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Day 614

I am happy to report that we have made it through most of the punch list. There are just a few minor odds and ends to finish up. As such, I believe this will be my last post with the meter running on the house build. Let’s call it 600ish days from the time we closed on the property to the house being complete.

Not terrible. I’m just so glad construction-related items are done!

We have shutters!

And the columns were finally repainted!

The screened porch was finished just in the nick of time for us to host a little going away party for my sister and brother-in-law who are soon moving to California. Waaaaaaaaaaaah!

Just a little cocktail and charcuterie spread, naturally.

Bu was keeping cool on top of the cooler until the guests arrived.

I think he loves the screened porch even more than I do, which is really saying something.

The moonlight was so strong the other evening that I went up to my office to take a picture of the light hitting the house. I don’t know what happened here, but somehow the photo looks like an oil painting?!

I might have it framed.

Things have been quite picturesque on my walks lately. This is my blue heron friend that I see most mornings.

Last weekend, when my sister and I were walking, he took off from the pond and we watched him land on top of this tree. I’ve never seen anything quite like it.

We’ve also had quite a showing of deer and turkeys. I can hear the baby turkeys chirping from inside the house when they’re out foraging. They are the tiny dots below the turkey on the right. I’ve seen as many as 20 at a time.

I met this fella on my walk yesterday.

Several of the neighbors have cut and rolled hay lately. Such a beautiful sight.

View from the front porch last evening.

And lastly, our garden is coming along. We have a few green tomatoes and many of the plants are over a foot tall.

Josh is so excited about this corn. I just hope the electric fence keeps the above pictured critters away!

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Day 482

Hello and happy Winter!

We were all set to head out to the new house and see the progress this morning when we discovered black ice at our current house.

Better safe than sorry – but I really wanted to see the hardwoods all finished!

This is the stain sample I approved earlier this week. Classic. Timeless. I love it.

Painting is inching along…I’m loving the richness of the trim color. So much better than stark white.

This is our builder, Walt. He’s a good guy.

He does not know that I have this blog.

I cannot wait to get rid of all of this plastic and tape! Though I do appreciate the thorough prep work.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, packing continues. I’m trying to stage most of the boxes upstairs in the middle of the house. Consequently, with the furniture against the wall, the dining room looks like a waiting room.

Bu is waiting for us to tell him what is going on.

He’ll find out soon!

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Day 447

Happy New Year!

The house continues to look more like a house each day, though we are *still* waiting on the county to hook us up with some electricity(!) Until we have power and are able to connect the HVAC and condition the house, we can’t proceed with grout, paint, staining floors, etc.

In the meantime, we are moving forward with everything else we can.

The balustrades are looking lovely.

The hall bath is looking classic and precious. The chair rail tile really makes my day.

The guest bath tile is complete, except for the grout.

Downstairs, the Dining room and Library fireplace surrounds are starting to look fabulous. Can’t wait until they put up the mantel surrounds!

But what really brings me joy is the entry checkerboard floor. I have wanted one of these my entire life.

I am also extremely excited about my closet. I had the trim guys build in a dresser for a more furniture-like look and I was a little nervous about them understanding my design intent, but they did a really nice job. Can’t wait to see the unfinished wood painted!

Meanwhile, outside, they have been working on the porches. The screened porch columns are in place but not yet trimmed out.

They also placed the massive classical columns on the front porch and side entry.

I am in love.

Though they still need to finish the trim at the top and paint them to match the house, they make a huge difference in the overall look.

Thanks to our neighbor for this photo of the snow we got last week!

I got to see it Friday when I arrived for my site meeting. Can you see the columns in the distance?

Now we need the shutters, which will really complete the exterior look.

The end is in sight! I’ve already started purging and prepping…

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Day 437

I may need to camp out on site to keep up with all of the progress these days!

The hall railing is up. I’m glad I didn’t value engineer the baluster choice. I love these.

We have a shower curb. Try to contain yourself.

We now have gutters and downspouts. These were not a custom color-match but we got pretty close!

Working out the details for the porch columns – Josh is super excited to see these go in.

The penny round floor looks super cute in the hall bath! We had a major snafu with this as they originally sent the wrong color. I wanted “antique almond” (beige) and they sent “milk”, which was a blueish white. Not close. This is why we check everything at every stage. Of course, then the correct color was discontinued and there wasn’t enough material to cover the floor. So I had to hunt down another vendor who had a similar color and expedite it. This is the story of my life.

We have laundry basket cubbies just in time for the countertop template this morning. I am strangely excited about these.

The guest bath is shaping up with wall tile!

Glad to be heading into the new year with the end in sight!

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Day 434

We are moving at quite a clip!

Master tile is underway.

Our shower valves have blankies so they don’t get too cold.

Master vanity is in. The tower and fronts will go on after the countertop is installed.

Butler’s pantry cabinets installed by yours truly and my A-team (Dad, Josh, Julia, and Nate). I’m already plotting to paint these cabinets, the walls, and the trim a deep, moody color.

And laundry cabinets. The trim guys will build laundry basket cubbies in the middle so I can have a big folding surface along this wall.

