southern living – Page 3 – Primm & Property

Posted on June 19, 2020 by Emily

Day 244

Last night after work, Josh and I went over to check out the progress at the house. I had been there just over 24 hours before but it was amazing to see how much had changed!

I spy a some second floor walls!

It was at about this point that I almost jumped out of the moving vehicle to run up to the house.

They finished both sets of interior stairs! Here’s Josh, casually walking in the front door.

Hi, honey!

We walked upstairs and my daredevil decided to sit on the edge.

The closest I got was about 10 feet away.

This explains a lot about us.

Meanwhile, in the opposite direction, the guest room at the front of the house is shaping up to have the best view. Who wants to come and visit?!

…in 2021…

Next we had to go up the back steps and check out the office.

I will be able to look out these windows from my desk and see what the neighbor horses are up to.

Hopefully when I got by tomorrow, they will have finished framing the second floor.

And I hope they add a few more temporary supports on the back porch. I think they are asking an awful lot of these few 2x4s…

Posted on June 17, 2020 by Emily

Day 243

I can barely concentrate on anything else at the moment because I’m so excited about the framing!!!

But, first things first: Check out our driveway that has been graded up so there’s no longer a pond in the middle of it. They also put in a massive pipe specified by my dear husband who does not mess around when it comes to proper drainage.

I had been parking at the very beginning of the driveway due to it being impassible in my short SUV. Next time, I will drive on up and park in front of the house…

… right by the front porch!

They are starting to put in the floor system for the second floor. The room above the front porch is the guest room. Kath (my mom) will be so delighted to see this as she is eager to stay in her suite.

They put in the stairs to the future headquarters of my design firm. The way things are going with COVID-19, it sounds like I will be subletting some of my office space to my husband.

Ok, back to the tour.

My kitchen!

Which will eventually look like this!

But probably not for 6 months…sigh.

This is the living room, which overlooks the front porch and yard. They had somehow missed one of these windows in the first round of framing, but they quickly got it added in after I brought it to their attention.

I’m sure I’m their favorite already.

Though I planned for all rooms to have lots of light and pretty views, I am particularly smitten with the view from the dining room.

I am also a big nerd about sight lines and axes. This is the view looking the opposite direction of the previous photo. Once all of these lovely temporary supports are removed, there will be a sight line down through the hall and out the windows of the library on the back of the house from the dining room table.

The L-shaped screened porch that wraps the back and side of the house will have an uninterrupted view of the tree line. Though right now, these temporary supports are really killing the mood.

Here’s another angle showing the screened porch and those library windows I’ll be able to see through from the dining room. I foresee spending a lot of time on this porch. So does our cat, Bu.

And this is the beast from her widest angle.

This house has been in my head and in my heart for so long that is really surreal to see it come to life.

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Still quite a bit left before she looks like my rendering, but well on her way!

Posted on June 14, 2020June 15, 2020 by Emily · 2 Comments

Day 240

Nearly 8 months into owning this property and building our forever home and we finally have some walls!

I can’t begin to describe to you how excited I was to get in there and walk through the house.

This is the garage…

Of course these criss-crossed supports are temporary, but man did I feel like I was in a James Bond movie trying to sneak through a security laser maze.

Josh was trying to catch some shade as he drank his hot coffee. It was at least 10 degrees cooler in the garage than in the sun.

This is the view out the window from Bu’s (cat) room, off the mudroom. He is not going to know what to do with himself once he sees the neighbor’s horses.

Barry, Kath, and Grandmother came out for a tour. Here I am in my element, explaining the layout of the house and which pieces of furniture will go where.

I got pretty toasty during my lecture, so I went down to check out the basement for some relief from the heat. They got the floor poured Friday and it looks great!

John has done some more work on the grading by the garage, but there is still a bit to go before we can possibly maneuver a vehicle into one of the bays.

He was working on the driveway while we were there yesterday until his equipment broke…

But we have walls(!), so I wasn’t going to let the equipment breakdown get me down.

Someone in my family, who shall remain nameless, asked, “Once framing is done, what is left?”

answer: pretty much everything.

Posted on June 12, 2020 by Emily · 1 Comment

Day 238

So, they were supposed to pour the garage and basement slabs Monday or Tuesday. The weather was uncooperative (thank you, Cristobal) so that didn’t happen. I decided to drive out to the property on Tuesday between meetings on the off-chance that it wasn’t raining there and there was concrete being poured.

It was raining heavily. And there was no concrete being poured.

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This photo was taken shortly before I stepped out of the car and my foot was nearly swallowed whole by the mud.

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This was after 10 minutes of cleaning.

There was only so much I could do with a roll of paper towels and a travel size bottle of hand sanitizer.

Also, did I mention I was between meetings? As in, after this I had another client meeting?

Thankfully, I had a pair of flip flops in the car. Hopefully that is the first and last time I will wear flip flops to meet a client.

Moving on.

We had an early morning meeting with our builder today and we were pleasantly surprised how much had happened since the shoe incident on Tuesday.

They were pouring the garage slab as we arrived.

Maybe I should ask them where they got their boots…

The also poured the basement steps today. The basement slab will be poured tomorrow.

At least I didn’t step in wet concrete…

The lumber was delivered yesterday (on schedule!) and they got quite a bit done in one day.

This makes me so happy.

This forecast makes me and my shoes even happier!

Posted on May 24, 2020May 24, 2020 by Emily

Day 219

We were pleasantly surprised to see that, in just a few days, almost all of the block had been laid!

