, Bryan and I spent the day packing and inventorying items in the pole barn. We had already confirmed that Leaders Moving and Storage would come Weds., June 5, to pack the rest of the house and they would start moving us on Thursday, June 6.
Sunday: We got the inspection report. The house was in great shape. Only two minor things reported. The inspector had told the buyer that he had never seen a house so well maintained in plumbing and electrical work. Way to go, Billy Boy!
Sunday late afternoon: Our realtor emailed that the buyer’s realtor had done her own analysis on our home and her own comps. She said she was remorse that she had not done it before advising her clients to offer a full asking price for our home. But, with the bidding war going on, they knew time was short. Long story short, she came up with a price that was $30K less than full listing price. Since the appraisal had still not come in we didn’t know what was going to happen with this sale. 😦
Sunday evening: I sent out a prayer request to everyone I knew to pray that the appraisal would come back with a price that we could live with. We never expected to sell the house full listing price, let alone appraise for that much either. Several realtors made the comment that the comps didn’t support the listing price and since the appraiser and buyer’s agent made their cases to refute the price, we didn’t know what the outcome would be. And, we had the impression that the buyers would not pay out-of-pocket over what the agent suggested. So we waited and waited to hear about the appraisal. Bill and I had our bottom line price. We weren’t being greedy. We just knew what the house appraised for in 2011 and we had added $25K in improvements since then. We wanted to recoup some of that $25K.
Monday, June 3: Bryan continued to help Bill pack up the pole barn. They got it all packed up. I drove Bryan to the airport that afternoon for his return home. He was tired. He had worked so hard. Thank you, Bryan! Plus, he was a joy to have around with his usual jokes to liven the mood. Jokes like, “I’m going to take a picture of this box and I bet it won’t be opened up 5 years from now!”
Tuesday, June 4: Our realtor emailed us that he still had not heard about the appraisal and he didn’t see how this deal would close. He thought we should put our house back as active and start showing it again! Nooooooooooooooo! I told Bill we had gone too far in moving and that if we were going to put the house back on the active market, it could be shown after we moved out and the house would be empty! But, I didn’t want to make the house active again. We would have to make arrangements to have someone cut the grass and weed the landscaping. We would have to keep the electric on. We would have to make another house payment. I think Bill and I both reached a low point that day.
Tuesday: Bill and I agreed that if the house went back active we wanted to pay for another appraisal ourselves. And, we wanted the listing price to be change. We were not going to go through this again.
Wednesday, June 5: The movers arrived to start packing what was left in the house – pictures, kitchen stuff, linen closet and dismantled the other two beds.