The farm sink will be Bu’s spa. He’s excited…not.

I am just smitten with the brick floor in the mudroom, the tall baseboards, the dutch doors, and the transoms.

But, the true love of my life is the kitchen.

I’m dead.

I can’t even.

Ok, back to the progress report.

Stairs!

Newel posts and balusters. Our base newel post is massive and I love it.

The top of it is almost as big as my head!

Outside, the porch ceilings were going in and the gutters and downspouts were being installed as I was leaving this morning.

Lots of things happening!

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Day 371

We have passed the one year mark of owning the property. Closing day seems like 100 years ago and last week at the same time. This feeling is only compounded by the roller coaster 2020 has been.

I know you’ve been on the edge of your seats since the last post, waiting for me to try parking my car in the garage. Last weekend was the big test, and though it was much easier to maneuver in my car than in my dad’s enormous truck, I did send some feedback to our landscape architect/site planner (my husband) that it would be really helpful to widen the driveway about 3 feet.

I have not yet received confirmation on this change order…

We have a roof!

The exterior is looking more and more buttoned-up each day. The painters are slated to start this weekend (yay!). The last big impact item will be finishing out the porches with the columns and ceilings. We are waiting on the front porch classical columns to arrive in the next few weeks. Though these toothpick temporary supports are necessary at the moment, they are sort of killing the vibe.

Without the appropriately scaled supports in place on the front porch, I think it looks like house has an overbite. Don’t worry, we’ll be putting in 16″ diameter columns to correct this.

I had a lovely open-air visit/picnic with friends that I hadn’t seen in person since March(!). This is my friend Jessica and her 14 month-old daughter Sophia. Sophia has literally doubled in age since I last saw her.

Sophia was a little skeptical at first, but she quickly made herself useful inspecting the plumbing. She also had a grand old time walking through walls and limboing under electrical wiring.

After the interior inspection, we had some lunch. Sophia was committed to getting the full porch experience, insisting on sitting in her mom’s chair and watching the neighbor’s horses.

We decided to walk off lunch and take a grounds tour. The roof is looking good from the treeline!

We have some new gravel to make the circle drive continuous. However, there are still several piles of material in the way keeping the “circle” aspect from being useful. I’ve watched many trucks attempt backing down the one section of the driveway and it’s never pretty. We have many bent pieces of rebar driveway markers to prove it.

Looks like the grounds crew’s efforts are paying off! This verdant patch here is all new growth, sewn by yours truly.

Yesterday, after my site meeting with our builder, I decided to put up some paint samples of the colors I’m considering for the porch ceilings.

Approximately, .02947 seconds after I took this picture, I was chasing after my samples across the porch. A storm was about to hit, thunder was cracking in the distance, and sudden wind gusts were sure to make my paint selection efforts futile. (Though frustrating at this point in time, sitting (safely) on a porch as a storm approaches is maybe one of my favorite things in life.)

Since the house is not painted yet and this yellow color of the raw Hardie siding will most certainly influence how these colors read, I should know better than to be doing this at this point in time. But, as I have mentioned before, I am my own worst client and I refuse to listen to myself.

Bearing in mind that the siding and trim will be very close to the color of the windows and that I am going for the “haint blue” ceiling effect to keep the evil spirits away, which color do you vote for? Left, top, or right?

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Day 337

Not a whole lot of progress at the house this week, unfortunately. Tradesman are slammed in the Nashville area, which is not good news for our house build, but it is good news for being able to pay for the house build, since both Josh and I work in professions related to construction.

We did get 8″ of rain at the property last Sunday, according to our neighbor. This helped to get the grass going. See it peeking through the straw matting?

They finished the first chimney this morning and are about 1/3 of the way done with the second. I am hoping they finish it this weekend so we can get the roof on next week and the bulk of the exterior trim and siding finished. That will be a HUGE deal to have the house looking fairly complete from the outside.

The siding and trim on the dormers is complete and I am SO PLEASED. It looks a little funny now because some of the material is white and some is beige (it will all be painted the same color), but I love all of the layers of detail. I’m a bit of a trim enthusiast as you can tell by my dormer detail from the plans:

Josh and I spread some more grass seed and erosion control matting this morning.

There was a different crew working on the chimney than had been there before and one of the guys came up to me and asked if I might have some mixed fuel for my weed eater (which he must have assumed we had in the truck) that he could borrow for his saw. I told him I didn’t have any, but if there was any on site, it would be in the garage.

I thought this was kind of odd, but then it occurred to me that he thought Josh and I were the lawn crew.

I did not tell him otherwise.

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Day 331

Well, well, well…

We have a well!

I stopped by for a quick site visit this week and this was happening in the backyard.

It amazes me that they can do this all in one day.

Mostly because of what they charge for this.

Nonetheless, I am THRILLED that we have a well, and therefore, a water supply. We are waiting on the official report, but our builder told us that they were somewhere around 140 feet down and getting 15 gallons per minute.

Continuing the exciting infrastructure tour, Walt, our builder, is seen here pointing to where the propane tank will be buried behind the garage.

