March 15, 2011

We are all so tired. We have been running constantly, picking stuff out for the house and doing this and that, here and there, for the house. I never imagined that building a house would be so much work, especially when someone else is managing the actual building of the house. It really is amazing how much there is to do and how much time is required to do it all.

I picked out all of our light fixtures and was concerned that the light above the island would not be sufficient. Our builder confirmed that the other day, along with the light above the stairs, which hangs too long for the space. So, I have to go back and pick new ones for those two spots, along with the fixture above the kitchen table because it won't look right when I change out the one above the island. The two kitchen fixtures are the hardest ones for me.

We picked out all of the door and cabinet hardware yesterday. The guy from the store went to the house this morning and counted the number of pieces we needed and then we found out we are way over budget with that. So, I need to figure out what made us go over and determine what we need to do to mitigate this issue.

We are in the middle of picking out carpet for the upstairs, the downstairs bedrooms and the library. Fortunately the dear husband is taking the lead on this one and it has required a good amount of research work on his part. We think we have it narrowed down to two and either one is fine with me. He is doing the final research on these two. I am meeting the installer at the house tomorrow morning so they can measure all of the rooms that are to be carpeted.

The counter tops are suppose to be installed tomorrow and I am hoping the timing will work out so I can be there to watch. They have already laid the tile in the laundry room and are waiting for some tile to arrive tomorrow to do the other bathrooms.

The outside of the house is almost completed. I included some pictures below. The house looks kind of white-ish in the pics but it looks very different in real life. It is a very creamy color and turned out to be just perfect to match the rock. The stucco guys will finish up tomorrow and then there is some final painting to be done for the trim, garage doors, shutters, front door, etc. They also paint a thick coating of something on the brick.

We have given our notice for this rental house, that we will be moving at the end of April. We are hoping the new house will be done in mid-April, but I will be a little surprise if it is really done in four weeks. We'll see. I'm skeptical.

The husband and I have both agreed that we would likely never build a house again. It is just way too consuming. I feel blessed and fortunate to be able to do this but I also feel it has required us to put our lives on hold for quite a while. Everything has revolved around this house and it is really getting old. I am ready for our lives to get back to normal. I constantly feel bad that I am not doing enough teaching for the boys. We have not done any reading or writing lessons for quite a while now and we are doing good to practice the violin 3 days a week, although one day is a lesson so we don't practice that day anyway. Still, we should be practicing 5 days a week, very constantly, so it becomes a better habit. Also, I have not been good about teaching the boys to do their daily chores, which I know I will regret later. I just keep putting everything off thinking we will start once we have moved. Oh well. We are in the home stretch now so not too much longer and we'll be done.

Please forgive my complaining. I know we are very blessed to be able to do this and I do appreciate it. I'm just tired tonight. I don't think we have adjusted to the time change yet.

Here are a few of the latest pictures: