Our future home

Thursday, August 23, 2012

Getting settled...

So the day of the Big Move has come and gone.... and we're working to get things unpacked and put away into their new places every day.

Sunday afternoon several friends came by to help us with the move.

Thanks for all your help Jamie, Aaron, Matt, Dean, Chad, and Robin's parents! We were pulling into the driveway of our new home at 5:10pm with the first load of stuff, just as the builder was finishing up taking his Parade displays down. We still have the house plans and the construction schedule hanging on the wall in the garage. We'll probably leave it up there for a little while yet anyway.

Robin's parents and Dean stayed until after 10pm Sunday night. Robin's dad had brought his trailer, and between the trailer and the uhaul truck we loaded three loads into each and dumped it all (mostly. Some thing got taken down to the basement right away) in the garage of the new house.

There was about a half of a uhaul load of boxes and some furniture in the storage unit we'd rented. I moved those over on Monday.

Every day since then has been Robin working inside the house getting things organized and put away, and me working in the garage carrying boxes, furniture, and other items into the appropriate rooms of the house and/or the basement.

(the entire garage was mostly full when everything was finally moved to the new house from the old one and the storage unit!)

Finally last night (Wednesday night) I was able to have enough in the garage cleaned out that Robin could park her car in there. Tonight I was able to get it so that we could park both cars and my motorcycle in there too!

Most things that don't belong there have been removed from the garage now, with the exception of a few larger pieces of furniture that Robin will need to help me move to the basement.

Inside the house, Robin has a ton of the kitchen cabinets filled with items. She's also spent alot of time putting things away in the laundry room, the living room, and our master bedroom.

Yesterday the girls' new beds and dresser (for Rachel) were delivered from WG&R. Today their new mattresses arrived. So tonight they get to sleep in their new beds for the first time. Lyndsey doesn't have a dresser in her room yet. She and Robin are going to refinish one of the older ones (we have 4 that are currently unused! lol) and that will be Lyndsey's dresser to use.

Robin and I spent Sunday and Monday nights sleeping on the couch as our bedroom was too cluttered to be able to put our bed together.

The girls have been working in their rooms to get items and clothing sorted and put away. They're not home this weekend, then next week is the final week before school starts up.

Due to our moving, Lyndsey will be attending Hortonville Middle school this year instead of Greenville Middle school, while Rachel will still be in Greenville Elementary school.

This morning had us watching a family of wild turkeys walking around our house; this morning they were first spotting in the ditch out front, and then later this morning they were closer to the front of our house. 2 older ones and 3 younger ones.

Yesterday I had a visit from a hummingbird in the garage when he flew in to briefly check out what all the commotion was about.

We still have alot of boxes to unpack, and tomorrow Robin and the girls have to go back-to-school clothes shopping.

Also, there's a ton of furniture and boxes in the basement, some of which is destined for a garage sale either this fall or next spring when our Town holds its annual town-wide garage sales.

We're hoping to have most, if not all, of our unpacking done by the end of this weekend. Both of us have to go back to work next week.

Tuesday was also the date of closing on the sale of our previous home. Tuesday afternoon at 2pm that house became the property of someone else, and they appear to have begun to move in today.

Paul

Saturday, August 18, 2012

Full-on packing mode!

Well, it's the day before the beginning of the Big Move....

...and we're in full-on packing mode.

We have a huge headstart already since we took alot of stuff out of the house back at the beginning of the year and put it in a storage unit.

But right now there's a ton of boxes and bags all over the living room and a bunch in the garage.

Alot of the rooms and drawers and cabinets are already empty or well on their way to being empty....

Tomorrow morning we'll go and pick up the U-Haul truck (a 20-footer) and in the afternoon a few friends are coming by to help move things.

We can't actually start moving stuff into the new house until 5:01pm tomorrow night (after the Parade ends), and we have to be completely moved out of this house before Tuesday morning. So we plan on pulling into the driveway of the new house at 5;01pm with the first truckload of items.

Once we have everything moved out of this house we have to empty out the storage unit too.

Lyndsey is at the new house right now and will be helping the builder's daughter take tickets to all the Parade-goers today.

Paul

Saturday, August 11, 2012

DONE!!! :) (part two)

We're done!! It's Parade day!

(this is part two of my "we're done!" post.. this one has the photos that Robin took last night... the night before the beginning of the Parade of Homes... we're so excited that we're finally at this point! Now we can mostly focus on packing and getting ready to move next Sunday!)

On to the photos!

If you've never seen or been to a Parade of Homes, this is how it works and what you'd see... (FYI, if you're thinking of attending the Parade, tickets can be purchased at any home in the Parade and all the details of the Parade can be found here: Parade of Homes site ...we're house number 15 on the list)

Firstly, the streets are lined with the cars of the attendees, who've all bought a ticket to visit as many of the dozens of homes in each Parade (40 or more often times I think).