And, lastly, here is the electrical thinger. It will have a cover and we can plant some shrubs strategically to block it from view as you come up the driveway.

We’ve been watching Yellowstone, Longmire, and now Justified lately so I am really feeling my 10 gallon hat shadow in these photos.

In other news, we have exterior doors! Front door…

French doors from the living room to the screen porch. I have a thing for French doors so these make me especially happy.

Kitchen door to the screen porch.

I’m also obsessed with transoms. There will be many throughout the house.

OK, back to the exterior: John graded the hill by the garage and it looks approximately 1 million times better.

They also put in the gravel driveway up to the garage, which means, were there not a bunch of supplies and bathtubs in the garage, I could park in the garage!!!

I will be doing this the first chance I get.

Having the hill graded meant it was time to seed and straw. This was our project yesterday morning. Here is Barry (my dad) loading up the erosion control matting at the local Farmers Co-op. I predict we will be back here many times over the next few decades.

My Dad and Josh did a fine job getting all of the matting and straw in place.

My job was to spread the seed. The workers did not know what to make of this. One day, I show up in business casual attire and am telling people what to do. The next day, I am wearing yoga pants and a fedora, spreading grass seed.

I like to keep them guessing.

The masons are almost done with the first chimney.

And they have started on the second.

We REALLY need them to finish the chimneys so the roofers can finish the flashing and put on the roof.

My other order of business yesterday was to paint some samples for the exterior.

I LOVE this color. It’s Benjamin Moore “Limestone”.

The exterior is coming along. I can’t wait to see the whole thing painted!

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Day 318

Today marks one year(ish) that we went under contract on the property. My first folder of photos is dated 08-30-2019, so I thought I’d do a little photo comparison of then vs. now.

Rolling pasture…

Gravel driveway in progress. Mostly a muddy mess. All that is dirt now will return to grass soon.

Though it looks like we have torn up the all of the grass from some of the other angles, this one shows that, relatively speaking, we have left much of the property untouched.

See, not so terrible!

All of these little blobs in the yard are trees that will hopefully grow to be big and beautiful.

Josh is pulling out weeds around them.

This view has changed quite a bit!

Stepping inside for a moment: doesn’t this look like some sort of modern art installation??? Our electricians are very artistic with their wiring.

OK, back to our grounds tour: we were able to park up in front of the house on the gravel driveway!

One of the things we had to check today was the proposed location of the well, as indicated by those 3 tiny, white flags to the right of the tree grouping. Evidently the man from the well company “witched” the well location in just 20 minutes. He told our builder that this process sometimes takes an hour. I am very sorry that I was not present to document it.

Also, Josh cracks me up in this photo.

Back towards the house, our chia pet dirt mound continues to thrive. I’m about to fire up some of the heavy equipment on site myself if this thing doesn’t disappear soon.

The weeds in the septic field are as tall as I am. I turned to Josh to ask him what this lovely white and purple flower was and he quickly informed me that it is “trumpet vine”, which is highly invasive, and, therefore, undesirable.

Darn.

Peeking through our tree line, we can see where our neighbors have cleared a spot for their home. We’ll probably be able to see their house from our house in the winter, but the tree line is dense enough to keep our lots private.

Coming along!

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DAY 317

It has been another week dedicated to electrical wiring, plumbing piping, and HVAC ducting.

Are you still there?

Just thrilling.

They used the template provided by the tub manufacturer to cut out the tub deck.

Unfortunately, they did not consult me on placement before they did this and the cutout is too close to the windows. But that is easily fixed.

Though I’m glad we will have adequate ventilation in the house, I cannot wait until it’s time for drywall and all of the ducts and returns are out of sight.

I’m sure it’s all very efficiently run, but this ceiling looks like a hot mess to me.

Meanwhile, outside, part 1 of 27 of the electrical to the house has been inspected and approved so John has filled in a section of the ditch wide enough for a vehicle to pass over. He also started spreading gravel up the rest of the driveway while I was there. It was exciting to see the beginnings of the circle drive!

We’ve also been working hard on finalizing orders this week as raw materials seem to be skyrocketing in price.

We’ve been trying to pick our spots and make some trade-offs to stay in budget. The herringbone brick floor in the mudroom and the heated floors in the master bath are on the chopping block. My dear husband offered to start driving for Uber Eats so we don’t have to give up these features. I’m sure he’ll have no problem squeezing that in between working a full-time job, getting his MBA, and building a house.

We decided on #1 red oak instead of select, which has no knots and less tone variation from board to board. Josh and I agreed that we’d like a little more character in our hardwood floors and this was a good area to save some money. This showroom sample has no stain on it so it’s much lighter than our floors, which will be stained dark walnut.

Though the hardwoods will likely be installed in the next month, they will not be stained until the very end of the build, so it will be a while before we get to see the full effect.

Our builder and I had a long meeting yesterday to finalize exterior trim, siding, columns, and garage doors, as well as interior trim, doors, transoms, stair parts, and miscellaneous millwork.

As I was double-checking the door quote today, Bu decided to make himself a little napping Bu-rrito in the house plans. He stayed like this for over an hour. I’ll take it as a sign that he’s excited about the new house.