Closing In

It's been a busy week! Plumbing started on Monday, HVAC wrapped up on Tuesday, the garage doors, back patio door were installed Tuesday, and the electrical is getting close to being complete!

Country lovin'!

We have had a lot of traffic on both the house and condo, which is exciting and making Matt's comment about "how cool would it be to be homeless?..." seem like it might actually come true. But no signed agreements just yet (although we are getting close! Stay tuned!)

Matt with Beckett.

We had a fun and eventful weekend. Friday we went to Louisville to the Luke Bryan concert. We had a great time! Saturday, Matt jetted back to Terre Haute to work on the house and I went up to my cousins house to help with her twin boys who were born Christmas Eve. Matt joined the fun Saturday night and got to help with bath time! It was so fun and the babies are absolutely precious, but it was very tiring and making me sooo glad that I could leave Sunday morning and not have to worry about taking care of anyone!

Pacers's had 72 pts. at halftime!

Today, Sunday, Matt worked at the house pretty much all day - working to meet that Friday deadline! Oh, and Wednesday night we went to the Pacers v Knicks game in Indy. We had awesome seats and it was and even better game.

This coming week looks to be a busy week of trying to get all the wiring finished. Insulation is set to begin the end of this week, first of next! Then we will start to see more changes again!

Duct work running in the attic.

Patio Door

Lots of wires running!

Light Brite

This weekend Matt, Justin, Kim and I road tripped it to Trenton, Illinois to purchase all our light fixtures. Justin highly recommended this place which is close to his hometown. Fitting enough, the store is called Light Brite - and we loved every minute of our experience!

The main entrance at Light Brite!

We had an appointment with Taffy who was awesome! She went through our floor plan made a list of all the fixtures we would need, asked our thoughts on what kind of fixture we were thinking for different areas, and helped with the placement of can lights. We then set out through the store to see what kinds of things we liked. I like so many different styles of things and I had a huge concern of making sure everything would compliment each other.  Taffy's expertise really came into play when deciding how large of a fixture we needed for different places and how much light different fixtures would put off.  You can get a flesh mount ceiling fixture in a variety of sizes and I was so thankful to have someone who knew exactly what we needed.

After a little over two hours, we had everything picked out, the can lights paid for and loaded in the car and away we went! We don't know how much we spent yet, Taffy will get us the order all typed up and sent to us this week. I am anxious to see if we stayed within out budget or not. I know for sure two of the lights we picked out were pretty pricey....my closet light (see below) and this awesome fan light combo for our screened in patio...we will see how it all shakes out!

Close up of my closet light.

My favorite choice of the day!

Justin and Kim checking out lights for their house.

On our way home, Matt got a call from a guy he golfs with who wanted to come see our house today (Sunday).  So we had the first official showing on the house today, hosted by yours truly! It was kind of weird being here while they were here, but it all worked out okay and I think they liked it.

Matt and Justin have been working all day running wire and putting in boxes for the can lights. Its really coming along nicely!

Oh and I finally got my sweet tart jelly beans today! Just as good as I remembered them!

Decisions, Decisions...

We had more visitors this evening! Aunt Pat and Forrest came down to check out the house! We enjoyed showing them around. Mom and Dad came along for the road trip, so it was nice to see them again. We went out to dinner and had a great time as always. Unfortunately, I didn't think of taking any pictures :(

Digging the water and sewer lines.

Progress at the house is coming right along, although it doesn't look like anything is getting done, I am amazed every time how much more wire is run! The HVAC will start Friday morning and water and sewer lines were run today! We ordered all of our plumbing fixtures, faucets, bathtubs, showers and toilets this week too. I'm not quite sure how you are supposed to order a toilet from a website, but we did...seriously, there were at least 15 different ones to pick from, who knew!?

We have been busy over the past few weeks picking out flooring. It was a really hard decision! Our current house has all hardwood floor and a little laminate in the kitchen and back room, but...we miss carpet. There is just something about it. However, EVERYONE has tried to talk us out of putting ANY carpet in our house. So we just decided on carpet in all the bedrooms, tile in our bathroom, vinyl in the back entry, laundry room and guest bathrooms and hardwood everywhere else.  I think picking out the hardwood to compliment the kitchen cabinets was the absolute hardest part. We are naturally drawn to darker wood tones so it was hard to make decisions.  The cost of floor coverings is also a little painful and we aren't doing anything high end or unique.

Kitchen counter top and cabinet sample.

From top to bottom: tile, carpet, hardwood and vinyl.

We are going to purchase all of our light fixtures this weekend. It is so much to think about! I am really struggling with whether all the selections we have made, both interior and exterior will go together. Paint colors are stressing me out even more, but those decisions don't have to be made until the end of March (thank goodness!). I am so thankful for houzz.com. There are so many ideas and thousands of pictures. It is awesome - although it is pretty good a giving me million dollar ideas on a ten dollar budget.