Here they are finishing up the back of the house and then the only section left is the front porch, where my dad and Josh are standing on the right.

John has been spreading out the Pride Dirt Pile so it’s harder for me to get up high enough and far enough away to get everything in one shot. I had to use the panoramic setting to capture this, which is a little bit distorted, but you get the idea.

Though I can barely contain myself in anticipation of framing, seeing this step has been extremely exciting!

That L-shaped thing on the left will be our screened in porch. I’ve never had one of these before. I predict that we will spend a great deal of time on that porch, safe from all of the mosquitos and critters that will eat you up out here.

Also, please note on the left, Barry (my dad) taking a picture of me standing on a pile of dirt taking a picture.

Now, when we are not on the screened in porch on the back of the house, we will most likely be on the front porch, which will be right here.

I have the rocking chairs ready to go for the minute the house is complete.

The horses next door are largely disinterested in the construction.

So, this is the second time in my life that I’ve gotten to be part of the building process on a personal level. The first time was when my parents built a house outside of Philadelphia when I was 4.

You might say, that’s where it all began, or at least where it became clear, that I would wind up in a career related to construction and design.

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Last year for my birthday, Josh put together some still shots from a home video circa 1992 of me supervising on the jobsite at my parents’ house. I was sporting pink sunglasses and an ensemble I can no longer pull off.

Josh did get me a new pair of pink sunglasses so I could recreate the inspection vibe when the time came for us to build our house.

Well, the moment has arrived.

Josh brought the ladder so I could climb down into the basement.

The view from below.

Here I am several decades later, sporting my pink sunglasses and assessing the situation.

On our way home, the same way that we had come just a few hours before, there was suddenly a tree all the way across the road. Josh maneuvered around it and then he and my dad tied it to Josh’s truck so he could pull it out of the road.

It’s always an adventure out in the country!

Speaking of adventures, we have been practically camping in our current house for the past week because our refrigerator decided to stop cooling. Thankfully, it has since been fixed and we had 7(!) days left on the warranty. Always the optimist, Bu was making the most of the temporary setup and had found himself a great spot for lounging and watching the squirrels in the front yard.

He is going to love the screened in porch.

Posted on May 21, 2020May 21, 2020 by Emily · 4 Comments

Day 216

We had a meeting with our contractor this morning. We needed to discuss all kinds of thrilling things like where we wanted the access to the crawl space to be, how we were going to lay out the HVAC units, electric meter, and gas tank behind the garage, and where we would like gas stub outs.

Have I lost you already?

Here’s Josh, waiting patiently for our contractor to arrive…and most likely looking up equipment he’s decided we need for the property.

I decided to take a lap.

They finished filling in around the house. It is now much safer to walk the perimeter. And, they are supposed to start laying block tomorrow – woot!

So much dirt. Our contractor told us they also ran into some “chert”, which is a new term for me.

I asked my landscape architect of a husband what that meant and he dumbed it down to layman’s terms for me:

J: “it’s rocky soil in the substrata.”

Oh, of course. I knew that.

The trees have really filled in. Just a few weeks ago we could see our neighbor’s house through the tree line.

The front yard also looks nice and neat (if you can see past all of the dirt…). Our other neighbor mowed for us this weekend. It took him 4 hours on his tractor.

This is not good news for me as it means Josh will be adding more and/or larger equipment to his list.

We may have no budget left for furniture, but he assures me the yard sure will look great.

To distract myself from the equipment budget concerns, I focused on finalizing selections.

One of the last selections to be made was the chimney brick. I knew I wanted it to look like the brick fireplace in my Grandmother’s house that came from an old jail. This one is pretty darn close!

I’m leaning toward the bottom mortar color. Or I could do a 50/50 mix of the bottom one and the right one to warm it up a little.

The sales rep described the top two as “similar in color to peanut butter”, which immediately ruled them out for me. First of all, it’s to yellow for me. But, more importantly, I just can’t get past the thought of there actually being peanut butter between the bricks as they are stacked. Not only does this gross me out, but it seems like the antithesis of mortar.

So, in summary, we will not be going with the top two options for multiple reasons.

Which do you vote for? 1) light gray or 2) light gray and light buff 50/50 mix?

Posted on May 19, 2020 by Emily

Day 212

We had a three-generation inspection at the property this weekend. My grandmother, mom, and sister hadn’t seen the property in months so it was fun to see their reactions to the big changes since it was just a raw piece of land.

Look at these cuties! I can’t wait until they are coming over for dinner and a visit on the reg.

It’s a little treacherous to walk around the house with all of the rock and dirt, but Grandmother was not about to stay in the car and miss out on seeing everything for herself.

Grandmother, patiently waiting at the front door. I love so many things about this picture.

My seester, Eugene, asking when dinner will be served as she stands in the future dining room.

OK, back to inspecting…

Over the last couple of days, the forms for the basement walls have been removed and the walls have been waterproofed.

They put in a drain so we have a basement instead of an indoor swimming pool.

Thank you.

As we were there, John (earthwork guy) was busy filling in around the basement walls with gravel and dirt to get things leveled out.

I forgot my ladder to be able to get down into the basement and really get a feel for the size, but don’t worry, that will be happening soon.

Grandmother and Eugene were busy watching John in the bobcat…

…Kath was busy watching her firstborn climb a precarious pile of dirt to take this photo.

There’s a lot of rain in the forecast this week, which means it probably won’t rain. I’m hoping by our next visit that some of these block piles will have been rearranged into the foundation.

We shall see!