House Post - All Moved In - Part II

And, the long awaited reveal of the upstairs decor at the house - enjoy:

This is the Guest Bedroom - King size bed (has had 2 overnight visitors, desires repeat business and additional sleepy people who haven't yet stayed)

Another view of the Guest Room

And last view - best view in the house is actually out that window... just sayin'.

Game Room/Media Room upstairs (Overlooks the downstairs Living-Room - hence fan in background)

Other view of upstairs gameroom

Upstairs Guest Bath

Jake's Room

Other view of Jake's Room

Travis's Room

Other view of Travis's Room

Boys Shared bath

Hallway outside the boys rooms, and the Playroom

The Playroom - now even better organized (but you'll just have to trust me)

The Playroom

The Playroom

And that is basically it for the upstairs - there is also a spare room, which is currently collecting extra desks (yes we have 2, and my sister was trying to push another one on us!), outgrown baby clothes and clothes Travis has yet to grow into, all the not being used baby gear, and stuff that we haven't found places for at the house yet.  No idea what our plans for that room are, but I am sure we will figure something out eventually.

House Post - All Moved In

Things have been pretty boring around here lately - I know, even with Spring Break we didn't do a whole lot of things.  We have been training Travis to sleep in a queen sized bed, and that has been interesting, but that is best saved for a post after it starts to be more successful...  So I thought that I would change up the background on the blog, and then share photos of the house all decorated like - because I had all those posts about construction, but none about finished and lived-in product.  So, hope you like the new background, and here is part 1 - downstairs.

Dining Room

Still Dining Room

Living Room

Living Room (with dogs sleeping on sofas - yes this is very normal decor for us)

Living Room looking the other way (and yes there is a fire in the fireplace, these were taken in January)

Kitchen and Breakfast room - taken from the stairwell landing

Breakfast Room

Kitchen looking toward Living Room

Kitchen

Master Bedroom (red pillows because that is the color our flannel sheets are, and like I said, it was January - they are cream colored now as we no longer need the flannel)

More Master Bedroom

Master Bedroom looking out

Master Bathroom from the doorway

Master Bathroom

Master Shower

And that is the downstairs - there is also Blake's office, which hasn't had my touch really put on it yet - so no pics. for now, a laundry room and a powder room.  Eventually I'll probably put up the Laundry room, because I have done a lot of work in there, but who knows.

Next time - the upstairs!

Closing Day

We closed on our new house today!!!!!!!  And, it was a really long day.  Closing was scheduled for 10am, so we left the house about 9am anticipating some traffic on our way up north.  There was not nearly the traffic we had expected, so we found ourselves with a half hour to spare, and went to get breakfast tacos at Taco Cabana - Mmmmmm.  We were still early but only by a few minutes.

We got into the title company's office, and found out that the amount we owed for closing was slightly higher than the original estimate, and that this particular title company would NOT take a personal check to cover the slight difference (apparently every other title company would, but the one we had to go to wouldn't).  So I left Blake to start signing paperwork and went to get an additional cashier's check to cover the slight difference.  On a whim, I decided to avoid the highway, and just stay on access roads - this was apparently THE BEST decision I made all day.  There was a rollover accident in which the vehicle caught fire, and shut down the highway.  So, had I decided to get on the highway (which was at a point that I wouldn't have been able to see traffic on it) I would likely have been stuck there for hours.  As it ended up, I got the cashier's check, and was back to the title company in no time (slightly jittery though for having seen the aftermath of that accident).

Unfortunately, they would not give us the keys to the house until the loan fully funded, so we had to leave without keys in hand.   :(

We took lunch back to the in-law's house, and played with the kiddos for just a little bit before heading to home depot at nap time to get various items which we were going to need immediately at the house - i.e. ceiling fans, etc.  We took those over to the house, and then headed back north to the title company hoping that keys would be available.  It was 4pm when we got there.  It was 5pm before we received keys - and it POURED rain while we were waiting.  But, we got our keys, went back to the house, and had our first dinner standing around the kitchen island.  (Kids had McDonalds, adults had Firehouse Subs!).

 

So, our house is really now going to be our home!!!

