Road Trip

Cabinets are expensive. I have clearly been spoiled having someone who can build anything all these years. So when it came time to select cabinets for our laundry room, I couldn't stomach spending $450 on the "low end" cabinets that had stapled drawers. A collegue of mine told me about this place in Arthur, Illinois that is a huge cabinet factory outlet. Arthur is about an hour and a half from Terre Haute so Matt and I thought it would be worth it to check it out! As we are getting closer, we start to notice lots of road signs like this one.

I have always been intrigued by the Amish lifestyle since I was in the 6th grade; when we got lost in Northern Indiana leaving one of my AAU basketball games. A few wrong turns led us to the middle of nowhere in the pitch black. So anyway,  as we approached Arthur, horse and buggies appeared on the roads as well as the trail they left behind them. The closer we get to town, the more mesmerized I become by all the buggies buzzing around and the horse and buggy parking in every business lot. The Subway had a rail to tie up the horses on! Matt immediately decided that we are going to find an awesome Amish place for lunch!

Back to cabinets...we arrive at the place and wow, it was not what we expected. They had TONS of cabinets. Full kitchens sold as sets, pieces to configure any layout, vanities and then... the clearance room. Naturally, this is where I wanted to start. This clearance room was huge! Cabinets stacked at least 3 high - bases on the right, uppers on the left, at least 10 aisles there were also about 4 aisles in another part that were included in the clearance. There was absolutely NO organization to this. After looking down each row to get a feel of what was available, we were feeling overwhelmed and not sure what to do to find things that matched to give us a complete set. Each cabinet had a sticker that indicated the cabinet style and finish color. I decided that we needed to start writing down this information of ones we liked and how big they were so we could start to find a matching set. After too many hours (I think we were at this place for a total of 4 1/2) we found cabinets we liked as well as a vanity for the hall bath! Here are our gems!

Moving Right Along

Yes, we have commercial grade duct in our house!

There's been a lot of progress and activity at the house over the last few weeks...the showers and bathtubs have been set, the front door was fixed so we now have the transom window in place, master bath cabinets have been ordered, duct work has been installed, etc.

Wall insulation on left - last time seeing wires!

Matt and Justin work at the house on wiring basically every night after they get off  work. The kitchen layout is a big ticket item that we have been asking our builder for since the beginning of the wiring process. He finally brought the lady from the cabinet place out to the house to lay everything out so the wiring could be finished. During the process, he realized that he didn't change the plans after the kitchen was reconfigured causing the refrigerator door to hit the island. So we had to come up with 14 inches to make it work - remember we ordered cabinets before Christmas! So we ended up taking out the fluted pieces from each side of the sink which gave us 6" then the rest from the bedroom. Unfortunately, its the biggest 8" EVER! The bedroom looks tiny now and the integrity of the design with the built in bookshelf was compromised making it look awkward. I'm not really happy with the turn out but at this point there isn't much we can do. I just hope I don't walk into the kitchen or bedroom and hate it daily when we are all moved in. So after the wall was moved and the wiring hooked back up, the electrical inspection took place. They of course, passed with flying colors

Insulation began the next day on exterior walls. The house started to really look different. After a few days of insulating, the drywall arrived. Our whole house was hung with drywall in 1 day. That's right just 1 day. The crew worked until the job was finished, it was really quite amazing! Once the drywall was up, it looked like a really different house and you could really get a feel for room sizes! The father-son duo that is finishing the drywall thinks they will be all done by the end of the week. Flooring should start next week!

We have made a gazillion decisions and still have quite a few more to make!

Front entry with drywall! You can see the transom that is now added.

Panel box the boys worked so hard on!

Garage doors on!

Our bedroom! So excited to see progress!

Snowmass

So it has been a few since I have posted anything. Well, this is mostly due to vacation! Matt and I went with a group of friends to Snowmass, Colorado for a ski trip. We had such a blast. This is our second year in a row going out to ski and I must say, it never gets old.

