Tuesday, November 13, 2012

day 9

Not too much progress to report -- but, the forms are down and exterior insulation is going up.  The tiny basement window on the south side of the house was also installed.


In house-related, but non-construction news, I thought I'd share 10 reasons I'm ready to be out of this condo and into the new house.  In no particular order:

(1). The wallpaper.  It's in the foyer.  And the kitchen.  And the guest bath.  And the master bath.  But, I think the master bath is the worst.  Every morning, as I shower, I dread looking at the peeling paper above the shower head.
[guest bath]

[peeling paper in the master bath]

[above the stove - fruit and butterflies]

[kitchen border]
(2). The burners on the old electric stove don't sit flat.  In turn, my pots and pans don't sit flat when I'm trying to cook.  As much as I try to adjust everything, I just can't get it properly aligned.  Functional, but oh so annoying.
[crooked burners]

[fancy stove]
(3). The doors and windows don't seal.  Currently, our warm and toasty Santa blanket is keeping the kitchen insulated.
[Santa-insulation]
(4).  We've tried to unpack the bare minimum.  Which means there are boxes and piles of stuff... everywhere.
[overflow in the kitchen]
(5). The kitchen sink is super-shallow.  And I'm super-messy at washing dishes.  It's a recipe for disaster... or at least damp shirt fronts and wet kitchen floors.
[my (dirty) short sink]
(6). The washer and dryer set are O-L-D.  It takes 3 full wash cycles to get our cloth diapers clean.  And two or three full dryer cycles to get anything dry.  I'm not sure it's possible to get caught up on laundry.
[my not-so-heavy-duty-anymore washer]
(7). The weird things I look at daily that just don't make any sense.
[light switch something or the other]
[door that is randomly hinged in the middle]
(8).  There are no full-length mirrors.  The first time I walk into the ladies room at work in the morning, I hold my breath until I'm able to verify that nothing is drastically out of place/stained/mismatched/etc.  I should probably just go to my local discount store and spend the $10 to buy one.

(9). Our old Cape Cod had small closets so Hubby took the closet in our room and I used the closet in the office-turned-nursery.  In turn, E had an armoire that held his teeny, tiny baby clothes.  The master here has a "walk-in" closet.  But it's smaller than our two closets combined.  And we have it a bit full.
[overflowing closet]
(10). The fact it's for sale.  Cleaning up your own house for a showing isn't much fun.  Cleaning up someone else's house for a showing just plain stinks.

Disclaimer: I am thankful that we have a warm, safe place to live.  I really am.

4 comments:

  1. What a great idea to document your house build with a blog. We are in the final stages of our house build. Have fun making all of your selections. It can be somewhat exhausting but it's so fun to watch everything come together. We are renting a house that is for sale, too. It has been annoying making the house presentable for showings. Especially since we have four boys under the age of 9. Luckily, we've only had a handful of showings so far.

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    1. Four under 9? You're an inspiration! We've made several selections so far - but I find that I keep looking at choices, even after I've made my decisions. I just need to give it up and be happy with what I selected. If you've learned anything along the way that you'd like to share, I'd love to hear!!

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  2. Yes, life can be crazy with 4 boys but fun, too! I looked at my selections over and over again, too. I think it is normal to second guess yourself. With the amount of money you are spending, you want everything to be perfect. One thing that help me was the houzz.com website and houzz app for my phone. I would search through pictures on the site and then save them to an ideabook (you can create an ideabook for each room or for each showroom that you are going to visit). Then I would show the designer at the showroom what I liked and they would help me pick our selections based on what I showed them that I liked. The other thing that helped was to bring my other selections with me to showrooms. For example, when I picked out the carpet, I showed the designer the granite that we picked out and she showed me which color palette of carpet would look best. When I didn't like those carpet colors, I knew I had to pick a different granite. One other thing that helped me was picking a theme for our house. We built our new house at the lake and prior to moving back to the midwest, we lived on the east coast for a couple years. I fell in love with the cape cod look so I tried to incorporate that look into our house without going too overboard. We tried to think about resale, too. We plan to live in our house for a very very long time but you just never know where your life will take you. We also went to the parade of homes in our area and checked out other homes to see what other builders were doing. Our builder was a good source for helping us, too. He has been building homes for over 20 years so he has a really good idea of what will look good. Hope this helps! Looking forward to following your blog as you build your home!

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  3. Cool blog, just started reading it from the beginning. My boyfriend and I are hoping to build in a few years, so I love reading about the process other people go through. And your list reminds me of a few reasons why I so desperately want out of our apartment. Reasons 2, 3, 5, and 6 being the ones I can relate to the most.

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