Punchlist results

So punchlist on our "little" house took me as long yesterday as the one that I did for an 18,000 s.f. commercial office space which I did years ago when I was working.  This either means that "normal people" must take like 3 days, I have slowed down significantly in my time at home, or I am way, way, way pickier about my house than the standard person.  Of course, it did only take Blake 2 hours to walk through and get his comments together/walls taped... I think I added about 2/3 more tape, and definitely had 9 pages of comments (typed) for the contractor. So probably we are leaning toward the latter and I am way picky. Oh well, my house is going to be perfect!  Highlights from the day:

 - Contractor claims that he will "try" to get the trees in the backyard  moved for us since no one ever consulted us on where they should go, and location is truly "owner preference"

 - Our wood floors look beautiful

 - We had the house mostly to ourselves yesterday which made it easier to get done what we needed to not having to step over workers, and retrace our steps all day.

 - When we went into the attic it was 95 degrees outside (after several 100 degree days), and the attic was a reasonable 80 degrees - wowza insulation doing its job!

- Mom and Dad brought Travis over, and he tried to take the blue tape spots off the floor (was nicely distracted by some blue tape of his own though and didn't undo any of our hard taping work)

and the crowning jewel:

 - Contractor came back in the early afternoon and said that it looked like "A smurf exploded", ha we weren't even done yet!

Entering the Home Stretch

Well, tomorrow we walk the punchlist for the new house.  Pretty sure that this contractor has no idea what is coming his way having me as a client (previously dubbed punchlist queen by former commercial contractors). Ha ha ha - should be fun.  In preparation, I went and bought blue painter's tape to stick to EVERYTHING in the house that I find which is less than my standard (2 rolls, one for me, and one for Blake), and a notebook to write it all down in.  Our closing date did get pushed back to the 17th, but we still have until the 31st to vacate the house we have lived in for the last 6 years, so hopefully it is doable.  Last time we visited the house, all the appliances were installed (except the ovens, they were still in the middle of the living room...)

Double ovens - in the living room (photo was from a week ago, they were still there as of Saturday - have to assume they have been installed by now though - right??)

Dishwasher being installed last week.

My beautiful range.

Backyard ready for landscaping - looks like they are putting trees in the middle of the yard (uh not cool)

Boys trapped in the shower

Front of the house - from Saturday - the garage doors are finally painted, looks good from a distance

Front door is stained!!

Microwave installed (perfect height for little boys to get into trouble with)

Travis and Grandad sitting on the stairs.

 

Photo of our landscaped backyard from our super friendly backdoor neighbor's porch from this morning.

 

 

So maybe it is just us, but we don't know what the people behind the location of those 3 trees were thinking. I mean seriously, who wants a new backyard, which is nice and big for the kids to run around in, and have 3 trees planted smack-dab in the middle of the running space??  We plan on talking to Mr. Contractor about those locations (which they were supposed to consult us on, which we only reminded him of about 50 times) tomorrow, so we'll see if they stay there or not.  Well, they won't stay there, it will just be a matter of whether we have to do the moving of the trees ourselves...

 

Stay tuned, tomorrow I'll post photos of a house covered in blue spots!!!

 

Getting closer

We have a (tentative) closing date for the new house - July 12!!!  And we have already closed on the sale of our current house - things seem to be moving along so quickly, and I have a LOT left to pack.  New house photo updates:

Saturday, June 22, lighting installed, grinding floors for installation of wood.

Driveway is laid out and ready for pouring.

Dining Room lighting.

 

Tuesday, June 25 - driveway poured (probably poured Monday).

Wood floors are in, but already covered over so they don't get ruined.

Tack strips installed for carpeting.

Concrete Pad poured under the AC unit.

Thursday, June 27 - Carpeting is all installed!! (this is the upstairs hallway)

Mirrors are installed.

Electricity is turned on.

Blinds are installed - even in the upper windows - yeah!

Still need to stain that front door.

 

Master bath - even has clean floors.

Shower door installed.

Master bath.

Kitchen with all the cleaning supplies they are using right now to get it in top shape before we do the final walk through (and cover the house top to bottom in blue tape spots for them to fix - seriously they won't know what hit them).

Covered AC pad.

 

Leveled yard ready to receive grass.

 

 

And that is about it, they should be putting in the sprinkler system, and locating the couple of trees which we get pretty soon.  We have been told that we get input on tree location, we'll see if that actually happens.