View from the patio at the house. Absolutely gorgeous!

Flying Tomato!

We got a steal on airline tickets flying into Denver ($120 RT). From there it is about a 3 1/2 hour drive to the house in Snowmass (maybe one day we will spring for the flight to Aspen?). On the roadtrip there, we stopped in Vail to catch the US Open of Snowboarding. We got to see Shaun White hit the half pipe and Matt even got his picture with him! They had all kinds of free "swag" and we loaded up on Cliff Bar samples. Vail is an awesome ski village we really enjoyed our short stop there.

Matt chose not to ski. I think its partly because of the cost and partly because he is like a bull in a china shop out there. I hit the slopes two days and was absolutely amazed by my progress. I started out in the same beginners area I finished in last year. After a couple runs I started getting my confidence and the feeling back. Once I remembered how to stop and turn, I was good to go! We headed down to a green which I quickly mastered after a hand full of times going down. After our lunch break we tried an "easy" blue. I didn't find out it was a blue until the end of the day. Thanks to +Jess Paugh for not telling me because she thought I would freak out! (probably right!)

Boarders and skier!

Hot chocolate and peppermint schnapps!

Day 2 of skiing was a little rougher. We took the chair lift all the way to the top (hoping to see the Maroon Bells, but it was too overcast) and then skied all the way down. Not without a hot chocolate with peppermint schnapps break in the middle. Needless to say, my legs were exhausted. I needed to do weeks of wall sits to be prepared for that workout! It was a blast and I only fell a few times!

The trip home was a small adventure full of flight delays, road closings, missed flights and an extended vacation. That is the short version. The long version starts at breakfast Monday morning when we were scheduled to go home. We were notified that out flight was pushed back two hours to depart Denver at 8:45p.m. which would put us back in Indy around 1:00a.m. Ugh. With the worry of the flight being cancelled and getting stuck in Denver, we all decided we would change our flights to leave Tuesday morning direct back to Indy at 10:00 a.m. It was a "fresh powder" day and we were anxious to get out and ski.  By the time we had 7 people on board with the travel change, there were only 3 seats left on the 10:00 flight - bummer. So we decided to stick with the original travel plan, in the meantime, our flight was changed 2 more times putting it back to its regular scheduled departure time. So we left the house about an 1 1/2 hours after we wanted to, but that just meant we had to cut out the Coors Brewery tour.

Ready for the blue!

As we were making our way toward Denver, we started to see "Road Closed at mile 180" signs. We were forced to get off of I-70 at Vail and were informed the pass was closed due to 30 car pile up! The officer suggested we try to rebook our flight because the road would be closed for at least 3-4 hours. So we hung out in a bar in Vail for the majority of the afternoon, finally getting back on I-70 three hours later. We got our friend Mandee to the airport to catch his 9:35 p.m. flight to Kansas City, however, the rest of us were left in Denver to catch a 6:45 a.m. to Indy via HOUSTON! Needless to say, it was a long few travel days, but the trip was an absolute blast! I can't wait to get back!

Back in Vail.

The trip was most definitely a welcomed break from all the decision making and stress of the house. But now it's back to finishing the electrical and picking out paint. The insulation starts tomorrow and drywall the first of next week.

The Offer

That's right!! We received an offer on Matt's condo! Who saw that coming?! Don't get too excited yet, selling the place in contingent on the buyers selling their house first. I was really bummed when I heard the second part of the deal. But the good news is we can keep the place on the market and continue to try to sell, and if someone else makes an offer, the current buyers have first right of refusal and have to purchase the condo at that time. The downside is we are stilling pay all the bills and the mortgage. So now we wait...

The traffic on my house has slowed down quite a bit. We had 3 showings last week, but nothing since we left for Snowmass. We have an open house scheduled for next Sunday. Hopefully that will generate some traffic and an offer! All these bills are getting stressful!!