When you walk up to the house, in the summer Parade they'll have the garage door open and you'll walk into the garage and get your ticket punched. (next weekend Lyndsey will be punching tickets along with the builder's daughter for a few hours one day)

The chairs are set up so that everyone can sit there and take their shoes off and put little booties over their socks. Shoes (and photography) are not allowed inside the homes in the Parade.

On the right side of the above photo you'll see one of a couple tables containing brochures and photos of all the suppliers in the specific home you're visiting.

Above the table on the wall, Dennis has printed up large-format versions of the floor plans and the construction schedule for our home for people to view.

Once you have your booties on and your ticket punched, you're free to wander the interior of the home at your leisure. You can ask questions of the builder (or their representative) who is always inside the house somewhere, and you can check out most any part of the house you're looking at.

Our house is completely ready for the Parade as of yesterday morning.. it's been cleaned up (several times), decorated, staged, and there's even more photos and brochures inside the house from suppliers. Dennis will also be showing a slide show of his work (this is, after all, a HUGE source of advertising for him, which is why the Parade exists) on our tv and he'll have music playing thru the speaker system in the rooms it's in.

...and here's what you'll see when you walk thru our home during the Parade hours....

the lockers by the back garage door

the half bathroom

Dennis' dad began the tradition of handing one of these out to the owners of the homes he built.. Dennis continues that tradition today.

the front entry as seen from the dining room

the master bedroom

the master bedroom ceiling tray

the master bedroom front window

the reading nook in the master bedroom

the master bathroom

the office

the overlook up in the loft over the living room

the loft

Lyndsey's room

This is Deb the decorator's gift to Lyndsey in her room

Lyndsey's vanity

the girl's bathroom

..and shower

Rachel's vanity

the door to the bonus room (which will be closed and locked for the Parade)

Rachel's room

This is Deb the decorator's gift to Rachel in her room

the loft overlook again

the stairs to the basement

It's been a looooong 4 months but the house is finally finished!

Now we can focus on moving and closing on the sale of our current home. I'll keep updating this all the way thru the move which will begin next Sunday and will be done that following Monday. Robin and I are off of work all that week so we can get the move done and the closing on our current home is Tuesday, so we'll be able to get settled in a bit after that.

Paul

DONE!!! :) (part one)

Oh wow, what a crazy week!!

There was tons going on, tons of little things to be done, and it made for some late nights for Robin, the girls, and myself..... but we've finally arrived at the finish line: The Parade of Homes starts this morning and our house is finished! (actually, the house was completed with a cushion of a couple of days, which is highly unusual!)

(just a note: I'll be creating two posts on the topic of "Done!". One will be the update since the previous post, and then the second will mostly photos from last night, the evening prior to the Parade beginning)

Just a recap of what's all happened since my last post, and then I'll get right to the photos... :)

The carpenter was in the house a couple of times finishing things up. The painters came back and did their final touch-ups too.

The cleaning crew was in the house three different days (for most of the day each time) cleaning the place from top to bottom.

The decorator spent several days decorating...

Dennis and Joe O'Brien spent alot of time at the house over the last week too.

Those were the scheduled things on the contractors' side....

On *our* side of this effort were:

A last-second run to Lowe's by Robin to replace a crooked light fixture in the half-bath and get a different mirror for that room.

The massive wood chip pile in the back yard has finally been wiped out.

The front "planting area" by the sidewalk is now planted, and mulched.

Mirrors were hung, appliances arrived, and the lawn has sprouted blades of grass.

The shower door arrived too.

(I just know I'm forgetting alot of them.. lol)

Also on Thursday we met with Dennis at the site and signed the "final draw" paperwork. Once processed, this paperwork will allow for final payment to all the supplies from the bank/title company and thus the conclusion of the construction phase of our new house :)

Yeah, yeah... I know.. enough with the text.. get on with the photos!

Ok, here you go!

The rest of the appliances arrived the day after my last post. Sears is where we got them all. (just a note, if you get a fridge from sears with a water dispenser you'll need to have a water shutoff valve immediately behind the fridge or they will refuse to hook it up for you.... company policy, yet the sales people never mention that fact)

Then, last weekend we hung most of the bathroom mirrors that we could hang (the half-bath being the exception).

Rachel's vanity

Lyndsey's vanity

The front door was removed, painted (after a few minor dents were pounded out), and replaced early in this last week.

As the week went along, alot more began happening.
Debbie (the decorator) was very busy this week, putting up staging decor and window treatments.
We went with wood blinds in most of the rooms, and all the fabric window treatments you see are hand-sewn by Debbie.
Some of the decor in the photos is our stuff, but alot of it is Debbie's. She has a stash at her house that she uses parts of when staging Parade homes.