Just a quick update to yesterday's blog update. Dropped by the house today to drop off the paint for the front door < God I hope it is "the" red.. how stressful... I second guess everything. Anyways when I walked in the garage they had the railing on the the stairs and the hand rail done. When I walked through the door I got so many other surprises. Everywhere I turned it made me smile :) Carpet is in upstairs and the basement and WOW is it huge down there what a difference the carpet makes. I walked upstairs and saw the foyer railing had been stained and the hand rail down the stairs also.. which I didn't even notice initially when I walked up the stairs. The walls were all touched up and looking fresh. Love watching it all come together. I will be sad when it is all over but so happy at the same time. Hopefully if we got back out today the door will be painted. TWO more weeks!!

15 days!!!

Wow I can't believe it has been over a month.. almost a month and a half since my last update! I don't even know where to start.. everything has been going GREAT! We just got back an amazing family vacation. We had the time of our lives and can't wait to do it again real soon! When we left they had just started to laying the flooring. They told us when we got back they would have most of the house done. They were not kidding! We went straight to the house as soon as we got back into town & were so shocked to see all the major parts of the house in. The kitchen was in, our cabinets and counter tops look gorgeous! I love the little flecks of grey. The hardwood looks so wonderful I seriously couldn't have pictured it looking any better <3. Bathrooms look great to. I can't wait to hop in that big ol soaker tub and just relax! We moved up our closing from 4/15 to 4/1 so we are down to 15 days!!! Builder called me today and asked what color we wanted the door. Jay and I had planned to paint it red ourselves so I decided to ask them if I could go pick up the paint in the color I wanted and drop it off. They said sure so thats exactly what I did. I picked a gorgeous gorgeous red that is going to look magnificent with the grey exterior and black shutters. While I was there I also picked up 4 samples with a couple diff greys and couple colors to carry into the kitchen. Little by little we have gotten stuff for the house. I have the kids bathroom decor all bought as well as ours however I still have some more decor to buy for ours. We are going to be taking down the builder grade fixtures and put better quality in there asap! We also got our blinds ordered and they should be here sometime before closing. I imagine that will be an all day project but hey we don't have the paint the front door anymore WIN! We have our interest rate locked and I got a wonderful phone call friday afternoon from our loan officer letting me know she got a 15 rate lock extension for free! We locked a 45 day lock when we were actually 46 days out knowing that we may have to pay for the rate lock extension and we were ok with that. Thank GOD we did it that way because the day after we locked the rates jumped and they have not come back down since we locked.... and now we get to keep it for free! We have our homeowners insurance picked out, signed and ready to go. Our team in this whole process has been wonderful. Everyone is on the ball & we should close without a single problem. Now all that is left to do is pack up this place and get outta here :) life is great and we are feeling continually blessed beyond belief. I will post photos tomorrow hopefully if I have time. Bye for now!!!

Long over due

Wow its only been 2 weeks since my last update and SO much has happened! We have windows, siding, outlets laid out, plumbing, duct work... and lots more! Everything has been going pretty good for the most part. I have experienced a bit of frustration that I am trying to work through Hopefully it gets better but I guess I won't hold my breath. When we first bought the house we were treated like we would be an important part of the building process. We'd get lots of walk throughs, we'd get to choose where we wanted all of our outlets to go yadda yadda. We haven't had a single walk through since a couple days after we signed on the dotted line and while I have walked through on my own never anything formal with the builder. In fact I have been made to feel as if I shouldn't be out there at all & well sorry thats not going to happen. This is probably the most expensive investment of our lives and its OURS its not a spec home and we want to be included in the decision making process. I did an impromtu visit about a week ago only to find the electrician was there placing all of our outlet boxes!! I had just emailed my realtor days before that to verify when that did happen I would get a phone call. Apparently not. ( not my realtors fault she was never notified ) About a week before that the plumbers were out and they decided where I wanted my washer and dryer.... I mean after all its what they thinks best right.. no its our house not theirs. So as I walked in with all 3 of my kids I had to stop the electrician and show him where I thought we wanted everything. Thats not an easy task to do on the spot and with 3 kids running around. I wasn't prepared for that. I did the best I could and then went home and second guess everything I did, thats typical for me smh. Jay went back with me the next day and the builder was there. He let us walk through and I showed him some changes we needed to make. Kinda felt like I was more of an annoyance and its a shame I have to feel that way, but it is what it is and I have to just remember this is our house and they haven't followed through on their end of keeping us involved so oh well. The siding is going up and all the windows are in :) They have finally got the overhang over the front door and it turned out awesome!! It adds some nice dimension. We are only the only home in the neighborhood with that model that has an overhang so that makes us a tad more unique. Seems like every other day I have an email into my realtor. She's gonna be glad when April gets here I'm sure :/ Little things come to my head here and there.... todays email was making sure we had a choice in the finishings in the house such as doorknobs, foyer light etc. Lordy do I NOT want gold/brass. Nickel/silver would be great. I figure I better ask because if I don't and they put in brass I am going to have to drop a few hundred dollars on changing it all out! I also don't see where they are putting a porch light. The garage has 2 areas for lights. Kinda concerns me because we can't NOT have a porch light. I can see it now.. pizza guy trips down the stairs and sues me cause he couldn't see. Yes I think crazy outside the box thoughts like that.... that shit happens everyday! For now I will wait for those emails to get replied to. I have requested a walk through before any drywall goes up... something else I was told we would def get to do no problem and now it appears to be an issue and "not nesc" maybe thats not how they mean it but it just comes across that way. I will be glad when the process is over and we can move in. I will leave you with some new photos.