In other news, my co-worker informed me today that my favorite jelly beans (sweet tart) are out! I am so excited! I can't wait to go buy some, hopefully tomorrow. I would have gone on the hunt for them today, but I knew I wouldn't be able to resist them and with it being Ash Wednesday, it wouldn't be a good choice. Speaking of lent, I am very excited about what I'm doing this year. Matt and I are both giving up fried food, but I wanted to do something too...so I am going to write a note to a different person every day. I wrote the first one today and it felt so good to deliver it. I am so excited about this project! Some of you reading might be getting something in the mail from me! :) Valentine's Day is tomorrow, don't forget to tell those you love, that you love them.

We're Getting Wired!

So it has been a few days since I have updated. I must say, part of my lack of blogging has been due to two things: 1. dropbox not working on my phone which equals no updated pictures and 2. company over the weekend :) So here is an update from the last week.

The showing on our house was cancelled. Bummer. We were so excited, but I guess what's meant to be will be. We were running 100mph to get the house looking and smelling great! So we just had an extra clean house for us last week.

The house on the other hand is just coming right along. As I mentioned, the windows and front door are in! They sent the wrong front door, so that will have to be replaced. We are just waiting on the garage doors and patio door and we will be all closed up!

House with the windows and front door!

Close up of the front of the house.

Panorama view of the inside. Kitchen is on the left, living room on the right.

Dad working in the garage.

Matt and Justin are working on the electrical now. Wiring the house is a large task that will take a few weeks, especially since they are basically working evenings after work and weekends. As I mentioned we had visitors this weekend! Mom and dad came down to help. Of course dad couldn't stand it that work was going on and he needed to be involved.

Friday night we layed out where all the outlets should go in each room. That was a chore to really think about where furniture might go and how a room would be set up. Mom and I had a fun time doing it though.

Mark running wire.

The boys worked pretty much all day Saturday. My father in law Mark even came out to help run wire. Sunday, Justin and his twin brother Jeremy came to work and really knocked out A LOT! Dad was amazed how fast they worked! Mom and I made some trips to Menard's to pick up more supplies. I am so thankful to have so much help. There is lots more to do so anyone wanting in on some wire action, just let us know :)

The twins working hard. They are even wearing the same sweatshirt!

Of course dad figured out a way to make working more efficient. He built a stand for the wire rolls so it would be easier to unroll it throughout the house and move around. He is always thinking of something!

Dad's wire roll invention!

Sunshine with a Chance of Sleet?

The weather here has been crazy lately. We had two days back to back in the 60s, then it poured, and I mean poured! This naturally was followed by a cold front that brought some snow, rain, sleet mix. Needless to say the timeline of having the roof on and windows in by Friday (2/1) didn't happen. Matt and I were a little frustrated at the set back, but understand that you can't roof a house with snow on it.

Yesterday the crazy weather continued. While at home on my lunch break, sleet was hitting the windows, then there was a snow, rain mix! By 2:30 the snow was completely melted off the parking lots, the sun was shining and the temperature gage in my car read 48 degrees! Can you believe it? When we met our builder at the house at 4:30, the roofers had half the shingles on! I was super surprised and very happy!

The inside framing is coming along and they are finishing out a few small things, adjusting some areas that worked on paper but not so much in real life - I'm losing the pocket door in my closet :( but gaining closet space :) !

I haven't been out to the house yet today, Matt says the windows and doors are in! I will update you on that tomorrow....I have a busy night of tidying and cleaning because we have a showing on our house tomorrow! That's right, after only 9 days on the market, we will have the house's first showing! I'm anxious and nervous...but not getting my hopes up....stay tuned!

Shingles going on the roof!

For Sale

As I mentioned, we have two houses: Matt's condo and my house. The condo has been on the market since August. We had one interested buyer, well, looker might be a better term...She looked at the property 3 times, but never made an offer. So as the condo sat vacant and we paid 2 mortgages, 2 water bills, 2 heat bills etc. the burning question was when do we list our house?

You see, the problem is we don't want to move twice. The house will probably sell faster than the condo and what if it sells before our new house is done? The obvious answer is to live in the condo, but that means moving all the necessities to the condo and the majority of everything else to a storage unit. After much thought and a lot of back and forth, we decided we need to bite to bullet, list the house and if moving twice is what we have to do, then we just do it and look at it as a blessing of one less set of bills. We set the deadline to have all the little things done in the house by the end of February and have the house listed the first of March.

Mixed emotions seeing the for sale sign in our yard.

 

I am proud to say that Monday, we had our real estate agent +Bernice Helman come take pictures and I filled out all the paper work.  The sign was in the yard and the house in the MLS system on Tuesday. If you are curious and want to see the listing, click here.

It hasn't even been a week and I am already going nuts making sure everything is spotless in the house before we leave for work. No more lazy mornings of not making the bed and leaving make up out on the bathroom counter or dishes in the sink from the night before (we don't have a dishwasher, at least one that is an appliance, mine talks and his name is Matt). Selling a house you are living in is hard work! Hopefully I will be able to write an entry titled "SOLD" soon....but with this crazy weather, I don't think many people are thinking about purchasing a home anytime soon.