Electrical goes in this week!

Howdy readers. I'm not sure if anyone still reads this. If so, great! I figured sharing photos on flickr was easier and more accessible.
Anyways, I will still update you, friendly reader.

What's going on this week:
Electrical is getting installed. I was able to meet with the nice electrician and point out where I wanted outlets and answered his questions and suggestions on the types of lights.  He should be done by Thursday or Friday.
We'll call our friend who runs camera lines to see where we need to put the security cameras, etc.
Electrical inspection will be scheduled once he's done. I hope it passes like the AC and plumbing did. They passed on their first attempt.

I ordered appliances today since there was huge sales. Want to see what I got?





Here's a glimpse of my upstairs as of September 5.





Next week: 
Once the electrical work passes inspection, we'll get insulation and then inspected AGAIN. And then- the house will take another leap forward and get sheetrocked.

The question on everyone's mind: "When are you going to move in?" We anticipate to move in during the end of October, early November. It's right around the corner.

For more photos, check our flickr feed. It's really neat to check it out from start to finish (May to now)

Thanks for reading!
-Celise

Back on track

Well, we've had a few weeks of delay- what's new! You are probably wondering why... well, here goes:

• Windows were delayed
• One window, when delivered was broken
• Framers did a bad job framing and sheeting the house so we needed to get the "good crew" to come out and fix it but they were on a different job

So, now, a month later, we are back on track with getting our house "weathered in". Only the rain decided to arrive after months of drought. Go figure! That didn't hold us back. My husband got out there yesterday to sweep out all of the water since we have no roof yet. Then he went back to work and it rained again so my mother in law (and neighbor) came out on her day off to come sweep and clean out the water. I want to take the time to really thank my in-laws aka inspectors aka watchmen... They have really contributed a lot of time and assistance to this project. Those of you who know my mother in law know she is a thoughtful person and you are not surprised.

So, as of yesterday, the lumber company delivered the nice windows and come to find out, they are WRONG! We ordered them with grids inside the window and there are none. We also ordered all with cranberry trim on the outside and faux oak on the inside and they gave us some that had white trim on the inside so it's not matching. We're working on getting it all straightened out with our lumber company who ordered them from a third company.

This does not take away from the excitement that we are experiencing as we see our house morph from wooden frames and plywood into a fully-sided house. We now have to think of what color we are going to paint the outside. I would say green but that's my mother in law/neighbor's house's color. So, we are thinking blue or grey.

Idea of what our finished house will look like

Source: homepatterns.com via C on Pinterest

This is the picture that started us on the adventure of buying the house plan that we are currently building. While our finished product will not look exactly the same, this is a good idea of what it will look like. Want to know what will be different?

• There will be cedar shingles above the top floor windows (not part of the roof as the name would imply).
• We won't have the bright white trim. The windows will be painted in a cranberry trim.
• The color of the siding/house will be either a grayish blue or gray. It might even be a grey-ish green. But for sure, it won't be a bright yellow.
• The doorway will be big enough for 1 door, no side parts with the windows in it.
• The front four posts will be cedar posts. There's a total of 8 of them on the front porch.
• The foundation we have is actually a cement foundation and not a pier and beam as the one pictured.
• If we take any photos, you will probably see me poking my head out the window waving hi with a goofy smile.
  

This may not make sense in words and it might even sound like it doesn't go together. But stay tuned and I'm sure you'll see it come to shape. Eric has a great eye for design and color coordination. If you don't believe me, check out this photo of our bedroom he decorated:

And you can't even see the rest of the details he added to that room. It was his fourth wedding anniversary present to me (in 2008). I took the photo a few months ago with my Nikon D3100. I was messing around.

Sharing is caring

It's been a while since I've posted. We've had a few things going on and I've been working late and (insert another excuse here) so anyways... we've had some great progress! We're 98% done with framing. We just need to add these 8 cedar posts to the front of our house and then we can get... wait for it... INSPECTED. Here's some pictures of the progress. Please keep in mind they were taken with my phone. My camera was out of battery.