Moving right along

It is so exciting to drive out the the house every so often and see so huge progress happening.The have got the roofing done ( not the singles ) The home wrap is starting to go on around the house, The showers and tubs have been delivered and are in the garage. They finally cut the window out for the master bathroom & still waiting for them to cut out window over the garage in the attic. Doesn't look like doors been framed in yet for Ethan's access from his room to the bathroom nor have the framed to the office wall against the stairs to be closed off and not open like they have it. When we do our walk through if its still not done we'll mention it. Oh they haven't framed in the overhang over the front door... not sure when that will be done. Seems like all the changes we did just haven't been done. However on the plans the office is closed off they decided to leave it open but we want it closed, the door to the bathroom in ethans room is on the plans to be there but they left it off and we added the over hang. I did get a response back from the builder that night. We got prices for adding in the utility sink in the laundry room and the cost for adding stone/slate to the front stairs (outside) I am happy that will be done. I really don't care for how thick the concrete is on some of the other homes and how stained the concrete starts to look. Here are some updated photos:

Its been a little while since I have updated. Not much has happened to the house. The roof framing is starting to go up so that is exciting. I have experienced a few frustrations trying to get answers to my questions. My realtor has emailed their agent and who knows where it went from there. SO I sit a week later with no answers. Today we drove by the house hoping to catch the builders and get our questions answered. No luck there was no one there which was nice because were able to sneak and and take a few photos. I decided when we got home to go straight to the source and contact the builder directly with my questions. I hate going over peoples heads but I need answers in a timely manner. So heres to hoping we get a speedy response. So with little to report I will leave you with some photos :)

Roof going up

Garage looking at the Laundry room and powder room

Laundry room

looking from family room towards kitchen & laundry room

standing in breakfast nook looking towards kitchen and dining room

Addys room

dining room from foyer

Ethans room

family room and stairs to the upstairs

front door and foyer < office to the right dining to the left

Master closets

Jay in the Master bath

office

they still need to wall off that opening to the stairs. This is in the office

Siding and Tiles and Stone oh my!!

Ok so going into today Jay and I pretty much had an idea of what we wanted. We've stalked plenty of houses and we knew what we liked. Today was easier than I thought, my indecisiveness was was in check today. First we chose Grey siding ( Flint ) only to be told the house that was being built next to ours was also going to be Grey. Grrrrrrr they had chose their stuff before us. So we continued to look and maybe a lighter grey but ultimately we decided to go with what we wanted. It is OUR house that we have to live in for a very long time and its what we wanted so oh well it the neighbor has the same color. They are not in the same model that we are. Next shutters... easy peasy black please... neighbors picked those to! Come on... next up on stone :) I was so happy to pick stone... I love love love stone and I think its going to be one of my most favorite upgrades. We chose a stacked stone in various greys. We are 95% sure that we are going with a red door but it has to be the perfect red, not any old red will do. Lastly for the exterior white trim. We moved onward to the interior. Again pretty easy! Cherry cabinets, Cherry hardwood floors, We decided against doing hardwood in the kitchen for fear of dropping stuff on it and denting it so we picked out a nice laminate. The same laminate will be in the laundry room and powder room downstairs so it'll tie in nicely. We picked our countertop, we picked a white with light flecks in it. We think it'll be a great contrast to the dark cherry. Oh we picked out a roof to :) We did carpet for the basement and all the upstairs room. That was pretty easy as well. All in all it only took us about an hr a lot of that was spent asking a zillion questions. Meeting with the mortgage broker tomorrow morning so she can get the loan application completed yah yah yah! The builders are going to finish getting the framing up, get the roof and windows done and then they said they probably won't do anything else until around middle of Feb since our closing date isn't until the 15th of April. They don't want to finish the house way before we close then just have it sit there so we understand that and agree. It'll be frustrating I am sure to see nothing happening on it for a little while but we totally understand. I will leave you with some photos from today..

shutters are a different design but same color.. also the stone is the one in the photo on the right

siding and the stone together. The stone will go all the way up the wall however.

Cherry cabinets and the corian counters

Led lights for under the counters

flooring for the kitchen, laundry and powder room.

There's snow in our house!

Eight inches of snow busted up our plans to meet with the mortgage broker and the builder to pick out all of our siding, flooring, shutters, doors, so on a so forth! Oh well mother nature loves to play hard ball what can you do. We are set to meet with the builder tomorrow morning and the mortgage broker on Sunday. We dug ourselves out today and went to Lowes. I never really liked going to Lowes. I never had a reason so the whole place bored me to death! Today I was excited hahaha. We went to look at lighting for the Foyer, lighting for outside on both sides of the garage, we looked at nifty kitchen faucets, checked out some counter colors, LED lighting for under the cabinets, light plates and dimmers, window shades... and lots of other stuff. Pheww overwhelming! My indecisiveness was in over drive today! TO MANY CHOICES!! How do I make the right one! After that we of course decided to drive by and see how our home was holding up in its first snow :) There was snow so deep upstairs lol. It was a hazard climbing up snow covered stairs but it sure was fun to see it coming together even more. They opened back up the foyer and its going to let in so much light! We get more and more excited every time we go out there. Our laundry room is HUGE I am so glad it was extended out. We did find a broken joist that we will have to address tomorrow because I definitely want it fixed. Well here are a few photos from today Front door bottom of our room from garage. The open space is attic space. Laundry room, garage door is on the right powder room on the left, laundry room straight ahead broken Joist thats gotta be fixed. standing in the kitchen looking at the breakfast nook I would have gotten more photos but my battery died on my phone... whoops!!