Posted on by Emily

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.

Posted on by Emily · 1 Comment

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!