Day 10

Yesterday, they brought in several truckloads of dirt and leveled it out, then covered it with all this plastic.

Today, they put down a grid of rebar across the entire base of the house and the electrician made it out to put in the floor outlets and run the lines to the dishwasher. We found what appears to be an inspection sticker, so hopefully tomorrow they can get the foundation poured. If they are able to get it poured, then next week they'll be able to start framing! And wow, it seems so much larger already...

Tonight, we also met one of our neighbors who was very friendly. He said his young son was having a blast watching the construction from his bedroom window. I think we should give the little one a camera to document what we miss. Their house was built by the same builder we are using and they had wonderful things to say about the builder and the neighborhood.

Things are shaping up...

We were out of town the last few days visiting our families and celebrating Christmas. However, construction continued even without my daily multiple-drive-bys, and when we arrived back in town today, there were plumbers on the property hard at work.

After we drove by a couple of times the plumbers finally finished up and we were able to get out and take some pics. I find it very interesting that they are able to get the pipes right where they need to be to poke through the concrete in the right places and that the lines are color coded for hot and cold (perhaps you guys already knew this color coding part?). Also, it's exciting to walk around and stand where the kitchen sink will be and to see where the bathtub will soon sit.

Things are definitely beginning to take shape.

Day 2

Two days of work on our house-Yay!

Yesterday afternoon they poured the footings & when I drove by around lunch today I was able to walk around. My first thought was, "How in the world will the dining table we want fit in this tiny room?!?!" Yes, yes, I know that it won't feel tiny when the walls are up; but the 2-D representation on the ground doesn't really do it justice.

By the time Shane & I drove by this evening they had put up some of the concrete forms for the stem walls. The weathermen are projecting some damp weather in the next few days, but we are still hoping to get the foundation poured by the new year.

I'm sure it will feel closer to the correct size when we get to see the solid foundation instead of just the outline. Here's Shane standing in our future hearth room.

Cabinet Design

We are currently finishing up the cabinet layouts throughout the house so thought I would share some from the kitchen that we have finalized on.

This is the main wall of cabinets with the gas range, vent hood, and the oven/microwave.

And this is the fridge wall. As you can tell this wall is mainly taken up by the monster built-in fridge which was a must-have for April. Of course the image in the drawing isnt our fridge as both the fridge and freezer doors will be the same width.

Finally, the ground has been broken!

I was so excited to actually see real people working on our house. I guess we've been thinking about it and planning for so long, it felt like we'd never actually get to the construction part.

When I drove by this morning, there were trucks everywhere and not a single place to park. So I slowed down (almost a complete stop, Mother...), leaned out the window and snapped a couple of pictures. I wonder if the construction guys thought the paparazzi driving by was odd, or if they get this kind of behavior a lot?

When I went by this afternoon (yes, I've been by twice today. Now I understand why Shane didn't want us to get a rent house on the other side of Tulsa-thanks, Dear), the workers weren't there so I was able to get out and walk around a bit to take some better pictures. It looks as if they've dug out the perimeter of the house and put in some rebar so they are almost ready to pour the footings.

Off We Go!

Permit was issued today, so we finally get to break ground.  Talked with the builder and he is hoping to pour the footers today.  Overall goal is to have the pad ready by end of the week, with slab next week.



All we want for Christmas...

We drove by the lot today and were pleasantly surprised to see things have been cleaned up a bit & the pad has been leveled out. Hopefully, we'll get to break ground before Christmas!

Finally . . .

Getting some movement on the zoning side, looks to be in review.  We are hoping to be done with this and the final review today, then we can start work on Monday.

Movin' on up...

Today, Shane called the city zoning office to ask if we had moved up in the queue to have our permit approved. "Yes," they said, we HAVE moved up...all the way to 13th place.

On Monday, mind you, we were 14th in line. Three days, one place in line.

At this rate, we'll be lucky to break ground by Valentine's Day...

In case we ever get this show on the road, I thought you might like to see what the finished product should look like. The pic above is the front elevation from our architect's drawing.

14 Days and Counting . . .

Well , we are still waiting on 1 piece of the permits. Seems the 1 City of Tulsa Zoning permit guy is backed up and could be another week. In the above picture, the green means passed and the blue means we are waiting. Interesting to find out this could have been fast-tracked, and we could have broken ground on the 2nd, but instead this was sent down the normal pipe. Maybe a good sign for the building industry in Tulsa or just a showing of the inefficiences of the city government, who knows?

Oh well, as April says, "Still have to have the house done in time for the Parade of Homes."

Zoning

Word on the street is that we might get to break ground this Monday, December 13th. Everything is in order and ready to go-we are only waiting on the zoning permit. These are a couple of pictures of our lot in all it's natural splendor.

An Untraditional Thanksgiving

How did you spend your Thanksgiving Day? Ours was rather untraditional…

No turkey roasting in the oven, no pies cooling in the kitchen; just some really great weather and plenty of cardboard boxes. That’s right, we spent most of the day loading up the U-Haul and moving into our temporary new digs. We did manage to stop long enough to sneak over to the casino buffet for some turkey & dressing. It wasn’t exactly a scene out of a Norman Rockwell painting, but then again, there weren’t any dishes to wash, either.

We’ve been in our temporary house for about two weeks and it’s interesting to say the least. Some of our bedroom furniture doesn’t fit down the hall so it’s now part of the living room collection and two of the knobs on my cook top have “low” and “high” labeled wrong; not all of them, mind you, just the two on the left. Even with all the quirks, Minnie & Bo are glad to be settled for a while and they are even more thrilled that all of that riding around in the car while the house was being shown has come to an end.

Today, Shane surprised me by setting up this blog (which I hadn’t even asked for). Now I have a place to post the numerous pictures we’ll take so our friends and family can peek in on the house construction from near and far. I’m sure it will be just as thrilling to you guys as it is to us…