This is my kitchen without the braces on:


A view of the living room from the kitchen.


Eric's workshop:


The upstairs:


So go ahead and anticipate to read a blog following the inspection with why our inspection didn't pass. As I have mentioned before, it's part of those inspectors's processes. I wonder, do they like go out to your house and each time they get out of the office to go inspect, do they do something fun during their trip that would probably make them want to have more reasons to get out of the office, say... to inspect AGAIN? That would make sense of why they are always rejecting and then coming out again and approving what it seemed like they previously rejected. That being said, thank goodness I don't have this public!

So, sharing is caring is the title of this entry. Why? Well, we are using a few of the same trades- in this case, the framer- as some friends of ours a few blocks away. We were at the same place as their project a few weeks ago and they were so kind as to let us go ahead and build first and they would wait. Thank you, Jorge and Myrna!! Because of their kindness, we have progressed as far as we have and are not 2 weeks behind.

Delays are just part of the process, my friends

Well, I know I waited too long to post something. I hope you haven't lost interest. This week has been crazy. So we thought that we would pass the inspection of the form and rebar and be ready to pour our actual concrete foundation on Monday but as how most inspections go, we failed. So, we picked ourselves back up again, found the solution after a few phone calls and today, my friends, we have a foundation poured. HOORAY!

I have learned that delays are just part of the process. Inspectors like to point out things that may or not be an issue just to add some fun to their job and make them feel important, I guess. But I still respect them nonetheless.

2nd Inspection is now behind us

I know my last post was kind of a downer. But earlier today I heard the City came out again and now we have our plumbing set up approved. Hooray! Now time for the rebar! I also heard that after rescheduling twice, our foundation is scheduled to be poured either Monday afternoon or Tuesday morning.

I will try to take photos this weekend and upload them to my flickr account.

Stay tuned as always!

Delays, delays...

We knew it was too good to be true. As of last Friday, we thought we were going to pour foundation on Wednesday May 18 and get framing started on Monday May 23. Well, there were some issues with the plumber and it turns out we didn't pass our city inspection. The good news is that they are just 2 small things that need to be fixed. Because of our issues with the plumber earlier in the week, pouring the foundation had to wait until Friday May 20 but now it was moved to Monday May 23. It would have had to be moved from Friday because we are expecting "scattered thunderstorms" and we just can't have rain with cement pouring.

Stay posted but if you want an idea of our mood- we're kinda bummed out. :(

We Passed the first city inspection

We've made more progress than we expected this week.

According to my previous post, we hoped to have poured this week. However, since we had to find a good plumber, we had to wait on the foundation. Since we did have inclement weather, we could not have poured anyway.

At least we found a great plumber who started and finished quicker than we expected. We had to pass an inspection which we did. Hooray! Our foundation subcontractor cannot come until Wednesday so we'll wait until then. I do have some new photos to upload which I'll do this week, hopefully. It shows the plumbing installed- the first portion at least. So you'll see white pipes sticking up from the ground.

We were also looking into security cameras and plans so we can have a secure place.

Stay tuned!

Rain rain, go away!

We are still waiting on a plumber at this time. We've looked at 2 and we're about to check out a third who was our original choice but there were some complications in the process.

Anyway, it's not like they'd be able to do the job tomorrow anyway. Why? Because after many many months of rainless weather, we are expecting strong storms. And these are not just light storms- they are "STRONG" storms. So, I'm hoping this will be our only rain until we have a roof on our home.

FYI- Eric is projecting the completion date to be in five months which puts us around September. So, as each month passes, you know I'll be getting more and more excited.

Nice form!

Now that we have our ground packed in nicely ready for the big heavy load of our foundation, we needed to get the form ready which is the wooden boundary in which the concrete is poured. They also have to dig trenches and all this fun stuff I'm glad that we pay people to do. :) After all, they are the experts.


Here is the newest photo for you. I might have a new one for you tomorrow or later this week when there is actually more work done. We are kind of... delayed... as we determine which plumber we'd like to use. It turns out we had one in mind but we are looking around at the 11th hour to make sure we made the right choice.

As I drove into work this morning, I thought to myself, "I need to remove the words 'delayed',
'postponed' or any kind of word that communicates that we are behind schedule". I just don't want to have any more negative thoughts included in this project. Today in my Management for Dummies book, I read that good managers learn how to be optimistic and look towards the future. So, I am going to try to apply that not only at work but in this project. I am not even really managing the building process, I'm just watching my husband coordinate it all but I'm still communicating the message to those who ask who may think I am managing it.

Evidence of broken ground

So, as I said in my last post, we have literally "broken into the ground". Here is proof. If you're wondering where this shot is taken from, it's from my neighbor's house who as you know is my mother in law. This was one of the first "digs"by this monstrous machine which I never found out the name for. Funny story- after halfway through digging through the portion that is where our main house will be, something broke on the machine! So, all work had to stop until the next day. The good thing is they fixed the part overnight and had it done Friday, May 5, which was ahead of when they said they would finish it. I was very entertained watching the machine do it's work, especially because a different neighbor's dog who roams around and greets people who walk down the street was very curious as to what was taking place on our lot. I think he believed the big machine was a huge animal because at one time, he leaned down in a position like if he was taunting the machine. And then he'd take off running across the street at full speed and run around. You'll be amused to find out that his name is "Diablo". You can see him in this next picture:

We are ecstatic and nervous at the same time. There's no turning back now.

Here's the schedule as I understand it:
May 4, 5- Grade and pack dirt to prepare for foundation
May 9-11?- Build form for foundation, set rebar and plumbing
Then we have to wait for an inspection from the city to make sure we have everything going right. I don't know when that is supposed to take place but I hope it goes well. My experience with the city hasn't gone so well but I think it was partly our fault. This is all a learning experience for us right now.

As promised, I had a few friends over to casually "celebrate" the groundbreaking this week. My new neighbors/family were very kind to let us hang out on their property and use their furniture. Friends, if you're reading this, thanks for coming over!

Waiting game is OVER!!

Finally the long wait is over. We have the permits. Hooray! Why did it take so long, you might ask. Well, since this is our first time, we learned that we showed too much information that threw the city off in terms of our property. Long story.

So, I'm super excited despite my unfortunate illness- I came down with a stomach virus yesterday and am on the road to recovery now. However, I still wanted to get this exciting news onto the blog. I'll keep it updated as soon as I hear groundbreaking dates. Eric's at the lot as we speak (he finished work early) and is meeting with the first trade to get the plans going.

The waiting game isn't over yet!

Well, we did close on our loan to build our new casita on February 14. However, that doesn't mean we break ground February 15, not even 16! Why you ask- well, it's because we still lack the permits from the City of Houston. Here has been our process:

1) Get plans from architect from house and site plan for the lot (basically it says, on our lot, our house will be here, our garage here, and the driveway here. And we add a few trees here or there.) - this took months and months. We began in November/December.

2)Submit the plans to the City for permits - we did this on January 31.

3)We received only a few of the permits we needed. We had to make some corrections which required going back to a few technically talented people. And we needed to get some letter from the Flood district or Storm drainage. I have no idea what that means. Once we had the changes and the letter, we gleefully submitted yet again to the City on March 7. We're thinking we should have all the permits by the end of the week, right? WRONG!

4) While the plans are still getting reviewed at the City, we can check the status online with our claim number. We see AGAIN that there are changes needed- this time a drainage plan which we need a CIVIL engineer to draw up. We contacted our engineer who is of course, on vacation all week long, but thankfully he gave us a number for somebody. We have yet to call him today and beg him to spare 10 minutes (because you know, in my mind, I believe our stuff is so minimal these experts can do it with one hand tied behind their back and their eyes closed) to draw up our simple drainage plan.

So, meanwhile, we wait and wait and wait. We are at the mercy of the city. At least I have enough to keep me busy. :)